The elephant in the room

[cardcrimson]

Stay at home. Don't eat out. No holiday gatherings. No in person school. No youth sports. Wear a mask. Limit small retail to 25% capacity (but not Target or Safeway). We hear our leaders tell us that this is what we have to do to slow the spread. We hear it on the news as well. We see horrible case numbers and low hospital capacity. Yet there's been no discussion of what I perceive to be the elephant in the room--that the spread is largely socio-economic driven. 

Take a look at these numbers from Contra Costa, and go to the list of cities, they can be sorted by case rate per 100k. 

https://www.coronavirus.cchealth.org/overview

The difference by city is staggering. I've seen similar variances in LA and other counties, too. Clearly, the message is not reaching who it needs to, and the equity metric certainly isn't helping. 

A friend is the Chief of Staff for a Supervisor in Alameda County, and after a slow start, their numbers improved drastically. What did they do? They made a significant push to reach out to the "disadvantaged" communities to get them on board with the proper protocols. Even now, they are performing better than much of the state. It worked. 

Where's a similar effort in the rest of the state and why is no one talking about it? Closing a restaurant in Lafayette or Menlo Park is not the solution, it's not even a bandaid.

[M_T]

Frankly, I don't know in detail what has been done regarding ethnicity and/or poverty level in various communities. I believe it is significant.
SCC's Covid pages are in 5 languages. I see videos (incl. live) in Spanish at least. They have a contact number listed that is indicated to cover 150 languages. The testing clinics are primarily focussed on parts of the county where cases are more frequent. I have seen a lot of news about working with the homeless population.

I imagine that most counties in California have similar approaches to non-English language communities. I expect the same is happening in other states. It would be foolish for, say, El Paso to ignore their Hispanic population.

Both SCC & Contra Costa county publish graphs showing % of cases per ethnic group or race versus % of population. Unfortunately, so many declined to give their race (41% unknown) or ethnicity (35% unknown) in Contra Costa County, that the numbers are pretty much useless. SCC's unknown is a lot less and the data supports a significant difference in per capita incidence based on race & ethnicity.

[cardcrimson]

Frankly, I don't know in detail what has been done regarding ethnicity and/or poverty level in various communities.  I believe it is significant.
SCC's Covid pages are in 5 languages.  I see videos (incl. live) in Spanish at least.  They have a contact number listed that is indicated to cover 150 languages.  The testing clinics are primarily focussed on parts of the county where cases are more frequent.  I have seen a lot of news about working with the homeless population.

I imagine that most counties in California have similar approaches to non-English language communities.  I expect the same is happening in other states.  It would be foolish for, say, El Paso to ignore their Hispanic population.

Both SCC & Contra Costa county publish graphs showing % of cases per ethnic group or race  versus % of population.  Unfortunately, so many declined to give their race (41% unknown) or ethnicity (35% unknown) in Contra Costa County, that the numbers are pretty much useless.  SCC's unknown is a lot less and the data supports a significant difference in per capita incidence based on race & ethnicity.

What Alameda found, is it's more than just language and statistics, it was getting into the communities directly that made a difference. If there have been similar efforts in CoCoCo and LA, those efforts have been less than successful.

The videos from LA of the police breaking up super spreader New Years parties were quite telling. Communities aren't getting the message.

[akiddoc]

One of the issues is that the economically disadvantaged tend to work in jobs where they are forced into close quarters indoors. Construction, warehouse work, food distribution, etc. That work cannot be done remotely, and these families are the loss of a pay check away from malnutrition or living on the street. 

As far as super spreader events, there have been plenty of them documented among people with money and people with political power. Including the idiots at the end of my street who are averaging one large maskless party a month. I don't think any of their neighbors will ever speak to them again.

[ChrisGreene]

One of the issues is that the economically disadvantaged tend to work in jobs where they are forced into close quarters indoors. Construction, warehouse work, food distribution, etc. That work cannot be done remotely, and these families are the loss of a pay check away from malnutrition or living on the street. 

As far as super spreader events, there have been plenty of them documented among people with money and people with political power. Including the idiots at the end of my street who are averaging one large maskless party a month. I don't think any of their neighbors will ever speak to them again.

My wife tutors a child (via zoom). Both parents work, they can't afford day care. This family teamed up with a number of others, each family being responsible for all the kids for one day. That's a large group, especially considering that the parents can't work as safely.