[dev1n]

Here is the very informative briefing Cuomo gave today [1]. Quick facts for the state of New York:

1. ~15,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19

2. 114 individuals have died from COVID-19

    a. 70% of deaths were ages 70 and over and "majority" had underlying health conditions.

    b. ~80% of those who died under the age of 70 had underlying health conditions.

3. 18-49 years old represent 53% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases.

4. hospitalization rate of 13% which is very good, flattening the curve works. Stay inside.

Cuomo has mandated the City of New York to hand over a plan in 24 hours (as of today) to outline how exactly the local governments will curtail overcrowding in parks and other public places. When asked why Cuomo can't do this himself, he stated in a fair manner that while he does have the power to do so, he would not be as apt to devise the plan as the local governments are. This is the right move.

Gov. Cuomo made a similar judgement when pressing the federal gov't to curtail fed regulations and to allow him to open over 200 labs available within the state of New York to provide faster testing than what the federal government was able to do.

This opening of state-wide labs is why NY has nearly 15x the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases when compared to the next highest, the state of Washington. NY also has a more accurate hospitalization rate because of this, which is a very important number to be tracking when figuring out how to "flatten the curve" which currently sits at 13%.

Governor Cuomo is following the playbook of South Korea as effectively as possible in this current political climate and has successfully deployed every move available to him and helped push federal barriers down to allow NY to attack this virus faster than any other state. He is showing leadership that everyone wishes to see at the Federal level.

Having all of these laboratories in the state of NY makes me grateful every time I think about how much I pay in state taxes. But I can't help to think about how all of the bloodshed is a direct result of the failure of leadership at the federal level to be proactive about the situation. There is nothing of greater importance than every individual human life. The federal government sacrificed these people and all the people who will suffer and die in the future in the name of better polling numbers, placating a fan base, and keeping stocks afloat for a mere month longer than they would have.

Edit: Moved 53% statistic into its own bullet. Don't know know why I had it as a sub-bullet of the deaths statistic.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbIVnnMT18

[phd514]

The state tax rate in NY has nothing to do with this response (that seems quite good) to the COVID-19 pandemic. The labs that will be performing these extra tests are private labs, not labs funded by NY state taxes. I wish people could separate their criticism of the different governmental responses to this pandemic from their preferred stance on domestic tax policy.

[dev1n]

We have a well-funded state university system paid for by tax dollars which provides these labs with competent, well-educated employees. But yes, these labs are not directly funded by state dollars.

[alkibiades]

yes private universities like stanford and harvard would have no way of creating competent well educated employees. do you have proof the employees even when to state schools?

[akiselev]

AFAICT the State of New York is contracting out these labs directly and paying for all of the testing.

[phd514]

The expenses involved in the response to the pandemic aren't in any state's budget. All the states are going to petition the federal government for aid and the Fed is going to print money to cover it. In other words, we're all going to pay for it through inflation. Honestly, that's probably not the worst outcome, but there's no way any individual state, high tax rate or not, was going to be in a position to respond to a severe pandemic like this.

[akiselev]

The California and New York legislatures were already seriously looking at funding single payer healthcare in their states, largely pending a cooperative federal government. Covering the cost of hospitalization for at most 15% of their states would be a drop in the bucket. I wouldn't be surprised if California, Texas, and New York would be able to raise $100+ billion each in state bonds on rather favourable terms for healthcare expenses and direct stimulus despite the federal liquidity injections (or because of them, I can't figure whats going on there right now). It's not enough to keep the economic regions from collapsing and taking the rest of the country down with them long term, but it's probably enough for the people there until the federal response is adequate enough to take over.

If we're talking about the massive bailouts that'll need to happen for national security's sake, then I agree fully. There is no way any state can go it alone and at that point at least inflation spreads the pain a little bit more fairly, considering how bad multiple metropolitan regions collapsing would be for the rest of the country.

[gist]

> a. 70% of deaths were ages 70 and over and "majority" had underlying health conditions.

> b. ~80% of those who died under the age of 70 had underlying health conditions.

