I think it was silly to assume that the coronavirus could ever have been stopped. Yet many Americans did just that. "If we'd only just stay home." "If we'd only just wear our damn masks." "If we'd only blah blah blah." But viruses go where viruses go. You can't stop them.
Anyway, "Flatten The Curve" was never about stopping the virus. It was the philosophy dreamed up so our national health care system would not become overwhelmed with COVID19 patients taking up all of the ICU beds and ventilators. It was we dumb Americans who made the leap from "Flatten The Curve" to "We Can Stop This Virus From Spreading!" We cannot; all we can do is slow it down a bit.
Here in Florida, our Governor DeSantis must be the biggest gambler in history. He's hoping that our New Cases/Deaths curves will soon mimic those of New York State, Sweden and Italy (which are virtually flat). For those places, the coronavirus is simply not an issue anymore. Apparently, enough people have gotten it and gotten over it.
Governor DeSantis has got to be sweating bullets right now. The number of new cases and deaths in our state has been steadily increasing, and he's taking a lot of heat. By not implementing another statewide lockdown, and by not issuing a mandatory mask order, DeSantis has bet the rent, the power bill, the car payment, and probably his cigarette money on this pandemic ending soon for us. Every morning, he must wake up to check the latest numbers, and while waiting for the site to update he's praying, "Come on, herd immunity...come on, herd immunity!"
Well, maybe we're there...or we're about to be. Check out the latest graphs below. Florida seems to have hit a plateau, with new cases and deaths on an apparent downward slide. We have to keep our fingers crossed that these trends continue. Governor DeSantis surely has a lot riding on it happening sooner rather than later. If we're through the worst of it, he'll look like a hero. But if the trends reverse and start going back up, he will soon be known as the former governor of Florida.
3 comments:
I know people who still think we are doing all this to STOP the virus despite all the science and politicking to the contrary. Makes me shake my head in wonder. Another thing that makes me ponder our intelligence level as a species as seeing people driving alone in their car or walking by themselves in the park wearing a mask, in a state with no mask mandate!
Evidently like Florida, our positive cases and deaths are now trending downward again. However I'm not optimistic that we've seen the last peak. I think we will see another peak in September after schools start up again, perhaps sooner. Colleges are starting here in a week and K-12 in another three weeks.
Ed, it is so hard to compare numbers in an apples-to-apples way. The factors that influence the numbers of new cases and deaths here in Florida may very well be different than those affecting the populace of Iowa.
We can be sure that scientists will be studying the spread of this disease for decades to come. For instance, how and why is New York State seemingly done with it already? People make various confident claims, but I wouldn't put my money on any of them at the moment. Here in Florida, we "kind of" had it under control, but starting from the Memorial Day Weekend things really changed! We saw record numbers of new cases every day, and deaths went up, up, up. Now things seem to have peaked, but have they really? And if so, what was the mechanism that caused the spread of the disease to slow down?
People make some hard and fast statements about herd-immunity, like how for it to happen, around 60% of the population must be infected. But maybe that theory is wrong. OR maybe the theory is right, but the coronavirus has simply spread a lot faster and more widely into society than we know. I mean, "asymptomatics" are invisible so we really have no way of knowing how many of them are out there.
I'm thinking that here in Florida we've reached some level of herd-immunity - just as they most certainly have in New York State. Iowa may be lagging behind a bit, given the less-densely-packed population, as well as Iowa not really being the constant frat party that is the Sunshine State.
A lot of what "the experts" thought about the coronavirus has been wrong. First they said it was mainly carried in droplets from a sneeze or cough; now they say it's probably more airborne in nature. Some said the virus would wane and be less transmissible in the hot summer weather, but that has proven not to be the case. Makes me doubt that we'll see a resurgence like we do with the regular ol' flu when cooler fall weather rolls around. This COVID19 is weird, man. Who knows what it's going to do?
Iowa's new-cases curve is actually pretty flat. Personally, I think you guys have another week or so until those numbers begin to drop off. But at this point, it's really anybody's guess. I think even the so-called "experts" are looking at all the data, scratching their collective heads and uttering the egghead version of "WTF!"
I wonder what is herd immunity. I mean we know what herd immunity is for not as contagious diseases like polio, flu, mumps, etc. But what is herd immunity for a particularly contagious disease? I would guess it is much higher due to the ease of transmission. Next they talk about the falling antibodies in those who got it initially and are opening the possibility they may get infected a second time. If that is the case, will we ever achieve herd immunity especially if we are forever trying to tamp down the virus?
For now I await answers like everyone else and will continue to practice my social distancing while wearing a face mask until a vaccine can be had. With all the countries making special deals with vaccine manufacturers to get to the head of the line, I'm not optimistic that I will see a vaccine anytime soon.
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