Covid-19 in OKC (coronavirus)

[mugofbeer]

You should probably still wear your mask, at least... Just to be safe...

Wear it where??

[Pete]

Are there really that many public, non charter schools that mandate uniforms?

Oklahoma City Public Schools.

[OKCRT]

Wear it where??

Everywhere, your house,your car the store walking down the street. Just be safe and wear it everywhere all the time. Lets kick this thing!

[Jeepnokc]

Everywhere, your house,your car the store walking down the street. Just be safe and wear it everywhere all the time. Lets kick this thing!

I think he was asking where on his body he should wear it while doing naked flips down the road

[gopokes88]

486 and 0 deaths. We’ve either plateaued or are start to trend down again.

[PoliSciGuy]

Sundays are usually low points, can't really make any conclusions until we see Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday numbers

[catcherinthewry]

Sundays are usually low points, can't really make any conclusions until we see Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday numbers

I like to compare individual days. Today was 9 fewer than last Sunday and over 500 fewer than 14 days ago. I am cautiously optimistic that we are seeing a plateau.

[dankrutka]

Probably a better analogy is that schools don't allow students to smoke/vape—a personal choice—on campus. The notion that schools can't mandate masks is absurd. When I taught at Westmoore, teachers were asked to kick kids out of class who weren't visibly wearing their student ID, which is a lot harder to see than a face mask.

I am hearing from so many immunocompromised and older educators who are deeply worried about their health and fear dying and are being provided no options from their districts. Aside from whether they end up with COVID, the stress and anxiety is taking a mental and physical toll already for many and school hasn't started.

Personally, my wife and I live a very carefully because we are comfortable with that and we are now being forced into a situation where we have to accept she bring COVID home any day for an entire school year. We can't have a bubble of family or friends anymore. Whatever the best decisions are for society, more people need to recognize the sacrifice educators are being asked to make. Educators are the new essential, er sacrificial, workers.

[Canoe]

Everywhere, your house,your car the store walking down the street. Just be safe and wear it everywhere all the time. Lets kick this thing!

Would you could you in your house? Would you could you with a mouse?

Would you could you with a fox? Would you could you in a box?

[pw405]

Trends:

Looking at cases only, the 7-day average clearly shows a short-term downward trend. The 14-day average will fall tomorrow, as the 1,400 cases we saw on 7-27 will no longer be included. 21-day remains on cruise control in a very narrow band:




The rolling 7 day average of deaths remains high, but has yet to break the records set on July 30th and August 5th:



Finally, comparing total hospital #'s to the 14-Day death average - we see hospitalizations flat, and of course deaths still rather high:

[C_M_25]

If y’all are unfortunate enough to know somebody going to sturgis, stay the hell away from them for the next month or so. Good lord. News reports and pictures from that festival are dang depressing.

The US is full of a bunch of fools...

[Bill Robertson]

If y’all are unfortunate enough to know somebody going to sturgis, stay the hell away from them for the next month or so. Good lord. News reports and pictures from that festival are dang depressing.

The US is full of a bunch of fools...

There could not possibly be a worse situation for COVID spread than Sturgis. I couldn’t believe they were still having the rally this summer. STUPID!!!!
And I love bike rallies. I went to many when I could ride and had my Harleys.

[pw405]

Figure I'd try a new graph - instead of averages, this one looks at 14 day totals for cases and deaths from April 1 - Now. Due to high number of cases, the values get a little difficult to read (you can always right-click, open in new tab to see full-res version).

I made this out of curiosity more than anything. It doesn't look dramatically different than the rolling averages plotted over time. I am still troubled by how long the lag is between no case GROWTH and deaths falling. If we just look from May 1 to June 1, deaths fell in half among a relatively flat case count. Total 14-day new cases during may were around ~1,200. Today, total 14-day cases are ~10X higher.

I don't expect that will see 10X the number of deaths, however, I still can't help but to think that we'll continue to see rising death counts for at least 3 more weeks, assuming that new case growth has flattened around ~850/day.

[pw405]

If y’all are unfortunate enough to know somebody going to sturgis, stay the hell away from them for the next month or so. Good lord. News reports and pictures from that festival are dang depressing.

The US is full of a bunch of fools...

My friend saw this and commented: "Coming soon to an estate sale near you: Motorcycles".

[pw405]

Really good analysis I found that compares Oklahoma cities with mask mandates vs. no mask mandates. The data is clear. Masks both reduce cases and save lives:

http://patricklivingood.oucreate.com...mask-mandates/

[dankrutka]

New study on which masks are more effective and which are not: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/08/08/u...rnd/index.html

[C_M_25]

Perhaps the answer to this is simple but I’ll ask anyway.

Why do covid cases rise to a peak then begin to fall in these various epicenters?

Do they rise till the population decides to use counter measures to combat the accumulating cases or does the virus burn itself out in these localities? It’s an interesting thought as covid generally lashes out at the at-risk populations. I wonder if it just runs it’s course and all you’re left with are the younger carriers who tend to be asymptomatic so the numbers just appear to come down.

Maybe it’s just a combination of these things. Who knows.

[Bill Robertson]

My friend saw this and commented: "Coming soon to an estate sale near you: Motorcycles".

I don’t want anyone to die. But I’ve given up on using the death rate as an argument with the people that don’t think the virus is a big deal. When there’s a .0005 in one chance that you’ve died of the virus in almost six months then that isn’t a compelling argument to non- believers, non-carers. I’m not sure what argument to make to that group anymore to bring them over to the side of giving a damn about their fellow man.

