Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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I’m literally sitting in a daily huddle listening to a discussion on the rising numbers in the greater DC area and the counties moving into Orange status.
The US has 26.59% of the world’s cases but roughly 4% of the global population.
Without in any way minimizing the import of the US numbers, I think we can safely say that we have no idea how many cases there are worldwide. If you think testing in the US is spotty and misreported, how much faith should you put in the numbers from Russia, or Iran, or Khazakstan, or Congo, or Myanmar, or even India?
Adding to that, I’m suspicious of the data we’re receiving from some states. DeSantis in particular has seemed very…flexible in deciding what he wishes to count. I’d really like to see a state-by-state breakdown of total deaths before I believe the numbers.
When this first started and I learned of the existence of maskholes, I commented this was going was going to be a slow-moving minor extermination event for the country. Having watched the devastation that was afflicting NYC, no one in their right mind would decide their personal right to be a plague carrier was more important then stopping a clearly virulent disease and yet there they were. Crying about not get perms or going out for a beer, willing to let countless strangers die so they won’t be inconvenienced. The only way this was going to end was with us losing a significant chunk of our population and having our economy devastated for decades to come. We’ve let cynical people peddle lies to paranoid, angry souls and they’re not going to be able to reverse course. Both Trump and FOX are now making pro-mask statements but it’s too damn late – it’s seeped into their mythos and any pivot will be dismissed as the Deep State ploy it is.
We’ll hit 200K soon, likely before end of summer. 300K+ is in the cards by end of year unless we get some serious social interventions and advanced medical treatment PDQ. Should Wave #2 follow historical precedent and be even worse, we’ll have more dead citizens then some states have population. Make sure to start stock up a small pantry and toilet paper supply for the winter, guys. We’re not returning to normal anytime soon.
Beyond all that, there’s some kind of generalized aversion to masks in much of the population. I keep harping on how many at the office don’t wear masks except for show coming in and going out. But it goes further.
Visiting my mother at the hospital this week, she kept telling me to take the mask off, because she said it made me hard to understand when I spoke.. I refused. She insisted, claiming the nurses told her she didn’t need to wear one. I tried to explain that was because 1) she’d been tested on admission, so the staff knows she’s not a carrier, and 2) all the nurses, orderlies, doctors, med students, volunteers, assorted employees, and visitors all wear masks all the time. Why? because we’ve not been recently tested, and who know who may be a carrier?
There’s more. On occasion there are decompression events on commercial flights. Sometimes there are photos from inside the cabin. Many of these, show people wearing the emergency oxygen mask, which you need in order to be able to breathe, covering only their mouths, rather than nose and mouth as indicated.
I think there’s a psychological quirk there. Don’t people breathe mostly through their nose?
Beyond all that, there’s some kind of generalized aversion to masks in much of the population.
There certainly seems to be. Up here in Canada, where Trump isn’t influential at all for 95% of the population (probably 99%), there still are people who are against masks for a variety of reasons (typically comfort, though some don’t trust the change in opinion by the WHO and Canada’s chief doctor Tam, who initially said they were dangerous, and there are some who think we’re all going to get infected eventually so might as well get it over with).
I don’t understand them (I started wearing masks back in March), though I do think the WHO and Tam were being stupid (ie they were trying to save N-95 masks for medical people, but instead of saying that they said masks were dangerous — couldn’t they have predicted that once that idea got planted in people’s heads it was going to be hard to change their opinions?)
When this first started and I learned of the existence of maskholes, I commented this was going was going to be a slow-moving minor extermination event for the country. Having watched the devastation that was afflicting NYC, no one in their right mind would decide their personal right to be a plague carrier was more important then stopping a clearly virulent disease and yet there they were.
Given Cleek’s Law (Today’s conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today, updated daily), I think our country would have been much better off if the first major outbreak was in Texas, so things like shut downs and mask orders would have started with Republicans.
Alas, since Democrats started taking covid seriously when it showed up in Washington, California and New York, the reflexive opposition meant that measures to control the virus were obviously tyranny.
I’m sure some Democrats would be concerned about civil liberty issues if there were mask orders and shutdown orders coming from this White House, but not to this extent.
People have always joked that the way to kill Republicans would have been for Obama to come out strongly against suicide, and it seemed over the top. But is this that different?
Visiting my mother at the hospital this week, she kept telling me to take the mask off, because she said it made me hard to understand when I spoke.. I refused.
