
Most new NY coronavirus hospitalizations are from people who stayed home - prostoalex
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html
======
obastani
This statistic is very hard to interpret without additional context. If 99% of
people stay at home, the of course most people who get infected would have
stayed at home. Older people, who are more likely to need hospitalization, are
also more likely to stay at home. People who continue to commute to work are
likely being more careful, and may also be benefitting from fewer others
commuting, which reduces the risks of going outside.

The relevant metric is how many _fewer_ people have caught it due to the
lockdown, and assuming the numbers are accurate, it's pretty clear that the
lockdown has substantially reduced the infection rate.

~~~
namelosw
And it could be very misguiding for most people, combining with the title.

It also could be those easy targets get infected first, then people indoor.
Either way, the metric seems to be not very helpful and extremely misguiding.

------
bb2018
I feel like this is anything but shocking and the wrong takeaway? The source,
as I understand it, is just where the person is living. It doesn't distinguish
from people who worked from home, worked because they were essential, or those
who have been going out socially.

66% of the people in the hospital are people who normally live at home. What
percent of the normal population lives at home - 90%?

~~~
trianglesphere
There is some info that hints that the people at home are not venturing out
much.

I personally find this alarming that there is still widespread community
spread. In my more rural state I think there is community spread, but nursing
homes and long term care facilities are still dominating hospitalizations and
deaths.

~~~
illumin8
It seems like one of the primary differences between countries that have
effectively stopped Covid-19 like South Korea and Taiwan, and the US is how
people are quarantined.

In the countries that were effective at stopping the spread, they quarantined
sick people outside of their house. Since transmission is so effective its
almost a guarantee that the rest of your household will catch it if you stay
home, either by touching a shared doorknob, then touching their face, or by
droplets landing on surfaces, or any number of other mechanisms.

We should seriously consider paying for hotel rooms for people that test
positive. The total cost would likely be far lower than letting them infect
the rest of their family.

------
rapjr9
This seems like exactly the experience in Wuhan and is why they started
removing people that tested positive from their homes and putting them in
isolation centers, so they wouldn't spread the virus to their families. The US
is not doing that, so if one person gets the virus in a family almost all of
them get it. It means that stopping the spread will be slower and take longer.
Certainly the numbers from testing seem to be coming down very slowly anywhere
in the US that has had a major outbreak. If US citizens won't stand for being
isolated that way, maybe they'd be more amenable to staying in a hotel for
free? The rooms are already empty anyway and I would think people would want
to protect their families. The whole family could even move into adjacent
rooms so they could at least be close to each other. Seems like many people
would not have the space or ability to isolate a family member at home
(doctors with training in this are having trouble keeping themselves from
becoming infected), and without testing they might not know to do it anyway.
It seems less likely the virus is spreading through the septic systems of
buildings in enough buildings to make a big difference.

------
guardiangod
In Hong Kong, 1 of the transmission vectors for SARS and COVID19 is from
sewage pipes in high-rise apartments. Body fluid goes into the drain and its
droplets spread to floor above and below the infected unit's.

~~~
jxramos
Wow, I would have thought that a p-trap filled with water would have blocked
gases from the drain waste vent system. What's going on here, do the vents not
vent all the way to the top of the building but come out the sides of the
buildings? Guess they'd have to at some point as the number of stories goes on
and on.

~~~
downerending
Lived briefly in a NYC flat. One of the p-traps did not in fact function as
intended. The details are unpleasant, so I'll leave them out.

