COVID -- No Fans Allowed at UTSA Game

[snoscythe]

If Masks really work, why do we have to play in empty stadiums? If social distancing really works, why are we playing in empty stadiums, outdoors I might add?

I get really tired of these types of ignorant arguments. Like REALLY tired. The "If X works, why Y?" stuff just exposes either real or pretended ignorance.

Maybe nothing works perfectly to STOP spread, but there are a number of things that help SLOW the spread that, when combined, work even better to SLOW it?

Nothing ELIMINATES risk, but there are quite a few things we can do to REDUCE risk.

Exactly, so I guess it is the governments job to tell people what they can and can't do.

How else do you define a "law"?

Your statement actually confirms my entire point. If masks help, why not let people wear their masks and go watch football.

I don't honestly believe you are this dense -- this is what I referred to as pretended ignorance. There's a wide chasm between "helping" and "eliminating". Making the "if X works, why Y?" arguments only make you look irrational and insincere.

I get that you and other people want to be able to attend BYU games, but as a parent who didn't get to attend two of my son's football games that were played over the last two+ weeks in Provo/Orem because spectators are prohibited from attending any sporting events in those two communities, I would be pretty upset if BYU got a carve-out or special treatment. If the restrictions are science-driven, then either the rules change for the whole community or they stay the same for the whole community.

There is a 99+% chance that people will recover from this virus, which was recently proven when our 74 year old president recovered from it in 2 days.

I'm certain you've never done the math on what the number of deaths look like from a virus where 99+% survive infection--you wouldn't be so cavalier about things if you had.

Citing the survival rate generally comes from one of two camps--those who think we just need to go back to normal, or those arguing for herd immunity. I'll pretend that you are looking for herd immunity, because of those two camps, that one actually gives the best-case scenario for mortality numbers.

Herd immunity requires 50%-90% of the population to contract and survive a virus for herd immunity to offer protection. Even with the current mortality rate of 0.6%, those infection rates translate to between 9,600 and 17,312 deaths in the state of Utah alone. That's the same number of deaths as three to six 9/11's, and that's just in Utah.

Go nationwide and the "herd immunity plan" at current mortality rates means you are talking between 984,000 and 1,772,280 deaths.

By comparison, the US lost 655,000 lives in the Civil War (Union and Confederate combined). We lost 116,000 in WWI, and 405,000 in WWII. In our three worst wars, we saw a combined 1,176,000 deaths, not "casualties", or "wounded, dead, and missing", but actual deaths--and folks are calling for us to see that many or more from this virus here because they want to watch football and don't want to wear a mask.

Yeah, a percentage sounds small when you look at 0.6%. But when you take time to do the math and see what that looks like across the population, you understand that there is very good reason that our government officials are worried.

Keep in mind too that Utah has one of the lowest mortality rates among the states -- we're behind only Oregon, Hawaii, Maine, Wyoming, Vermont, and Alaska. In NYC, the current mortality rate is above 5%. One million dead in the US on the path to herd immunity is a very conservative estimate.

I think Utah has been pretty damn smart in how they have been reacting to the virus. They have targeted enhanced restrictions to the communities experiencing the greatest surge rather than coming down on communities that are not seeing increases. I expect Salt Lake County will see orange-level status in the next week if things don't turn around there.

If the ICU numbers don't turn around (COVID ICU bed usage rate is up 89% since September 1, and is now over 70% capacity), I wouldn't be surprised to see the entire state go back to orange before Halloween.

I think Utah is doing a pretty damn good job trying to strike a balance between keeping the economy afloat and slowing spread while we wait for a vaccine by targeting the communities seeing higher contagion rates.

[snoscythe]

There is no way that BYU couldn't safely accommodate the families of the players in a stadium that seats 60K+. State of Utah is being ridiculous.

There's careful and then there's stupid.

It is amazing that the insistence of those who feel to be concerned for others health don't feel as though they need to do this for the common flu. It is, statistically, MORE lethal than COVID-19 after all.

I'm interested to see where you get those statistics from, because I've yet to see them from a reputable source.

CDC numbers for the past 5 years for influenza cases and deaths in the US:
2015-16: 24,000,000 symptomatic cases, 24,000 deaths (<0.1% mortality rate)
2016-17: 29,000,000 symptomatic cases, 38,000 deaths (0.13% mortality rate)
2017-18*: 45,000,000 symptomatic cases, 61,000 deaths (0.13% mortality rate)
2018-19*: 36,000,000 symptomatic cases, 34,000 deaths (<0.1% mortality rate)
2019-20*: 38,000,000 symptomatic cases, 22,000 deaths (<0.1% mortality rate)

*CDC estimated numbers, pending finalization. You can check my math here:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/in ... nce%202010.