By the way, it really is harder to understand someone wearing a mask. Even just the visual cues of seeing the face moving are the equivalent of roughly 20dB of sound, as it turns out nearly everyone relies on some lip reading. I have a friend who studied these things for decades.
Good radio voices are pretty far from conversational speech, and people turn up the volume on the less professional podcasts these days.
None of this makes not wearing a mask a good idea, of course. It’s just part of why some people don’t like masks.
Also, I hope your mother is in the hospital for something minor and makes a full recovery. A lot of hospitals in the US aren’t allowing visitors at all, which is really hard on families.
Today’s headline in the local weekly free newspaper that I deliver every Friday:
BUSINESSES CLOSE AS NEW CASES SURGE
The item notes that the county health department reported Monday that in the preceding 24 hours, it had identified 23 new positive cases. The most reported in a single day in the county since the pandemic began in March. Three restaurants and one liquor store that opened recently have closed again.
Mildly good sign is that many of the most irresponsible states seem to be stabilizing their case rate, I assume because of personal actions rather than Republicans suddenly acting competently. Hopefully that is not an illusion caused by delayed test results. The hospitalization rates are key to knowing that, but it’s a lot harder to get that information in a reliable way. But if the cases/deaths ration holds, and the time offset remains the same, we should be slowing the increase in deaths and then stabilize. It’s hard to tell at this point whether it will come down as only Arizona is showing a consistent and steady decline over the past 1-2 weeks, although their death rate is still rising because of the 3-4 week offset.
Still, to stabilize at somewhere between 1K and 1.5K deaths per day! 30-45K people per month. What a horrendous failure. This the “Reagan Revolution” bearing its bitter fruit.
Well, I can talk perfectly fine with people in the car, when I can’t look at them because I’m driving.
My mom was in for back surgery. It all went well and she checked out today. Thanks for asking.
I’ve a theory that people would recover faster and/or better with fewer visitors. One time my father was in for pneumonia, about 20 years ago, he felt tired all the time because pele kept streaming in his room all day long. Family, friends, business acquaintances, even distant acquaintances who were visiting other patients and found out he was there (I kid you not). At one point, we had to usher everyone out to let him take a nap.
Private hospitals here don’t usually limit visitors, and seldom observe visiting hours.
@Kathy: The American health care system has few positives, but one of the few is quite surprising: Ever since fee-for-service has been reduced, hospitals have an incentive to get people out the door. Surprisingly, people do better the less time they spend in the hospital. This is true from the trivial cases even to the most serious. There are some exceptions, such as when they have very bad home situations, but the statistics as a whole bear it out.
@MarkedMan: I’ve only been hospitalized a few times, but I recall that I very rarely was able to get a good night’s sleep, because every few hours someone came in to check something: vital signs, IV bags, etc. Being sent home probably means that the ill or injured person gets more opportunity to rest, which contributes to healing.
@Kathy: @MarkedMan: @Monala: Every time I’ve been in the hospital I have reached the point where I want to stand up and scream, “LEAVE ME THE F ALONE!!!”
@Monala: I’ve only had one overnight stint in a hospital and it was pretty cushy as these things go – a private Western style hospital in Shanghai where senior staff were expats. There were only (I think) 8 beds on my floor and only 3-4 of those were occupied. And even then it was impossible to get soundly to sleep. Actually woken up every couple hours for this or that, but also just the machines and alerts and hisses and whirs.
Not to mention, hospitals are literally full of sick people. Best to stay away.
My one extended hospital stay was late winter of 2008. I was 60. Seven days of recuperation after intestinal surgery for diverticulitis that was complicated by an abscess in my abdominal cavity. I was fortunate to have a private room in a new wing of the local hospital. After about two days I was able to walk around the oval hallway that surrounded the nurses station. They told me it was designed for patients to get exercise.
Since my TV at home does not get any channels the multi channel TV system (cable?/satellite?) was like hog heaven for me. NBA forever!
Can’t complain about the food and the health care workers were A-1! The day the doctor released me he said: “You can eat anything you want.”
At the time I was a waged employee of Verizon Communications (not Verizon Wireless). ALL my medical expenses were 100% covered by company insurance. No deductible. Upon release from the hospital I had to wait seven weeks before returning to work. Verizon paid me for 40 hours every week I was off!
I don’t know how this would play out today as I am retired and on medicare.
The only cloud over this affair was that my life long friend Joe had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer just down the hall from my hospital room a few months earlier.
I visited him every night and we would watch Futurama cartoons together.