~~~
ToFundorNot
Most likely an S trap then. They are no allowed due to the probability of self
siphoning. Not to say an S wouldn't, but it's improbable.

~~~
downerending
It was a p-trap with a non-obvious hole the size of a nickel. Became obvious
the first time I used a plunger. :-P

------
istorical
I don't trust people saying they are 'staying at home' if the data is self-
reported rather than verified by a third party.

Living in Brooklyn in a predominantly hispanic neighborhood (relevant only
because the article mentions it hitting black and hispanic communities
hardest), had to venture out this weekend for the first time in weeks to
facilitate moving apartments.

Observations:

1\. An incredibly high amount of people are out and about, even people who
seem to just be socializing, standing around / hangout out on their stoop,
talking to friends or neighbors, having small 5-15 person gatherings or
cookouts (on their stoop), or going for walks (without pets). There is a big
culture among natives of socializing outside in front of your building,
gathering to share in smoking, eating, listening to music, and chatting, which
is honestly a beautiful thing about New York when it isn't a pandemic. But
these gatherings seemingly haven't decreased, at least not to the degree one
might expect.

2\. An incredible amount of people have access to surgical masks. This was
news to me as I figured stocks were still depleted, but it turns out that they
are to be found in a variety of pharmacies, groceries, hardware stores,
bodegas etc. just at inflated prices and in small batches. I purchased a
replacement pack of 6 surgical masks at my grocery store checkout counter for
about a dollar each. I would estimate 80-90% of people in public here are
wearing a mask, mostly surgical, a minority KN95 (also was available at the
grocery I was at in individual units at a fairly high price) or
bandana/improvised masks.

3\. A huge percentage (maybe 30-45%)? of people that I see wearing masks seem
to be putting them around their chins or wearing them over their mouth but
with nostrils exposed or hanging around their neck. Or I see people pulling
them down and only pulling them back up when they walk by someone or go into a
store (most stores have signs on the entrance requiring masks but state that
improvised is OK).

It's incredibly frustrating seeing people wearing PPE incorrectly and/or
treating it as optional outside of stores.

4\. The young transplant/white/yuppie minority population in the area seems to
be either wearing masks correctly, clutching their grocery basket tightly with
a stern look on their face or alternatively treating the whole thing like a
joke and walking their dogs outside shining new development luxury buildings
with a look of glee and wearing no masks at all. For the most part they are
not to be seen at all except for seemingly in a grocery store or walking back
from one, or walking a pet. Where I would normally see dozens of young,
predominantly white hipsters in bars or at restaurants, coming and going to
the subway, or just walking, now I see 10-20% of usual traffic of them.

5\. Older people seem to be more likely than younger people to be wearing no
mask, to be wearing a mask incorrectly, or to be just standing around on their
front porch/stoop aimlessly.

Anyway, these are not meant to be construed as directly relevant as evidence
for a cause for the present infection demographics as we don't have a complete
picture of initial infections, of percentages of population that can work from
home vs works outside as essential workers, etc.

But certainly if you asked me about what my hypothesis might be about the
causes of minority populations in NYC having bad outbreaks, I would say we
can't ignore self inflicted wounds due to bad education or cultural disregard
/ machismo around rules and authority, skepticism towards government or
science, etc. No idea what the solution would be besides reducing inequality
and lifting people out of poverty, improving their education, or role models
within the communities stepping up and speaking out to those who flaunt social
distancing.

Lastly, I don't think these communities are alone in not abiding by quarantine
as much as they can, I think most of the United States is being as
lackadaisical, but the initial seeded infection just had much more time to
develop here unchecked so we're seeing those much worse outcomes despite most
of the country also breaking social distancing rules in a multitude of ways.

~~~
timr
_" A huge percentage (maybe 30-45%)? of people that I see wearing masks seem
to be putting them around their chins or wearing them over their mouth but
with nostrils exposed or hanging around their neck. Or I see people pulling
them down and only pulling them back up when they walk by someone or go into a
store (most stores have signs on the entrance requiring masks but state that
improvised is OK). It's incredibly frustrating seeing people wearing PPE
incorrectly and/or treating it as optional outside of stores."_

This fixation on masks is puzzling to me. The evidence for their effectiveness
is weak (particularly for non-medical masks) at best, and people have turned
"social distancing _plus_ masks" into "masks _plus_ social distancing", which
is exactly what public health experts were trying to avoid.

As you've noticed, a _huge percentage_ of people don't know how to wear masks
or don't care to know. Even if they do know and care, it's incredibly
inconvenient and difficult to wear a mask _properly_ , so people generally
don't. Moreover, as you've also noted, people are consuming medical equipment
that really should be reserved for professionals. It's exactly what
researchers said would happen when the mandatory mask idea was floated, and
it's why the CDC didn't recommend masks in the first place (and why the WHO
still doesn't).

More and more research is calling out mask laws as a questionable idea:

[https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-
off/](https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/)

[https://www.dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2086/19526/Face%...](https://www.dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2086/19526/Face%20masks%20caution%20in%20policy_v1_2020-04-22%20%28with%20disclaimers%29.pdf)

[https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577?ijkey=24b32ab627...](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577?ijkey=24b32ab6276a64e914df709d11f3cc9129863e83&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha)

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20049528v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20049528v1?ijkey=892024a57f4c2fe7bf8c55eee61a3fc8b5882be0&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha)

[https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/data-
do-...](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/data-do-not-back-
cloth-masks-limit-covid-19-experts-say)

[https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1422](https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1422)

