
Coronavirus ravages California’s Central Valley, following a cruel familiar path - jelliclesfarm
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-28/coronavirus-ravages-californias-central-valley-following-a-cruel-and-familiar-path
======
skmurphy
Reviewing [https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-
map/](https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-map/) and
[https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-
case...](https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-
tracking-outbreak/) I don't see evidence for the thesis of the article.

~~~
ac29
The new infection rate in the Central Valley counties is about 4x the rate of
Bay Area counties according to the first link.

~~~
skmurphy
Bay Area has done exceptionally well. Central Valley is in line with Southern
California.

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djsumdog
It seemed like California took some of the strongest lockdown measures early
on, especially compared to Texas and Florida; all three of which are seeing
increased fatalities while the rest of the country is plummeting.

I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable, combined with
the fact that many of those affected are in places with high population
densities. If we are to learn anything from elderly care facilities in NYC,
Sweden and Canada, it's that infected people need to be separated way out away
from anyone in their home. The primary vector of infection is still the home,
likely due to higher exposure if someone is sick.

~~~
grecy
> _I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable_

Amazing you just assume it's inevitable.

New Zealand certainly proves it's not.

Aim higher.

~~~
thehappypm
I don't think it's really feasible to compare a continental nation of 300M+
people to a small island nation.

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stephencoyner
This Frontline documentary highlights the poor conditions for farm workers and
meat packing workers.

It was really just a matter of time before this started. They aren’t supplied
masks, have to travel to work in crowded vehicles, etc.

[https://youtu.be/_VXDqhKGBy8](https://youtu.be/_VXDqhKGBy8)

~~~
Legogris
This video is not available. Anyone nabbed a youtube-dl?

~~~
gizmo686
It works here (USA).

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lowdest
Anecdote time: I live in San Francisco, almost everyone wears a mask here. My
friend just got back from a road trip through the central valley, he said
nobody there was wearing masks and a random stranger called him a coward (in
more colorful language) for wearing one while at a gas station. His opinion
was that the central valley is going to be hit hard.

~~~
jtbayly
I don't get angry at people wearing masks. I comply with the local mask
mandates where I live.

Having said that, I have a question. Why does anybody think that masks
actually help? I've basically been under the impression that masks are health
theater that allows people to go on with life without being scared, though it
doesn't actually do much of anything. Apparently I'm in the minority in
thinking that.

But I put on a surgical mask, twist the side ear loop so that air comes out
the side instead of the top (right at my eyes), and I ask myself what in the
world it is supposed to be accomplishing. It's not like people are wearing
properly fitted N95 masks, and even then, the way people are talking about
micro droplets seems like they might get through just fine.

~~~
webkike
There are studies pointing to their efficacy
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/)

~~~
jtbayly
I've read a fair bit now, and I'm left with... questions. I haven't read it
all yet, but nothing I've seen so far indicates that masks actually accomplish
anything directly.

From the summary of results: "Medical masks were not effective, and cloth
masks even less effective." I'm assuming that is referring to in hospital
settings, but still... somehow they magically they work "in the community."
Has anybody proposed or tested a reason for why they would work in one setting
but not the other?

I saw no mention of controlling for how much time the participants (college
students) spent with other people. Can we truly assume that wearing a mask had
no other effect on the behavior of young people who are incredibly image-
conscious and facing intense peer pressure to fit in? If I had to guess, the
only thing they proved is that college students asked to wear masks will stay
alone in their rooms more often than those not asked to wear masks. Of course,
indirect benefits are still benefits. It is possible that something like this
could happen when masks are mandated in public today. Meaning, mask mandates
lead to people staying home more, which is obviously going to be effective.
However, see next paragraph.

Another problem I saw immediately is that they were required to wear masks for
long periods when in their dwelling, but not required outside of their
dwelling. This, of course, is the opposite of what we are doing. What is the
result of inverting the study practices?

They were studies on the flu. Can we assume the same effect on Coronaviruses?

From one study... "Generalizability limited to similar settings and age
groups." Ok... so we're ignoring the paper's warnings about what we can learn
from it?

In one study they were able to measure a decrease in flu-like-illnesses(ILI)
with mask use, but it wasn't statistically significant, and it was only in the
second half of the study (weeks 4-6). The summary ends with: "Neither face
mask use and hand hygiene nor face mask use alone was associated with a
significant reduction in the rate of ILI cumulatively." It then proceeds in
the next sentence (the conclusion summary), to say, "These findings suggest
that face masks and hand hygiene may reduce respiratory illnesses in shared
living settings and mitigate the impact of the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic."
Isn't this an example of a study what normally would be lampooned on this
site? How exactly does the conclusion follow from the data?

Another study saw statistically significant reductions in ILI, but again, only
in the second half of the study, and did not find statistically significant
reduction in actual positive flu tests. It is summarized by: "Face masks and
hand hygiene combined may reduce the rate of ILI and confirmed influenza in
community settings. These non-pharmaceutical measures should be recommended in
crowded settings at the start of an influenza pandemic." However, there was no
control group that was _just_ hand washing. Doesn't it seem much more
reasonable to assume that the benefits are from hand-washing, rather than
hand-washing and masks combined, since the mask-only group saw little to no
benefit? And if so, why are we using this paper to prove that masks work?

