re: OT: Alabama Coronavirus Thread (see link in OP for case numbers and death totals in AL)

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At the risk of derailing the thread, I'm genuinely curious how a publicly operated transit system would fare any better in the current situation.

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The trains were not crowded at all during the first 10 or so days of the stay at home order.

In fact, it was eerie how spaced out they were. People were not crowding at all since there was almost too much space to separate and go find a seat away from anyone, like it usually is at 3AM.


Until, that is, MTA cut service by over 75% around March 25th. That's what has caused them to get so crowded.

MTA did so against the wishes of the Mayor/Governor.

However, since they operate as a semi-private company, it seems that it will take some extreme state government proclamation for the government to order them to lose money running at full capacity instead of the state "negotiating" with them.

I would guess, but don't know for a fact, that emergency provisions in place mean MTA has to provide the necessary amount of cars for emergencies but no specific provision was in place for a virus where people must also be "socially distanced" on those cars.

Not at all aaying MTA would work better as a completely public company overall.

However, in this current crisis, it would just be like the police department running way over-budget but still working as normal.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-social-distancing.html

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Probably the same problem they're having around here. More than a few people that don't have kids are coming through the lines and loading up on food leaving legit students going hungry.

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Autauga County is providing meals to EVERY child under the age of 18 that shows up, regardless of if they are a student at one of the county schools or not.

I see where your coming from however I think this article seems to focus more on stay at home orders, if they were followed and when state governments issued them more so than southerners where just weren’t doing what they were suppose to. It seems like it was saying people in states with red were doing what state and local government allowed. If you show that graphic in 2 weeks it looks a lot different. I think the south colors would look a lot like the Midwest states who have to travel similar distances to resources.

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I'd also venture to guess that all those people that are taking the subway are traveling more than 2 miles. My point is that the map is bullshite and nothing more than the sky screamers trying to place blame on the South.

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Aside from people that want to score a political point on either side even if it means misrepresenting the truth, the maps do provide an interesting visual to how different areas are treating this.

Leave NYC out of it because there's no comparison in the USA for the population size and density there.

However, the map does show how more like-to-like comparisons such as Upstate NY to North Alabama differ.

It's not some gotcha point simply because the visual maps reveal much of what is actually being required by different local/state governments.

For example, if you're a contractor in upstate NY state, it's now been over 2 weeks that you could only do work where 1 single worker worked in a vacated space. I assume that is not the case in Alabama.

Maybe time will show that wasn't completely necessary in NY and Alabama did well to keep a few extra people getting paychecks.

What the map shows though is simply a clear visual example of the degree to which the different measures are actually reducing movement.

Damn.

Prayers to him and his family.

Not sure how behind ADPH is and how many cases are from Florida and Georgia, but in Dothan there's actually 35 cases and 5 deaths just at Southeast Health Hospital. Southeast Health has their own tracker: https://www.southeasthealth.org/coronavirus/

We have another hospital that has cases (2 that I know of), but they haven't been the best at updating the public.