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Just in time for the return of the students, the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 is going up
By adamg on Mon, 08/03/2020 - 11:33am
Positivity rate at 2.2%, first time since June 16.
Yesterday's state Covid-19 report showed that 2.2% of people taking a Covid-19 test got positive results on Aug. 1 - a rate we haven't seen since June 16, when we were still coming down from the really high numbers of April and May.
Doctors are concerned, Well, as a Mass. General oncologist who was thrown into the coronavirus battle earlier this year put it last night: The numbers are "scaring the absolute wiggle out of many of my colleagues who still have PTSD from the front line nightmares of April and May. "
To be sure, the numbers are still way lower than they were in May:
But they're also the reason we're no longer one of the "green" states on those national maps - our numbers are no longer falling, they're slowly going up. And fall is coming.
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Comments
Wear a Mask
Sheesh.. wear a f'ing mask, even outdoors around people. Just do it.
We were doing so well but people have relaxed and here we are again. Masks work.
Masks work?
Why are Hong Kong and Japan seeing spikes in cases? They wear masks even outside of a global pandemic and were at near 100% mask compliance since COVID started.
Yup, pretty much EVERYONE agrees masks work
But NO ONE claims they totally eliminate the virus. As for Japan, here's an article on their problem from Bloomberg. SPOILER ALERT: They opened too soon.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/japan-acted-like-the-...
Not a 100% solution
But an effective reduction.
Don't be a whiner ... cover your damn pie hole like you cover your rear hole.
It isn't a big deal unless you are mentally unstable.
Sheesh.
We should be focusing as a city
On opening schools for city kids. Not out of town/country college students.
Baker should place a capacity restriction on colleges like everyone business has endured.
Can’t go to a bar, but can attend a packed lecture hall with a bunch of hungover college kids.
Colleges are a big employer
And a big industry in MA.
You need to understand that.
Whoa
That is about the most moronic response I could imagine from you. So, those of us who have kids in BPS should just forget our jobs and employment and stay home because the teachers unions don't want to teach, but our collective jobs are not an important enough "industry" to concern you? We should all just sit at home with our kids so a bunch of foreign and out of state students can come to Boston for our universities (who pay no taxes since they are nonprofits) and spread disease to us FOR THE MONEY?
What about the lost employment of those forced to stay home to care for kids who won't be schooled, even though there is not a single documented case in on the planet of a student passing COVID-19 to a teacher?
INDUSTRY?
We disagree on a lot of things, but I really think you need to rethink this position. Believe it or not, I actually usually respect your opinions.
This time, no I don't understand it.
I actually think you made
I actually think you made some good points about the priority needing to befor re-opening public schools over other businesses including universities.
However, in your effort to make your point you made some misinformed and offensive statements. I am a public school teacher and I can tell you that I worked harder than ever delivering remote lessons in the spring while also taking care of my infant daughter at home. It wasn't perfect but I had perfect attendance about half my classes and I felt that many of my students learned a lot. Myself and many of our colleagues would prefer teaching in person in the fall, if basic safety measures were put in place. The building I work at regularly ran out of soap and had no hand sanitizer in March. Our building is falling apart and has terrible ventilation. I worry that an outbreak is inevitable that could endanger both teachers and students if the reopening is not done thoughtfully and the appropriate resources are not provided. I am so sick of people painting teachers as lazy when the vast majority of teachers are the hardest working professionals you will ever meet. And we also regularly spend our own money to buy school supplies or even clothing for our students. People should be supporting teachers and schools so that we can re-open rather than trying to tear us down.
Are you implying that the
Are you implying that the teachers don't want to teach? I have several friends that are BPS teachers and you know what they don't want? To get sick. They don't want their kids to get sick - both their own and the ones they teach. They don't want their partners to get sick. That's what they don't want and for the amount of $ teachers are paid I don' t blame them.
You won't be finding "packed"
You won't be finding "packed" lecture halls this year, at least at one large University.
Small increases are expected
Are hospitalizations down? Are deaths down? Are hospitals prepared?
As Baker himself said, getting to 0 was never the plan.
Borderline
There's borderline mental illness going on here.
