COVID finally catches up with Giuliani. About time.

[dreamshark]

The only surprise is that it took so long. Why didn't he get infected when Chris Christie and everybody else in the POTUS cluster did? And with all the state capitols he's been jetting around to, conspicuously unmasked and undistanced? He must be very resistant to the virus. But he persisted and in the end he finally emulated his beloved leader and role model in contracting the infection. He must be so proud. And think of how many people he may have spread it to, coming to a screaming climax with a live interview on Fox News hours before he went into the hospital! Also in the great Republican tradition.

I wonder if anybody is keeping track of the link between COVID infections and political affiliation. Seriously, it seems like a great way to determine if the CDC recommendations actually have any effect at all on retarding the spread. If new infections are not at least 2:1 in favor of Republicans at this point, masks and quarantines probably don't help after all. 

Gosh, since most of the Trump campaign's legitimate lawyers have already quit in embarrassment, what are they going to do now? They may have to rehire Sidney Powell. 

Comments

[quadong]

I've thought about whether there is a serious Darwin Awards kind of effect with mask refusal. It must exist, but it might be very weak, because surely the main effect is that everyone gets more COVID. Republicans and Democrats might be somewhat physically segregated from each other, but not enough that the virus doesn't jump back and forth between the populations very frequently.

[dreamshark]

It's not just refusing to wear masks, it's heedlessly participating in private gatherings and crowded public venues against all public health advice. And these days bipartisan gatherings are probably the exception rather than the rule.

[quadong]

I agree, but then they all go to the same grocery stores and elementary schools as we do (roughly), and pass it all on. So it's amplified in the Republican crowd and then spreads in the general population. Probably someone's done a simulation of this. Well, it's like how an explosion of cases at a university can be caused by a small fraction of students attending large parties. I bet not all the cases are from the partiers, but from second or third generation infections from their non-partying contacts. Obviously the partiers are in worse shape, but maybe not by much.

[dreamshark]

And here's where it is so frustrating to have so many conflicting messages from The Experts. ARE people getting infected at grocery stores or not? The latest spate of "information" declares that no, shopping is hardly dangerous at all, it's all about the small gatherings. Some actual DATA would be really handy here, not just official speculation endlessly repeated.

[bibliofile]

It is also possible that this isn't the first time he's had Covid. How often is he getting tested? (I have no idea.) It's not like Giuliani's communications on these things are trustworthy or anything.

[spiderplanet]

I think that the two things that make a person susceptible are:

1) Republican
2) Face-to-face Worker

Is there enough of one to offset the other and make the pattern clear?

[dreamshark]

Politicians ARE face to face workers, at least when they aren't making heroic efforts to keep their distance (and there is a pretty clear partisan difference in their efforts in this regard). Here are some excerpts from the first article my search found that lists Giuliani's activities in the past 2 weeks (all of this during a period when he obviously should have been strictly quarantining because he knew he had been exposed to people with the virus).

"Giuliani attended a hearing at the Georgia Capitol on Thursday where he went without a mask for several hours. Several state senators, all Republicans, also did not wear masks at the hearing."

"On Wednesday night, Giuliani was in Lansing, Michigan, to testify in a highly unusual 4 1/2-hour legislative hearing in which he pushed Republican lawmakers to ignore the certification of Joe Biden’s Michigan victory..."

"He also appeared maskless at a Nov. 25 hearing in Pennsylvania. And Giuliani did not quarantine after being near an infected person at a Nov. 19 news conference at the Republican National Committee’s headquarters. His son Andrew Giuliani, who is a White House aide, announced a day after the event that he had tested positive for the virus."

"Before the hearing, Giuliani and Michigan Republican Party Chairman Laura Cox — both maskless — did a virtual briefing for GOP activists."

"Giuliani made an appearance earlier Sunday on Fox News _Sunday Morning Futures_ to speak about his legal challenges in several states on behalf of Trump."

[spiderplanet]

By "Republician," I don't mean "Republican Politician."

Face to face workers typically aren't allowed to challenge maskless customers. Grocery store clerks and counter service restaurant workers are probably the most common jobs in that category.

[dreamshark]

True. So it comes back to which narrative we believe - the one from the summer about the dangers of shopping and eating out or the current story that it's all about household spread and small gatherings. Or the original one: "The most important thing you can do is wash your hands."

My current belief is that bars, restaurants, churches and large parties or celebrations are at the core of the spread, for both workers and customers/guests. And congregate living situations. People who have to work in any of those venues have no real choice, but most of the people who actually participate in them are there voluntarily. In which case, their beliefs about the virus are highly relevant and probably map pretty closely to political affiliation.

If somebody finally comes up with some data showing that there is a significant amount of virus transmission in grocery stores, I'll adjust my views accordingly. There just doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.

[spiderplanet]

That was an explanation of what a face-to-face worker is who is not a politician. Grocery store workers are much safer than restaurant workers. Restaurant workers, before lockdown, were deliberately put in harm's way.

There are statistics related to this that you may find interesting. From the middle of November, before we were on lockdown, most cases were related to bars and restaurants. The danger to patrons was not irrelevant, but the danger to workers was much more significant.

https://www.twincities.com/2020/11/18/here-is-every-minnesota-restaurant-and-bar-thats-had-a-covid-outbreak/

[lydy]

Are you familiar with the Kansas data? Rachel Maddow mentioned it a while back. The governor issues a mask mandate, but the legislature made it county option. So, there were some counties in Kansas that had a mask mandate with actual penalties for failing to mask, some counties that had no mandate, and some that had a mask mandate but no enforcement. They compared the counties that had an enforced mandate to the ones that had no mandate, and found that the level of COVID in the former remained roughly level, while the amount of COVID in the latter doubled. This strongly suggests that masks make a difference.

[dreamshark]

No, I wasn't familiar with that. Leaving all the rules up to the county doesn't strike me as the ideal way to do things, but it DOES create the ingredients for a nice natural experiment.

A quick search did not find that story, and it looks like the Kansas rules about masks have been changing all over the place recently so it is hard to locate. Any idea when that occurred? I am curious to see more about it.

I'm always happy to see indications that masks help, but the effect seems to be somewhat subtle. Too many people seem to think that either they are 100% magical protection or completely useless with no possibility in between. The study you cite is interesting partly because it is so easy to take the data out of context. If there was no difference in COVID infection rates before and after implementing the mask mandate in County X, that could be interpreted as proof that masks don't work at all (and I'm sure you could find tons of people who would be happy to interpret it that way). It's only against a background of soaring infections in the county next door that steady state sounds like a win.

ETA: I found it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/23/937173060/mask-mandates-work-to-slow-spread-of-coronavirus-kansas-study-finds#:~:text=The%20Kansas%20mask%20requirement%20went,be%20worn%20in%20public%20places.

[spiderplanet]

It's been said elsewhere and it bears repeating - having only some areas with pick-up only restaurant and masks required indoors is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.