In Defense of Fl

I heard how poorly Florida is handling the Covid19 pandemic so many times that I assumed it was overwhelmingly true. Then someone in the Panic thread posted a screen shot of a statistic reporting site that made me do a little digging into our R0 value. A brief explanation of the R0 value is how many people 1 sick person will infect. R0 of more than 1 means it is spreading, R0 of less than 1 means it is decreasing. 

According to RT.Live our current number is 0.97. Yep, not the Covid spreading cesspool we keep being portrayed as. Better yet there are 35 states with higher numbers than us (30 of which are over 1.0).

So the nation and media need to ease up on Fl. Get your own states in line before you come lecture us.

Disclaimer: I am not sure why they use RT instead of R0 but it seems like there are several ways to say the same thing. The statistics do use numbers that line up well with what the state website reports. The source seems to be The Atlantic magazine which leans more liberal than conservative. The source code for the calculations is posted on github.

I traveled around the state today and was pleasantly surprised at mask usage.  When we travel to Orlando area a couple of months back there was like no mask usage mid state.

Oh.  Florida.  I thought it was Fuel Injection.  I was like, in this day and age, we're defending fuel injection?  I mean, they've got it to the point where it's almost as good as a carburetor. 

1988RedT2 said:

Oh.  Florida.  I thought it was Fuel Injection.  I was like, in this day and age, we're defending fuel injection?  I mean, they've got it to the point where it's almost as good as a carburetor. 

My thought was Forced Induction. Also almost as good as a carburetor!

Based on my colleagues tales - they’re all in Orlando, I think mostly Apopka area - it was BAD and they deserved it. Then the majority starting taking it seriously about a month or so ago. 

Bear in mind I’m trying to weigh 6 different folks opinions who vary from “lives on a farm” to “has 5 kids” to “has asthma, cardiomyopathy, and is a cancer survivor” so obviously different levels of interpretation. It is already probablt the 5th leading cause of death, and has the potential to be #2 in FL if I remember my stats correctly. 

It's a cesspool because stampie lives there

Ohio guy here to say I appreciate the research as FL is definitely being portrayed as evil.  In general we all need to do better.  

My section of Cincinnati hasn't done great but has done better than others.  In general the first week or two of the statewide mask order were dramatic.    My highly calibrated eyeball-ometer tells me we are getting (grudgingly) to an 80-90% mask compliance.  
 

Like everyone with school age kiddos we are sweating the back to school.   Fingers crossed - stay safe folks.

mtn (Forum Supporter) said:

Based on my colleagues tales - they’re all in Orlando, I think mostly Apopka area - it was BAD and they deserved it. Then the majority starting taking it seriously about a month or so ago.

The site linked in the OP can show back dated info. In this case it seems to confirm your anecdotes. 2 months ago FL had one of the highest R0 values in the nation @1.31. 1 month ago it had been reduced to 0.96.

It's a similar story in both AZ and CA where it was pretty bad 2 months ago but they've had the lowest R0 value in the country since then.

84FSP said:

Ohio guy here to say I appreciate the research as FL is definitely being portrayed as evil.  In general we all need to do better.  

 

Like everyone with school age kiddos we are sweating the back to school.   Fingers crossed - stay safe folks.

Agreed. I do thing people can do better and we are also trying to balance school, risk, etc.

It is going to be interesting seeing how this progresses with people moving all over the State for the College year starting (very limited face to face) and kids returning to school. Our County is going to be even more interesting. It has been testing positive at about 1/2 the state average but we were able to send 60,000 people away when this started (University of Florida students). They are coming back. They are about the only people in the county who live in high density housing and they seem less worried about transmission.

One of the reasons why the Fl R rate is lowish is because it was such a S-show recently (now decreasing, thus the R rate).

But....... in pretty much any other measure, when compared to pretty much anywhere else.... not good.  Probably the best comparisons are TX and CA:

These are the current number of course (they were a lot worse last week).  Of careful note is the ICU Used stat.  This is also for the whole state, so, for example Miami-Dade is much worse.

Obligatory note: all this data is pretty much crap from an analysis perspective (e.g. what is actually happening), but it's decent for comparison sake

Source: https://covidactnow.org/us/fl?s=839160

If we take a look at a more typical US state, we can see:

So.... I wouldn't be too proud.

The good news (maybe).  Is that FL has done such a good job at infecting itself (and TX and CA, despite radically different approaches) that there is a good chance we will see a steady decrease (Sweden and NY are showing this curve now, both already heavily hit).  I suspect outburst are still possible, and those seem to have a lot to do with people moving around (e.g. Spain is getting hammered good now from tourists).

I am not sure we are allowed to discuss such things here though, so....

In reply to aircooled :

IIRC our ICU's run about full all the time. They went from lots of headroom here to almost full as soon as hospitals were allowed to perform elective procedures again. For example-laminectomies use the ICU for recovery. That means if they get full we can just cancel surgeries and free up a some room. I also show 13.2% positive from This site instead of the 17.6% your site listed. We also had an incidence where over 40 labs reported 100% positive test rates and dozens more reported over 80% (they were either were not reporting any of their negatives or most of their negatives) meaning our positive rates were exaggerated. The effect was likely small, but not insignificant. That has likely been resolved so the current numbers are probably accurate. 