He died just a few weeks before my diagnosis.
Among the Jewish community in Mexico (my family is Jewish*), going to the hospital to visit people is like a social function. People bring cookies, or cake, rarely flowers, and go in wondering whom else they will meet.
Much the same, including cookies and cake, goes for visiting the recently bereaved during shiva.
I don’t recall ever being hospitalized, but I must have been when I had my tonsils removed at age 5 or 6. I’ve very vague memories of that, the clearest one involving a bowl of lemon-lime sorbet. I surmise I spent at least one night in a hospital, because in the early 70s outpatient surgery wasn’t common at all.
(Not commenting on your own self-identification but more providing context for others that Judaism is not like Christianity where adherence can be defined or restricted by belief.)
My question is: why would you assume children would spread coronavirus slower then adults? For that matter, why would you assume that while they are normally germ factories spreading around less infectious colds and flus, COVID is magically different somehow?
Seriously is there any real evidence for this or is it just wishful thinking that age has a meaningful effect on transmission?
I’ve read reports suggesting this may be so. Still, if elementary school is made up of children between 7 and 12, what do you do with those older than 10? And what about the unfortunate parents who get infected by their children, or teachers who get infected by their students?
Me, I wouldn’t even reopen schools in areas with a low incidence of COVID-19. The situation is the reverse of the joke about how to leave the casino with a small fortune. How do you get a big COVID19 outbreak? By getting lots of people to spend time together indoors every day where three’s only a small outbreak.
why would you assume children would spread coronavirus slower then adults?
There’s evidence that strongly suggests this, which is why we get bonkers statements that “kids don’t spread coronavirus” or “kids don’t get coronavirus.” Neither of those statements is accurate.
They don’t know why yet, speculation seems to focus on smaller lung capacity means less exhaling of covid, and potentially something about children having fewer ACE-receptor cells, which is where the virus “docks.”
Speaking of masks, and knowing the very high variability in quality among what’s available right now, is there any difference if someone wears it backwards?
Typically today’s most common disposable masks are blue on the outside, white on the inside. But they can be worn the other way around easily and without discomfort. Now and then at work I see some people wearing them that way. truth to tell, I have put them on backwards a couple of times.
When I do, I switch to another mask (I’ve plenty). Unless I catch the error right away, in which case I just turn them around.
@Kathy: You were very lucky. For my tonsillectomy, I had to eat a cereal called Wheat Hearts* because the choices were that or mashed potatoes and I was allergic to potatoes. 🙁
*As I recall, the cereal was like Cream of Wheat except made from whole grain so the person got the “goodness of the bran and germ.” (again 🙁 )
@Kathy: @KM: Uhhh… yeah. But the Governor of, IIRC, Missouri (calling Ozark) assures us that schools can reopen because ‘children recover from diseases quickly.’
I’m literally sitting in a daily huddle listening to a discussion on the rising numbers in the greater DC area and the counties moving into Orange status.
Wear your *(&$¥ masks!!!!
So. Much. Winning. And I am sick of it.
Without in any way minimizing the import of the US numbers, I think we can safely say that we have no idea how many cases there are worldwide. If you think testing in the US is spotty and misreported, how much faith should you put in the numbers from Russia, or Iran, or Khazakstan, or Congo, or Myanmar, or even India?
Adding to that, I’m suspicious of the data we’re receiving from some states. DeSantis in particular has seemed very…flexible in deciding what he wishes to count. I’d really like to see a state-by-state breakdown of total deaths before I believe the numbers.
@DrDaveT: Sure. I should have said “confirmed” cases.
Of course, I am sure there are a lot more cases in the US than 4 million.
When this first started and I learned of the existence of maskholes, I commented this was going was going to be a slow-moving minor extermination event for the country. Having watched the devastation that was afflicting NYC, no one in their right mind would decide their personal right to be a plague carrier was more important then stopping a clearly virulent disease and yet there they were. Crying about not get perms or going out for a beer, willing to let countless strangers die so they won’t be inconvenienced. The only way this was going to end was with us losing a significant chunk of our population and having our economy devastated for decades to come. We’ve let cynical people peddle lies to paranoid, angry souls and they’re not going to be able to reverse course. Both Trump and FOX are now making pro-mask statements but it’s too damn late – it’s seeped into their mythos and any pivot will be dismissed as the Deep State ploy it is.
