GRAND OPENING - GRAND CLOSING (Florida)

[low-key]

Thins seem to be going down everywhere, lets hope this keeps up

 

[RamblingMad]

You don’t think people stay inside more during the winter months in the US?

Not in AZ in Tucson or Phoenix. We're still seeing temperatures over 110 now. Winter is pretty much our summer.

 

[sam_gordon]

Not in AZ in Tucson or Phoenix. We're still seeing temperatures over 110 now. Winter is pretty much our summer.

And probably not in Florida. Texas? California (at least southern). NM?

 

[RamblingMad]

And probably not in Florida. Texas? California (at least southern). NM?

Yep. The sunbelt should start see cases going down as they go up in colder states that don't have mask mandates.

 

[lovethesun12]

I expect fewer snow birds this year. But they're pretty easy to avoid. We definitely won't see snow birds from Canada.

In my region, our provincial borders aren't even open yet.

 

[Pyotr]

Today was test dump day in Manatee. 1,600 tests and only 32 positive. Monday will be two weeks since school started. Let’s hope there will be no large increase in cases.

 

[RamblingMad]

We just opened bars, gyms, and movie theatres here in AZ. Cases are going to go to the moon. But we do have Queen Creek tribute for our district.

FL should see more out of state travelers once their cases go down. The state was still in the top 3 yesterday.

 

[lovethesun12]

We just opened bars, gyms, and movie theatres here in AZ. Cases are going to go to the moon. But we do have Queen Creek tribute for our district.

FL should see more out of state travelers once their cases go down. The state was still in the top 3 yesterday.

Are masks mandatory there? I'm hoping they will make a difference for places reopening.

 

[RamblingMad]

Are masks mandatory there? I'm hoping they will make a difference for places reopening.

They are mandatory. But you will still see people wearing them under their nose.

The problem with bars is lack of social distancing. We had outbreaks the last time they reopened.

No idea how movie theatres will do. There aren’t a lot of new movies coming out that I must see in a theatre.

 

[Colleen27]

The hopeful argument back in March (when it was still winter for parts of country) was that cases would go down in the summer as people start going out more. The argument now cannot be that case counts should improve going into winter. Colds and viruses are more prevalent during the winter.

The infectious nature of this pandemic has shown it is not seasonal.

I'd disagree with that. We have plenty of evidence now that it spreads better indoors than outdoors. That isn't seasonal in the traditional sense, like flu, but it definitely links to seasonal behavior patterns. The northern states saw a lot of improvement when the weather got to "go outside and enjoy it", and the southern states didn't see spikes until temperatures hit "don't go outside cause you'll melt". There's good reason to expect that dynamic to flip again when fall makes outdoors in the south pleasant but sends us northerners running for heated spaces. Mask mandates will mitigate to some extent, at at least some fraction of the population in some areas is likely immune, so hopefully it won't hit as hard as it did in March/April, but the dynamics of indoors vs. outdoors spread does suggest an atypical sort of seasonality of the virus.

 

[Colleen27]

They are mandatory. But you will still see people wearing them under their nose.

The problem with bars is lack of social distancing. We had outbreaks the last time they reopened.

No idea how movie theatres will do. There aren’t a lot of new movies coming out that I must see in a theatre.

And bars and theatres both pretty much negate mask mandates because they're places where you eat and drink almost continually. There was a bit of a conversation here about theatres and masks that centered around restricting food & drink to allow safer reopening, but since theatres make most of their money on concessions, that's a non-starter. So our theatres remain closed.

 

[nicolita3]

They are mandatory. But you will still see people wearing them under their nose.

The problem with bars is lack of social distancing. We had outbreaks the last time they reopened.

No idea how movie theatres will do. There aren’t a lot of new movies coming out that I must see in a theatre.

Yup, I went to get take out the other day and a guy had his mask on his forehead.

 

[Pyotr]

Things have gotten substantially better in the past few weeks. Cases are way down, even with schools being open. One local testing site is shutting down due to lack of demand (it was also ran by Quest). Today the governor issued an order requiring all 67 counties to report what measures they have taken to combat the virus.

 

[Pyotr]

Things continue to improve in Florida. Cases and positivity rate continue to decline. However, yesterday Florida reported 211 deaths, which is a rather high number. A deeper look into the report shows that the 211 deaths were from 50 different days going back as far as July 6th.

 

[TJA]

Things continue to improve in Florida. Cases and positivity rate continue to decline. However, yesterday Florida reported 211 deaths, which is a rather high number. A deeper look into the report shows that the 211 deaths were from 50 different days going back as far as July 6th.

