Feast your eyes on this video of hundreds of maskless people partying in the streets of Queens NYC 18 July. It has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, you’ll have to sit through some ads, but it’s worth the wait.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/18/video-shows-people-in-queens-flooding-streets-without-masks/. Reports of COVID19 parties have been critized as being urban legends, with no specifics as to time or place or people being given. Here’s Queens NYC one night — It may not be a COVID19 party in name, but it is in fact.
Much has been made of the spread of the pandemic in the South, notably Florida and Texas. It has been laid to premature lifting of restrictions with Trump leading the charge.
Well New York City hasn’t, and the people shown partying are unlikely to take the President’s words as holy writ. Two questions arise
l. Are these people insane or rational?
2. Is what they are doing likely to cause a similar surge in cases?
It’s time to deal with the world as it is, rather than the world as we’d like to be (enter the world of docs confronting any new disease — think Everett Koop and the early days of AIDS).
Forgetting the second question for a time, viewed from their perspective, their behavior is rational — which is not to say I condone it.
Here is data from Florida through yesterday (from their department of health) — http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/state_reports_latest.pdf
Age Range Number of Cases Number of Hospitalizations Deaths
14 – 24 54,815 503 12
25 – 34 70,030 1,315 34
This is age range of most of folks in the video
So the risk of death for 14 – 24 is .02% or under 1/1,000 — ditto for the 25 – 34 age group. And that’s if the revelers actually acquire the virus. So from a selfish perspective, their behavior is rational.
Is their behavior harmful to society at large? You’d think so.
Well maybe not. Here’s some work from 3 months ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-antibodies.html–https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/23/new-york-antibody-study-estimates-13point9percent-of-residents-have-had-the-coronavirus-cuomo-says.html.
The State randomly tested 3,000 people at grocery stores and shopping locations across 19 counties in 40 localities to see if they had the antibodies to fight the coronavirus, indicating they have had the virus and recovered from it. With more than 19.4 million people residents, according to U.S. Census data, the preliminary results imply that at least 2.7 million New Yorkers have been infected with Covid-19.
With more than 19.4 million residents, according to U.S. Census data, the preliminary results indicate that at least 2.7 million New Yorkers have been infected with Covid-19. They weren’t all hospitalized.
Here’s some work this month from Queens — https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-antibodies.html
At a clinic in Corona, a working-class neighborhood in Queens, more than 68 percent of people tested positive for antibodies to the new coronavirus. At another clinic in Jackson Heights, Queens, that number was 56 percent. But at a clinic in Cobble Hill, a mostly white and wealthy neighborhood in Brooklyn, only 13 percent of people tested positive for antibodies.
So the disease has already to spread to half the population in some neighborhoods in Queens. If even 10% of them were sick that would have been 140,000 hospitalizations. It didn’t happen.
So some parts of Queens may be close to herd immunity.
Chemiotics II 