Apple closing 14 more retail locations in Florida due to COVID-19 spike

 Makes sense. The state re-opened too early, and the governor gave people the impression that it was fine to ignore masks and social distancing (until this week), so as not to inconvenience the tourists. Florida had another day of more than 5,000 new cases today, so this government incompetence (they fired the lead scientist tracking cases because they didn't like her numbers) and the resulting deaths and trauma among the survivors are entirely on the governor's head. They were warned and, like a number of other states, they ignored science. Thousands of people will suffer horribly or die gasping for air as a result. I'm glad Apple refuses to be a part of the "happy talk," and is protecting its employees and customers.

chasm said:

 Makes sense. The state re-opened too early, and the governor gave people the impression that it was fine to ignore masks and social distancing (until this week), so as not to inconvenience the tourists. Florida had another day of more than 5,000 new cases today, so this government incompetence (they fired the lead scientist tracking cases because they didn't like her numbers) and the resulting deaths and trauma among the survivors are entirely on the governor's head. They were warned and, like a number of other states, they ignored science. Thousands of people will suffer horribly or die gasping for air as a result. I'm glad Apple refuses to be a part of the "happy talk," and is protecting its employees and customers.

This is interesting stuff. Looks like you are a science guy and have the facts to speak intelligently on this subject. Can you please help to put a little context to the reported numbers because no one seems to be able to do that;

• How many new cases resulted in hospitalizations?
• How many new cases resulted in ICU?
• How many new cases resulted in deaths?
• How many of the new cases were simply asymptomatic?
• What have the virus test rates been over the last several weeks? Are they going up or down?
• Are the positive test results going up or down?
• What have the antibody test rates been over the last several weeks? Are they going up or down?
• Are the positive antibody test realists going up or down?

Some opinion questions from one science guy to another;

• Why do you think Florida suddenly has an increase in the beginning of summer when the flu doesn't typically survive in that climate?
• Why do you think the virus spread so much in an area where people trend to keep to themselves for the most part and didn't have mass gatherings?
• Why do you think we haven't had the same outbreaks in more northern climates, especially when tens of thousands of protestors marched without gear, yelling, running around, attacking other people, attacking personal property, attacking public property?

razorpit said:

• How many new cases resulted in hospitalizations?
• How many new cases resulted in ICU?
• How many new cases resulted in deaths?
• How many of the new cases were simply asymptomatic?
• What have the virus test rates been over the last several weeks? Are they going up or down?
• Are the positive test results going up or down?
• What have the antibody test rates been over the last several weeks? Are they going up or down?
• Are the positive antibody test realists going up or down?

1. I believe 100 percent of cases reported by the Florida DOH are hospitalizations, since they have said that’s all they are counting (though they do include non-residents who are hospitalized in Florida). Most people who test positive will report to a hospital immediately on their own, since you don’t get tested in Florida unless you are displaying symptoms associated with the virus.
2. You should probably do a little more research on how COVID-19 works, but without specific data I can only say that any new positive tests are isolated IMMEDIATELY, and the place where that happens in most hospitals is the ICU ward. Patients with light symptoms are usually isolated at home in order to avoid overloading the hospitals.
3. Again, if you had done any research on COVID-19 you would know that it is a progressive disease that infects and destroys organs, especially the lungs. This takes time and is agonizing to both watch and suffer from. So “new” as in “newly discovered” cases tend not to immediately die unless the discovery of their illness was also the discovery of their death.
4. See the answer to question 2. The majority of tests (barring certain institutions like prisons, nursing homes, or the governor’s mansion) are given to people who have some symptoms or reason to believe they have been exposed. There is no random testing in Florida that I’m aware of outside of the aforementioned institutions.
5. See also answer #2. Virus testing started going up as people got sick following the re-opening of the state in mid-May. Since then, overall testing is up. The seven-day average number of people tested in Florida now is very close to 30,000 per day (0.14 percent of the population). Sadly, the positive test rate over the last week is 9.6 percent. To specifically answer your question, since mid-May testing rates have fluctuated but the average has only ticked up very slightly across the last six weeks.
6. Positive results have been correlated roughly with the slight uptick in testing — a month ago, the average was around 20K tests with an average of 5-7 percent positive, Now we’re up to 30K tests average, and the positive rate has grown accordingly.
7. Antibody test rates are not reported in the Florida DOH stats, sorry.

razorpit said:

Some opinion questions from one science guy to another;

• Why do you think Florida suddenly has an increase in the beginning of summer when the flu doesn't typically survive in that climate?
• Why do you think the virus spread so much in an area where people trend to keep to themselves for the most part and didn't have mass gatherings?
• Why do you think we haven't had the same outbreaks in more northern climates, especially when tens of thousands of protestors marched without gear, yelling, running around, attacking other people, attacking personal property, attacking public property?

