I’m looking at the COVID death stats and I realized something that shocked me. At 259 deaths, Michigan has more than all other B1G states (except NJ) combined (233)
March 31st, 2020 at 11:29 PM ^
Because of a place called Detroit Wayne County Metropolitan Airport (DTW for short) a rare airport in the Midwest that offers nonstop flights to China.
March 31st, 2020 at 11:37 PM ^
/thread
March 31st, 2020 at 11:47 PM ^
Thanks. I didn’t know that. It is helpful in the context of the Midwest. Doesn’t address why it looks worse than Washington or California.
I’m not an expert so I will refrain from guessing. I’ll just say when this is all said and done I hope we can get definitive analysis highlighting what worked and what didn’t. I haven’t been impressed with Michigan’s response at all.
March 31st, 2020 at 11:54 PM ^
The governor declared a state of emergency as soon as we got our first confirmed case and Michigan was fairly early to shut down. I don’t love Whitmer but I’m not sure what else she could have done.
Our problem was that the virus came here early and spread before we could test for it. Cases blew up as soon as we started testing, in March. We’re now later on our curve than the rest of the Midwest, which is why we have more deaths.
Washington and California were able to confirm cases in February when we couldn’t, so they could take action sooner. If I’m not mistaken, that was due to private labs conducting their own tests.
Like I said, I don’t think anyone has a definitive view yet. And it’s too early to do so. I’m just going off of what I’ve read and seen from her. I don’t live in Michigan anymore - actually I’m in Washington - so I don’t see much of Michigan politicians. I’ve just been unimpressed.
Why are you unimpressed? Because she and Trump got in an argument?
However you think of her as a person, her hands were definitely tied by the fact that we couldn’t test in February because we had no tests to give.
Snarling, the Michigan governor is doing a good job now but based on the details she was late to issue the level of shelter in place that’s needed to stem the tide of growth with this virus.
Edit:
Lets deal with facts
The bay area issued a shelter in place and closure of all essential services on the 16 of March. San Francisco was a day or two earlier. LA was a day or two later. The state was on the 19th.
Michigan was on the 24th
Pennsylvania was on the 23rd
Illinois was on the 21st
NY was the 22nd
Further, based on folks I know in Michigan, the Michigan order was not really followed well at the start
Most important, every 2-3 days delay can mean a doubling of cases and deaths. We are seeing the results.
Quick comment: 4G's posting history suggests s/he is not in the COVID-19 denier group (DBM et al.). Speaking of which, where's Western_? I need to hear more about IV Vitamin C.
He's still around, but as WesternWolverine96. He's posting in other threads to build up goodwill in hopes that people don't recognize the similar name and same avatar. Don't be fooled, though, it's that same conspiracy peddler who was banned like four times before it finally stuck.
I know I shouldnt engage the two Qanon believers on the board, but I really want to know what year Hotroute06 graduated from Michigan, what his degree was in, and what he now does for a living.
GILF
Not true. MI had private labs able to test with their own LDTs (lab developed tests) long before the high volume testing was launched. Not saying testing was not an issue...but we were pretty similar to those states in testing at the outset of all this. More issues to consider than testing alone.
Testing, or lack thereof, is huge and remains a major problem in the US. Labs in Michigan actually developed their own test long before it became obvious that what the CDC had done was not working? Interesting, because it seems that it took awhile for tests to be developed by various institutions around the country and that didn't happen overnight.
Abbott Labs, which has a huge nationwide presence with a platform it uses, just announced a new test that could add 50,000 tests per day with results in less than 15 minutes. Here's a link to the press announcement:
M
March 31st, 2020 at 11:55 PM ^
Been to a store lately? People still aren't taking this seriously.
We should have been preparing for this at the national level since January. Maybe if we were testing people 2 months ago we would have taken more drastic actions before this thing started spreading like wildfire.
I just recently drove from Ann Arbor to Warren. I absolutely despise making that drive in normal circumstances. This time? A total breeze. I’ve never seen such light traffic on 275 and 696.
If people are acting like idiots at the grocery store that sucks, but there is absolutely a lot of social distancing going on.
I feel its a mixed bag. I def am seeing people at the stores just browsing around looking for stuff that sure doesn't look essential. Parks have people being careless, and with anecdotal evidence that the virsus can be airborne I'm not sure running or jogging is a great idea or being around those people even outside.
