OK, this is NOT a LOOK AT US post. It's important info that shows what happens when states immediately put in drastic measures to lock down against Coronavirus. The data are normalized per 100,000 folks so you can't start on "Well ME, NH & VT haven't got many peeps" because other population "hotbeds" like AK, ID and WY are there too.
YES, I do understand the extreme economic hardship the restaurant, tourist and hospitality industries are suffering here in Maine because of these Draconian Measures. I haven't been to a restaurant since Feb 18 and constantly wonder how many local restaurants and shops will stay shuttered for good.
However, iron fist controls do work as this figure clearly demonstrates. It's just a matter of people's tolerance for it and examining the forbidden equation of how much a human life is worth in terms of economic devastation.
No that we weathered the summer, schools are starting to open, some being very cautious with only virtual, some opening up. It will be interesting to see how that all works out. I'm being my typical cynical, pessimistic self.
Lecture over, time to go and social distance with my striped nemeses...
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau Veni. Vidi. Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar
The number of COVID-19 cases connected to a wedding reception in Millinocket continues to climb, with state health officials saying on Saturday that they could trace 53 confirmed cases of coronavirus to the reception. That’s up from 32 confirmed cases on Friday.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday that investigators identified secondary and tertiary transmission of the virus, which means that it has spread to people who did not attend the Aug. 7 wedding reception but had close contact with individuals who were present at the event (secondary cases) and close contacts of the secondary cases.
Millinocket Regional Hospital has reported that it tested 366 people who attended the reception or came in contact with those who did. Of the 53 cases linked to the reception on Saturday, 13 were secondary and 10 were tertiary, Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long said Saturday evening.
Those affected range in age from 4 to 98 years old, with a median age of 41. A woman who did not attend the reception died on Friday after contracting COVID-19 from a person who did attend the event, health authorities said. They did not identify her, nor the guest she came into contact with.
Big Moose Inn, which hosted the event, was cited for an “imminent health hazard,” which carries no fine but can bring harsher penalties if state officials determine the venue violated health rules again. The wedding reception had 65 people, more than the state maximum of 50 for indoor gatherings.
Maine health officials have said the investigation into the wedding reception continues, including to what extent attendees were wearing masks or not wearing masks, and whether they were instructed by the Big Moose Inn to do so. Under Maine’s emergency orders to combat the spread of the coronavirus, establishments are required to enforce mask wearing in indoor public places.
Thanks for sharing Dom. The "Case" count is the headline number everyone looks at. It's kind of like an earnings report where XYZ company beat on earnings, but when you peel back the onion, you find they did it on a one time asset sale, not on increased revenue or cash flow from operations.
What I would like to see with the Covid Case reporting, and what is almost never reported is the following:
Case Count: 53 # Positive with no symptoms: ? # Positive with mild symptoms: ? # Positive requiring hospitalization/ICU:?
This would really help inform the sheep.
Perhaps you can update this if additional data comes out in the coming weeks as to those 53 positive "Cases".
Also, the person who passed away: any underlying conditions, was the person in critical care at the time, or was the person perfectly healthy?
[USER=166]@dsedy[/USER] all good questions/comments. All the available info is contained within the 2 posts and privacy laws prevent the disclosure of many of the specific items you mention.
Bottom line: [LIST] [*]That the gathering was more than the State Imposed 50 limitation.
[*]They were not reminded to wear masks and to socially distance.
[*]Attendees have passed the disease along to others not at the event, including the person who passed from the disease so there is now a community-spread disease. I believe the person who passed was in her 50s IIRC and she was the only infected person to be hospitalized. [/LIST] That's all we've got and probably all we can get. Just goes to show that the beast is extremely contagious and ready to run riot as soon as folks let their guard down, as being demonstrated time and time again.
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau Veni. Vidi. Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar
[USER=166]@dsedy[/USER] all good questions/comments. All the available info is contained within the 2 posts and privacy laws prevent the disclosure of many of the specific items you mention.