And yet, every day, I see comments judging people for not wearing them, not
wearing them properly, etc. Again, there's little evidence for doing it,
they're misused/misworn in practice, and they seem to lead to a false sense of
security. Why are we doing this, again?

~~~
josephorjoe
primarily to reduce the likelihood of infectious people infecting other
people.

This is not complicated.

Every Single Avoided Infection Reduces The Pandemic.

Whataboutism is irrelevant.

The virus simply does not care about logic.

It only cares about math.

If I'm infectious and wear a mask and avoid infecting you, then you and
everyone you would have infected do not get the disease (from me).

If I'm part of 5% of people who are actively trying to avoid spreading the
infection, then it probably does not matter much and the virus spreads and
spreads and spreads.

If I'm part of 90% of people who are actively trying to avoid spreading the
infection, then it matters a great deal and the virus vanishes.

That is why we are doing this.

~~~
redis_mlc
> Every Single Avoided Infection Reduces The Pandemic.

No, you're trying to apply logic with incorrect data.

Corona is so contagious that nothing short of a Level 4 biohazard facility can
stop it, if that.

> That is why we are doing this.

No, it's just feel-good corona theater. We need herd immunity sooner than
later. Let's get to 80% ASAP!

~~~
Johnjonjoan
Are you implying the nations who have reduced infections to manageable levels
have made their entire countries biosafety level 4?

How long do you think herd immunity will last because its up for debate. What
should we tell the families of the 0.08 - 0.8% of the world population who
died when it turns out to not be long? Even if herd immunity lasts forever, if
we get a vaccine months later many died for no reason.

~~~
closeparen
We don’t really have attribution on masks vs. contact tracing.

~~~
Johnjonjoan
I don't understand how that's relevant to my questions

------
6510
[https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/physical-activity-
fundamen...](https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/physical-activity-fundamental-
preventing-disease)

------
lookACamel
A lot of evidence shows that the more severe cases are linked to having
Vitamin D deficiency. Perhaps increased COVID severity is a unexpected
consequence of the the public policy of "stay home indefinitely".

------
RickJWagner
“I was afraid that it was going to infect my family no matter what I did.
We’re past that,” Cuomo said at a press conference on April 13. “If you
isolate, if you take the precautions, your family won’t get infected."

Yet also:

"Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were
staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Gov. Andrew
Cuomo said Wednesday."

Seem contradictory, no?

~~~
richman777
That's the point. He said one of those things on April 13th, the other he
said, presumably, yesterday, May 6th.

------
JackFr
As expected HN comments dismiss this evidence because it does not match the
narrative. Study is dismissed as flawed, and personal anecdotes handwave the
data away.

From the data it’s not clear that shelter in place orders have had anything
other than a marginal effect.

~~~
jddj
Another anecdote:

I do some contracting work for a British company, and had some extremely
unrealistic deadlines looming in late February.

For this reason, I was keenly watching their government's announcements at the
time and was amazed as weeks went by and my country's restrictions got tighter
and tighter while the UK didn't budge.

Now, in May, it's not exactly apples to apples but they're now the hardest hit
(deaths-wise) in Europe, and my country has dropped down below 1000 active
cases (and decreasing some 50/day).

You could probably substitute my country for almost any other early mover and
the UK for almost any other late mover and arrive at the same result. Even
across different pandemics.

"Moving", here, means locking down.

Given that, my personal biases lead me to think that lockdowns _probably_
work. I have to acknowledge that there's a moderately high bar set for data
which disproves this thesis, because it's just so damned intuitive.

This doesn't meet that bar.

~~~
abduhl
How does your intuition square with a country like Sweden's response to the
virus who would be classified as not just a "late mover" but a "non-mover?"

~~~
jddj
As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Swedish snus for a year or two, I'd love to
say that it's the nicotine interfering by binding to the AChR receptors.

In reality though, I feel like in comparatively sparsely populated places like
Sweden, New Zealand, etc. there's not a lot of difference at this point
between a supermarket with significant social distancing imposed and a cafe
with significant social distancing restrictions imposed.

It's once you get to the densities of London, NY, Madrid, Rio and Paris that
the difference starts to become important.

From the perspective of reducing the spread, this should mean that many of the
US states should have been able to emulate Sweden's approach (inform citizens
and trust them to cooperate - up to the reader to decide if this translates
between Scandinavia and the US), and many are trying to. I guess we'll see,
but I think it's pretty clear that if you're New York you don't have that
option on the table.

But it's also about the relative danger. Hospitality staff in South Australia
right now, were that state to return to "business as usual", probably aren't
being asked to risk their lives. That is and has been a different story in
different states and cities around the world.