A. Well, a) this isn’t a flu and b) as already stated, re-opening mass gathering places is of course going to lead to more infection.
B. Have you ... BEEN to Florida? I’m not sure where you’re talking about, but that ain’t Florida. It’s a very crowded state and on nice weekends (which is almost every weekend), crowds are found in abundance on beaches, at concerts, in parks, sports stadiums, airports, cruise ships, Disneyworld ... the list literally goes on and on.
C. See also answer A, but clearly temperature doesn’t affect COVID-19 as it does some other viruses. Nine of the states with the most new cases yesterday were southern states (Ohio rounded out the top 10). As mentioned previously, there seems to be some correlation to how “re-opening” has been handled and how well prevention measures are enforced. There’s also human nature: southern states of late have had great weather, which coupled with overzealous re-opening of mass gatherings seems to have spiked the risk of infection.

As specifically regarding mass protests that happened in a lot of states (but notably some northern ones), the state agencies I have spoken to about this believe a high percentage of mask and glove use helped avoid “superspreader” events like those we have seen from beaches and churches, but we may still see a small spike in those areas over the next week as potential symptoms show up and require testing.

The vast majority of the protests in the US were peaceful, so if the protesters wore masks and kept social distancing, that would not qualify as a high-risk activity. The violent ones, especially those who didn’t wear masks or social distance, definitely increased their risk, but I didn’t see very many unmasked people in photos I have seen of the protests. Attacking statues, assuming you’re not doing it close together as a large unmasked group, is also not a huge risk factor.

I hope that clears up some of your questions! I certainly don’t know everything, I just have a lot of Florida doctors and nurses in my family and social circle, and check sources ranging from Florida’s DOH, worldometers,info, floridacovidaction.com, and the test stats came from covidusa.net.

chasm said:

razorpit said:

• How many new cases resulted in hospitalizations?
• How many new cases resulted in ICU?
• How many new cases resulted in deaths?
• How many of the new cases were simply asymptomatic?
• What have the virus test rates been over the last several weeks? Are they going up or down?
• Are the positive test results going up or down?
• What have the antibody test rates been over the last several weeks? Are they going up or down?
• Are the positive antibody test realists going up or down?

1. I believe 100 percent of cases reported by the Florida DOH are hospitalizations, since they have said that’s all they are counting (though they do include non-residents who are hospitalized in Florida). Most people who test positive will report to a hospital immediately on their own, since you don’t get tested in Florida unless you are displaying symptoms associated with the virus.
2. You should probably do a little more research on how COVID-19 works, but without specific data I can only say that any new positive tests are isolated IMMEDIATELY, and the place where that happens in most hospitals is the ICU ward. Patients with light symptoms are usually isolated at home in order to avoid overloading the hospitals.

I hope that clears up some of your questions! I certainly don’t know everything, I just have a lot of Florida doctors and nurses in my family and social circle, and check sources ranging from Florida’s DOH, worldometers,info, floridacovidaction.com, and the test stats came from covidusa.net.

Chasm, it's almost impossible to believe you really spoke to any of the multitude of Florida doctors and nurses in your family because if you had they would have told you that's not at all how it works here in Florida. You can get tested with zero symptoms, and tens of thousands of people are doing just that, no hospitals needed. Further, a positive test does not mean you need any treatment at all, certainly not any need to go to the hospital. Zero symptoms is not at all uncommon or you may have such mild symptoms that they aren't overly bothersome (only about 15% end up visiting a hospital), but still needing to isolate for 14 days to prevent spreading it around to others who might not be so lucky. 

The number of tested Floridians is about 1.8 million residents and the actual infection rate for those tested hovers around 10%, and historically about 7%.  Hospitals are not seeing a surge of admittances to treat it either with 13,700 hospitalizations for COVID-19 reported in Florida since it began the end of February this year. 

So put it in perspective: Considering we have well over 21 MILLION residents and approaching 10% of the population tested so far, the total number of reported positive cases since March being approx. 100,000,  resulting in fewer than 15,000 hospitalizations since this all began, and less than 4,000 deaths to date, I don't think things are quite as dire as you are assuming they must be.

Certainly something to be taken seriously of course. Very much so. Neither my wife nor I go out in public (ie grocery store or any retail locations) without our N95's, in our offices use pull-up fabric masks whenever we're in close proximity to others, and my wife being particularly careful since she's a professional caregiver working with our very elderly and carrying a few dozen disposable masks with her at all times for use by visitors at her client's home...      
But so far in our personal experience among our extended family of children, grandchildren, sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces living in Florida not a single mentioned instance of one of them suffering a Covid-19 infection. We do know of one nephew in California who did contract it and was sick for several days, otherwise nada. 

With all that said there is at least one category of business that should not have been allowed to open yet: Bars and nightclubs.  There is no such thing as social distancing when alcohol is involved in a public gathering spot. Personally I suspect that's the exact reason for the surge of positive tests in the under 35 crowd but not the more elderly. Sadly those "kids" might eventually drag it to Grandma and Grandpa despite the best efforts of the older crowd to avoid it. 

Bars are making it very hard on those businesses like Apple Stores, grocery stores, private businesses and retailers who are responsible enough to do the right thing and give up a little immediate revenue in order to protect their customers from a (hopefully) temporary issue. 

I am saying this now: These closure forum posts will not turn into political manifestos, or avenues for conspiracy theories.