While not proof, I can add some details to both of Wookie's points that support what he's saying:
- LA county has always been the worst part of CA, they've pretty consistently had like half the cases+deaths despite only having a quarter of the state's population
- Despite this, LA county's reopening guidelines inexplicably allowed indoor dining (with precautions) to start again at the beginning of June; in contrast, the Bay Area was just starting to allow *outdoor* dining again around that same time

Depends on how you look at it wrt worst county. Think imperial is worse on a per capita basis... or at least was.

California is a tough nut to crack as to what went wrong. I don't think it's plainly obvious like it is in Arizona, Florida, Texas, etc. They'll at least change though instead of letting bodies pile up unlike those other states though. I'm not buying indoor dining as a clear cut cause, although it could be.

I live here.

It could be so many different reasons. I don’t know how you could pinpoint indoor dining as a major culprit from us going from doing well to concerning so quickly.

Let’s start with all the other potential causes:
-Protests! Daily! Hundreds of thousands of people in close proximity
-Indian casinos that do what they want
-People not wearing masks
-Beaches
-Every single little town making their own rules. Glendale, Pasadena, etc. Separated by a street.
-Every other business re-opening. Under their own rules.
-Other states having higher numbers
-5,000 other reasons

What part did indoor dining play? Is there any study?

This closing, opening, closing, seems capricious. Decisions made without any basis in fact.

This, plus the story about spending at indoor dining being the #1 predictor of major outbreaks that was examined.

One other compelling hypothesis as to why LA is that it's a fair bit hotter there than in the Bay, so people are more likely to be inside, where there's AC, than outside, so that exacerbates things when people throw caution to the wind.

We need data, not hypothesis and stories. Not blaming you. It’s the nature of the beast with everyone. Nobody definitively knows. My issues are decisions are made on conjecture.

California, like many places, had stages or phases to complete before re-opening. Every phase was met with impatient counties asking for permission to open ahead of schedule. And it was as if there was no phase 2 or phase 3 in the first damn place when everyone started opening early.

Huh, let's see if Kelhus's post has any basis in reality.

County A:


White[28]
52.4% Black or African American[28]
8.6% American Indian or Alaska Native[28]
0.5% Asian[28]
13.8% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander[28]
0.3% Some other race[28]
21.1% Two or more races[28]
3.4% Hispanic or Latino (of any race)[29]
47.5%





County B:


White[15]
46.2% Asian[15]
26.2% Hispanic or Latino (of any race)[16]
22.2% Black or African American[15]
12.5% Some other race[15]
8.8% Two or more races[15]
5.0% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander[15]
0.8% American Indian or Alaska Native[15]
0.5%







County B appears to be a fair bit blacker than A, although admittedly less Hispanic but also less white.

Science isn't fast. It's incredibly slow compared to the rate of disease spread, and there's no way to change that. The only reasonable thing to do is exercise an abundance of caution while you wait for the data and the analyses to roll in. And there will be both conflicting and bad analyses. That's also unavoidable.
Finally, compelling hypotheses is how science gets done.

NY currently has a 14 day rolling avg of 12.8 deaths per day. Down from a high of 723. So NY is in fact doing exceptionally well after getting crushed.

Texas has a 14 day rolling average of 32.5 deaths per day. Approaching its all time high of 34.0

Your point of Texas having 90 deaths/million and NY having 1600 (I have it at 1280 but either way) is very significant. I agree that this is overlooked by the media.

And even though Texas is going in the wrong direction right now and is approaching all time highs, even if it averaged 50 deaths a day for the next six months it would only hit about 300 deaths/million. And yet that would be 9,000 deaths. That saddens me.

But I think what has everybody stunned in the media is that Texas has had a three month warning. And has still pretended that it is not facing a pandemic.

What the media loves about NY is that its Governor has been straightforward with his people about what is going on and why he is doing what he is doing. That and his CNN interviews with his brother where Chris tortures him on air. I even heard him admit that he felt terrible about not shutting down NY sooner. I haven't heard him say anything about his catastrophic mistake of sending Covid patients back to their nursing homes from the hospital but sadly those were the federal recommendations at the time.

I was surprised to see the Texas governor stand up and take action on behalf of his citizens' health. Especially the part where he was wearing a mask and encouraging everybody to wear masks when they were not able to socially distance. He seemed to care and want to get everybody to work together. I hope he continues in this vein to help save lives.

What I am disappointed in the left leaning media (like CNN and MSNBC) is their focus on the record number of cases rather than on the death rates, hospitalization rates and positive test rates (though to be fair recently MSNBC has been mentioning the positive test rates). I prefer when they are putting out a message about how people at risk can help themselves and would love to see perhaps how states like NY could help states like Texas (from citizens to the state government). I remember a time when NY was in trouble and Cuomo asked other states for help and said that when NY had gotten better we would in turn help those states that needed us.