We’ll hit 200K soon, likely before end of summer. 300K+ is in the cards by end of year unless we get some serious social interventions and advanced medical treatment PDQ. Should Wave #2 follow historical precedent and be even worse, we’ll have more dead citizens then some states have population. Make sure to start stock up a small pantry and toilet paper supply for the winter, guys. We’re not returning to normal anytime soon.
@KM:
Beyond all that, there’s some kind of generalized aversion to masks in much of the population. I keep harping on how many at the office don’t wear masks except for show coming in and going out. But it goes further.
Visiting my mother at the hospital this week, she kept telling me to take the mask off, because she said it made me hard to understand when I spoke.. I refused. She insisted, claiming the nurses told her she didn’t need to wear one. I tried to explain that was because 1) she’d been tested on admission, so the staff knows she’s not a carrier, and 2) all the nurses, orderlies, doctors, med students, volunteers, assorted employees, and visitors all wear masks all the time. Why? because we’ve not been recently tested, and who know who may be a carrier?
There’s more. On occasion there are decompression events on commercial flights. Sometimes there are photos from inside the cabin. Many of these, show people wearing the emergency oxygen mask, which you need in order to be able to breathe, covering only their mouths, rather than nose and mouth as indicated.
I think there’s a psychological quirk there. Don’t people breathe mostly through their nose?
@Kathy:
There certainly seems to be. Up here in Canada, where Trump isn’t influential at all for 95% of the population (probably 99%), there still are people who are against masks for a variety of reasons (typically comfort, though some don’t trust the change in opinion by the WHO and Canada’s chief doctor Tam, who initially said they were dangerous, and there are some who think we’re all going to get infected eventually so might as well get it over with).
I don’t understand them (I started wearing masks back in March), though I do think the WHO and Tam were being stupid (ie they were trying to save N-95 masks for medical people, but instead of saying that they said masks were dangerous — couldn’t they have predicted that once that idea got planted in people’s heads it was going to be hard to change their opinions?)
@KM:
Given Cleek’s Law (Today’s conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today, updated daily), I think our country would have been much better off if the first major outbreak was in Texas, so things like shut downs and mask orders would have started with Republicans.
Alas, since Democrats started taking covid seriously when it showed up in Washington, California and New York, the reflexive opposition meant that measures to control the virus were obviously tyranny.
I’m sure some Democrats would be concerned about civil liberty issues if there were mask orders and shutdown orders coming from this White House, but not to this extent.
People have always joked that the way to kill Republicans would have been for Obama to come out strongly against suicide, and it seemed over the top. But is this that different?
@Kathy:
By the way, it really is harder to understand someone wearing a mask. Even just the visual cues of seeing the face moving are the equivalent of roughly 20dB of sound, as it turns out nearly everyone relies on some lip reading. I have a friend who studied these things for decades.
Good radio voices are pretty far from conversational speech, and people turn up the volume on the less professional podcasts these days.
None of this makes not wearing a mask a good idea, of course. It’s just part of why some people don’t like masks.
Also, I hope your mother is in the hospital for something minor and makes a full recovery. A lot of hospitals in the US aren’t allowing visitors at all, which is really hard on families.
Today’s headline in the local weekly free newspaper that I deliver every Friday:
Mildly good sign is that many of the most irresponsible states seem to be stabilizing their case rate, I assume because of personal actions rather than Republicans suddenly acting competently. Hopefully that is not an illusion caused by delayed test results. The hospitalization rates are key to knowing that, but it’s a lot harder to get that information in a reliable way. But if the cases/deaths ration holds, and the time offset remains the same, we should be slowing the increase in deaths and then stabilize. It’s hard to tell at this point whether it will come down as only Arizona is showing a consistent and steady decline over the past 1-2 weeks, although their death rate is still rising because of the 3-4 week offset.
Still, to stabilize at somewhere between 1K and 1.5K deaths per day! 30-45K people per month. What a horrendous failure. This the “Reagan Revolution” bearing its bitter fruit.
@Gustopher:
Well, I can talk perfectly fine with people in the car, when I can’t look at them because I’m driving.
My mom was in for back surgery. It all went well and she checked out today. Thanks for asking.
I’ve a theory that people would recover faster and/or better with fewer visitors. One time my father was in for pneumonia, about 20 years ago, he felt tired all the time because pele kept streaming in his room all day long. Family, friends, business acquaintances, even distant acquaintances who were visiting other patients and found out he was there (I kid you not). At one point, we had to usher everyone out to let him take a nap.
Private hospitals here don’t usually limit visitors, and seldom observe visiting hours.