Even using Utah's relatively low current COVID mortality rate of 0.6%, the common flu's mortality rate is 5 or 6 times LESS than the COVID mortality rate.

That bears out in the total numbers as well -- from March through September (i.e., 7 months), COVID has killed nearly three times the number of Americans as died from influenza in 2019 (i.e., 12 months). Worldwide there are over a million COVID deaths already. The WHO estimated that at the top end 650,000 people died from the flu last year.

[frdbtr]

If Masks really work, why do we have to play in empty stadiums? If social distancing really works, why are we playing in empty stadiums, outdoors I might add?

I get really tired of these types of ignorant arguments. Like REALLY tired. The "If X works, why Y?" stuff just exposes either real or pretended ignorance.

Maybe nothing works perfectly to STOP spread, but there are a number of things that help SLOW the spread that, when combined, work even better to SLOW it?

Nothing ELIMINATES risk, but there are quite a few things we can do to REDUCE risk.

Exactly, so I guess it is the governments job to tell people what they can and can't do.

How else do you define a "law"?

Your statement actually confirms my entire point. If masks help, why not let people wear their masks and go watch football.

I don't honestly believe you are this dense -- this is what I referred to as pretended ignorance. There's a wide chasm between "helping" and "eliminating". Making the "if X works, why Y?" arguments only make you look irrational and insincere.

I get that you and other people want to be able to attend BYU games, but as a parent who didn't get to attend two of my son's football games that were played over the last two+ weeks in Provo/Orem because spectators are prohibited from attending any sporting events in those two communities, I would be pretty upset if BYU got a carve-out or special treatment. If the restrictions are science-driven, then either the rules change for the whole community or they stay the same for the whole community.

There is a 99+% chance that people will recover from this virus, which was recently proven when our 74 year old president recovered from it in 2 days.

I'm certain you've never done the math on what the number of deaths look like from a virus where 99+% survive infection--you wouldn't be so cavalier about things if you had.

Citing the survival rate generally comes from one of two camps--those who think we just need to go back to normal, or those arguing for herd immunity. I'll pretend that you are looking for herd immunity, because of those two camps, that one actually gives the best-case scenario for mortality numbers.

Herd immunity requires 50%-90% of the population to contract and survive a virus for herd immunity to offer protection. Even with the current mortality rate of 0.006%, those infection rates translate to between 9,600 and 17,312 deaths in the state of Utah alone. That's the same number of deaths as three to six 9/11's, and that's just in Utah.

Go nationwide and the "herd immunity plan" at current mortality rates means you are talking between 984,000 and 1,772,280 deaths.

By comparison, the US lost 655,000 lives in the Civil War (Union and Confederate combined). We lost 116,000 in WWI, and 405,000 in WWII. In our three worst wars, we saw a combined 1,176,000 deaths, not "casualties", or "wounded, dead, and missing", but actual deaths--and folks are calling for us to see that many or more from this virus here because they want to watch football and don't want to wear a mask.

Yeah, a percentage sounds small when you look at 0.006%. But when you take time to do the math and see what that looks like across the population, you understand that there is very good reason that our government officials are worried.

I think Utah has been pretty damn smart in how they have been reacting to the virus. They have targeted enhanced restrictions to the communities experiencing the greatest surge rather than coming down on communities that are not seeing increases. I expect Salt Lake County will see orange-level status in the next week if things don't turn around there.

If the ICU numbers don't turn around (COVID ICU bed usage rate is up 89% since September 1, and is now over 70% capacity), I wouldn't be surprised to see the entire state go back to orange before Halloween.

I think Utah is doing a pretty damn good job trying to strike a balance between keeping the economy afloat and slowing spread while we wait for a vaccine by targeting the communities seeing higher contagion rates.