Thanks
I am a biostatistician and was asking some questions, didn’t realize it meant I had a mental illness. I’ll check the site myself for the answers.
Wait, was that directed at me?
Sorry, I think I misunderstood you.
I think I get where you're
I think I get where you're coming from, but the fact that it's creeping up now even before colleges start, school starts, and cooler weather make people spend more time inside should raise eyebrows. We know it's not over and numbers will probably go up, but it would be nice to see a steady downward trend until those things happen.
Many people spend hot weather indoors
Or in an automobile, with A.C. People are actually more likely to spend more time outdoors in cooler weather.
In the fall yes. Nobody is
In the fall yes. Nobody is going to hang out in their yards during Dec-Mar. You know that.
that's the problem
As long as "getting to 0" isn't the plan, we are going to be stuck in this limbo where it only takes one or two super-spreader events to be back at spring conditions at the hospitals.
We should be steadily ramping up testing of people with no symptoms to catch the cases before they lead to further infections. Instead the overall testing numbers are flat to down.
False Positives
I wonder how many of those tests were false positives, you know, like that false positive from Paddle Boston?
Hey- at least it wasn’t as bad as the 600,000 false positives from our military vets/families! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8564989/amp/Military-healthcare...
it's pretty disgusting that neither a lot of the students, or
the college administrations themselves give a shit about the fact that we're all getting screwed due to their arrogance, refusal to wear masks, and their refusal to social distance from each other. They don't care who they sicken and/or end up killing as a result.
If these students are old enough to go to college, they're old enough to understand why the rules of mask-wearing and social distancing were put in place. Baker should make them quarantine for at least 2 weeks before they come back in.
Are you blaming the students
Are you blaming the students who aren't here yet for the increases going on right now?
College kids & covid
They are here. Some of them come early. They've been all around the city, especially Allston & Copley square, without masks!
Do you have a time machine, or just a vivid imagination?
The students aren't here yet. You're already blaming them for things they haven't done, based on some silly prejudice.
The universities are also being pretty careful. I was looking at Northeastern's process, and they're going to require each student to test negative three times two days apart each before they can come out of quarantine.
Shut it down
"Reopening" didn't work because people are lazy selfish idiots. Shut it down again.
Sure, shut it down
Because the positive rate went up a couple tenths of a percent. Who cares how many more businesses will be destroyed.
For tests taken 8/1, 1.9% have tested positive so far. 7/31 was 2.2%, 7/30 was 2.6%. Scary stuff!
Except, we also had positivity rates over 2% in late June. 6/24-6/27 we had 2.0, 2.2, 2.0, and 2.0%. Guess what happened after that? It went back down below 2. The idea that you'd shut down again because 97.8% of people bother to get tested are testing negative instead of 98.1% is just absurd.
The goal of shutdowns was not to overwhelm hospitals, not stay shut down until there were zero cases. Mass General has TWELVE patients, 2 in the ICU. The "all COVID" Carney Hospital has 3 COVID patients, 0 in the ICU. There are 5 hospitals in the state that have 20+ COVID patients.
I wouldn't call that overwhelmed.
Since June 1, MA has had 1603 deaths from COVID, 83% over the age of 70 and 72% have occurred in nursing homes. Shutting down businesses won't save the elderly, who should have been the prime focus of ALL COVID mitigation efforts from the start.
Small variations vs. trends
You need to look at how the 3 or even 7 day averages are moving, not day to day.
Consistent movement in those smoothed averages IS concerning, as they have been holding steady in a narrow band for a couple of months.
Daily fluctuations will be larger and less reliable because who gets tested on what day of the week creates trends in the data. So does data reporting patterns.
The nursing home thing is getting *really* tiresome - the elderly are more susceptible, but younger people are filling hospitals and dying from this, too.
and ... GUESS HOW IT IS THAT THE ELDERLY GET SICK? YOUNGER PEOPLE! There is more than a century of information that indicates that respiratory epidemics spin up schools and then explode into the larger population, killing elders.
Stay in your lane, please.
Give me a break.
Sorry losing 10% of the nursing home population is "tiring" to you, but to those who have relatives there, it most definitely is not. As for your nonsense about younger people ending up in the hospital and dying. Cite your sources.
