Thank you, Joshua. I did share with my Swedish friend. She said for the first time in nearly four decades she is reconciling to the fact that she will not travel to Sweden this summer. Fortunately, she was there for a month just before this began.
Question that I keep seeing and I feel is legitimate but also think there may be reasons I’m missing. Why are larger stores such as target and Walmart open but mom and pop shops are not? I know they are smaller and folks are closer together but they also tend to have fewer shoppers?
Good question.
I think it has to do with what you alluded to – smaller, enclosed spaces without a lot of ventilation and people close together.
Sadly, this pandemic is going to kill quite a number of small businesses. I wish there was more real help for them rather than the large corporations.
I believe JC Penny has recently gone out of business now and has filed for bankruptcy. Also I believe Macy’s is still closed at this time. Hardly “mom and pop” stores. Still, small businesses are going to be in bad shape if they don’t reopen soon.
I didn’t know penny was still around. I think both were hurting before this.
JC Penny was still there. There is a store at
the North Shore Mall that we have visited quite often. We do a lot of online business with them.
They are STILL in business, BUT they have
filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors
while they reorganize. IF they come out of this,
many more of their stores will be closing and if they don’t come out, then ALL of them will be closing. The Store at the Natick Mall was closed years ago.
Thank JPD. I suspect it was the closing of several of their stores years ago that made me wonder if they are still there.
I think that’s the reason but not sure it works across the board. Out this way the small shops are not full and some are being quite inventive.
Thanks Joshua. I think I’ll as baker. Not that it will help but then not saying something has no impact.
Think it’s because they have pharmacy & food .
That is a very good point – but then why allow many more in for other purchases.
Some people might conclude that because Stockholm’s percentage of infected people is roughly the same as cities in countries that had a lockdown, these other countries could have done what Sweden did.
Well, it’s not that simple. Sweden’s level of contagion early on was much smaller than cities like Milan, Madrid, New York City, New Orleans, and Boston. Just imagine NYC without a lockdown – bars and restaurants open, for example – it would have been catastrophic for the healthcare system and lead to many more deaths. Keep in mind, Sweden’s death rate far exceeds ours, even though their contagion levels early on – based on immunity test comparisons – were lower. I believe that the contagion level in Sweden has increased significantly over time, and this is why you’re seeing Sweden’s death rate being the worst in Europe right now. Sweden’s testing rate is abysmally low, and yet it also has more new confirmed cases on a per capita basis than any other West European country.
Thanks, Joshua. That makes great sense. You prompted me to do some reading with your excellent article. I notice there are mixed numbers from different sources re highest per capita in Europe. Business Insider has five countries ahead of Sweden per capita while Johns Hopkins has six. Reuters and NYT have Sweden highest per capita. Makes me shake my head.
Two areas of Sweden had more cases than all of areas combined. Stockholm of course had the largest number of cases (11,020) and it was my understanding – although I will recheck – that mandatory orders were placed there because too many were not respecting the suggestions. Västra Götaland County which is huge had under half of what Stockholm (4,931) had and is made up of 49 municipalities. I’d love to find the breakdown among those 49. The remainder of areas total 15,951 cases…..less than Stockholm and Västra Götaland County combined.
Can you tell your article fascinated me. I would like to do a per capita breakdown based on highest hit areas in other countries and highest hit in Sweden.
This shows that herd immunity does not work if that is what folks in other countries have been looking for in Sweden or recommend for this country for that matter. I do note you said Swedish testing is not great. I don’t think ours is either. But I found this interesting nonetheless.
Thanks again, sir….I am thoroughly enjoying the article you have written and shared..
I have a bad feeling that Governor Baker will close beaches if people don’t change their attitudes about big groups on the beach. Channel 4 took helicopter video of a beach and there were groups of 10+ being seen, public or private does not matter. There is an issue with it. If people don’t follow the no more than 10 in a group, they are not gonna be able to really inforce it and the ones that follow the rules will get the short in of the stick, and the state will just have the beaches closed, which will leave private beaches to decide if they are gonna be opened unless the governor orders them closed, but even then there will be an issue because then those who own private property on the coast will still be able to go the beach/ocean. Its a loose loose for everyone because of a small population not willing to change for 1 summer season.
Perhaps the very cool temps at the beaches will be a blessing in disguise…at least for this weekend.
He has made it clear he will close. But I think public bs private does matter. The beach as you know was said to be Humarock. None of us recognized it as such. And it definitely was not the public area at Humarock. I wonder if Tom has seen. Could Rexham? But it probably is Scituate. People in the area own the land from house to low tide mark. As much as I believe folks should use common sense, I do not believe anyone can legislate what anyone does on his property.