[soonerguru]

Perhaps the answer to this is simple but I’ll ask anyway.

Why do covid cases rise to a peak then begin to fall in these various epicenters?

Do they rise till the population decides to use counter measures to combat the accumulating cases or does the virus burn itself out in these localities? It’s an interesting thought as covid generally lashes out at the at-risk populations. I wonder if it just runs it’s course and all you’re left with are the younger carriers who tend to be asymptomatic so the numbers just appear to come down.

Maybe it’s just a combination of these things. Who knows.

I think it's the former, not the latter. Also, it is unwise to continue to propagate the notion that young people cannot be seriously damaged (or killed) by this, and the fact that they are more willing to take risks and less likely to socially distance undermines the theory that cases, not fatalities, peak and then fall. Something else is causing the peak and fall.

If you look at our plateau / drop in new cases over the last week, it seems to coincide with the advent of widespread mask usage about three weeks ago. The ordinance is already paying off. Again, not necessarily paying off just because of less casual transmission, but also because the visual sight of people wearing masks reminds people that the virus is still a threat, making them more likely to take it seriously and step up their social distancing.

Of course, we never hit bottom because there are always too many idiots out there, like the ones at Sturgis.

I also think the return to schools is going to cause new outbreaks.

[soonerguru]

I don’t want anyone to die. But I’ve given up on using the death rate as an argument with the people that don’t think the virus is a big deal. When there’s a .0005 in one chance that you’ve died of the virus in almost six months then that isn’t a compelling argument to non- believers, non-carers. I’m not sure what argument to make to that group anymore to bring them over to the side of giving a damn about their fellow man.

Just let Darwin sort it out.

[C_M_25]

I think it's the former, not the latter. Also, it is unwise to continue to propagate the notion that young people cannot be seriously damaged (or killed) by this, and the fact that they are more willing to take risks and less likely to socially distance undermines the theory that cases, not fatalities, peak and then fall. Something else is causing the peak and fall.

If you look at our plateau / drop in new cases over the last week, it seems to coincide with the advent of widespread mask usage about three weeks ago. The ordinance is already paying off. Again, not necessarily paying off just because of less casual transmission, but also because the visual sight of people wearing masks reminds people that the virus is still a threat, making them more likely to take it seriously and step up their social distancing.

Of course, we never hit bottom because there are always too many idiots out there, like the ones at Sturgis.

I also think the return to schools is going to cause new outbreaks.

Your advice is certainly valid as there is so much they we don’t know and that we may never know. However, the numbers do not lie. The difference in how this virus affects old vs young is stark and dramatic. Not saying young people won’t have long term health issues from this, but the odds are much less than older folk. For reference, I’m using 35 in my mind to divide young vs old here.

Also, if you want to take the CDC’s estimates that this virus has affected nearly 10x’s more people than what is reported, then it’s entirely plausible that this virus could be burning itself out in the high density population centers.

Oh well. This is a debate that neither of us can win as there is too much we don’t know. I only hope that it’s burning itself out in places; however, my gut is telling me that that’s not true.

Also, I agree with you wholeheartedly about what could happen when schools start. It’s going to really screw the progress we made.

[soonerguru]

Your advice is certainly valid as there is so much they we don’t know and that we may never know. However, the numbers do not lie. The difference in how this virus affects old vs young is stark and dramatic. Not saying young people won’t have long term health issues from this, but the odds are much less than older folk. For reference, I’m using 35 in my mind to divide young vs old here.

Also, if you want to take the CDC’s estimates that this virus has affected nearly 10x’s more people than what is reported, then it’s entirely plausible that this virus could be burning itself out in the high density population centers.

Oh well. This is a debate that neither of us can win as there is too much we don’t know. I only hope that it’s burning itself out in places; however, my gut is telling me that that’s not true.

Also, I agree with you wholeheartedly about what could happen when schools start. It’s going to really screw the progress we made.

Not sure why you completely ignored the part about behavioral changes making an impact, i.e. the mask ordinance three weeks ago.

[dankrutka]

It’s incredible how many people argue to open schools because young people are less prone to the worst effects of the virus and don’t recognize that schools don’t run without lots of adults—hundreds at some schools. Schools aren’t kid-only zones.

[C_M_25]

Not sure why you completely ignored the part about behavioral changes making an impact, i.e. the mask ordinance three weeks ago.

I didn’t. In fact, I suggested it as one of the main two reasons for the nature of covid cases per day across the globe. If you go up a few comments, I asked about the interesting rise, then peak, then fall of covid cases pretty much everywhere.

[Pete]

What has been happening for the most part is that one area/city gets very serious about the virus and then the numbers drop way down.

But in areas where there hasn't been a big problem -- like Oklahoma -- there is very little change in behavior and then the virus runs rampant in a new, relatively neglected place.

California is just about the only state that had a big surge, shut down, then had it happen again. But even that requires perspective: They still have less cases per capita than the majority of states, they just have a huge population that drives big numbers.

And this is why you are starting to see spread in more rural areas; the virus doesn't know borders. And few governors have made strict regulations so that leaves it to mayors and a very piece-meal way of doing things, so the virus just spreads more rapidly where people don't take it as seriously. This is what greatly worries me about reopening schools.

Other countries, of course, have had huge national mandates. We can't even get that done by states.