Bottom line: [LIST] [*]That the gathering was more than the State Imposed 50 limitation.
[*]They were not reminded to wear masks and to socially distance.
[*]Attendees have passed the disease along to others not at the event, including the person who passed from the disease so there is now a community-spread disease. I believe the person who passed was in her 50s IIRC and she was the only infected person to be hospitalized. [/LIST] That's all we've got and probably all we can get. Just goes to show that the beast is extremely contagious and ready to run riot as soon as folks let their guard down, as being demonstrated time and time again.
Dom - I am not questioning the event (wedding) at all. Just the reporting. I am very familiar with HIPAA guidelines and also know the difference between PHI, PII and the context that governs each.
That said, no where in the HIPAA regulations does an aggregate and anonymized data set violate HIPAA Privacy.
e.g.
Case Count: 53 # Positive with no symptoms: ? # Positive with mild symptoms: ? # Positive requiring hospitalization/ICU:?
[B]Reporting these metrics, anomalously and in aggregate would NOT violate HIPAA Privacy Regs.. Pharma does this all the time when they do clinical trials. [/B]
Watch. 500 campers and 200 counselors in camp on Long Island this summer.
Not 1 case of Covid. Notice that not 1 kid wheres a mask, no social distancing in the video, and only staff need to where a mask. They followed basic protocol around washing hands and sanitizing areas.
Dom - I am not questioning the event (wedding) at all. Just the reporting. I am very familiar with HIPAA guidelines and also know the difference between PHI, PII and the context that governs each.
That said, no where in the HIPAA regulations does an aggregate and anonymized data set violate HIPAA Privacy.
e.g.
Case Count: 53 # Positive with no symptoms: ? # Positive with mild symptoms: ? # Positive requiring hospitalization/ICU:?
[B]Reporting these metrics, anomalously and in aggregate would NOT violate HIPAA Privacy Regs.. Pharma does this all the time when they do clinical trials. [/B]
Let me know if I am wrong on that!
Well it's kind of a mishmash. The Maine CDC has only recently broken down the data from the county to a zip code level. Because of the numbers of people in the more rural zip codes, it took Maine CDC a long time to break down the data by zip code for fear of HIPAA issues. The 53 infected folks here is the second largest outbreak to date in Maine, although if it continues to spread it could be the largest
Maine CDC reports New Cases, Hospitalizations, Resolved Cases and Fatalities. They report ICU and Ventilator usages, but on a hospital by hospital basis, and don't tie that back to the originating patient zip codes. There's only a dozen or so hospitals in the state that the COVID-19 patients are sent to, so you can't tie those back to a zip code; my local hospital does not take cases, they send any down to the Portland area.
.When talking about a specific outbreak like this, at a workplace, or at a nursing home, they'll further parse the data to say the number of residents or staff, the number of attendees or non-attendees, or the number of employees or vendors. They do report the number of fatalities associated with an outbreak.
Beyond that, it's all we got, so we do not have a handle on differentiating mild cases from asymptomatic cases and even you know the actual zip code of the people infected, you can't get a handle on the number of hospitalizations because you wouldn't know if all the new hospitalizations from that zip code were due to the outbreak.
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau Veni. Vidi. Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar
Well it's kind of a mishmash. The Maine CDC has only recently broken down the data from the county to a zip code level. Because of the numbers of people in the more rural zip codes, it took Maine CDC a long time to break down the data by zip code for fear of HIPAA issues. The 53 infected folks here is the second largest outbreak to date in Maine, although if it continues to spread it could be the largest
Maine CDC reports New Cases, Hospitalizations, Resolved Cases and Fatalities. They report ICU and Ventilator usages, but on a hospital by hospital basis, and don't tie that back to the originating patient zip codes. There's only a dozen or so hospitals in the state that the COVID-19 patients are sent to, so you can't tie those back to a zip code; my local hospital does not take cases, they send any down to the Portland area.
