Wisconsin ex-Dane and Milwaukee Counties
In comments to NDD’s post, Terry says:
Wisconsin—except for Milwaukee and Madison —basically opened up with no restrictions as a result of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling 4 weeks ago and much to the delight of the late night comics people flocked to taverns without regard of masks or social distancing. I certainly expected to see numbers bump up by now but in fact they have fallen steadily
Cool if true, but, as Warner Wolf said, let’s go to the video tape data:
I’m seeing a pop in cases about two to three weeks after the ruling, which rather matches Terry’s (and the world’s) initial expectations.
If you look at the time after those two well-predicted spikes, they look as if they might—best case—return to the mid-May, still pre-“reopening” levels. This is most likely because large firms and stores and most non-alcoholics (unlike the gerrymandered abomination that is the lame-duck Wisconsin Supreme Court) are taking a cautious approach to returning people to work and restaurants and shops to full capacity (assuming they still have disposable income).
I will stand by my comment. There were a record number of cases about 2 weeks after the Supreme Court ruling but with a record number of tests and a falling percentage of positive tests. Today that is down to 1.9% positive. Not what I would expect if there was a raging pandemic. Now there may be something to the notion that despite the well publicized tavern seekers, many in Wisconsin continued to act responsibly. It is a little like the well documented protests in Michigan with long guns and confederate flags while 72% of the public supported the governor’s shutdown order. My point is/was merely to let things play out without making too many predictions. A lot of people have been in the protests and while some are masked many are not and social distancing has not been maintained with people chanting. One might assume that it would be fertile ground to spread Covid-19 but I am not sure that will happen and if it does not there will be the usual suspects arguing that the whole social distancing nonsense was a hoax dreamed up by Democrats to ruin the very exceptionally beautiful economy the moron in chief had provided America in his infinite wisdom. I know there is considerable sentiment to that effect in Indiana where only “ liberals” wear masks and young men argue that their lives are being ruined because the health department has imposed restrictions on semi public swimming pools. Virus fatigue was going to set in and we could not keep the economy closed much longer but it is going to be harder to keep any level of buy in if predictions of disaster do not pan out. Certainly, two predicted disasters did not occur in Wisconsin and I certainly hope the protests will end up making it 0 for three. If not then everyone can say “I told you so” but let’s wait and see.
Terry
Go look for yourself. http://www.cashin.ru/virus/usa/ You can adjust the date.
https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2020/06/08/wisconsin-coronavirus-no-new-deaths-state-reports-203-more-cases/5317894002/ After Milwaukee, Brown county, Kenosha, Racine, and then Dane Count which is a third less than Racine.
Terry:
This comes in waves dependent upon what was done 10 -14 days before. May 13 there were 377 new cases. On May 21 there were 665 new cases, May 26 642 new cases, May 27 647 new cases, May 28 573 new cases, June 2, 665 new cases, etc. Each numeric is a 5-day average.
The R naught for the day of June 2 was 3.5, May 28 3.3, May 27 3.9, May 26 4.0, and May 21 4.8. If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will be transmitted between people, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.
For comparison; in 1918 there was a worldwide outbreak of the swine flu that killed 50 million people. The R0 value of the 1918 pandemic was estimated to be between 1.4 and 2.8. The R naught value for Wisconsin after SC turned the loose went up and higher than what Swine Flu R naught was. Hope that explains it.
That is what you can get off those links I gave you.
Ken:
If you click on your picture, you will pull up a small chart above the picture. If you click on the pencil, it will give you a list of options. Going down to custom. and clicking on it, it will tell you the pic is at 300 wide and 150 high. If you change the 300 to 600 the height will automatically adjust to keep the pic in perspective of the width increase. Just hit update and the pic will enlarge to the width of the column and more readable. I changed this pic to such. You can do so on your own or I can do it for you. I just wanted to mention it to you and see what you thought.
Bill