[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".

[nickthemagicman]

There's no source in that article you postedfor the claim of 46%.

My 5th grade teacher wouldn't have accepted that as homework much less should it be a mainstream news article.

You can believe what you want though

That aside.

Your point is basically that people will continue to wear masks and social distance even if laws are lifted.

I think thats wrong as evidenced by packed beaches, college parties, and black lives protests.

People are not going to be responsible, what's stopping most of these people presently is laws...and barely.

The reason the numbers are going to continue to go down is not due to behavior it's due to physiological immunity.

But you set yourself up with an unprovable argument either way with no evidence for your claims other than 'people are responsible'.

When it's abundantly clear that people are not.

[gloriosoc]

So this is a good point. I was just talking with a colleague about this. Some of the herd immunity models take factors like how mobile people are into account. It seems like masks could be a factor in the models of herd immunity. This might be a semantic argument. If population characteristics such as age are part of herd immunity (which is a moving target depending on population), then mask wearing could be considered a population characteristic and included in the model. This would net "drop" herd immunity levels.

[tghw]

The distinction comes down to factors that change (behaviors, mandates, regulations, etc.) and those that don't (age, gender, etc.).

Saying we've reached herd immunity given behavioral changes is largely meaningless, as most people do not want to continue these behavioral changes indefinitely. One of the biggest changes that you failed to acknowledge is that people are not in contact with nearly as many people in their day to day life as they were before. Working from home, kids not in school, limited social interactions, etc.

It's not herd immunity if a return to previous behaviors negates the immunity.