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My two kids are social distancing in two different cities thousands of miles away from me. It's hard for all of us. However, it reminds me of how lucky we are! Our enlisted men and women in the armed forces make great sacrifices for our countries, while the rest of us usually breeze by. I can pick up the phone and call my kids are anytime - unlike our armed forces. Mothers and fathers on tour for six months at a time in dangerous conditions - now that is hard.
When people are dying, graduations, pales in comparison.
No kidding!
Geez people, I wasn't down playing any situation and I wasn't saying that my daughters graduation was a more important then anything else going on. MY POINT, was that we need to make sure that our children understand what's going on and make sure they are not being emotionally effected. People forget that events like this effect them too!
Know any other states that have that population density?
Trying to compare NYC to the entire country is beyond foolish and begs misinformation.
My entire county has 430,000. NYC? has EIGHT and a HALF MILLION people. 8,500,000.
Not even close to being the same. At all. So we should do exactly as NYC? How does that make sense in ANY context?
How do people not understand this????
I totally get that. Chicago is dense with a population of 2 million, but that is not the whole picture. The urban sprawl out from Chicago is dense. Cicero is next to Chicago and that sprawl continues out to Hinsdale. People as far away as Downers Grove take the train into Chicago. The virus moves back and forth and doesn't just stay in Chicago, and that's just one line in and out of the city. How many people live outside of Chicago and come in to work every day? Millions? The good news is that our governor shut everything down early. He was the second in the country to do it. Had he waited?
Even with early mitigation, we still grow by 1,000 cases a day in Illinois. Without mitigation? Chicago and the satellite suburbs would be a disaster. We still haven't peaked yet, but the spread has definitely slowed had we not gone into lock down early, it would have been far worse. Birx mentioned Chicago as an emerging hot spot in one of the recent briefings.
Now lets look at the "toolie" towns with farm fields as neighbors. They are not as dense, yet the virus is in those counties. Right now it is in 92 out of the 102 counties we have in Illinois. Many of those rural towns have no hospital. What happens if a couple of hundred people flood into the next town and over run their tiny 100 bed hospital? What happens if Chicago did not mitigate early and Covid over runs every hospital like it did in New York? I know of one hospital pretty far out from Chicago where half of the hospital is Covid.
Chicago might not be as dense as New York City with its 8 million people, but Chicago and the satellite suburbs? That's still a lot of people. Cook County, which is Chicago and suburbs has 19,535 cases. The whole state of Illinois has 29,160 cases, and no peak in sight yet. New York has 214 hospitals. Illinois, 180. Chicago could easily look like New York with two hundred thousand cases had we not taken drastic stay at home measures early. It's frightening to see it spread by 1,000+ cases a day, even with early mitigation. We are on a stay at home order until the end of May now.
Some states are not showing a lot of Covid cases, but that is misleading. We don't know how many have it because there isn't enough tests. Don't forget that 20% of people with Covid are asymptomatic carriers that never get sick, yet spread it. States with low Covid admissions have a unique advantage to mitigate early, and should.
Now lets look at Singapore. It has nearly 6 million people. Not quite as dense as New York but still a lot of people. Singapore has around 7,000 Covid cases with 11 deaths. How is that? New York is a disaster and Singapore is the poster child. "Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been able to slow the virus thanks to their fast action, use of data, and widespread testing." Source Advisory Board: Why Covid-19 case counts are so low in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
So it doesn't matter if you live in a town of 300 people with a hospital that has only 50 beds and one ventilator if 200 people are sick with Covid and 10 need a ventilator. It's not doable and residents are going to die. When I say you could end up like New York, that's what I mean.
If one person has Covid they infect on average 3 people. Flu? One infects two. Popular Science has an interesting article about the infection rate. "Just how contagious is Covid-19? This chart puts it in perspective."
Make no mistake about it, early mitigation slows down the spread, even in "toolie" towns with a small population and maybe zero hospital beds. We all have to do our part to stop it. This bug is a beast and needs to be taken seriously. Yes, even in states that haven't peaked yet.
I totally get that. Chicago is dense with a population of 2 million, but that is not the whole picture. The urban sprawl out from Chicago is dense. Cicero is next to Chicago and that sprawl continues out to Hinsdale. People as far away as Downers Grove take the train into Chicago. The virus moves back and forth and doesn't just stay in Chicago, and that's just one line in and out of the city. How many people live outside of Chicago and come in to work every day? Millions? The good news is that our governor shut everything down early. He was the second in the country to do it. Had he waited?
Even with early mitigation, we still grow by 1,000 cases a day in Illinois. Without mitigation? Chicago and the satellite suburbs would be a disaster. We still haven't peaked yet, but the spread has definitely slowed had we not gone into lock down early, it would have been far worse. Birx mentioned Chicago as an emerging hot spot in one of the recent briefings.
Now lets look at the "toolie" towns with farm fields as neighbors. They are not as dense, yet the virus is in those counties. Right now it is in 92 out of the 102 counties we have in Illinois. Many of those rural towns have no hospital. What happens if a couple of hundred people flood into the next town and over run their tiny 100 bed hospital? What happens if Chicago did not mitigate early and Covid over runs every hospital like it did in New York? I know of one hospital pretty far out from Chicago where half of the hospital is Covid.
Chicago might not be as dense as New York City with its 8 million people, but Chicago and the satellite suburbs? That's still a lot of people. Cook County, which is Chicago and suburbs has 19,535 cases. The whole state of Illinois has 29,160 cases, and no peak in sight yet. New York has 214 hospitals. Illinois, 180. Chicago could easily look like New York with two hundred thousand cases had we not taken drastic stay at home measures early. It's frightening to see it spread by 1,000+ cases a day, even with early mitigation. We are on a stay at home order until the end of May now.