Underlying health conditions is a very broad metric. It could mean something as simple (possibly I don't know for sure) as 'high blood pressure'. I think we'd like to think of it as more severe than what that category includes.

It's similar in a way when their is a fire and the local papers say 'had several building code violations'. Without knowing what the violations were (and if they even mattered to the fire) I don't think many conclusions could be drawn.

And this assumes things are even categorized correctly in the first place.

Of course 'age' is age so that is most likely an accurate metric.

[dev1n]

I agree. I don't like having underlying health conditions listed as a statistic. I think it leads to people thinking "oh it only really affects people who are sick" and then those people go about their day as usual and spread the disease further. I didn't want to skip over it though out of fear of someone saying I tried to frame the stats to fit a narrative or something.

[fspeech]

I don't get the "NY is testing more" claim. Based on the data I have seen https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en/test NY tested 61401 so far with 15168 positive for a positive rate of 24.7%, while WA tested 27121 with 1793 positive for a positive rate of 6.6%. NY testing seems very restrictive. CA is now limiting tests due to shortage of swabs and PPEs.

[fyp]

The NY governor in your video cited that 40-60% of people are going to get it (20 min mark) and the same thing was said by CA governor a couple days ago too (56%): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22633570

So it seems like there's a consensus within the top-level leadership that containment is impossible. I still don't understand why we've given up when China managed to do it.

[dev1n]

My understanding of containment is that it is only effective when testing and tracing are radically pursued. There just are not enough resources at the state level (at this point) to do this with the effectiveness China has managed to do it. So we are left with one tool to fix this which is flatten the curve to not overwhelm the healthcare system and lead to further deaths. South Korea has been doing a lot of tracing and they are starting to see this as a great success, but mostly due to south korea's ability to track phones of people diagnosed positive.

[disgruntledphd2]

We could do that too, if there was enough social trust to make it politically acceptable (the tracking, that is).

[rb808]

I think they mean over the next few years. This virus is in every city in the world, we can't contain it everywhere. Eventually its just another endemic disease, but one we can vaccinate for and treat at a steady rate.

[kortilla]

> Having all of these laboratories in the state of NY makes me grateful every time I think about how much I pay in state taxes.

Those labs paid for by federal money?

[dev1n]

Nope most are private labs! But what do you think drew these labs to New York? Possibly a well-educated populace driven by a successful state university system funded by tax dollars? You better believe it!

[gwright]

> But I can't help to think about how all of the bloodshed is a direct result of the failure of leadership at the federal level to be proactive about the situation.

I feel like this is hindsight thinking and it is also a waste of energy and divisive at this point in the situation. We should all be focusing on what to do next. There will be lots of time for retrospectives afterwards.

[baxtr]

2.c is not related to the 114 who died, is it?

[dev1n]

No - sorry for the confusion.

18-49 year olds represent 53% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state of New York.

[baxtr]

Thanks for clarifying!

[ttul]

Perhaps residents of WA will now contemplate the wisdom of higher taxes.

[manacit]

WA resident here, I am quite happy with the response here relative to many other places.

UW has been running 2-3k tests per day for much longer than the NY testing apparatus has been spun up, we've actually run more tests per capita than NY (though I expect things to look more normal soon), with additional capacity coming online soon. Those tests have maintained a ~7% positivity rate, which is good news.

We were some of the first to report community transmission thanks to the hard work of our research community.

In addition, the business community in the Seattle area worked to push people to WFH long before other places, keeping hundreds of thousands of people from being potential vectors for spreading COVID-19.

Frankly I don't think now is the time to be making remarks like this. WA is not perfect, but it does not boil down to tax rate.

[kitteh]

I took a covid test on Tuesday. Still haven't gotten a result :/

[crowbahr]

I suspect Washington will have an income tax roughly around the time we've got a functional self sufficient colony out on Ganymede.

[baxtr]

It’s interesting that you are “relatively” optimistic about the situation in New York. I’ve been watching Mayor De Blasio in the recent weeks, and, he seems to have become more and more nervous over the course. Almost desperate. Maybe he is just playing it or he is not as cool as Cuomo, who, granted, does a good job so far.