?[LOCKED] OT: Woah, what's going on with COVID in Michigan?

Submitted by JamesBondHerpesMeds on April 6th, 2021 at 5:38 PM

This is neither intended to be a political post nor a flame war, just seeking information. Famous last words, I know.

Michigan's COVID case count was higher than California, Florida, or Texas yesterday. I'm not paying close attention to what's going on there -- is there something happening that's causing this outbreak (lower restrictions, new variant, something else)?

Meanwhile, hope everyone stays safe in the Mitten. <3

[Locking because....NM, just read thru it yourselves and you'll see the usual misbehaving few] -rob f,  10:30 pm

xtramelanin

April 6th, 2021 at 5:51 PM ^

is puzzling.  the states that most poke fun at (georgia, tenn, mississippi, montana, the dakotas,etc.) are declining.  texas was picked to be a death-bomb with the mask mandate taken away.  amazingly, not so.

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the states that had the most restrictive mandates are mostly trending up:  Mich, NY, NJ, Conn, etc. 

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theory:  those idiot states that let people choose what to do and when to do it basically passed their figurative covid kidney stone already.  the super-safe, virtuous vanguards for some reason have worse problems than those free-dumb states.   it is wrong.  they should be miserable.  its not fair. 

 

 

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Simple Boy fro…

April 6th, 2021 at 9:47 PM ^

I was in Dallas two weeks ago visiting my son at SMU.  I stayed in Highland Park (a neighborhood in Dallas) for those three days (arriving Thursday afternoon leaving Sunday morning).  Highland Park Village was very busy.  Every restaurant at the Village was packed inside and outside.  The restaurants and bars on McKinny Ave were busy.   There were many people in the stores without masks.   I ran into the developer of the outdoor mall and he was telling me how the stores at the Village are very busy.  From what I saw, everybody who was out and about looked happy.   When people weren't wearing masks inside the stores that I was in, the operators of the store were not asking people to wear masks.  

I left Manhattan last May after spending ten years in the City (West Village to be specific). I chose Charleston, SC because even at the time when the businesses in Charleston were closed (May 2020) everybody was pleasant and people looked happy.  Most gyms, stores and shops have been open since late summer.   I have had several friends visit from NYC, SF, MI and NC and they all comment on how happy everybody is here and how everything is open.   I left NYC because everybody was miserable and why pay the NYC premium when everything is closed and the majority of the population is projecting their unhappiness and politics on you.   I have been to NYC twice since I left and it is a far cry from what NYC was pre-COVID. It will bounce back but it will take a long time to get NYC back to the atmosphere it was pre-COVID.  

 

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Harbaugh's Lef…

April 6th, 2021 at 6:00 PM ^

New York has a 7 day average of 1,098.6 daily tests per 100k with a 3.6% daily positivity rate while Texas has a 7 day average of 283.6 daily tests per 100k with a 3.9% daily positivity rate, according to Johns Hopkins.

Comparing the two states, due to NY roughly having over 129k more tests per a day on a 7 day average, on just their positive cases is foolish and does not give the entire picture.

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mackbru

April 6th, 2021 at 8:28 PM ^

You do understand that it will hit Florida again, don't you? It starts in one place then moves to the next. It spares no one except those who are vaccinated and/or very careful. Does this still need this explained to you? Also, Florida's death rate from COVID is much higher than California's. If you take out LA, which is densely populate, it's not even close.

Also, Fla. just officially became of the country's top 5 hot spots: https://news.yahoo.com/nearly-half-us-virus-infections-194227189.html

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blue in dc

April 6th, 2021 at 6:24 PM ^

Fascinating that you left California out of your pseudo-scientific analysis.   It apparently doesn’t fit your neat little narrative.

Also may want to relook at South Dakota.   They are reporting their highest case counts since February (they also have a high test positivity rate).

With regards to New York, you may want to look at the amount of testing they are doing.   They have one of the lowest test positivity rates in the country (California actually has the lowest).   If your test positivity is going down and the number of cases you are seeing is staying the same or going down, that is a sign that you are trending in the right direction.

I know that you would like this to all fit in your simple little narrative, unfortunately life isn’t that simple.

 

 

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WolverineinLA

April 6th, 2021 at 6:35 PM ^

Xtra doesn't believe in any scientific analysis unless it is an excerpt that proves his political point of view. Extremely sad that we all support a University that conducts the research and science that members of this board including Xtra disagree with because someone with a D next to their name supports the data. 

Joined: 02/11/2016

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jsquigg

April 6th, 2021 at 8:43 PM ^

Brainwashed is a terrible word choice. It most certainly does not apply to everyone. We all interpret reality and our experiences from a limited place, but some of us are more aware of their limitations than others. Many in the US start from a place of heavy bias (we are all biased) and interpret everything only to justify what we already believe. Some of us are open to scientific discovery and research and factor that into our inherited biases. None of this is static or can be reduced to simplistic binaries. This is why guidelines change: Not because the research or data is flawed, but because when dealing with something novel, we simply don't have all the info needed for a bulletproof response (and likely never will). In my experience keeping a mask on in public and social distancing is effective, and I am fully vaxxed. The idea that their is any malice involved in taking CDC recommended steps is an example of people who don't have a background in the medical, immunology, or scientific fields trying to hijack the narrative by justifying their preconceived biases/interpretations of reality. Wear a fucking mask and get vaxxed.  