And yet Salt lake county has been under mask mandate since June 25th. I know, I live here and you can't walk into any business without a mask on. If masks work, shouldn't SL county be controlling the spread? I am a proponent of herd immunity and I don't think that Covid is as deadly as the media and the health officials want us to believe it is. I think it is all political. I have been following KSL's daily infection rate and death count for months and IMO, there is no reason for the mass hysteria over this virus, unless you want to implement more government control over people and use this virus as an excuse. Like I said in my other post that you called me ignorant over. There is pretty much nothing to fear from this virus unless you are over 73 and as we saw with our 74 year old president, you also have to neglect yourself and not get medical care in order to die from it. I wonder how many people died from this because they, 1 didn't go to the doctor when they felt sick because of the lockdowns and they were afraid they would catch covid if they went to the hospital (not knowing they already had it), and 2 got diagnosed positive and for various reasons just chose not to get medical care at all until they were really sick. You talk about numbers of what the death rate would be extrapolated over the entire population because of the .6 number you came up with (I'm assuming that is the number of deaths to date per the current population), maybe that number would be less if governors back east hadn't mandated covid-19 positive patients be sent to nursing homes and long term care facilities earlier this year.

Oh, and 1 last point. These mask mandates and "restriction levels" aren't the law, they are a government edict, forced onto the citizens by a governor's executive order. The legislature has not made this the law.

[snoscythe]

And yet Salt lake county has been under mask mandate since June 25th. I know, I live here and you can't walk into any business without a mask on. If masks work, shouldn't SL county be controlling the spread.

LOL. The one-note wonder strikes again. Again, I reject the legitimacy of that ignorant oversimplification. You can keep banging that key on your piano, but hitting it more and harder won't bring it into tune.

You talk about numbers of what the death rate would be extrapolated over the entire population because of some .0006 number you came up with (I'm assuming that is the number of deaths to date per the current population), maybe that number would be less if governors back east hadn't mandated covid-19 positive patients be sent to nursing homes and long term care facilities earlier this year.

You can find the mortality rate of 0.6% for Utah under the Hospitalizations and Mortality Tab on Utah's official case-counts tab here:

https://coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts/

This only includes Utah illnesses and Utah deaths, so don't worry about it being impacted by those "back east". Utah has the 6th lowest mortality rate, so in all but five other states (and the nation as a whole) the number is higher than that 0.6%.

I get that you don't trust the reported numbers, the media, or your government--there's nothing I can do to persuade anyone to trust numbers they believe to be politically motivated, so I won't waste my breath.

But I will ask if you trust your distrust enough to put millions of lives at risk if you are wrong and the reported numbers are right?

[frdbtr]

And yet Salt lake county has been under mask mandate since June 25th. I know, I live here and you can't walk into any business without a mask on. If masks work, shouldn't SL county be controlling the spread.

LOL. The one-note wonder strikes again. Again, I reject the legitimacy of that ignorant oversimplification. You can keep banging that key on your piano, but hitting it more and harder won't bring it into tune.

You talk about numbers of what the death rate would be extrapolated over the entire population because of some .0006 number you came up with (I'm assuming that is the number of deaths to date per the current population), maybe that number would be less if governors back east hadn't mandated covid-19 positive patients be sent to nursing homes and long term care facilities earlier this year.

You can find the mortality rate of 0.6% for Utah under the Hospitalizations and Mortality Tab on Utah's official case-counts tab here:

https://coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts/

This only includes Utah illnesses and Utah deaths, so don't worry about it being impacted by those "back east". Utah has the 6th lowest mortality rate, so in all but five other states (and the nation as a whole) the number is higher than that 0.6%.

I get that you don't trust the reported numbers, the media, or your government--there's nothing I can do to persuade anyone to trust numbers they believe to be politically motivated, so I won't waste my breath.

But I will ask if you trust your distrust enough to put millions of lives at risk if you are wrong and the reported numbers are right?

I am beating this key on the piano because you have not answered my question. If masks stop, or slow the spread of the virus, why then is Salt Lake county, where masks have been mandatory since June 25th still have the highest infection rate in the state? Shouldn't we have the spread under control here by now? If you go to the dr and he prescribes a medication and you keep getting sicker, wouldn't it be logical to assume that the medicine wasn't working? You are denying this logic and and telling me that I am the ignorant one.

[frdbtr]

The bottom line is, there is no way to stop the spread of this thing. We aren't even really slowing it, the infection rate has risen from around 8% since summer to around 13% now. New Zealand was bragging that they had stopped the virus by shutting down their entire country and then a couple of days later they found infections that they had no idea where they had come from. Herd immunity is the only way that this virus eventually fizzles out. We need to protect the most vulnerable (people over 73 especially in long term care facilities) and let everyone else live their lives. Dehumanizing everyone by forcing a mask on them, stopping all recreation and social gathering isn't saving lives, it is just giving the government power that it should not have and was never constitutionally legal.

