General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)reopening is clearly a mistake, but i don't think it will lead to the obvious disaster some think. [View all]
here's the "good new/bad news": recent studies suggest that the *average* r0 infection rate of 3-ish is actually made up of a lot of people who don't spread the disease to very many people (mainly just members of their own household, possibly) and a small number of people who spread the disease to quite a lot of people at "super-spreader events" like church gathering (especially with a choir singing), parties, sports events, etc.
it's these big gathering that foster massive outbreaks and hot spots, like that big spanish-italian soccer game that put both countries in the top 5 hardest hit.
i'm guessing there will be a lot of rural areas and small towns that remain largely unaffected, having only a few scattered cases, maybe that goes up a little but they don't suddenly turn into new york city.
yes, nursing homes will continue to be hard hit, and that will get worse. and the fool churches who refuse to have their sermons and ceremonies via zoom will spread it big time. i'm not saying there won't be a few new hot spots, there certainly will be.
i'm saying it's not going to suddenly skyrocket. it's just going to bump up and down as the areas that know what they're doing bring their rates down and areas that don't know what they're doing bring their rates up.
on the one hand, this assessment/guess is cautiously optimistic in terms of the damage covid-19 causes over the next several months. on the other hand, it's also politically pessimistic in the sense that the lack of an obvious spike in new cases or new deaths will be taken by the right-wing as confirmation of their idiotic views.
which, in turn, means a continuation of idiotic policies, and more people getting sick and dying than would otherwise be the case, until solid treatment emerges (i'm giving up on a vaccine any time soon).
in short, look for the numbers to get slowly better in cities and blue states, and slowly worse in rural areas and red states. and look for republicans to ignore this distinction and only talk about relatively flat totals.