Maine Visitors

[smokey73]

@odaydokay Interesting perspective but I'm not convinced. CT was in the unfortunate geography of being adjacent to NYC where the real "hot spot" bloomed so quickly that it would probably be nearly impossible to contain it without Draconian measures. If I recall, CT tried to implement stopping cars from NY from entering but the Gov NY and the Mayor of NYC blocked that. Pretty drastic but if you had been able to implement that it might have reduced the infection and death rate in CT considerably. We in SC and places like TX are sufficiently distanced from the initial large outbreak. The result of this is, however, that just delays the surge. This thing is going to be around until herd immunity kicks in or we have a vaccine - period! We are not going to eradicate it just like we haven't eradicated the seasonal flu. I suspect that if we didn't have a vaccine for the flu the number of deaths would be on the order or even more than from Covid-19.

Media recently "spouted" that we here in South Carolina are "a hotspot" and implied one should fear being here, condeming our phased opening up, etc. We are number 30 on the list posted by jviss. Comparisons are difficult since there are so many variables but I would argue that we here in South Carolina have done pretty decent job. I was getting ready to post other sources but @jviss beat me to it.

 

[odaydokay]

Yes because we got hit hard and early being close to NYC, but we are seeing very modest new case numbers and hospitalizations now and that is what counts to most.

 

[smokey73]

Yes because we got hit hard and early being close to NYC, but we are seeing very modest new case numbers and hospitalizations now and that is what counts to most.

It certainly does count, but whether those results can be attributed to controls or to nearing herd immunity will probably never be conclusively proved unless we test not only for the active Covid-19 cases but also test a huge sample of people for antibodies to see how many actually had it. I suspect its a combination of both nearing herd immunity and controls.

Somewhere I saw an interesting post of a "computer model spread" of an highy infectious desease with no vaccine. It did not attempt to ascertain death rate, just infections. The results will surprise you. I will try to see if I can find it.

 

[odaydokay]

Sure, would like to see that. Hope things are not too bad in SC as my wife's brother lives there, worked pt at Home-Depot until he saw they were not mandating masks...maybe now they are, not sure, but he has to be careful late 60's with heart issues.

 

[Rick486]

Interesting. CT is number 4 (tied with MA) in death rate among US states,.

U.S. COVID-19 death rate by state | Statista

I have a thought that if one were to dig into the MA and CT data, one would find large numbers of deaths concentrated in aggregated living venues. In RI, last time I checked, over 75% of all coronavirus mortality was in nursing homes, assisted living, and skilled nursing facilities. Among other things this points to a late start in prevention, perhaps extensive underlying conditions, and perhaps other sources. One death is too many but it is really difficult to look at the spread and develop a one size fits all strategy on ways to control the spread, while not destroying the country in the process.