Wow, it’s getting really scary in Texas - and everywhere else!

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Kinda makes sense that the best places to live have a lot of people living there. I expect Illinois population to continue to fall.
 
audreyh1 said:
Really gruesome news keeps coming out of the Rio Grande Valley situation.

There is now a 2 week wait list on crematoriums, so Hidalgo county now has 5 refrigerator trucks to store bodies that can hold 50 bodies each.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/...exas-sets-one-day-record-for-covid-19-deaths/

The poor hospital in neighboring Starr county. I think the Navy sent some nurses and doctors. But they are completely out of room for patients and aren’t able to send more to neighboring counties. Their 8 bed COVID unit now holds 28 people. They are running out of oxygen. So they are now setting up triage and deciding whom to admit based on survival criteria and whom to send back home. Yes, this is a very poor county with limited resources.
https://www.wwlp.com/news/health/co...s-county-hospital-takes-in-covid-19-patients/
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I just read up on your county and wiki says it has 775K people as of 2010 the biggest city has around 150K.

Massive ag county can't imagine how many people get fed from the work that goes on here. Population around 90% ..latino/hispanic.

Is there a double whammy going on there from lots of people working and living in tight quarters and the info that some groups suffer the serious effects of COVID disproportionately then others. Seems like that might be the case. Another huge puzzle in the mystery of COVID.

Wiki states it's per capita income is one of the lowest in the nation. COVID is bringing to the surface a lot other ongoing and serious issues we have going on in this country.
 
There are lots of reasons the Rio Grande Valley is so hard hit, and poverty level and 90% Hispanic cover most of them:
  • Economic - many have to work at jobs that routinely expose them.
  • They tend to live in extended family groups, and I’m sure living situations are more crowded.
  • They also socialize in extended family groups.
  • Hispanic populations have higher incidence of diabetes, obesity and asthma, so co-morbidities are definitely a factor.
Agriculture, mostly citrus - I don’t think that’s the major employment industry any more. There has been a lot of economic growth due to NAFTA and border commerce in general. Economy seems pretty diverse.

I think the McAllen-Mission-Edinburg-Pharr metro area alone can account for over 774K population. Those cities have all grown together. And there are numerous other small cities in Hidalgo county.
The McAllen–Edinburg–Mission Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of one county – Hidalgo – in the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas, anchored by the cities of McAllen, Edinburg, Pharr and Mission. It is ranked the fifth most populated metropolitan area in the state of Texas.
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Hidalgo county population in 2019 was 868,707. It’s been one of the fastest growing areas in the state.
 
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audreyh1 said:
There are lots of reasons the Rio Grande Valley is so hard hit, and poverty level and 90% Hispanic cover most of them:
  • Economic - many have to work at jobs that routinely expose them.
  • They tend to live in extended family groups, and I’m sure living situations are more crowded.
  • They also socialize in extended family groups.
  • Hispanic populations have higher incidence of diabetes, obesity and asthma, so co-morbidities are definitely a factor.
Agriculture, mostly citrus - I don’t think that’s the major employment industry any more. There has been a lot of economic growth due to NAFTA and border commerce in general. Economy seems pretty diverse.

I think the McAllen-Mission-Edinburg-Pharr metro area alone can account for over 774K population. Those cities have all grown together. And there are numerous other small cities in Hidalgo county.


Hidalgo county population in 2019 was 868,707. It’s been one of the fastest growing areas in the state.
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And really fast growth can mean the hospitals and health care providers can't keep up with the expanding situation. In our meat packing areas in S MN many of the workers are bussed in together by bus and van. It's a benefit they offer to some that live farther away from work. But that is a potential COVID breeding ground. We had explosive COVID outbreaks in at least 3 plants.

A lot of us here have the option of hanging tight at home, we need to do better for the people that don't have the option to ride things out. I hope we don't forget some of the hard learned lessons of COVID 19..
 
MichaelB said:
Well, the website rt.live shows the R-naught number for both Florida and Texas has fallen below 1.0. This is encouraging. https://rt.live/?fbclid=IwAR0hQymjJc9DFqZIK7d0VQUJmKvQ090mHIgyuI3gbIu9O42CzT5l4KE_Li8
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That is indeed tremendously encouraging!

Although I see it had already dropped below 1 early in July, before the universal m* mandate on July 3, so perhaps closing the bars and reducing the indoor dining reduced spread.

I hope it continues to drop, because 0.99 is awfully close to 1!
 
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California has 3 of the top 10 cities (LA(2), San Diego (8), and San Jose (10). With LA almost double Houston.

I read that 40% of the California cases are in LA county (which is much larger than the city at over 10 million vs 4 million in the city). California is tracking by county.
 
The correlation between the reproduction rate and the positivity rate is not clear to me. The Rt rate for NY and NJ is 1.03 but their test positive rate is among the lowest in the country at 1.1% and 1.4% respectively.
 
rodi said:
California has 3 of the top 10 cities (LA(2), San Diego (8), and San Jose (10). With LA almost double Houston.

I read that 40% of the California cases are in LA county (which is much larger than the city at over 10 million vs 4 million in the city). California is tracking by county.
Click to expand...

Isn’t Orange County, which is near LA, right?, also having a terrible time?
 
Corporateburnout said:
The correlation between the reproduction rate and the positivity rate is not clear to me. The Rt rate for NY and NJ is 1.03 but their test positive rate is among the lowest in the country at 1.1% and 1.4% respectively.
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Interesting point.
 
