It would be really helpful if our political leaders spoke with one voice on this, but I suspect there would be a lot of people like this anyway. A certain number of Americans just cannot understand risk or the basic science underlying this virus and how it spreads. The president is one of them.
I doubt that very many people are quite this reckless. But there are many who are simply ignoring the risk and are carrying on as usual. They figure the odds are with them. They probably are. But they aren’t really that great. And there’s the fact that they can kill someone else even if they don’t kill themselves.
A patient in their 30s died from the coronavirus after attending what’s being called a “COVID party,” according to a San Antonio health official.
Chief Medical Officer of Methodist Healthcare Dr. Jane Appleby said the idea of these parties is to see if the virus is real.
“This is a party held by somebody diagnosed by the COVID virus and the thought is to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected,” Dr. Appleby said.
According to Appleby, the patient became critically ill and had a heartbreaking statement moments before death.
“Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,'” Appleby said.
Appleby made this case public as the spike in cases for Bexar County continues. She wants everyone, especially those in the younger demographic, to realize they are not invincible.
“It doesn’t discriminate and none of us are invincible,” Appleby said. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, and we’re just trying to share some real-world examples to help our community realize that this virus is very serious and can spread easily.”
In fact, she said the positivity rate has jumped to 22 percent.
And if people really want to get life back to normal, they will make the small sacrifice to stay home as much as possible for the time being. If they don’t this thing will go on and on and on.
There are 3.2 million cases in the US right now, the highest of any place in the world. Closing in on 135,000 dead. But some people think the whole thing is a hoax.
By the way, Florida is teeming with “irrepressible” partiers:
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Pulsing parties in swanky South Beach mansions. Raging raves in Miami warehouses. Backyard bashes in Palm Beach manors where teenagers drink late into the night.
South Florida is a world epicenter of coronavirus infections, but some irrepressible revelers insist on trying to live out the subtropical promise of fun, sin and sun — COVID-19 or not.
Experts say the pandemic parties could cost them their life.
A review of police records, social media accounts, and interviews with professional event planners who refuse to let COVID-19 kill the music shows that South Florida’s world-famous party culture is alive and well.
Revelers often showed up to a $6 million waterfront mansion for festivities, drawing Miami Beach code enforcers 43 times and the police 18 times. Then gunfire at a party there Sunday wounded two people, sending them to the hospital, according to a city spokesman. One man was arrested, accused of violating city code by having the party, but the shooter vanished.
The Miami Police Department has responded to 11 “pandemic parties” in recent months, including five in June. But the organizers of one July Fourth bash say they pulled off their warehouse rager without police interference, and some 250 attended.
A large party delighted 50 teens in Royal Palm Beach, with officers finding them drinking at a home one late night in May. The man who opened the door refused to let the cops in, so they arrested him on the charge of resisting an officer. The cops shut the party down.
There were parties aplenty across South Florida around the Fourth of July weekend. Broward dispatchers received more than 170 calls about parties and gatherings that were too large or loud, from July 1 to July 6. The city of Miami shut down seven venues and parties over the holiday weekend for not following social-distancing ordinances.
Eric Knott, a pulmonary and ICU medicine trainee on the front lines of treating coronavirus patients, likens pandemic partying to drunken driving. “It’s like hopping into a car drunk without a seat belt and airbag, and assuming you won’t get hit,” Knott said.
Those who’ve attended such parties bring up the uncertainty of how long the pandemic will last — while there’s a need to get out. “We have no idea how long this is going to last and that seemed like a good way to let loose with the measures they were offering,” says Ashley Davis, a Miami resident who attended the July Fourth warehouse bash. The event’s organizers allayed partygoers’ concerns with a disinfection machine that experts say is ineffective.
The median age of those infected by the virus in Florida has plummeted in recent months, going from 65 at the beginning of March to 39 this Wednesday, according to the Florida Department of Health. But younger, healthier people who stand a better chance of fighting it off can still easily transmit it to older, more vulnerable members of their households.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has singled out partygoers for accelerating the spread. “We saw a rapid rise in young people … being positive to COVID-19 around mid-June,” he told CBS’ “Face The Nation.” “I think that that had a lot to do with probably socializing, young kids going to parties, maybe graduation parties at homes, because it’s been pretty locked down here for some time.”