I do appreciate the pointing our the statistical effect of having a big spike in positives making it easier to be trending downwards. That is something I had not considered. The upside is we are still trending downward two months after our spike. I am going to have to research how far back the calculations consider to establish that number.

My employer had all customer facing employees tested this week.  I came back negative today but it was the quick test so I think it'll be interesting how many false positives we get.

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

It's a cesspool because stampie lives there

No I got a shot in the ass down at the free clinic to cure that.

MrJoshua said:

According to RT.Live our current number is 0.97. Yep, not the Covid spreading cesspool we keep being portrayed as. Better yet there are 35 states with higher numbers than us (30 of which are over 1.0).

So the nation and media need to ease up on Fl. Get your own states in line before you come lecture us.

Just remember how much damage was already done prior to this point.  R0 only tells part of the story.

Florida has more active cases than any other state in the US by a significant amount.  If it were a country it would have more cases than all but 3 other countries in the world.

ProDarwin said:

MrJoshua said:

According to RT.Live our current number is 0.97. Yep, not the Covid spreading cesspool we keep being portrayed as. Better yet there are 35 states with higher numbers than us (30 of which are over 1.0).

So the nation and media need to ease up on Fl. Get your own states in line before you come lecture us.

Just remember how much damage was already done prior to this point.  R0 only tells part of the story.

Florida has more active cases than any other state in the US by a significant amount.  If it were a country it would have more cases than all but 3 other countries in the world.

Source?

How many of floridas cases are because of snowbirds fleeing new york I wonder?

MrJoshua said:

Source?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

ProDarwin said:

MrJoshua said:

Source?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Thank you.

We do have a lot of positives. We do better with our death rate. From that site there are 17 other states with higher deaths per 100k. Honestly that surprises me considering our large retired population. 

MrJoshua said:

In reply to aircooled :

IIRC our ICU's run about full all the time. ...

Yeah, like I said, most of the data is pretty crap, but is still pretty good for comparison.  The ICU headroom does though take into account normal usage, and that (as you pointed out) is one reason why it is so easy to peak it out.  I am pretty sure 100% does not mean "let some die" time though.  I am sure there is some flexibility there.  The more general way to look at the chart below is that it would run from around 60% at the bottom up to %100

You are right and did remind me that Florida should be absolutely be proud of the death rate.  More cases than New York with less then %25 of the deaths!  I believe this is primarily because when all this started FL was rather careful about protecting the nursing homes.  Most states have 50-70% of their deaths in nursing homes because they didn't (which is pretty amazing considering the first death hot spot was a nursing home). There is obviously a large population of elderly in FL also.  I suspect they are just good an hunkering down (made easier because of lots of retirement communities?).

As you can see below, damn good numbers, especially considering the number that are in FL:

https://data.cms.gov/stories/s/COVID-19-Nursing-Home-Data/bkwz-xpvg/

aircooled said:

One of the reasons why the Fl R rate is lowish is because it was such a S-show recently (now decreasing, thus the R rate).

 

 

You peaked my curiosity with this one. So looking at the R numbers from the same site: Florida was in the midst of their "S-show" 2 months ago with a R rate of 1.21. 40 of the 50 states were in a positive growth phase at that time and there were 8 states the same or worse than FL.  Fast forward to today and we are now at an R of 0.96. 33 states have a worse rate than us and 20 are still in positive growth. 

I'm waiting for South Dakota to really get hosed. Our smug neighbor to the west is thinking they are immune because no one wants to live there. 

I am a total statistics nut but all this data is driving the bus by looking in the rear mirror.  My issue with FL and the reason we probably will not go there this winter is how the governor and other officials have handled this.  The absolute refusal to wear masks and enact distancing rules in some places was negligent.  Now this week a sheriff came out on national TV and said he is forbidding employees from wearing masks and if the public comes into their buildings they HAVE to remove masks.  What happened to the right to protect yourself?  

Just finished a contact tracing course, free and sponsored by Johns Hopkins.  It was pretty basic but one of my takeaways was wear a decent mask when inside public places, keep distancing from others outside and wash your hands every time you touch something in public.  The last one is not as essential but it can't hurt.  I advise anyone with time to spend a few hours watching the videos.

One comment on statistics, it would be interesting to see the distribution of age in each state with the positive cases and deaths.  

In reply to porschenut :

I agree with you. I find the way the officials are acting in Florida are like children trying to touch the hot stove.  You tell them it'll burn them, they scoff at it prompltly burn the ever loving E36 M3 outta their hand and now you're stuck paying for their medics bills and have to deal with incessant moaning until they heal. 
 

I also like Florida. I'd love to retire to a small shack in on a small key with a fishing boat out back.  Many of my coworkers live in Melbourne.  They are all in shock at the way the general populous is handling this. 

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

i LOL'd (EDIT: re your smug neighbor SD)