Corporateburnout said:
The correlation between the reproduction rate and the positivity rate is not clear to me. The Rt rate for NY and NJ is 1.03 but their test positive rate is among the lowest in the country at 1.1% and 1.4% respectively.
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The positivity rate is determined by the amount of testing done. It’s not related to R0. If it is very low, like near 1%, it indicates that adequate testing is being done to track the spread. If it is high, as it is in major US outbreak areas right now, it indicates that testing is way behind and not nearly enough to track the spread or manage the virus through contact tracing. Unfortunately areas with high positivity = insufficient testing are also now dealing with huge backlogs/delays which also makes contact tracing impossible. You really need results in 24 hours in order to notify those exposed so they can self-isolate and get tested. The WHO has recommended a positivity rate of no more than 5% to facilitate contact tracing.
 
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This screenshot surprised me. I thought California was the worst! Screenshot_20200724-143651_Chrome.jpeg
 
gayl said:
This screenshot surprised me. I thought California was the worst!
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This is per 100,000. CA is the biggest state so it has the biggest total. The per 100K measure better reflects severity.
 
audreyh1 said:
Not quite sure what you’re trying to get at, but 197 daily deaths sustained probably makes COVID-19 the leading cause of death at the moment in TX.

I just have a link to CDC data from 2017 and earlier. Dying of old age/natural causes is not in the top 10.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/texas/texas.htm
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Agreed that COVID is likely the leading cause of death in some areas currently. Listing 'old age', 'advanced age', 'natural causes', 'senescence' or the like on a Death Certificate is strongly discouraged as it is not really useful in compiling stats and the person's age is listed on the Death Certificate so the information is already there.
 
They treated COVID-19 in early hot spots. Here's what these nurses are seeing

Seven nurses told The Arizona Republic what it was like inside hospitals in early hot spots in New York and New Jersey, and what it’s like in Arizona hospitals now.

For these nurses, the situation here certainly isn’t easy, but the situation isn't at the levels they saw in East Coast hospitals earlier in the pandemic.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...-nations-hot-spots-absorbing-pain/5445722002/

Treating COVID-19 patients takes round-the-clock, intensive nursing care, they said, and battling a new disease continues to confound. Patients will go from fine one minute to tanking the next.

These nurses are dealing with the trauma they’ve seen for months as they continue to work long hours with little chance to reflect on what they’ve endured. They have gotten sick themselves, or seen their colleagues catch the virus.

“We’ve got people that are in their 20s, people that you would not expect to have an issue overcoming a basic virus. The reality is, this is not your basic virus.”

And she thinks this is just the beginning.

“I'm not looking forward to the next few months, that's for sure. I don't know how we're going to get through it.”
 
audreyh1 said:
But with cases still growing in the active states, and other states with early outbreaks now under control (so far), the order will likely change.
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Hopefully Hanna will just blow the virus out of the valley... Probably not so stay safe!
 
audreyh1 said:
Not quite sure what you’re trying to get at, but 197 daily deaths sustained probably makes COVID-19 the leading cause of death at the moment in TX.

I just have a link to CDC data from 2017 and earlier. Dying of old age/natural causes is not in the top 10.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/texas/texas.htm
Click to expand...

Isn't heart disease, stroke, etc. at an older age somewhat of a natural cause?

I am not trying to make light of COVID but I don't think the death rate posted is some sort of end of the world, bring out your dead type rate if compared with the huge population (30 million) and normal death rate per day (over 400 at least) in an average year.
 
candrew said:
Seven nurses told The Arizona Republic what it was like inside hospitals in early hot spots in New York and New Jersey, and what it’s like in Arizona hospitals now.

For these nurses, the situation here certainly isn’t easy, but the situation isn't at the levels they saw in East Coast hospitals earlier in the pandemic.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...-nations-hot-spots-absorbing-pain/5445722002/

Treating COVID-19 patients takes round-the-clock, intensive nursing care, they said, and battling a new disease continues to confound. Patients will go from fine one minute to tanking the next.

These nurses are dealing with the trauma they’ve seen for months as they continue to work long hours with little chance to reflect on what they’ve endured. They have gotten sick themselves, or seen their colleagues catch the virus.

“We’ve got people that are in their 20s, people that you would not expect to have an issue overcoming a basic virus. The reality is, this is not your basic virus.”

And she thinks this is just the beginning.

“I'm not looking forward to the next few months, that's for sure. I don't know how we're going to get through it.”
Click to expand...

The link to the article says it is only available to subscribers. I would have liked to read the whole article but appreciated your summary & the quotes you provided.
 
Fermion said:
Isn't heart disease, stroke, etc. at an older age somewhat of a natural cause?

I am not trying to make light of COVID but I don't think the death rate posted is some sort of end of the world, bring out your dead type rate if compared with the huge population (30 million) and normal death rate per day (over 400 at least) in an average year.
Click to expand...
I really don’t want to get into the excess deaths discussion here, but there is a good article about it in the New York Times, and you’ll see that Covid has not been a small blip. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-death-toll-total.html

Also JAMA https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2767980
 
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Coworker just got out of the hospital for it. Did a big write up. Said only at risk activity was going into grocery store because they needed specific items they worried they wouldn’t get through curbside. Wore a mask.

Said the scariest part was how hard it was to breath. Reasonably healthy 50yo.
Said second scariest part was lack of hospital staff. They had minimal interaction with staff while struggling for their life. Were checked on 1-2x per day by staff (almost never a doctor, sometimes a nurse, usually just a worker).

But several vocal people in my neighborhood are still complaining that their ‘freedom is being taken away’ by us not opening the communities/socialist pool.

Someone compared it: ‘a cancer patient doesn’t go to a football game and expect everyone else to wear a mask - they stay home. If you’re scared stay home’

I guess if:
cancer patient = being risk adverse
Optional Football = required to work to feed your family?

Even if the majority of people do the right thing, there are 5-10% (based on neighborhoods Facebook group) who want to go fast until they go down in flames.
 
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