I'd also feel more comfortable if more people wore masks and I don't understand why employees of these businesses aren't already.
This weekend will be interesting. First really warm weather and a population mostly cooped up for 2 weeks. Recipe for disaster I think.
It's a mixed bag for sure, and much better today than it was a week ago. But there are still far too many people not taking it seriously. My inlaws are still shopping almost daily, and are still planning on hosting Easter dinner. We're not going, whether my wife like it or not.
They think that malaria drug they heard about will cure them if they get it.
And the checkout clerk at Aldi today didn't look too well. And she wasn't wearing a mask or gloves.
My wife works at a specialty pharmacy and they have caught prescribers and patients attempting to hoard drugs.
On the Aldi clerk: Stating the obvious, but I've told my older relatives that cashiers are the biggest threats to their lives.
We had some really good days outside last week and ppl for the most part stayed inside.
Do enough gloves exist for 'essential' employees to wear them all day long? I mean, do enough gloves exist for medical teams to throw them out after each patient? There may not be the shortage of gloves that we're experiencing with masks, but the problem remains the same - more demand than supply.
I'm not not wearing gloves when I go out, but the Clorox wipes in my car do just as well...
there's no point in wearing the same gloves all day. The point of gloves is to stop point to point transmission. So you wear gloves in the store then throw them out as you leave the store.
In a hospital setting, you wear them in a room with patient A, throw them out and get a new pair as you to meet with patient B.
People are better off washing their hands when they enter/exit each place they go to.
I still have a couple tubs of the cdiff wipes I got off amazon. Those things will make it so your unable to be fingerprinted.
Yeah, I made it from north of Denver to the Tech Center (27 miles) in 30 minutes. With all the people moving to Colorado that has easily become an hour to hour and a half drive.
But while I-25 is empty, the biking and hiking trails are fucking packed.
So nobody is going to work but to Hatter's point, there is a lot of behavior out there which could be improved.
If someone beats the shit out of a hoarder, is it still a crime? I mean public good and all.
Hatter, spot on: Meijer/Kroger/Walmart are absolute shitshows.
No common sense, a thousand touch points, infections gonna keep going up from the grocery stores.
Only Costco and Home Depot implementing serious crowd level controls. Depot in Okemos letting 50 customers at a time with door entry/exit monitors
Honestly, alot of stupidity going on out there.
Wouldn't go into gas stations/ party stores in Macomb & Wayne county, watch the keep it going behavior and you'll take a hard pass.
The Trader Joe’s by me is allowing only 25 in at a time and enforces distancing in that line. The problem is that no one follows the distancing inside.
i went to whole food yesterday and the people were general patient and distancing. I ended up buying something I didn’t want because I picked it up to look at the label. That may be going to far but I’m not sure it is.
My local Target seems serious about it. They have a person cleaning/sanitizing carts that are returned, and are enforcing distancing in each checkout line. They are also wiping down the checkout counter and keypad after every shopper leaves. Not sure what they can do about the idiots that sidle right up to you while shopping, though...
I'm over her in Spain with my Italian girlfriend. Been interesting and sad to watch the progression. Generally, Spain is 1-2 weeks behind Italy in restrictions, and the US has been 1-2 weeks behind Spain.
In Italy, major grocery stores are allowing 5 people in at a time at the moment. Spain has gotten better at limiting entry but is not as severe as Italy yet. Looking at these comments where 'serious crowd control' = 50 people shows that Americans continue to be behind the learning curve.
Another example is all of the posts I see of people going for jogs/bike rides, talking with friends 'but it's all good because we're at a 6ft distance.'
Generally the tougher restrictions come as governments realize the lesser restrictions don't work, so I assume they'll ramp up in hard hit places in the US just as they did over here. A shame that we can't learn from the mistakes of other places though.
How are you able to confirm this unless you were in the store along with the rest of the people not taking it seriously?
As I understood it, the complaint was against the stores not the people. Going to a store doesn't mean you aren't taking it seriously. The stores should be restricting the number of people allowed inside at any given time, creating lines outside. The people who need to be at the store to get things they need are not primary problem, the store is.
the first known death in the US reported by the CDC was on Feb 29 at the nursing home in washington. on Feb 15 the CDC reported only 15 known cases in the US and they did tracking on them and quarantined 600 (iirc) people.
yet, you think testing should have been done in Jan? that's some 20-20 hindsight there.