.When talking about a specific outbreak like this, at a workplace, or at a nursing home, they'll further parse the data to say the number of residents or staff, the number of attendees or non-attendees, or the number of employees or vendors. They do report the number of fatalities associated with an outbreak.
Beyond that, it's all we got, so we do not have a handle on differentiating mild cases from asymptomatic cases and even you know the actual zip code of the people infected, you can't get a handle on the number of hospitalizations because you wouldn't know if all the new hospitalizations from that zip code were due to the outbreak.
Thanks for the additional info as to the process. I was going to reply .but not now. We are all friends.
Dom. I hope you are enjoying your Sunday and the family is healthy and safe. As do i for all the NYanglers on here. I'm prepping now for a pizza on the BBQ tonight! Just baought a new pizza wheel!!
Yes, viruses are pretty wimpy when it comes to heat, they're just a protein/fat sac filled with trouble. Denature the key membrane proteins like Coronavirus' spike protein with anything that denatures proteins like heat, acid, bases, high salt, alcohol, etc., and they are incapable of entering and infecting a cell.
Now that all being said, don't forget that COVID has to get into your airways to infect you, so swallowing something with the virus on it doesn't provide the beastie with access to your airways. Therefore sushi and sashimi are still on the menu at Chez Roccus, although we're not doing a rigorous sniff test.
Bacteria can be a bit more cantankerous, especially if they form spores which can be quite tough to "kill"...
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau Veni. Vidi. Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar
So what your saying is we can still pick our nose and eat our boogers! Just wash your hands afterwards!!? I’m sorry...but it was brought up in conversation about small children doing just that. I hope nobody’s having dinner when reading this.?
Doing onsite consulting for years, I'm painfully aware of this, BUT wondering how many NYA colleagues are aware of this. If you have any questions, get thee to a tax expert...
[SIZE=7]Here’s How Moving to Work Remotely Could Affect Your Taxes[/SIZE]
The rules are complicated and vary by state, so accountants are advising taxpayers to keep track of how many days they spend working in each state.
Working from home and out of town could lead to surprise state tax liabilities.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
If you decided to ride out the pandemic at your out-of-state vacation house or with your parents in the suburbs, you may be in for an unpleasant reality: a hefty tax bill.
Given the complexity of state tax laws, accountants are advising their clients to track the number of days they spend working out of state. Some states impose income tax on people who work there for as little as a single day.
Even before the pandemic, conflicting state tax rules were creating issues for the increasing number of people who were working remotely, said Edward Zelinsky, a tax professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law.
“In the last six months, this has gone from a big problem to a humongous problem,” Mr. Zelinsky said. He knows from personal experience: He lives in Connecticut but works in New York and has paid tax on his New York-based salary to both states.
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau Veni. Vidi. Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar
A wedding reception in Millinocket that is so far connected to 60 cases of COVID-19 is now also linked to an outbreak at the York County Jail and a nursing home in Madison.
“COVID-19 can be the uninvited guest at every single wedding, party or event in Maine,” Shah said. “These recent examples show how aggressive and how opportunistic this virus is and how quickly it can move from one community to another.”
Gov. Janet Mills described the spread of the virus from the wedding reception as a spark from a campfire that ignites a dry forest.
“Sixty people are now associated with that one outbreak, and the impacts are widespread,” Mills said. One person who did not attend the reception but is a close contact of an attendee has died of COVID-19, the Maine CDC has confirmed.
Thirty-eight of the 60 cases were in people who did not attend the reception but were infected by someone who went to the wedding, including six cases at Maplecrest Rehabilitation Center in Madison. Twenty-two cases are from people who attended the reception.
Shah said a staff member at Maplecrest became infected from someone who was a close contact of a wedding attendee, causing the outbreak at the nursing home.
The York County Jail’s numbers are not yet reflected in the 60 cases, but Shah said a jail employee attended the Millinocket wedding reception. There are now 18 cases at the York County Jail, although it’s not clear yet how many can be traced to Millinocket.
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau Veni. Vidi. Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar