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evenyoubrutus

April 6th, 2021 at 9:03 PM ^

Is this the same CDC who admittedly lied about the effectiveness of masks to preserve the supply, or is it a different one?

I'm not "against" being cautious and I wear a mask wherever I go in public. But I also can't blame anyone who doesn't trust information coming from a government agency. 

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East German Judge

April 6th, 2021 at 10:07 PM ^

Come on, we all know why they "lied", it was for a very valid reason and whether we like it or not the means justified the ends.  So many front line workers did not have adequate PPE for a long time and if the CDC did come out of the gates and say masks were "good", you can damn well bet that more front line workers would have gotten ill and / or died trying to help those most in need.

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evenyoubrutus

April 6th, 2021 at 9:43 PM ^

There's a selective advantage in setting aside rational thought in order to follow groups/herds. You think a caveman would have many reproductive opportunities if he was a scrawny vegan with thick rimmed glasses constantly getting into intellectual debates rather than going out with the rest of the hunters and wrestling a sabre tooth tiger? I don't think so.

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NittanyFan

April 6th, 2021 at 8:39 PM ^

LOL ... an unprovoked attack on NittanyFan (me).  Fair enough.  Allow me to retort.

If all these mask mandates and lockdowns had a statistically significant impact, why are all the states consistently, over the course of time, converging toward each other in terms of aggregate cases/deaths per capita?

Once we remove the political aspect of this discussion and look back at this more soberly in 10 years, I do think the scientific consensus will be this: mask mandates and lockdowns helped at the margins and in the short-term, but were not game-changers and did NOT help significantly in the long-term.  

Viruses are going to virus, and people are going to people (we are a species that likes to socialize with each other, it is our nature!).  Especially over the course of 13+ months.

In the meantime, do get a vaccine if you can.  I have, FWIW.

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Creedence Tapes

April 6th, 2021 at 9:24 PM ^

If all these mask mandates and lockdowns had a statistically significant impact, why are all the states consistently, over the course of time, converging toward each other in terms of aggregate cases/deaths per capita?

Because there are plenty of people in blue states that vote red, don't believe in masking, and aren't following any guidelines. There are also plenty of people in blue states that vote blue, wear masks in public, but don't follow guidelines when they get together with friends and family. I'm sure the same could be said vice versa for Red states. The reality is that unless we all went around in PPE like hospital workers all day everyday covid would be gone, but obviously that's not a realistic option.

Some people do better than others though. For example, do you know who got Covid on my street? My dumbass neighbor who ignored guidelines went about his business pretty much the same as before. Lucky for him he didn't have any complications and ended up being fine, and lucky for me I took that shit seriously and maintained mask and social distance guidelines, especially interacting with him. I later found out that when my dumbass neighbor came up to talk to me on day in the yard,  he was waiting for his Covid test results. Stay the fuck away from other people while you are waiting for your test results.  Now I'm vaxxed up and me any my family have managed to avoid contracting Covid in part due to our personal choices. Perhaps we were too cautious in limiting social interactions, but perhaps we were as cautious as we needed to be to stay safe. Unfortunately we'll never know, but I prefer to err on the side of caution, especially since I have an underlying health condition.

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East German Judge

April 6th, 2021 at 10:15 PM ^

Simple comments, see if you can follow along:

  • No way to prove that if we didn't mask up and go through lockdowns, we would be a the same place.  Sorry, common sense and simple understanding of biology makes it clear these things do help.
  • Most all epidemiologists, you know doctors who study this stuff, espouse this, but everyone else who is not a medical professional knows better, yeah right!
  • New Zealand and Australia are doing just fine as are many Asian countries, who did mask up and lock down, and
  • the US, which has the best medical care in the world, has only 5% of the world's population, but has over 20% of the world's death!  Of course, only we report things correctly and everyone else lies, please!

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evenyoubrutus

April 6th, 2021 at 6:56 PM ^

Wait, so because he didn't include California that means that one outlier data point is the only one that counts? 

You are painting this as a black and white issue as if anyone who agrees with your narrative isn't also applying faulty logic. 

You can rationalize and intellectualize and throw data around all you want (lies, damned lies, and statistics) but there's no denying that the US has been on a downward trend since January and Michigan, one of the strictest states by a wide margin, has been going the opposite direction. 

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blue in dc

April 6th, 2021 at 9:08 PM ^

First, the US on a whole is unfortunately not on a downward trajectory at the moment.   As you noted, cases peaked nationwide in early to mid January nationwide.   They hit a low in mid March and then slowly started climbing.  I suspect they won’t climb much as more people get vaccinated, nevertheless, they have climbed since mid March.

In Michigan, cases peaked in November, started falling, saw a small rise in January, fell through mid February and then started rising again.

I realize that the point that you were trying to make is that cases in Michigan are some of the highest in the country, but that is different than it going in the opposite direction of the whole country.

I also didn’t suggest that California was the only state that proved that xtra’s rationale was a little simplistic.   I also pointed out that he was wrong about South Dakota.    Further, noting that the issue isn’t simple is the opposite of calling it black and white.

Covid transmission is affected by a myriad of factors, including population density, public policy, climate, people’s attitudes/actions.   I would actually argue that population density probably has the biggest impact.   If you look at the states most hard hit,  New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, three of the densest states were also the hardest hit.  Vermont, Alaska, Maine, Hawaii and Oregon were the least hardest hit.    To my eye, the real outliers are South Dakota and North Dakota, two states that have the advantage of not being very dense, still got hit pretty hard.

By that metric, Michigan at 18th in population density actually did pretty well being only 21st in deaths per capita.  South Dakota and North Dakota at 46th and 47th in population density but 8th and 13th in deaths per capita, didn’t fair so well.

Whitmer’s policies were far from perfect, but Michigan was also hit by some shitty luck.   They got hit early when our treatments were least effective and we had PPE shortages, they then got hit again late when there was covid fatigue and they got hit with a more contagious variant.

I am still going to go with the vast majority of scientists and just about every major medical system in the country and argue that if people cared more about there fellow human beings and wore masks in public, we would not have had as many deaths as we did (and things probably wouldn’t be trending so poorly in Michigan).


 

 

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chunkums

April 6th, 2021 at 6:36 PM ^

Are we doing this again? You guys did this last spring too. By the summer, El Paso was activating the national guard to load bodies onto semi-trucks, Arizona was a charnel house, and Mississippi was quietly working its way into the top 5 of deaths per 100,000 despite getting their wave after we got much better at treating COVID and preventing deaths. Let's not spike the football at this point. Last year COVID hit the Northeast and Michigan before anyone knew what was coming. This year B.1.1.7 is hitting Michigan first. 

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evenyoubrutus

April 6th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^

Whether or not that was the right move back then is another discussion. Right now about 30% of the population has immunity from either having had the virus or receiving the vaccine, and close to 2M/day are being inoculated nationwide. It doesn't take an epidiomolist to predict that is going to have a huge impact on the spread.

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blue in dc

April 6th, 2021 at 9:15 PM ^

All the more reason to be cautious for just a little while longer.   It is great that you wear a mask when you are in public, would be even better if you suggested to people like xtra that they stop lying about CDC mask recommendations.  BTW - over 3 million people a day are being vaccinated. 

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Sopwith

April 6th, 2021 at 6:37 PM ^

The first problem with the above graphs is that the y axes are different scales. The second is that they're not per capita, typically expressed as cases per 100k population. 

But the bigger issue with overall case counts is that they're hiding the steady rise of the variants in the overall noise. If you take Florida for example, ignore the red on the right, just look at the blue (B.1.1.7) cases below the red. That doesn't mean an explosion is imminent, but it means it's creeping up steadily and there's an increasing risk of a B.1.1.7 blowup if the vaccines don't get there first.

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Carpetbagger

April 6th, 2021 at 6:39 PM ^

I would argue winter/spring seasons have played a factor as well. As much as I agree the lockdown states are getting hit harder for exactly the reasons you say, you can also see a north/south divide of sorts too.

It would be nice if the harder lockdown states had vaccinated more of their Over 65s too.

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jballen4eva

April 6th, 2021 at 6:41 PM ^

One thing Texas did that Illinois didn't: it said "screw it" to the whole vaccine appointment system and opened up first come/first serve vaccination stations throughout the state.  As a result, TX vaccination rates were way higher than those in IL, at least as of a couple of weeks ago. 

 

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ahw1982

April 6th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^

Top 10 states in cases per capita within the past 7 days (per 100k):

1. Michigan (67)

2. New Jersey (48)

3. New York (39)

4. Rhode Island (37

5. Alaska (34)

6. Pennsylvania (34)

7. Connecticut (33)

8. Delaware (32)

9. Massachusetts (31)

10. New Hampshire (29)

 

Bottom 10 states in cases per capita:

50. Arkansas (5)

49. Kansas (7)

48. Alabama (7)

47. California (7)

46. Mississippi (7)

45. Oklahoma (8)

44. Hawaii (8)

43. Wyoming (8)

42. Arizona (9)

41. Louisiana (9)

40. New Mexico (9)

 

Lazy armchair analysis would see a north/south divide, perhaps explained by folks in "cabin fever" susceptible states seeing a rise in cases as people flee their houses as the spring weather warms.  There doesn't seem to be a correlation with vaccination rates either, as Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana are pretty low in doses administered per capita, whereas hotspot states like New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are pretty high in doses administered per capita.  Hard to say whether there's a correlation with relaxing restrictions, as it's difficult to eyeball that kind of variable.

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Harbaugh's Lef…

April 6th, 2021 at 7:42 PM ^

What I'm saying is that over the last 7 days, New York has administered roughly 129k more daily tests than Texas, yet Texas has a higher positivity rate of .3%. New Yorkers, as a whole, are getting tested at far higher rates either because they are sick, think they are sick, making sure they are not sick, or want to be extra cautious than Texans are. 

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