Some states are not showing a lot of Covid cases, but that is misleading. We don't know how many have it because there isn't enough tests. Don't forget that 20% of people with Covid are asymptomatic carriers that never get sick, yet spread it. States with low Covid admissions have a unique advantage to mitigate early, and should.
Now lets look at Singapore. It has nearly 6 million people. Not quite as dense as New York but still a lot of people. Singapore has around 7,000 Covid cases with 11 deaths. How is that? New York is a disaster and Singapore is the poster child. "Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been able to slow the virus thanks to their fast action, use of data, and widespread testing." Source Advisory Board: Why Covid-19 case counts are so low in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
So it doesn't matter if you live in a town of 300 people with a hospital that has only 50 beds and one ventilator if 200 people are sick with Covid and 10 need a ventilator. It's not doable and residents are going to die. When I say you could end up like New York, that's what I mean.
If one person has Covid they infect on average 3 people. Flu? One infects two. Popular Science has an interesting article about the infection rate. "Just how contagious is Covid-19? This chart puts it in perspective."
Make no mistake about it, early mitigation slows down the spread, even in "toolie" towns with a small population and maybe zero hospital beds. We all have to do our part to stop it. This bug is a beast and needs to be taken seriously. Yes, even in states that haven't peaked yet.
Most of Lake County (NW) Indiana commutes to Chicago to work and even to go to the doctors/hospitals there as well!
Its funny that rich people who never cared about poor people before are the only people complaining about the poor people who are going to die from poverty. This is a striking turn of conscience for them. Its especially touching since the poor and especially poor minorities are dying at a much higher rate than others.
I am not rich, and I do not have a 'sudden' concern for those in poverty. I'm just wondering where the breaking point is when people start dying more from poverty than the virus.
To the bolded: I am in favor of 'essential workers' getting the choice to work for extra pay or to stay home getting paid by their company or unemployment. That is one of the reasons minorities are getting hit hard. Their % of population that has to keep working, getting exposed.
Make no mistake about it, early mitigation slows down the spread, even in "toolie" towns with a small population and maybe zero hospital beds..
Nice dissertation, but you've missed a significant point:
-mitigation (sequestration) may "lower the peak," but it does not change the area under the curve- ie- just as many people will get sick (& die) in the long run, but at a slower rate over time.
Sort of, Guido. I too thought that at the start. There is one (possible) circumstance where that is not true:
If asymptomatic carriers run the course in two weeks (say) and cannot catch it again (or mostly cannot)...that means - after two weeks - when they leave the house for essential things (food or work or health) they cannot spread it and they cannot catch it - a fact that wasn't there two weeks earlier.
So - whoever MIGHT have "caught" it from them - won't - they'll have to catch it from someone else. If that happens enough - I figured at least some people who would otherwise have caught it and died - will NEVER catch it, and they will of course die of something else.
In that regard - I can see a path where "flattening the curve" also leads to a reduced death count - and that may already be playing out in some locations. At our local "drive up" test sight - just a few days ago - several hundred people pre-registered. These were people who either have been living with / close contact to a positive test - or have serious symptoms (cough/trouble breathing/fever). Results? 25% positive.
That was excellent. It means it's NOT everywhere where I live...but that seems unlikely considering our high death toll here...so it's MORE likely some of these people had it...and now it's gone.
It's a small sample, nothing to pin my hopes on - but if 95% had come back positive, that would be worrisome indeed. Again - it wasn't 25% of a random sample - it was 25% of people who had reason to believe they had it.
(YES - this contradicts some other locales - but it depends on the timescale and other things.)
Most of Lake County (NW) Indiana commutes to Chicago to work and even to go to the doctors/hospitals there as well!
You get it. Chicago itself may not have the density of people living in New York City, but it does have the traffic. We also have two major airports just ripe for import cases.
Ok, I'm totally confused now. How are we hearing talks of re-opening the public places when they have not come up with a vaccine for COVID-19/CoronaVirus? Has the virus disappeared?
I can't believe how many people have literally no idea what's going on. The purpose of the shutdown was to flatten the curve. Nobody ever intended to wait until the virus "disappeared".
Nice dissertation, but you've missed a significant point:
-mitigation (sequestration) may "lower the peak," but it does not change the area under the curve- ie- just as many people will get sick (& die) in the long run, but at a slower rate over time.
I disagree. The earlier the mitigation, the less death. Look at Singapore and their aggressive response. Google Dr. Fauci early mitigation would have saved more lives.
Kaiser Health: "After Fauci Says Many Lives Could Have Been Saved If Country Shut Down.
Fox59.com: Fauci Admits Earlier Covid-19 mitigation would have saved more American Lives.
I'm sure Trump wants to fire him now.
Look, unmitigated Covid would have been carnage. It doesn't matter if you're in small town America or a big city. Hospitals would be over run. Health care workers are getting sick from this. Cuomo was on talking about 30% of Health Care workers out with Covid. Play that nightmare scenario all over the USA in every town. Lets not even talk about the collateral damage. The car wrecks, the heart attacks, the strokes that can't be treated.
The Chicago Tribune has an interesting article "Wisconsin's Door County told out-of-towners to stay home. Governors issued stay-at-home orders. Hundreds still came."
Evidently people from Illinois flocked to their vacation homes to escape the hot zone here in Illinois. "We are a small rural community with a 25 bed hospital. We're afraid our facilities could easily be overwhelmed." The article goes on to talk about other resort destinations. The Keys have a check point that allows residents in only. There's a reason Wisconsin has a stay at home order and doesn't want vacationers there. and that's to save lives by reducing the spread of Covid. That's just common sense.
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You get it. Chicago itself may not have the density of people living in New York City, but it does have the traffic. We also have two major airports just ripe for import cases.