BTW shame on wbz for not making this clear.
I understand the private vs public and what that means, but in the government’s view they are seeing people congregate on beaches and they will make an overall arching thing for beaches they can control even if the issues are mainly happening on private owned beaches. That’s my concern.
I also fully understand and absolutely agree re public. My only point was private can’t be regulated and it is a shame wbz didn’t make clear where they were. Hype at its finest. If BZ needed to video a place, pick a public place. If folks were respectful on the public beach……and I have absolutely no clue whether they were…..then it would be very unfair to close beaches because of incorrect info.
I was on Rexhame Beach yesterday. It was busy, but I thought the extreme majority of folks were at least 6ft apart, if not the 12ft apart.
The town was using 2 dunes for entrance to the beach and 1 as an exit.
I think you are correct Philip that the cooler weather today and Sunday will help keep the beach crowd smaller than it was yesterday.
The next warm spell will fall when some folks have been able to return to work.
I could be wrong, but I think re-closing beaches will see a lot of negative reaction to that happening. Yes, maybe 1 family member will have to sacrifice to be the dropoff and pickup person, but based on what I saw yesterday, people are going to the beach when the weather is good again next week.
Most everyone has been home 2+ months, we have for now, flattened the curve and I think a majority of people want to get back to outdoor activities, while absolutely sitting 6ft or more apart and wearing face-masks on the beach, if you cannot social distance.
The traffic in town is heavy, lots of people came to Marshfield for Memorial Day Weekend.
And now that I think about, there was a helicopter that flew up and down the beach a time or 2.
I’m betting that is where it was. I’ll see if I can find the video. And I agree with you, Tom. It is also good to hear most were respectful yesterday.
They were.
No matter when I get to the beach, I like to sit at the tide-line.
I don’t rush to the beach and usually when its a normal beach day and everyone is crowded together, its usually a tip toe between everyone to get to the water-line.
Not yesterday, with a few zigs and zags, it was easy to split everyone and not come to close to people.
People did a good job of using more of the beach to spread out, they really did. And I got to the tide-line. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
No blanket blame, I hope by the town. Technology is good these days, zoom in, identify and if they feel they need to make a point, ban them.
Not sure I understand. Did the link work?
It did, very nicely.
Watched it and saw most people spread out, except for the one group of say, 20 people clustered together.
Agree. Do you think it is rexhame? It could be Hum down where Steven Tyler’s house is which borders rexhame.
That question is more for our curiosity. Daughter wanted me to ask you yesterday 🙂
It looks like Humarock, down by the top of the road you rent on. You come over the bridge and straight thru the intersection and then there are a handful of parking spots on the left. There is the very rocky entrance to the beach there.
Hmmm I am not aware of any parking spaces down there. But we rent over bridge and to left and down a couple of miles. It is definitely not the public beach at Hum. Which does go straight across intersection and by voyage restaurant. We can talk more off of here. I will show daughter what you said also.
Ivermectin is an amazing drug, used for multiple neglected diseases – mainly in the developing world. I’ve studied it in depth in regard to donation programs that Merck set up for the drug. Wouldn’t that be something if Ivermectin was repurposed successfully to treat Covid-19. Notably, Remdesivir was also used (unsuccessfully) for a neglected disease; Ebola.
Uneven good news on the coronavirus front. U.S. epidemic continues to subside on the whole. But, still a lot of deaths and over 22k new cases today. The Northeast is generally doing well, but parts of the South and Midwest are not. In fact, so much so that I’m a bit alarmed by the numbers; for example, North Carolina.
Outside the U.S. the most troubling news is Brazil’s horrific test positivity of 45%! Means that only severely ill people are being tested. There are hundreds of thousands, if not more than 1 million undetected infections in Brazil. That’s my guess. Deaths are also vastly underreported. Yet, quite a number of direct flights continue from Brazil to the U.S. This makes no sense at all. At this point, they could relax restrictions on Chinese and some European flights, but impose a travel ban of sorts on Brazil and most of South America.
If my daughter lived in Brazil I could visit her – no problem. Because she lives in the UK I can’t. Weird world.
Definitely a weird world.
If only ivermectin continues to,have positive results.
C-19 for 5-24 is up…
Comments are closed.
Your no-hype southeastern New England weather blog!
My article on Sweden and whether its controversial policy has paid off (hint, it hasn’t): https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/05/23/swedens-gamble-on-coronavirus-has-it-paid-off/#5e8b80a32dcd
Nice job Joshua. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you. Very informative.
Thank you, Joshua. I did share with my Swedish friend. She said for the first time in nearly four decades she is reconciling to the fact that she will not travel to Sweden this summer. Fortunately, she was there for a month just before this began.
