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Was there a Thanksgiving Bump?

Wholesome holiday or superspreader supper? Photo from Pixabay.

Doomers warned of a Thanksgiving bump in COVID cases. "A surge upon surge," warned Fauci; "assume that you were exposed and you became infected," advised Birx. Some states instituted restrictions: New Mexico issued a stay-at-home order; Washington state banned indoor restaurant service for a month; Michigan banned indoor dining service for three weeks. North Dakota and Iowa, meanwhile, finally told people to wear face coverings if they're out in public. South Dakota stayed its libertarian course.

What were the effects of these various orders, or lack of them? The US has seen increasing COVID deaths and hospitalizations over the past few weeks. Thanksgiving was Thursday, November 26; it's now three weeks later. Was it due to Thanksgiving gatherings? Charts below are from CovidTracking.com, accessed December 16.

Thanksgiving bump?

Well, it doesn't look like a bump, but a trend that started around October. The trend must be because of those do-little governors in places like Iowa and the Dakotas...right?

Iowa

North Dakota

South Dakota

Clearly, these states aren't contributing to the rise in hospitalizations, and North Dakota and Iowa show what might be a bump in deaths despite their recent mask orders. South Dakota, with no COVID restrictions for Thanksgiving, saw deaths level off.

Are things better where governors banned dining service or ordered citizens to stay at home?

Washington state: ban on indoor dining service for a month.

New Mexico: Stay-at-home order.
Michigan: Ban on indoor dining service for three weeks. (*Various bans have been widely resisted and unenforced in some areas.)

To be fair to Washington, Michigan and New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee, which didn't order any particular Thanksgiving restrictions, have graphs that look very much like those states. 

“Oklahomans should be with their loved ones over Thanksgiving.”

Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he has no plans to impose restrictions, though he would “encourage Tennesseans to think hard” about celebrating together.

As far as I can tell from looking at the most and least regulated states, Thanksgiving restrictions had no effect on death or hospitalization trends--unless it's that several places saw a decline in hospitalizations after Thanksgiving, though I don't know if it's causal or the normal course of the pandemic. 

*****

Has being free of government restrictions been the best way to go? It's not clear. North and South Dakota, two of the least COVID-regulated states, have among the highest rates of excess deaths so far--but they're immediately followed by Michigan, whose governor has tried to impose strict regulations. Counties whose sheriffs refused to enforce the emergency orders (Leelanau, Benzie, Manistee and Mason) have seen 53 deaths out of the state's 12,074. Michigan's dashboard doesn't show deaths per capita by county, but does show Detroit City and a few surrounding counties (over 200 miles from those mentioned above) accounting for two-thirds of COVID deaths. Pennsylvania, where police ticketed a woman early this year simply for driving her car, is between freer Florida and Texas.

Excess deaths per million, 2/1/20 to present. Created with info from the CDC and US Census population numbers. Click to enlarge.

The doomers might make a case that lack of regulation has caused a high excess death rate in some places. But I don't see any sign that canceling Christmas is going to alter any trends. 

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Lori Miller said…
Looks like Dr. Birx didn't take her own advice to limit Thanksgiving to your immediate household. https://www.wishtv.com/news/coronavirus/birx-travels-family-visits-highlight-pandemic-safety-perils/
December 21, 2020
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