Covid-19 Flares in New Hot Spots as Americans Let Their Guard Down

[TomCADem]

Source: Bloomberg

The U.S. can’t put Covid-19 behind it.

New case counts are declining in some recent hot spots. But they’re spiking in places like Iowa and South Dakota, signaling what may be a new phase in the country’s virus fight as progress in one state is repeatedly offset by infections in others, with little improvement overall.

Politics plays a role, as do events like college reopenings and the Sturgis motorcycle rally. But it’s also a sign of fatigue, the frustration and exhaustion Americans feel after months of masks and hand sanitizer, social isolation, shuttered businesses and closed beaches. People are putting their guard down, experts agree, leaving room for the virus to continue spreading as the country seeks to reopen the economy.

“It’s going to be kind of this rolling fire, with certain flare-ups that occur in different parts of the country at different times,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “This is a virus that’s established itself into the population.”

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-02/covid-flares-in-new-u-s-hot-spots-as-americans-let-guard-down?srnd=premium

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I guess it should not be surprising that current Trump favorite Gov. Kristi Noem is now leading the charge given her strong resistance to taking preventative measures. I am sure she will relent like the Texas Governor only after the deaths start to pile up.

https://www.vox.com/2020/9/2/21418812/covid-19-coronavirus-us-cases-midwest-surge

As you can see, South Dakota ranks an ignominious first in all of the leading indicators for a worsening outbreak. Hospitalizations also doubled from a low of 35 in early August to 78 as of September 1. Those numbers look small, but remember, South Dakota is a state of fewer than 900,000 people. The smaller populations are one reason experts do not expect the gross numbers to rebound to the same levels seen in the summer, when some of our biggest states were being ravaged by Covid-19.

But the virus can still put a strain on smaller communities. For now, the state’s hospitals still appear to have ample capacity, though hospitalizations lag behind new cases. That will be a key metric to watch in the next few weeks.

It’s hard to be sure what’s behind this spike in cases. South Dakota still doesn’t have a mask mandate, and Gov. Kristi Noem has said she won’t issue one, nor will she impose a stay-at-home order. The state has not placed meaningful restrictions on businesses or other public activities, according to Boston University’s state policy database.

There was also the Sturgis motorcycle rally last month, which state health officials have linked to more than 100 cases of South Dakotans contracting Covid-19. The number of people infected at the state’s universities ballooned from less than 50 in mid-August to more than 550 by the end of the month. There have been another 200 cases reported recently in K-12 schools.

[BumRushDaShow]

1. "exhaustion Americans feel after months of masks and hand sanitizer, social isolation"

Bull! Many of the people who HAVE been following the rules have continued to do so - especially if they were infected and/or had family members, friends, neighbors, or coworkers similarly infected or negatively impacted at their places of employment.

No - it's the same groups engaging in that behavior that rarely or never "masked up" in the first place. Many of them were asymptomatic and never got tested early on so they weren't showing up in the initial data at the start of the pandemic because there were only enough testing supplies to test the "symptomatic only" or the "high risk" individuals - and of course that meant primarily the older demographics and/or those with underlying health conditions and/or the frontline workers.

It's the under-40 crowd and the anti-maskers. Now that they are getting tested as a result of contact-tracing and less restrictive criteria for testing eligibility, many locations tracking the demographics and what age group is spiking the cases, are finding that they represent a significant chunk of them. And because of the several months delay since many in that demographic might have had it and "recovered", the only way to confirm if they did actually have it or not is if they had antibody tests and I expect they would have those antibodies after being tested.

[Hestia]

3. Fatigue is when you officially had C19 in March and still get exhausted walking

(DH has a gamer friend in Calif. and she can barely play their game together. Just short bursts at a time.) She has gone to work recently only because UE and other benefits have expired. She has a daughter to take care of and she is doing what she has to do. That's fatigue. The rest of this is all "me, me, me" and all these tv people air their "complaints" freely. They stick a mic in their face as if there are two sides to illness.

[Aussie105]

8. Anyone who has had glandular fever, or similar,

knows what a hell of a time you have recovering for 6 months afterwards.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. +infinity

[canetoad]

12. Exhaustion?

Get a grip snowflakes.

It's slightly inconvenient to mask up when you go out. Slightly.

Can't have a party with fifty 'close friend' in a small apartment? A human tragedy.

You'd almost think they have never considered the fragile tenure that humans have on this earth.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Good morning and evening to you!

Sounds like a lot of "privilege". You have people who live in multigenerational households who have no choice in their living arrangements and they often work in "essential" jobs that expose them to the selfish anti-maskers and "exhausted" partiers.

[sfstaxprep]

2. Still A Solid Red State

I'm sure this won't phase them.

[BigmanPigman]

10. .....

[SergeStorms]

4. I see it every day...

people acting like everything is back to normal, that the COVID-19 is behind us. Add to that, I live in a College town, and the super-spreaders are all back, hormones raging and partying like it's September 2, 2019. People in this country have the attention span and intelligence of an amoeba. The Age of Donald Trump. Republicans are dumbing down our country to an astounding level.

[LuckyLib]

6. "People in this country have the attention span and intelligence of an amoeba."

So true. Part of the fatigue of 2020 for me is the realization of the sheer number of stupid people that are our fellow Americans.

[rwsanders]

9. Can you imagine that group or heck even my generation (tweeners between boomers and X)

facing the challenges of the Great Depression and WW2?
West coast would be speaking Japanese, East Coast German, with a smattering of Italian along the Gulf of Mexico.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. "Republicans are dumbing down our country to an astounding level." Ain't that the truth.

And they are damn proud of it. This is on the Orange One. He exacerbated this crisis by example and words, demeaning scientists and career disease experts and dissing those who wanted to just help each other and protect themselves from a potentially killer disease. Mind-numbingly stupid and malicious.

[progree]

5. #1 Iowa, #2 SoDak, #3 NoDak --in daily new cases per capita, 7 day moving avg. No kidding

Daily new cases, PER 100,000, 7 day moving average,
#1 Iowa - another close neighbor of SoDak
#2 South Dakota
#3 North Dakota
...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

Scroll down to the "Cases and deaths by state and county" table.
Sort it by the "per 100,000" column that follows the "cases in last 7 days" column

[Aussie105]

7. It's out of control.

Admit it, the virus is out of control. Too many hot spots, too many deaths, too many people thinking they can outsmart the virus.
Too little action, and too late.

It dumb to think you can ignore it. And to think if you ignore it, it reduces your chance of catching it.

Logic:
Masks are for wimps. And kids in school are safe. It's just a little flu if I catch it, which I won't, I can work through it. With God and Trump on my side, I will be just fine.

All those people who died, and will die. Don't know them, so don't care, I'm safe. It's all a beatup anyway, a nothingburger.(Sure!)

Seriously . . . the more people get infected, the more chance the virus has of replicating. And developing a mutation that makes it more virulent and deadly. Ready for COVID Mark 2, or COVID-20, anyone?

[Evolve Dammit]

15. Mutation is a distinct possibility. And the maskless are keeping it going with their infantile act.