Question that I keep seeing and I feel is legitimate but also think there may be reasons I’m missing. Why are larger stores such as target and Walmart open but mom and pop shops are not? I know they are smaller and folks are closer together but they also tend to have fewer shoppers?
Good question.
I think it has to do with what you alluded to – smaller, enclosed spaces without a lot of ventilation and people close together.
Sadly, this pandemic is going to kill quite a number of small businesses. I wish there was more real help for them rather than the large corporations.
I believe JC Penny has recently gone out of business now and has filed for bankruptcy. Also I believe Macy’s is still closed at this time. Hardly “mom and pop” stores. Still, small businesses are going to be in bad shape if they don’t reopen soon.
I didn’t know penny was still around. I think both were hurting before this.
JC Penny was still there. There is a store at
the North Shore Mall that we have visited quite often. We do a lot of online business with them.
They are STILL in business, BUT they have
filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors
while they reorganize. IF they come out of this,
many more of their stores will be closing and if they don’t come out, then ALL of them will be closing. The Store at the Natick Mall was closed years ago.
Thank JPD. I suspect it was the closing of several of their stores years ago that made me wonder if they are still there.
I think that’s the reason but not sure it works across the board. Out this way the small shops are not full and some are being quite inventive.
Thanks Joshua. I think I’ll as baker. Not that it will help but then not saying something has no impact.
Think it’s because they have pharmacy & food .
That is a very good point – but then why allow many more in for other purchases.
Some people might conclude that because Stockholm’s percentage of infected people is roughly the same as cities in countries that had a lockdown, these other countries could have done what Sweden did.
Well, it’s not that simple. Sweden’s level of contagion early on was much smaller than cities like Milan, Madrid, New York City, New Orleans, and Boston. Just imagine NYC without a lockdown – bars and restaurants open, for example – it would have been catastrophic for the healthcare system and lead to many more deaths. Keep in mind, Sweden’s death rate far exceeds ours, even though their contagion levels early on – based on immunity test comparisons – were lower. I believe that the contagion level in Sweden has increased significantly over time, and this is why you’re seeing Sweden’s death rate being the worst in Europe right now. Sweden’s testing rate is abysmally low, and yet it also has more new confirmed cases on a per capita basis than any other West European country.
Thanks, Joshua. That makes great sense. You prompted me to do some reading with your excellent article. I notice there are mixed numbers from different sources re highest per capita in Europe. Business Insider has five countries ahead of Sweden per capita while Johns Hopkins has six. Reuters and NYT have Sweden highest per capita. Makes me shake my head.
Two areas of Sweden had more cases than all of areas combined. Stockholm of course had the largest number of cases (11,020) and it was my understanding – although I will recheck – that mandatory orders were placed there because too many were not respecting the suggestions. Västra Götaland County which is huge had under half of what Stockholm (4,931) had and is made up of 49 municipalities. I’d love to find the breakdown among those 49. The remainder of areas total 15,951 cases…..less than Stockholm and Västra Götaland County combined.
Can you tell your article fascinated me. I would like to do a per capita breakdown based on highest hit areas in other countries and highest hit in Sweden.
This shows that herd immunity does not work if that is what folks in other countries have been looking for in Sweden or recommend for this country for that matter. I do note you said Swedish testing is not great. I don’t think ours is either. But I found this interesting nonetheless.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-strategy/swedish-antibody-study-shows-long-road-to-immunity-as-covid-19-toll-mounts-idUSKBN22W2YC
Thanks again, sir….I am thoroughly enjoying the article you have written and shared..
I have a bad feeling that Governor Baker will close beaches if people don’t change their attitudes about big groups on the beach. Channel 4 took helicopter video of a beach and there were groups of 10+ being seen, public or private does not matter. There is an issue with it. If people don’t follow the no more than 10 in a group, they are not gonna be able to really inforce it and the ones that follow the rules will get the short in of the stick, and the state will just have the beaches closed, which will leave private beaches to decide if they are gonna be opened unless the governor orders them closed, but even then there will be an issue because then those who own private property on the coast will still be able to go the beach/ocean. Its a loose loose for everyone because of a small population not willing to change for 1 summer season.
Perhaps the very cool temps at the beaches will be a blessing in disguise…at least for this weekend.
He has made it clear he will close. But I think public bs private does matter. The beach as you know was said to be Humarock. None of us recognized it as such. And it definitely was not the public area at Humarock. I wonder if Tom has seen. Could Rexham? But it probably is Scituate. People in the area own the land from house to low tide mark. As much as I believe folks should use common sense, I do not believe anyone can legislate what anyone does on his property.