[snoscythe]

If masks stop, or slow the spread of the virus, why then is Salt Lake county, where masks have been mandatory since June 25th still have the highest infection rate in the state? Shouldn't we have the spread under control here by now? If you go to the dr and he prescribes a medication and you keep getting sicker, wouldn't it be logical to assume that the medicine wasn't working? You are denying this logic and and telling me that I am the ignorant one.

I don't think you understand how exponential math works. No one has ever said that masks would "stop" the spread. They only slow the RATE at which the spread occurs.

Illnesses, and specifically this one, spread at an exponential rate.

With exponential growth, something can slow that RATE of growth, but the number of cases may still continue to grow.

---------------------------
For an example (and these numbers are completely hypothetical, not in any way related to COVID, but merely illustrating the concept), suppose you had a pet bacterium that would reproduce at a rate of 5x per month unchecked. If you started with 1 in January, you'd go to 5 in February, 25 in March, and end up with 48,828,125 at the end of the year.

Now suppose you could get that bacterium to wear some skinny jean that reduced his motility levels, and now he only reproduces at a rate of 4.5x per month. While he is certainly still going to reproduce (you haven't stopped him from reproducing), you have just slowed his rate by 10%. Run that math out, and if you can just reduce the growth rate from 5x to 4.5x, at the end of the year you now end up with 15,322,783.

You wouldn't look at the bacteria at the end of the skinny jeans year and say "the numbers are still going up! Skinny jeans don't work!". Over just one year, that 10% slowing of the rate from skinny jeans has led to 33,505,342 fewer bacteria. A 10% reduction in monthly rate leaves you with 69% fewer than bacteria you would have otherwise, even though you end up with more and more bacteria month-to-month.
---------------------------


Applying the same principle (again, the previous numbers were just illustrative) to masks, social distancing, hand washing, or whatever measure you want, no one has ever said those will stop the virus, on their own or in tandem with the others. Case numbers will continue to rise exponentially, but that alone is not evidence that "masks don't work", because exponential growth isn't that simple.

What they do is slow the rate of growth so that we can avoid for as long as possible the circumstance where our treatment resources (e.g., the number of ICU beds) are insufficient to offer proper care for those who do contract the illness. If and when that happens, that is when the mortality rates skyrocket as we have seen in Italy, New York, New Jersey, etc.

[BoiseBYU]

If Masks really work, why do we have to play in empty stadiums? If social distancing really works, why are we playing in empty stadiums, outdoors I might add?

I get really tired of these types of ignorant arguments. Like REALLY tired. The "If X works, why Y?" stuff just exposes either real or pretended ignorance.

Maybe nothing works perfectly to STOP spread, but there are a number of things that help SLOW the spread that, when combined, work even better to SLOW it?

Nothing ELIMINATES risk, but there are quite a few things we can do to REDUCE risk.

Exactly, so I guess it is the governments job to tell people what they can and can't do.

How else do you define a "law"?

Your statement actually confirms my entire point. If masks help, why not let people wear their masks and go watch football.

I don't honestly believe you are this dense -- this is what I referred to as pretended ignorance. There's a wide chasm between "helping" and "eliminating". Making the "if X works, why Y?" arguments only make you look irrational and insincere.

I get that you and other people want to be able to attend BYU games, but as a parent who didn't get to attend two of my son's football games that were played over the last two+ weeks in Provo/Orem because spectators are prohibited from attending any sporting events in those two communities, I would be pretty upset if BYU got a carve-out or special treatment. If the restrictions are science-driven, then either the rules change for the whole community or they stay the same for the whole community.

There is a 99+% chance that people will recover from this virus, which was recently proven when our 74 year old president recovered from it in 2 days.

I'm certain you've never done the math on what the number of deaths look like from a virus where 99+% survive infection--you wouldn't be so cavalier about things if you had.

Citing the survival rate generally comes from one of two camps--those who think we just need to go back to normal, or those arguing for herd immunity. I'll pretend that you are looking for herd immunity, because of those two camps, that one actually gives the best-case scenario for mortality numbers.

Herd immunity requires 50%-90% of the population to contract and survive a virus for herd immunity to offer protection. Even with the current mortality rate of 0.006%, those infection rates translate to between 9,600 and 17,312 deaths in the state of Utah alone. That's the same number of deaths as three to six 9/11's, and that's just in Utah.

Go nationwide and the "herd immunity plan" at current mortality rates means you are talking between 984,000 and 1,772,280 deaths.

By comparison, the US lost 655,000 lives in the Civil War (Union and Confederate combined). We lost 116,000 in WWI, and 405,000 in WWII. In our three worst wars, we saw a combined 1,176,000 deaths, not "casualties", or "wounded, dead, and missing", but actual deaths--and folks are calling for us to see that many or more from this virus here because they want to watch football and don't want to wear a mask.