According to the MA DPH, people under 40 made up 55% of the confirmed cases of C19 from July 1-Aug 3, yet they made up ONLY 14.1% of the hospitalizations, and a whopping 0.7% of the deaths. 4. 4 of 571 deaths were people under 40. Under 50? 13 people.
So yeah, younger people are not filling up hospitals or dying from this.
As for your suggestion to look at the 3 and 7 day moving averages. Ok, well, they aren't increasing, so now what? Looking at those tested by date, the 7 day moving average of positive results has been between 1.7% and 2.1% since June 17th. Where is this increase you're talking about?
hmm
besides missing her point, you’re kinda playing both sides here, aren’t you?
Don't be stupid
You want to know why we have to shut it down? Because we're too lazy, too stupid, and too selfish as a country to do anything else.
Long Island
staggered start. Each college has to quarantine their incoming students out there for 2 weeks and we'll use thoroughly tested supply chain staff to keep them fed/housed.
Need to roll back at least a little
We really need to take a step back, if not to Stage 2 then at least part-way there.
Average age of death remains 82
This is much more a pandemic of fear than of deadly disease. Hysteria aside, there is little significance of a "positive" test result for most. For those healthy under 60, there's a far better chance of now being murdered in Boston than dying of Covid. The vast majority of MA deaths still are nursing home patients, an industry that Governor Charlie Baker accepted $52,000 from, despite being in charge of regulating/inspecting them. Even infamous alarmist Professor Neil Ferguson admits most who have died of Covid would have died in 2020 anyway. As Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has confessed about the situation, "the facts don't justify the fear."
Maybe you should try out a ventilator?
Too bad death isn't the only outcome to worry about. Who's going to run the precious economy when there's a revolving door of sick-leave?
From ‘brain fog’ to heart
From ‘brain fog’ to heart damage, COVID-19’s lingering problems alarm scientists:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-...
Persistent Symptoms in Patients After Acute COVID-19:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768351
For Parents: Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) associated with COVID-19:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children/mis...
Feed up
So killing the older generation is ok?????
My professional epidemiological opinion
You don't know shit. Worse yet, you believe in nonsense, bullshit, and woo,
Thank you
I love nothing more than information and maybe some push back so thank you.
In this case, I don't think a degree gives anyone more knowledge than is necessary.
It's math. And I mastered that by junior high.
Why do you even care?
Why do you even care, Fish? You don't have a job. You don't own a business. You don't do anything but whine. Your ideas about how to handle this are the veriest idiocy, but never mind that -- you have no skin in this game, so why do you give a damn how it's played?
Heart condition
It’s pretty cool how 27-year-old world-class athletes are suffering heart conditions because of Covid can take solace in the fact the average age of death is 82.
“I’ve been fighting Covid symptoms for 6 weeks now. I had to quit my job for the rest of the year. Doctors don’t know how permanent this is or if I will face other chronic ailments for the rest of my life.”
“Don’t worry, bro. The average age of a person who dies from Covid is 82. By the way, did you hear about that $52k that Charlie Baker supposedly got? Wait to you hear about THIS!”
Also, it’s pretty cool how this Ferguson guy has a crystal ball and can see into an alternate universe to know that these people would have been dead anyway. Cool stat.
We don't even know the long
We don't even know the long term effects this will have on the health of people that have "recovered" so slow your roll. The economic impact of the current administrations lack of response to C19 has yet to even hit. We ain't seen nothing yet.
I love the fact that 160K in the US have died due to C19 but yet it's a "pandemic of fear." Can you imagine if 160K ppl had died of this during Obama's administration? I believe I remember the cult of orange on calling for his head due to EBOLA!
OMG help us!!!
2.2 percent positive rate and people are shitting themselves.
Things are almost at zero even with the state reopening.
No one set expectations of what was going to happen when the numbers went up. Is 2 percent bad? Is 5? Is 60?
You guys must be independently wealthy to be able to sit back and demand everyone else do what you're doing.
Are you too frozen in fear to make some independent decisions on your own?
Amen.
We gave 14,764 tests on 7/27. 338 people tested positive... a whopping 2.3%!!! So Scary!