Well, you are addressing a deleted post, so can't help you much.

Michael Moore is obese because of Republicans?

You’re right. Which makes depending on a vaccine risky.

There are so many variables at play. It could be people that choose to be one of the first to partake in indoor dining also engage in risky behavior in other parts of their life. I am sure there is an extremely high correlation.

We have thousands of unelected officials making all different types of decisions.

Here is an analogy.

We are on a ship that is sinking. There are 50 separate cabins and each person under the captain (Governors) is in charge of making sure their room doesn’t sink. The Captain (Trump) of the ship provides moral support from time to time.

This has been going on for months. No end in site. Threats from politicians that they will take stuff away again.

Nothing is really working. Well, only choice is mask and social distancing and waiting for a vaccine. We should be focusing the majority of our effort on it. Our only out.

It baffles me that restaurants are the ones to blame and no one wants to acknowledge the most obvious reason which was massive protests, failure to wear masks. Hey the protests were great but they could be the root cause of cases skyrocketing in some areas that seemed to have a grip on things

The early science says it does not spread as easy in sunlight. So beaches may not be as high

When these people test positive do they not get any history on were they have been (tracing) In our province that is key to our success.

There were protests everywhere, including Canada, and there are not the equivalent spikes as a result, so kind of hard to see that being the driving force, even if people want it to be for political reasons.

Also seems that spikes are happening in states that fully re-opened earlier, including indoor dining and bars and large gatherings in general, and particularly around the various US holidays.

Mask wearing has to be a factor as well, so the US with its really weird politicization of it has to have had an impact.

I mean if there is another spike in a week or two, will that be because of BLM rallies 5-6 weeks earlier? Starts feeling a bit like the its Obama's fault for 9/11 reasoning.

There’s multiple posts on this page from people acknowledging the protests probably helped spread it. It is the first reason on a pretty solid golfnutt post just awhile ago. The fact is, from what I can tell anyways, there isn’t anything definitive or credible on apportioning the cause of the increases out among various factors.

What is your ranking or percentage of reasons for spread in California?

Would it be different in other states?

What are you basing it on, besides “common sense”?

Hmmmm

1. People at bars and restaurants gathering in large groups indoors withOUT masks.

Or

2. People protesting outdoors with masks.

Every single bar/restaurant in my southern California area was packed when they re-opened. What is often getting lost is that these bars were packed with people. And one of the reasons they were packed is because not ever place was open, therefore the ones that were open were full. And the weather has been awesome even at night. And the bars/restaurants were packed from about 10am to 10pm. That is 12 hours of poorly recirculated air.

My observations are only anecdotal, but virtually ever protestor I saw was in a mask. And this type of protesting is nothing new. Go back years before covid and you will see protestors around the world mostly covering their face for privacy reasons.

Kansas GOP official & newspaper owner apologizes for making & running a cartoon comparing state mask order to the Holocaust

Smudger, your thoughts on this gross trivialization?

If his past behaviour is any indication, I'd imagine his thoughts are that you're the real antisemite for bringing it up.

Another problem with the protests beside spreading the virus themselves, is that it undermines cities and states rules on changing behavior during covid. How does a city remain credible and say gatherings must be less than 50 people when there are mobs of hundreds gathering in the streets to protest?

I didn't see the cartoon, but if it is exactly as described, truly disgusting. I am glad he apologized and realized the ignorance of the comparison.

If we can get Hicks on Two Plus Two, I would be more than happy to provide a history lesson and explain how such comparisons cause damage.

I have a question for people here who think that protesters are the sudden cause for positive cases going up in certain states but not others? I'm from NY and have heard and seen protests for weeks now but our numbers haven't suddenly spiked. It also seems as things have opened up since mid May that from my casual observation of looking at the positive covid numbers that hasn't caused any sudden spikes.

I think it is great that you keeps posting your chosen data, and you will do that until the data is not that good to post for your agenda. You still have not answered what your plan would be for states that have exploding number of cases. Open it all up? Close some or all of it down? Kick the virus in its testicles? What is it? Is the only statistic that matters how many people die from it? Just curious, as rumors are some of the people who do not die from it are sick for a very long time, but perhaps they do not count, kind of how people 75+ did not count for that eugenics guy that was here before he was banned.


That is something Trump tries to bring up at his various events and rallies, especially the indoor ones. How is that Cain guy doing again?

It is always a topic to be laughed at as well in the states that opened early with bars and nightclubs jammed every night, except the people need to scream it over the music. Fun!

Anyways, I thought you guys were going to start blaming "geography" more - perhaps that one did not take off? No worries, you can blame BLM for years, and also add in other non Trump things as well as needed. Talk about it in a bar in Florida with granny, that will own those meddling libs, while keeping statues safe.

All the best.

Florida ordering schools to open this fall.