Yeah, a percentage sounds small when you look at 0.006%. But when you take time to do the math and see what that looks like across the population, you understand that there is very good reason that our government officials are worried.

I think Utah has been pretty damn smart in how they have been reacting to the virus. They have targeted enhanced restrictions to the communities experiencing the greatest surge rather than coming down on communities that are not seeing increases. I expect Salt Lake County will see orange-level status in the next week if things don't turn around there.

If the ICU numbers don't turn around (COVID ICU bed usage rate is up 89% since September 1, and is now over 70% capacity), I wouldn't be surprised to see the entire state go back to orange before Halloween.

I think Utah is doing a pretty damn good job trying to strike a balance between keeping the economy afloat and slowing spread while we wait for a vaccine by targeting the communities seeing higher contagion rates.

And yet Salt lake county has been under mask mandate since June 25th. I know, I live here and you can't walk into any business without a mask on. If masks work, shouldn't SL county be controlling the spread? I am a proponent of herd immunity and I don't think that Covid is as deadly as the media and the health officials want us to believe it is. I think it is all political. I have been following KSL's daily infection rate and death count for months and IMO, there is no reason for the mass hysteria over this virus, unless you want to implement more government control over people and use this virus as an excuse. Like I said in my other post that you called me ignorant over. There is pretty much nothing to fear from this virus unless you are over 73 and as we saw with our 74 year old president, you also have to neglect yourself and not get medical care in order to die from it. I wonder how many people died from this because they, 1 didn't go to the doctor when they felt sick because of the lockdowns and they were afraid they would catch covid if they went to the hospital (not knowing they already had it), and 2 got diagnosed positive and for various reasons just chose not to get medical care at all until they were really sick. You talk about numbers of what the death rate would be extrapolated over the entire population because of the .6 number you came up with (I'm assuming that is the number of deaths to date per the current population), maybe that number would be less if governors back east hadn't mandated covid-19 positive patients be sent to nursing homes and long term care facilities earlier this year.

Oh, and 1 last point. These mask mandates and "restriction levels" aren't the law, they are a government edict, forced onto the citizens by a governor's executive order. The legislature has not made this the law.

You sound less rational with each post. Masks are not a cure, but one of many steps to reduce transmission and the fact is they aid in that effort. At least here in Idaho the edicts to wear masks or limit crowd sizes IS pursuant to law. In Idaho the legislature authorized the governor in times of emergency declarations to do precisely the things he has done here. I suspect Utah is no different In how it has set things in place. So his orders have the effect of law. Thus, your distinction is without any meaningful difference. Finally, the science is still developing with new data and investigation, but for those of you to equate COVID-19 to the common flu is simply an exercise in ignorance. It denigrates the tens of thousands who have died, the health professionals who have undergone grave risks to succor the sick, and the families who have suffered as a result.

[BoiseBYU]

The bottom line is, there is no way to stop the spread of this thing. We aren't even really slowing it, the infection rate has risen from around 8% since summer to around 13% now. New Zealand was bragging that they had stopped the virus by shutting down their entire country and then a couple of days later they found infections that they had no idea where they had come from. Herd immunity is the only way that this virus eventually fizzles out. We need to protect the most vulnerable (people over 73 especially in long term care facilities) and let everyone else live their lives. Dehumanizing everyone by forcing a mask on them, stopping all recreation and social gathering isn't saving lives, it is just giving the government power that it should not have and was never constitutionally legal.

So you are not only a public health professional, but also a constitutional scholar? Good grief. All you are doing to channeling your inner Trump.

[frdbtr]

The bottom line is, there is no way to stop the spread of this thing. We aren't even really slowing it, the infection rate has risen from around 8% since summer to around 13% now. New Zealand was bragging that they had stopped the virus by shutting down their entire country and then a couple of days later they found infections that they had no idea where they had come from. Herd immunity is the only way that this virus eventually fizzles out. We need to protect the most vulnerable (people over 73 especially in long term care facilities) and let everyone else live their lives. Dehumanizing everyone by forcing a mask on them, stopping all recreation and social gathering isn't saving lives, it is just giving the government power that it should not have and was never constitutionally legal.

So you are not only a public health professional, but also a constitutional scholar? Good grief. All you are doing to channeling your inner Trump.

Boisebyu, you don't know me or what my opinions are of president Trump so don't even go there.