Knott says that the intensive-care units at his hospital are getting full, and that the lack of medical resources could greatly increase the chances of death, even to young people who would normally be able to fight it off.
“Young people think they’re invincible, that the virus won’t kill them, because the mortality for them is super low,” he says. “But that’s assuming we have the resources. As soon as the numbers get high enough where we can’t give the 25-year-old oxygen, the mortality rate for that group goes up. So as soon as we’re full, that mortality rate argument goes out the window.”
The pandemic parties have taken place all across South Florida.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office responded to 13 calls about large, loud, parties or gatherings on July Fourth. Police records show officers responded to complaints about pool parties with more than 20 people, “large” parties where DJs set off fireworks, and large gatherings of 10 to 15 people setting off fireworks in the street. No one was arrested. Records for the other 157 complaints made between July 1 and July 6 were not immediately available.
On July 4, officers from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department responded to a noise complaint in a neighborhood. Police records show that cops found a group of 15 people gathered in the backyard. The police report notes that the house was a “Home Away vacation rental,” and that the renter of the residence was visiting from Massachusetts. Officers later returned to the scene to tell the party house to turn it down again. No arrests were made.
Broward County issued an order that took effect Friday, restricting the occupancy of vacation rental properties solely to the people who rented them. The order was passed, because the rentals are being used to host parties.
Pandemic parties have also been broken up in Palm Beach County.
According to police reports, when officers first arrived at a large house in village of Royal Palm Beach on May 22 and knocked on the door, they were met by a drunken, belligerent man who claimed to be of legal age. Inside the house, the reports state, officers could see some 10 teens drinking. After backup arrived and the man who answered the door was arrested, officers allowed the 40 to 50 teenagers who had been in the backyard — “consuming what appeared to be alcoholic beverages and yelling at each other” — to leave.
But some of the largest and most violent parties have occurred in Miami-Dade County.
Authorities in Miami Beach arrested the man accused of throwing the July 5 party that ended in a double shooting. Court records show that Anthony Shnayderman, the organizer of the festivities, was charged with using a residential property as a commercial venue and with a misdemeanor violation of the county’s emergency health ordinance. He was released on a $500 bond.
The shooting remains an open investigation, and details why violence erupted are unclear, but WSVN-Ch. 7 showed footage of partygoers fleeing the house in panic as shot after shot rang out.
In response, Miami Beach officials pulled the house’s occupancy permit, disconnected its utilities, and barred entry to the premises without a court order. The number of people present at the house when the shooting occurred is unclear.
Shnayderman couldn’t be reached for comment.
At least one big bash over the holiday weekend escaped the scrutiny of authorities.
The organizers of one July 4 event say some 250 people attended their Miami warehouse party like it was still 2019. Video from the party shows about a hundred revelers dancing and carousing in close proximity without any masks on.
The organizers say the party went off without a hitch, while city officials and the Miami Police Department say they were unaware that the festivities even had taken place until the day after.
After learning of the party, Stephanie Severino, spokeswoman for the mayor of Miami, said “everybody needs to start doing their part.”
The party’s organizer said his company has been hired to put on several events during the pandemic, and it has done its part to keep revelers safe from the virus.
“Everybody wants to party, it’s Miami. Everybody is looking for the next party,” says Salomon Hilu, owner of MIA Entertainment Co, the outfit that organized the pandemic party, of his company’s approach.
Hilu declined to say who hired his company to throw the party, or the event’s exact location. He gave no specifics about prior events.
Hilu says partygoers were screened at the door by a “state-of-the-art” disinfection machine that checked temperatures, captured facial recognition data, and cleansed partygoers with a disinfecting spray. He said symptomatic individuals were turned away at the door, though it is unclear how many were denied entry, and that a list of all attendees was kept in order to inform everyone, should anyone later test positive.
Masks were not required indoors at the event.
Dr. Aileen Marty, a professor of infectious diseases at Florida International University, finds the company’s safety strategy lacking.