Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Amherst, Washington: admission, manager, lowest)

[Arya Stark]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

JUST IN: Bernie Rubin, founder of Bernie and Phyls, dies of coronavirus-related illness, family members say. Details in app.
I’d add the link but for some reason it’s not translating over properly from my app. That’s a shame

He was like 82 though... but that is sad.

[BostonMike7]

The model has been revised again.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/unite.../massachusetts

MA peak is now pushed out to April 28th and projected deaths has climbed from 6700 to 8200.


Puts MA solidly as #2 projected deaths in the country. CT is 5400 and NJ is 4400 projected deaths

Why is MA so bad?

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

The model has been revised again.
...
Puts MA solidly as #2 projected deaths in the country. CT is 5400 and NJ is 4400 projected deaths

Why is MA so bad?

The amount of initial spread? Not an outer band from NYC, but its own epicenter, airport, and so on?

[Bridge781]

Im not surprised at how Boston is. We’re right next to nyc and we’re in a way kind of a mini nyc. Think about the amount of people who travelled over the holidays through Logan and picked up covid and spread it around.

I remember reading about this and how it had been discovered the first week of Jan 2020 in China. I didn’t think much of it, probably thought great stay in China. I kept reading more and more about it, made its way to Italy. I still didn’t think too much Of it until my boss became concerned about Italy and how it could affect a conference we’re having in the fall. Then the umass Boston case happened, then Biogen, then they started sending college students home. I had no idea it would be this bad but knew Boston was in trouble. It is a bit weird how hard we’re being hit but a place like NH has very low numbers. Or providence. A lot of people do commute from Boston to nh or RI every day for work. I would take the providence/stougton line frequently. I think then right thing was done in having people work from home around mid March. If that move hadn’t been made it would be so much worse. It’s already bad but thank goodness for remote work. And yeah I know not everyone can work from home but many can and that helped this cause.

[charolastra00]

I think we were pretty well seeded early, and it's particularly impacting high density areas like nursing homes (still about 45% of our deaths I think) and parts of the immediate Boston suburbs where there are lots of multigenerational or roommate living situations.


Still... it's so hard for me to comprehend that we're worse than places like Florida or New Jersey.

[Bridge781]

We should have been better off. After all we have some of the smartest people in the world in Boston right? Why didn’t the great minds of Harvard, MIT and all the doctors speak up more? Maybe they did? Or maybe they were afraid to lose business.

[Maddie104]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

We should have been better off. After all we have some of the smartest people in the world in Boston right? Why didn’t the great minds of Harvard, MIT and all the doctors speak up more? Maybe they did? Or maybe they were afraid to lose business.

Like the Biogen executives?

The Biogen meeting was one of the earliest examples in the United States of what epidemiologists call “superspreading events” of Covid-19, where a small gathering of people leads to a huge number of infections. Unlike the most infamous clusters of cases stemming from a nursing home outside Seattle or a 40th birthday party in Connecticut, the Biogen cluster happened at a meeting of top health care professionals whose job it was to fight disease, not spread it.

“The smartest people in health care and drug development — and they were completely oblivious to the biggest thing that was about to shatter their world,” said John Carroll, editor of Endpoints News, which covers the biotech industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/u...4cf97fffb2f67b

[robr2]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Wait--surely you're not talking about the COVID-19 screening being done 3 times/day for each employee?! That would be truly hard to believe, given the overall scarcity. You must mean temperature scans, right?

Sorry - yes, temp scans and general questions regarding other symptoms. If a certain threshold is met, they are sent for formal testing.

[Bridge781]

Originally Posted by Maddie104

Like the Biogen executives?

The Biogen meeting was one of the earliest examples in the United States of what epidemiologists call “superspreading events” of Covid-19, where a small gathering of people leads to a huge number of infections. Unlike the most infamous clusters of cases stemming from a nursing home outside Seattle or a 40th birthday party in Connecticut, the Biogen cluster happened at a meeting of top health care professionals whose job it was to fight disease, not spread it.

“The smartest people in health care and drug development — and they were completely oblivious to the biggest thing that was about to shatter their world,” said John Carroll, editor of Endpoints News, which covers the biotech industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/u...4cf97fffb2f67b

Oh of course. I know I’ve mentioned that on this thread but people scoffed at me saying this would have spread anyways here. That might be true but the biogen meeting was really the first incidence of spread in Boston. A bunch of smart rich leadership executives who thought they were invincible. God forbid anyone have said, hey maybe we should make this a virtual meeting in light of what is going on. Newton and Wellesley schools were the first to close in the state because of kids parents there having coronavirus. At least they reported it to the cdc.

[BostonMike7]

I've seen very little media attention to Massachusetts in general with regards to the severity of the outbreak. It's been mostly NY getting the attention, with some mention to neighboring CT and NJ. But with MA poised to become #2, you would think that there would be more media focus onto the outbreak here considering it's late peak? I've seen a quick mention of the field hospital at DCU center and that was it.

Instead, you read articles like this for example.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/so...cid=spartanntp

South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots.

As of today, SD has 800 or so cases total and 6 deaths. It's projected to peak with 161 total deaths. That's one of the nation's largest hot spots?? I hate to get political here...but I can't help but wonder if it is.