If 1.7% were positive though, that's not as scary? That's a difference of 87 positive tests. Out of a state of 7,000,000 people.
SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN!!!
PS- on 7/28, we tested 15,509 people and there were 292 positives. 1.9%. We're safe!
Like fish
You need to stay in your lane, hon.
You don't know half of what you think you know,
7day average trending up after two months is concerning - not a reason to flip out, but just be ready for a backslide if it doesn't self-correct.
Ok, hon
The 7 day moving average has gone from 1.8% in mid-July, to 2.0% now. But by all means, shut everything down again, sweetie.
ah, it's mysogyny time
Was only a matter of time I guess.
yes, of course...
Responding to her condescending tone is totally "misogyny". Get lost.
Yup
60 would be definitely bad.
You'd all be great soldiers
The percentage of tests coming back positive this week in Boston are at 1.7 percent, down from 2.2 percent, last week, according to Boston DPH.
11,500 tests were performed last week. That's 196 new cases.
There were 7 new positives in South Boston. The positive rate in Allston/ Brighton is 1 percent. The number of new cases was so low in the Fenway that they couldn't even report them because the number is between 1 and 4 cases.
In fact, the only neighborhood to see an increase in rate was in Mattapan, from 2.1 to 5.8 percent. Has anyone checked the mask situation in Matty Square or noticed anyone on a party boat going down Blue Hill Ave??
14.1 percent of all cases were positive as of July 13th.
Focus on elementary schools and nursing homes and watch out for prisons and homeless shelters. Those are where the outbreaks will occur that will lead to them and then the rest of us dying, not Brianna and her friends on a roof deck in Allston.
Ok John
CLEARLY YOU HATE GRANDMA!!!
What if Brianna then goes to Whole foods and she isn't wearing an old tshirt over her face and then infects my 97 year old grandmother??? We need to lock down all businesses and not allow anyone out of their homes for 6 weeks to slow the spread!!
"Focus on elementary schools" why? and how?
Why? Elementary aged children are neither more susceptible nor more likely to catch it. And what does "focus on" mean, anyway? When schools don't have the resources, when teachers are pressed into service as a sanitizing staff (with no time to do the job), when testing isn't available and tracing has been mothballed, what does "focus on" even mean? Clutching your pearls and gasping?
Just a concern
Right, I don't think many children will suffer when schools reopen.
What I meant by that is our focus should be on big picture things like are we doing the best we can to ensure safety for everyone, in schools, from admin to teachers to students. But it's a complicated situation requiring thought and good judgement as well as patience and open-mindedness, which are in short supply.
No, we're different people. We just have what are apparently similar opinions on this subject.
PS the sure way for someone to lose an argument is to say, "Oh, I have a college degree so ... "
Wow. Amazing.
Partially agree
I mostly agree with you, but man, Brianna's got to go. Her friends are cool, but get her off that roof.
Edit: Lol, did you respond to yourself? Did you just click the wrong button or are you just Fish's alt?
Yeah
There are 2 strange interactions in this thread that imply John and Fish are the same person.
Has anyone seen them in the same room together?
You sound like Florida in May
Whats the big deal, everything is fine down here!
I may be wrong
But the goal is to keep the positive rate below 5%, assuming that robust testing is taking place.
Northeastern / Thanksgiving break
Many colleges have opted to end in person classes at Thanksgiving break. Therefore, those traveling over that holiday weekend won't have to come back and spread whatever they caught. Those last few weeks are mostly finals related anyway. But will Northeastern do that? Nope.Why would they want students to come back after attending gatherings and traveling, just for a crappy 2 weeks. Very tone deaf, to say the least, if you ask me.
"Slowly growing up"???
Actually it is not slow at all!
According to the NYT, "[o]ver the past week, there have been an average of 403 cases per day, an increase of 46 percent from the average two weeks earlier."
We are one of the fastest growing states now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/i2ygkj/we_made_the_new_york_times_covid_shitlist_today/
I had no idea there were so
I had no idea there were so many trained epidemiologists and statisticians among UHub's commenters.
You forgot political analysts
You forgot political analysts
Not rocket science
Well, you know, it's not rocket science. It's harder.