BTW shame on wbz for not making this clear.
I understand the private vs public and what that means, but in the government’s view they are seeing people congregate on beaches and they will make an overall arching thing for beaches they can control even if the issues are mainly happening on private owned beaches. That’s my concern.
I also fully understand and absolutely agree re public. My only point was private can’t be regulated and it is a shame wbz didn’t make clear where they were. Hype at its finest. If BZ needed to video a place, pick a public place. If folks were respectful on the public beach……and I have absolutely no clue whether they were…..then it would be very unfair to close beaches because of incorrect info.
I was on Rexhame Beach yesterday. It was busy, but I thought the extreme majority of folks were at least 6ft apart, if not the 12ft apart.
The town was using 2 dunes for entrance to the beach and 1 as an exit.
I think you are correct Philip that the cooler weather today and Sunday will help keep the beach crowd smaller than it was yesterday.
The next warm spell will fall when some folks have been able to return to work.
I could be wrong, but I think re-closing beaches will see a lot of negative reaction to that happening. Yes, maybe 1 family member will have to sacrifice to be the dropoff and pickup person, but based on what I saw yesterday, people are going to the beach when the weather is good again next week.
Most everyone has been home 2+ months, we have for now, flattened the curve and I think a majority of people want to get back to outdoor activities, while absolutely sitting 6ft or more apart and wearing face-masks on the beach, if you cannot social distance.
The traffic in town is heavy, lots of people came to Marshfield for Memorial Day Weekend.
And now that I think about, there was a helicopter that flew up and down the beach a time or 2.
I’m betting that is where it was. I’ll see if I can find the video. And I agree with you, Tom. It is also good to hear most were respectful yesterday.
They were.
No matter when I get to the beach, I like to sit at the tide-line.
I don’t rush to the beach and usually when its a normal beach day and everyone is crowded together, its usually a tip toe between everyone to get to the water-line.
Not yesterday, with a few zigs and zags, it was easy to split everyone and not come to close to people.
People did a good job of using more of the beach to spread out, they really did. And I got to the tide-line. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Tom, not sure this will work
https://www.facebook.com/CBSBoston/videos/269265021110262/
No blanket blame, I hope by the town. Technology is good these days, zoom in, identify and if they feel they need to make a point, ban them.
Not sure I understand. Did the link work?
It did, very nicely.
Watched it and saw most people spread out, except for the one group of say, 20 people clustered together.
Agree. Do you think it is rexhame? It could be Hum down where Steven Tyler’s house is which borders rexhame.
That question is more for our curiosity. Daughter wanted me to ask you yesterday 🙂
It looks like Humarock, down by the top of the road you rent on. You come over the bridge and straight thru the intersection and then there are a handful of parking spots on the left. There is the very rocky entrance to the beach there.
Hmmm I am not aware of any parking spaces down there. But we rent over bridge and to left and down a couple of miles. It is definitely not the public beach at Hum. Which does go straight across intersection and by voyage restaurant. We can talk more off of here. I will show daughter what you said also.
Possible good news..
https://www.newsmax.com/us/ivermectin-drug-virus/2020/05/22/id/968688/?ns_mail_uid=0a2a88f3-cfa9-4dc6-8951-765a01227228&ns_mail_job=DM115407_05222020&s=acs&dkt_nbr=01010262zios
Ivermectin is an amazing drug, used for multiple neglected diseases – mainly in the developing world. I’ve studied it in depth in regard to donation programs that Merck set up for the drug. Wouldn’t that be something if Ivermectin was repurposed successfully to treat Covid-19. Notably, Remdesivir was also used (unsuccessfully) for a neglected disease; Ebola.
Uneven good news on the coronavirus front. U.S. epidemic continues to subside on the whole. But, still a lot of deaths and over 22k new cases today. The Northeast is generally doing well, but parts of the South and Midwest are not. In fact, so much so that I’m a bit alarmed by the numbers; for example, North Carolina.
Outside the U.S. the most troubling news is Brazil’s horrific test positivity of 45%! Means that only severely ill people are being tested. There are hundreds of thousands, if not more than 1 million undetected infections in Brazil. That’s my guess. Deaths are also vastly underreported. Yet, quite a number of direct flights continue from Brazil to the U.S. This makes no sense at all. At this point, they could relax restrictions on Chinese and some European flights, but impose a travel ban of sorts on Brazil and most of South America.
If my daughter lived in Brazil I could visit her – no problem. Because she lives in the UK I can’t. Weird world.
Definitely a weird world.
If only ivermectin continues to,have positive results.
C-19 for 5-24 is up…