[tghw]

While true, that map and a photo of an outdoor space with people in it are poor pieces of data to hinge your entire argument on.

You completely failed to take into account people working from home, schools delaying opening and not having been in session since March or April, and all of the other measures that have been put in place to decrease transmission (masks, barriers, decreased social interactions, restaurant closings, other indoor spaces being closed, etc, etc, etc).

Your conclusion is flawed because you left all of these factors out of your analysis.

[gloriosoc]

I don't think this could explain the huge jump in cases and then decline post-reopening in Fl,Az, and LA. They aren't being more careful now than they were in early June. Disney world is open, people are outright refusing to distance or wear masks, the beaches are packed and yet we are seeing a drop in cases.

[rallison]

> They aren't being more careful now than they were in early June.

Source? This is a significant claim. Early June was a low point in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Lots of states were at peak reopening around then, as things seemed to be on the right track.

For example, bars opened in early June in Florida. They closed on June 26th after cases started spiking.

Louisiana was similar. The state started reopening May 15th. Later in June, bars were then closed back down again, and a mask mandate went into effect.

In Arizona, the story is similar, with gyms, bars and movie theaters shutting back down in July after having opened in May.

What sure seems to be the pattern is: things open up, cases rise, things close back down, cases drop. I'm not so sure that your "they aren't being more careful now than they were in early June" statement is accurate, and I think this is causing you to misattribute the cause of the drops in cases.

[gloriosoc]

Mmmm You can see the timeline of orders that were put into place and the correlation. Here is Florida https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline/new-confirme.... No mask mandate at all. Disney world is open. Beaches are open. The only order was bars are shut down. Without other distancing or masks, it's hard to believe that would stop spread.

[tghw]

Different cities have different mask regulations, and even without mandates, many are wearing them.

Disney is open with drastic changes to how they operate: https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/entertainment/theme-pa...

Beaches are outdoors and while they make look crowded, people often maintain more than 6 feet between each other at the beach anyway.

The numbers are going down in Florida because people finally got a taste of how serious it is and changed their behavior.

The fact that you keep downplaying behavioral changes and completely ignoring other changes like people working from home and schools being out shows you are wedded to your conclusion. Unfortunately, it is fundamentally flawed.

You've made a extraordinary claim, the onus is on you to back it up with extraordinary evidence. A couple graphs of new cases going down and a photo of a boardwalk (where nearly everyone is in a mask) is not sufficient to support your claim.

[hellofunk]

Your observations are quite subjective and flawed. Yes, Disney world is open, that is hardly the end of it. Is it the same Disney World as before the pandemic? It’s not a binary situation. You can’t just point out that because a place is now open, instead of closed, therefore there are no precautions being taken. We can be debate whether they are taking enough precautions, but you can’t just use this the way you have in this article.

This whole article is just a gut check without real evidence.

[rallison]

Florida as a whole enacted mask recommendations in late June.

Miami Dade county enacted a mandatory mask mandate on July 2nd: https://www.miamidade.gov/global/initiatives/coronavirus/eme...

Palm Beach county enacted a mandatory mask mandate on June 25th: https://discover.pbcgov.org/PDF/COVID19/PBC-EO-12.pdf

Hillsborough county enacted a mandatory mask mandate on June 22nd (if I'm reading it right): https://web.archive.org/web/20200706143937/https://www.hills...

Broward county enacted a mandatory mask mandate on July 8th: https://www.broward.org/CoronaVirus/Documents/EmergencyOrder...

Orange county enacted a mandatory mask mandate on June 20th: https://www.orangecountyfl.net/portals/0/library/Emergency-S...

Pinellas county enacted a mandatory mask mandate on June 24th: https://covid19.pinellascounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...

In just this list, we're up to mask mandates that cover counties that account for 10 million people, 47% of Florida's population, and accounting for the densest population centers. A number of additional counties also enacted mask mandates, but it got a bit tedious listing them all out.

In other words, in the June-July period, mask mandates were enacted for a majority of the population of Florida.

In another comment, I critiqued this piece as being a shallow analysis. Your comment here is an example of that.

[gloriosoc]

I also took a roadtrip across the northeast a month ago so I saw a lot of how careful people were being. Ocean City, NJ was packed and almost no one was wearing masks. The upper east side was packed in NYC. I got a chicken sandwich at an indoor take out place where the guy serving me had one glove on and gave me the sandwich with the hand without the glove. Central park was full of people not wearing masks. Fireworks and protests all night. The argument that people are taking this seriously is just not true in NY and NJ. I can't imagine Florida is better than that.

[gloriosoc]

I agree that i haven't quantified how careful people are being though. There has to be a way to do this. I know there was some drone plan to see how many masks were being worn in parts of the country. It might be worth getting some numbers for this.

[nickthemagicman]

Sweden enacted no mask laws. They have had around 7 deaths in the past week.

In one study showed that mask laws decreased infections by around 2% after 21 days.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.0...

So there's a good chance that masks don't account for the massive decrease in infections you're seeing in Florida.

I think time will tell if you're correct or OP is correct.

If mask laws are lifted, and infection rate still continues to decrease, that means masks are ineffective and OP is correct.

If mask laws are lifted and infection rates increase again that means you are correct as masks did have an effect.

[tghw]

In other places, mask mandates were correlated with a 46% drop in daily new cases. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/08/12/coro...

And even if mask laws are lifted and infection rates continue going down, it does not show that masks are ineffective nor that the OP was correct. After a mask mandate, some people will continue wearing masks and social distancing. As with immunity, the efficacy is in the numbers, with a critical mass necessary to protect the "herd".

[isabelc]

In Miami-Dade County in Florida, it's not only bars that are closed but all indoor dining is not allowed. Restaurants had opened for dining for a short while but that was banned again in July. And masks are required in public everywhere, even outdoors. And a strict countywide curfew has been in place since July.