@Kathy: The American health care system has few positives, but one of the few is quite surprising: Ever since fee-for-service has been reduced, hospitals have an incentive to get people out the door. Surprisingly, people do better the less time they spend in the hospital. This is true from the trivial cases even to the most serious. There are some exceptions, such as when they have very bad home situations, but the statistics as a whole bear it out.
@MarkedMan: I’ve only been hospitalized a few times, but I recall that I very rarely was able to get a good night’s sleep, because every few hours someone came in to check something: vital signs, IV bags, etc. Being sent home probably means that the ill or injured person gets more opportunity to rest, which contributes to healing.
@Kathy: @MarkedMan: @Monala: Every time I’ve been in the hospital I have reached the point where I want to stand up and scream, “LEAVE ME THE F ALONE!!!”
@Monala: I’ve only had one overnight stint in a hospital and it was pretty cushy as these things go – a private Western style hospital in Shanghai where senior staff were expats. There were only (I think) 8 beds on my floor and only 3-4 of those were occupied. And even then it was impossible to get soundly to sleep. Actually woken up every couple hours for this or that, but also just the machines and alerts and hisses and whirs.
Not to mention, hospitals are literally full of sick people. Best to stay away.
@MarkedMan:
@OzarkHillbilly:
Among the Jewish community in Mexico (my family is Jewish*), going to the hospital to visit people is like a social function. People bring cookies, or cake, rarely flowers, and go in wondering whom else they will meet.
Much the same, including cookies and cake, goes for visiting the recently bereaved during shiva.
I try to avoid both as much as possible.
*I’m atheist.
@Monala:
@MarkedMan:
I don’t recall ever being hospitalized, but I must have been when I had my tonsils removed at age 5 or 6. I’ve very vague memories of that, the clearest one involving a bowl of lemon-lime sorbet. I surmise I spent at least one night in a hospital, because in the early 70s outpatient surgery wasn’t common at all.
@Kathy:
These aren’t contradictory. There is a long tradition of Jewish atheists.
(Not commenting on your own self-identification but more providing context for others that Judaism is not like Christianity where adherence can be defined or restricted by belief.)
Dr. Deborah Birx: ‘Still an open question’ how rapidly children under 10 spread coronavirus
My question is: why would you assume children would spread coronavirus slower then adults? For that matter, why would you assume that while they are normally germ factories spreading around less infectious colds and flus, COVID is magically different somehow?
Seriously is there any real evidence for this or is it just wishful thinking that age has a meaningful effect on transmission?
@KM:
I’ve read reports suggesting this may be so. Still, if elementary school is made up of children between 7 and 12, what do you do with those older than 10? And what about the unfortunate parents who get infected by their children, or teachers who get infected by their students?
Me, I wouldn’t even reopen schools in areas with a low incidence of COVID-19. The situation is the reverse of the joke about how to leave the casino with a small fortune. How do you get a big COVID19 outbreak? By getting lots of people to spend time together indoors every day where three’s only a small outbreak.
@KM:
There’s evidence that strongly suggests this, which is why we get bonkers statements that “kids don’t spread coronavirus” or “kids don’t get coronavirus.” Neither of those statements is accurate.
They don’t know why yet, speculation seems to focus on smaller lung capacity means less exhaling of covid, and potentially something about children having fewer ACE-receptor cells, which is where the virus “docks.”
@Monala: “Being sent home probably means that the ill or injured person gets more opportunity to rest, which contributes to healing.”
And avoids hospital infections.
Speaking of masks, and knowing the very high variability in quality among what’s available right now, is there any difference if someone wears it backwards?
Typically today’s most common disposable masks are blue on the outside, white on the inside. But they can be worn the other way around easily and without discomfort. Now and then at work I see some people wearing them that way. truth to tell, I have put them on backwards a couple of times.
When I do, I switch to another mask (I’ve plenty). Unless I catch the error right away, in which case I just turn them around.
@Kathy: You were very lucky. For my tonsillectomy, I had to eat a cereal called Wheat Hearts* because the choices were that or mashed potatoes and I was allergic to potatoes. 🙁
*As I recall, the cereal was like Cream of Wheat except made from whole grain so the person got the “goodness of the bran and germ.” (again 🙁 )
@Kathy: @KM: Uhhh… yeah. But the Governor of, IIRC, Missouri (calling Ozark) assures us that schools can reopen because ‘children recover from diseases quickly.’
I’m soooooooo relieved.