Maybe a typo here as your dates are self contradicting. In any event, I believe Jan. 20th was the first known case.
Edit: I see you now the date was 'first death.'
i believe 3 deaths were in that nursing home on that day
Pretty circular argument. The inly reason there were inly 15 known US cases was because more testing wasn’t being done.
Testing criteria were not expanded to include people beyond US until Feb 28. Academic institutions were not allowed to develop their own testing until February 29
Even though the United States had cases in the single digits in late January, some public health officials were increasingly worried. Luciana Borio, the former head of medical and biodefense preparedness at the National Security Council, and Scott Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from May 2017 to April 2019, wrote a prescient op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, warning that if the virus is widespread, “the CDC will struggle to keep up with the volume of screening. Government should focus on working with private industry to develop easy-to-use, rapid diagnostic tests that can be made available to providers.” Borio “told NPR on Jan. 30: “The most important and effective way to control epidemics is to identify patients who are infected, exposed to the virus, and isolate them.”
There were smart people sounding the alarm to test more at least as early as late January.
Testing is more important now than ever but I don't know how you ramp up testing on a new drug from 0 to 3,000,000 quickly enough to avoid what we have going on now. It's a novel virus, I don't think we could have even bought enough tests given worldwide testing levels.
The only thing we could have down was shutdown all flights in and out of the country in January but I think people would have crushed the person making that initial call.
You ramp up testing, by actually letting people test. It’s not rocket science
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-new-york-city-asked-cdc-tests-early-outbreak/5068743002/
Michigan's response has been nearly in lockstep with the Republican Governor of Ohio.
We simply have a more vulnerable population in Detroit.
Ohio’s got its share of very poor cities too though - Cleveland, Youngstown, etc. And Flint and Saginaw are basically miniature Detroits, but they don’t have huge outbreaks.
The airport argument makes sense to me. That’s what really separates Detroit from these others.
they don't have huge outbreaks yet. Unfortunately.
They might. But they’re in a more advantageous position now, with testing becoming more available. Detroit was really in trouble by having such an early outbreak that couldn’t be detected at the time. (And if some people aren’t social distancing now, a month ago no one even knew what social distancing was.)
the CDC didn't start pushing the social distancing until March 9, except for CA, WA and NY. go to cdc.gov. i learned a lot about the progression of the virus and actions taken by the CDC in real time; without all of the bullshit spin by cnn, msnbc and fox.
i specifically listened to the national briefings by the CDC director of immunization and respiratory diseases.
This is just speculation, and it doesn’t explain the other states, but Michigan had a primary election on March 10, right before things started locking down.
Doesn’t explain everything. Other states with primaries that day have not had the same effects. But, perhaps, combine that with the international travel, and there’s something there.
Deaths right now will mostly be from people infected prior to or at the time of lockdown. It was widespread well before people were aware it was in the state. Why Metro Detroit and not, say, Chicago? We can only speculate.
I live in Michigan but work in Ohio. The one thing that Ohio did, that I griped about then but am thankful for now, is limit or eliminate all together attendance at sporting events. "The Arnold" in Columbus was severely limited and I know that the last Toledo Walleye game played had a total attendance of about 20. IIRC, Detroit sporting events were still going about "business as usual" during that time. Public events would have exponentially increased the infection numbers in Ohio at the beginning of all of this.
Michigan has the airport and a large uninsured and poor population with a high rate of co-morbidities. And if Michigan is blowing up, you better believe Ohio is a week behind. Both governors have been real leaders during this crisis. Don’t really think there is anymore you can do with such a lackluster and rudderless federal response.
Looks at the situation in the most blue states. Any clues?
In general, blue states tend to have higher population densities, which makes it easier for the virus to spread and harder to avoid other people. However, they’re also more likely to have a state government that has taken this seriously (if sometimes belatedly).
I am frankly concerned about some of the red states like Alabama where the state government has not taken this seriously.
Idiot. You think this is a red vs a blue issue? You fail to understand how variables such as population density, integration with the global economy, diversity, and overall population interaction could lead to this issue. Can’t do anything with that level of idiocy
March 31st, 2020 at 11:59 PM ^
Illinois has 99 deaths and a fairly prominent airport as well.
Plus, Illinois has trains and mass transit in a way that Michigan doesn’t.
Most likely they got the virus later than we did. How good or bad the L train is irrelevant.
How/why did it get here? An infected person flew here from China.
Or Italy.