alex_korr wrote:
tri_yoda wrote:
exxxviii wrote:
The reality that most of the country
is not like the NE is starting to dawn on the country, and it is driving many of the re-openings.
In what ways is the rest of the US not like the NE? It is correct, there has been a much higher rate of infection and the majority of deaths (so far) have been in the Northeast. But I am interested in understanding what you consider are the inherent differences (age, geography, existing health conditions, whatever?) between the rest of the country and NE that would make it impossible at any point in the future to see the kind of carnage we saw in the NE?
Just using NYC as an example, to my knowledge, nobody at this point has a clear explanation of why NYC was impacted so badly, but LA and Houston so far have not been. Until we know the exact "why" of what has happened so far, I would be very hesitant to speculate about what is different (or not) and what may happen in the rest of 2020. Different people have "speculated", but nobody has produced a mechanistic explanation based on objective data.
So all I am questioning, is what is the underlying mechanism to explain your perception other than "since it didn't happen yet, it won't happen". I do agree with you (because the indisputable data shows this) that the Northeast is on the order of at least 10X worse than the rest of the US (after 3 months of COVID).
IMO, it's not that hard to explain. I am in LA and I have been following the data very closely.
LA doesn't have a lot of public transportation and it also has a much lower density of the population. The areas of LA where people live in cramped quarters and use a lot of public transportation (ie East and Central LA + poorer areas of the SF valley) have noticeably higher rates of infection. Richer areas (ie West LA, the eastern part of the 134 corridor, Hollywood Hills, San Gabriel, etc) had very few cases if you exclude the convalescent facilities, the old folks homes and the cases of people coming back from skiing vacations in Europe with Covid. In my town of 105k people, literally half of cases and 95% of fatalities came from 2 convalescent facilities.
So just to be clear, you are identifying public transportation (large number of people in close proximity) as a major contributing cause to severe outbreaks that occurred in the Northeast. But you (or others on this thread) are surprised at cancellation of large events and the skepticism from some (myself included) about the ability to hold large races in 2020.
As someone who has ridden the MBTA (Boston metro subway) many times, as well as someone who has stood in the starting corrals at Boston and IMLP (and numerous other large events): The closest approximation to the level of personal contact with strangers that occurs in a subway (beside a subway itself), is being in the starting corral at a major road race or ironman event. Hence, my extreme skepticism that any large athletic events are going to happen in CY 2020 in the US.
How do you reconcile having large athletic events with the COVID risk you have cited associated with riding public transportation. Tell me how staging in the starting corrals at Boston (as well as the 45 minute ride on a packed bus to get there) has a different risk profile than riding the subway?