Thank you for the updates! I live in New York so I keep trying to figure out Florida's numbers to see if/when they can come off our governor's list. Seems like positivity rate has been very low in Florida for a while now, so it must be the other part of our governor's equation that Florida can't meet (10 out of 100,000...?). I know there was a day in the last week or 2 where there seemed to be a data dump, so that messed up the current numbers.

I copied from a different thread. This is New York's criteria:
10 new COVID positive cases per 100,000 people on a 7 day chart, (called a 7-day rolling average.) OR: at least 10% of the total population is COVID-19 positive on a 7-Day rolling average.

 

[Pyotr]

Thank you for the updates! I live in New York so I keep trying to figure out Florida's numbers to see if/when they can come off our governor's list. Seems like positivity rate has been very low in Florida for a while now, so it must be the other part of our governor's equation that Florida can't meet (10 out of 100,000...?). I know there was a day in the last week or 2 where there seemed to be a data dump, so that messed up the current numbers.

I copied from a different thread. This is New York's criteria:
10 new COVID positive cases per 100,000 people on a 7 day chart, (called a 7-day rolling average.) OR: at least 10% of the total population is COVID-19 positive on a 7-Day rolling average.

The positivity rate has been dropping but it seems like there is a large backlog of cases and deaths that make things difficult. Today my county (Manatee) reported 31 positives with 2,811 negatives. That’s 1.05%. I’m just going to assume it was a test dump because that’s around 3x more tests than are normally reported.

Florida‘s daily report can be found here: http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/county_reports_latest.pdf

Today Florida reported 176 new deaths. These deaths are from 54 different days going back to July 4th. 47 of these deaths were reported from Miami-Dade. Yesterday 49 were from Miami-Dade. It seems that they are clearing a backlog of Covid deaths.

 

[fla4fun]

They are mandatory. But you will still see people wearing them under their nose.

The problem with bars is lack of social distancing. We had outbreaks the last time they reopened.

No idea how movie theatres will do. There aren’t a lot of new movies coming out that I must see in a theatre.

My big concern is the bars are set to reopen. There’s no way to really enforce masks, and social distancing tends to go out the window the more alcohol is consumed. I would not be surprised to see a major spike in cases and the bars shut down again quickly. In order to operate a bar safely, I think there is going to have to be a drink/time limit for patrons so people aren’t there for hours at a time. I don’t see that happening.

 

[Pyotr]

My big concern is the bars are set to reopen. There’s no way to really enforce masks, and social distancing tends to go out the window the more alcohol is consumed. I would not be surprised to see a major spike in cases and the bars shut down again quickly. In order to operate a bar safely, I think there is going to have to be a drink/time limit for patrons so people aren’t there for hours at a time. I don’t see that happening.

Bars that serve food have been allowed to be open. Why is a bar that sells chicken wings any safer than one that doesn’t?

 

[fla4fun]

Bars that serve food have been allowed to be open. Why is a bar that sells chicken wings any safer than one that doesn’t?

I guess it depends on whether you put your mask on when you are not actively eating and drinking. I have been out to eat in restaurants since they reopened, but I probably had my mask off a total of ten minutes. They have tried opening the bars once before, and that is when we had a big surge in cases. It could also be a difference in ventilation systems. I am sure an establishment that serves a lot of food has a better ventilation system to keep heat and kitchen odors out of the dining area, where a dedicated bar with just prepared snacks might not consider that necessary. Also, the alcohol doesn’t affect you as quickly when you are eating, so people are more likely to remember social distancing and masks than those who aren’t eating.

I am sure there are some bars, and some patrons, who can do this right. But I live in Florida and know that the majority of people hitting the bars won’t be thinking about the virus while they’re there, especially after they have had a few. I have a couple friends who have a bar they go to regularly and as much as they would like to go back, they aren’t because they also feel dedicated bars just aren’t safe yet. They are just drinking at home instead.

I would like to see a safe way to open the bars because I know the businesses are hurting. I just think it’s naive to throw the doors open, even at 50%, and not have cases increase as a result. I hope I am wrong.

 

[Colleen27]

Bars that serve food have been allowed to be open. Why is a bar that sells chicken wings any safer than one that doesn’t?

Restaurant-bars don't tend to have the same atmosphere of hanging out for an extended time to drink and socialize. "Bars that serve chicken wings" are really more like restaurants that serve drinks - people come, have their meal (maybe with a drink or two or maybe not) with their own party, and then they leave. Opening bars that don't serve food means nightclubs where people go specifically to meet and mingle with strangers, dive bars where men sit for hours drinking beer and watching the game, etc. And those are higher-risk situations than going to Applebees for dinner with a couple of friends.