~~~
Tagbert
Flu transmission and Covid transmission are not identical. Covid seems to be
mainly transmitted by relatively large respiratory droplets. The expiration
and transmission of those droplets is greatly reduced by a mask, even if some
leakage occurs around the edges. Perhaps because the drops are more likely to
just drop as a result.

Most of the studies have been done in high risk, high exposure situations. The
high concentration and repeated exposure over extended periods of time greatly
increase the chance of infection. This does not reflect the lower
concentrations and shorter duration of most civilian exposures. It generally
takes more than a single virus to actually result in infection.

Since there are indications that wearing masks does give you some protection
and does give significant protection to those around you, why not accept the
minor inconvenience and wear one?

~~~
jtbayly
"Since there are indications that wearing masks does give you some protection
and does give significant protection to those around you..."

This is precisely what I'm trying to find evidence of. So far, I've clicked
through to one summary of the research, followed by three papers linked in
there, which supposedly support the claim, and found that there is almost no
support for those claims.

And as I already said above, I _do_ wear one.

Edited to add: Also, I've been reading more and more articles questioning the
claim that Coronavirus is mostly limited to the larger droplets.

~~~
roel_v
You're right, from an evidence-based medicine perspective there is little to
no proof that masks work, and some indication that they are counter-
productive. There are plenty of people posting links with dozens of papers
claiming to prove that they do work, but very few if any of those people seem
to have actually read anything on those lists, as none of them claim what the
people posting the links claim they claim. (note that I'm not claiming here
people should or should not wear them, this is a position-neutral meta
observation).

That said, at this point wearing/'believing in' face masks is a political
issue, not an evidence based rational choice. It's tribal signaling. Noboby
really knows a or b, but choosing to believe a or b has become (yet another)
aspect of identity politics. Which is what worries me the most, because now
that position has become entrenched, regardless of whether we reach any
conclusive findings at some point in the future.

------
protomyth
I'm curious about lack of mention of home conditions. How many people per
household? What is the community / non-work contact?

It might all be the workplace, but we just had a large jump in cases without
the single workplace and we might have some of the same demographics as them.

~~~
jtbayly
FTA: "The surge in Central Valley cases has taken a particular toll on
farmworkers, in part because they often live in close quarters, share
transportation to job sites and have little access to healthcare."

~~~
protomyth
Yeah, that's one line and doesn't tell me a whole lot about the outside life.
Are there more than average number of people per household, are there family
gatherings, etc. I'm a bit worried they are comparing it to similar population
like reservations and concentration a bit too much on the job. Seeing what you
want or from the wrong perspective is not good.

------
throwanem
[https://archive.is/2op0w](https://archive.is/2op0w)

~~~
tzs
For those with Apple News+, just visit the URL in Safari on iPad or iPhone,
hit the "share" icon, and share with News+ to view the story there. LA Times
is included in News+.

This also works with the Wall Street Journal.

Note: this only works in mobile News+. It does not work on a Mac. Sometimes
you can just open the newspaper in question from News+ on a Mac and simply
find the story, but in this case I didn't see the story.

PS: you have to actually visit the URL in Safari. If you long tap on the link
on HN to bring up the actions menu there is a share option there, but News+ is
missing. News+ is only an option for sharing the URL Safari is actually on.

~~~
eddyg
Wow. I didn’t know you could do that. Super useful tip. Thanks for mentioning
it!

------
enraged_camel
It is going to be really interesting to read historical accounts of our
current times.

~~~
PakG1
Seriously makes me wonder if future generations would be able to garner a
relatively objective understanding of everything that's happened. 100 years
later, what would make one media source from today be considered more reliable
than another from today? What first person accounts would be considered more
reliable than another? Would you take the words of people on the street over
the words of the president? What of all the people who agree that there's a
deep state movement to work against the president in secret? How the heck
would a historian be able to figure out what really happened?

Suddenly makes me wonder how skeptical I should be of all our understanding of
recorded history.

~~~
karlshea
I wonder where a historian will even be able to read anything at all from this
time. Most of the discourse on this has been online, and who will have
archived Reddit and Tik Tok?

~~~
johnchristopher
> who will have archived Reddit and Tik Tok?

I was told the CCP has the list of every video of skateboarding and memes I
liked on the latter.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/2op0w](https://archive.is/2op0w)

------
ryanmarsh
"ravages" the central valley, how many deaths in the valley? I couldn't find
that in the article. Seems like it would be important to mention? Instead the
death total given is for the entire state.

~~~
Teknoman117
Many central valley counties are completely inundated with cases. I'm
currently living in San Joaquin, and we hit 100% ICU capacity and are
approaching 100% hospital capacity. I'm worried that this will just increase
the amount of deaths across the board because help is now much farther away.

~~~
djrogers
According to the latest stats, neither hospitalizations nor ICUs are at 100%,
hospitalizations have remained stable, and 17 of the 94 ICU beds are open.

Yeah, it’s not in great shape, but it’s not being ‘ravaged’.

[1] [https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-
case...](https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-
tracking-outbreak/san-joaquin-county/)

------
usaar333
Pet peeve of mine: It's really not the Central Valley as a whole being
ravaged, it's specifically the poorer southern part - the San Joaquin Valley.
Sacramento in particular is somewhere between the Bay Area and coastal So-Cal.
The northern extreme (say Redding) is actually doing a bit better than the Bay
Area.

All said, even in Sac, you have some pretty dangerous behavior going on
([https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/churches-return-
corona...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/churches-return-coronavirus-
protests.html)), so this isn't entirely surprising.

