Would like to share a pathetic response from Curt Smith County Commissioner to an email inquiry I sent asking to be called back to discuss three specific topics..... the issues of HOTELS in Brevard county in "phase 1" (particularly beaches) being opened bringing in immediate tourism, the A1A debacle they created with closing beach parks (which I supported), but letting every MORON that wants to park on the street on A1A do so with no ticketing/enforcement and lastly, the crosswalk debacle that runs thru the heart of his beach-side district.

This guy can go F himself. I didnt comment or want to discuss anything covid related and all he can do is get on a high horse. Below is what this pompous asshole responded back to my email simply requesting a call back to discuss. Note the (crappy grammar) comment "the hotels/motels hope you are correct they are filled overnight". Yea, lets just bring everyone from anywhere to Brevard ASAP. What an absolute idiot.


Chad, The time has arrived for us to start moving forward with re-opening our county. This virus isn't going away until we can get a treatment for it and a vaccine. But we certainly cannot shut everything down until that happens. Fear is not an attribute and if you are that worried about the virus, don't go to motels or beaches. Stay inside as much as you can until you are comfortable. Wear a mask and wash your hands often. Prudence is the key. The virus is not as deadly as first feared. Currently less than.02% are dying from it. For perspective, far more people are dying in auto accidents The hotels/motels hope you are correct that they will be filled with tourists overnight, but that is not likely. We will continue to monitor our virus count. The fact is, there are only 7 people currently in all of Brevard hospitals with COVID-19. Four of those are on ventilators. As for A1A that is a state road. You can complain to your local state representatives or contact FDOT directly. Curt Smith Brevard County Commissioner, District 4 P: 321.633.2044 F: 321.633.2121 curt.smith@brevardcounty.us cid:image001.png@01CE9345.AED16CB0 District 4 Commission Office 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way Building C - Suite 214 Viera, Florida 32940 Please note: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications to or from the offices of elected officials are public records available to the public and media upon request. Your email communications may, therefore, be subject to public disclosure.

Edited: 05/06/2020 at 08:22 PM by sfds

We are poorly represented.
The justifications for reopening too soon are emotional and based on weak facts.
The science doesn't support this.


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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Edited: 05/06/2020 at 08:39 PM by WG

We'll, quick math check. Using the # deaths / # cases from the CDC uupdate for May 6, I get 5.9%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru...dates/cases-in-us.html

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add a signature since I'm here in profile anyway

You can't forget the Air BNB's as well...they are full of out of towner's mostly Northern state plates...I would say the cleaning is slightly better at a Hotel than it is at a Air BNB where the host (who is usually out of county or out of state) is responsible for disinfecting..We have the power to shut down Air BNB's in certain areas (short term rental laws) but no one does...

Did they make the right decision to reopen? We shall see by the end of this month.

What is an okay death toll? 150,000 - 200,000? Do we try something different at 300,000?

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I was right.

well, posting up to share the arrogant response not even addressing what I asked about and throwing some bro science off the cuff like he's some expert. I dont have a problem with the 25% soft phase 1 opening and track how things go, but for god's sake bringing tourists in should not be in phase 1, that's a no brainer.


Glad to see he doesn't give 2 $hits about the A1A debacle in his district, especially with the heightened awareness from that poor little girl's death. Not one for politics, but hope people remember this when it comes voting time.

It will probably take longer than a month tbh. The lock down did a pretty decent job of beating back the virus in some places. I suspect it will be more like 4-6 weeks, maybe longer if people still be safe, for infections to climb again and another 10-14 days after that for deaths to rise in response.

The number of deaths includes probable cases without lab confirmation. Seems a tad unscientific. Curious if anyone cares about the amount of trash being created with all of these disposable masks? What about the turtles? Did not using straws offset this? How did FL with its uncaring, late closing, early opening Governor and the highest # of Medicare patients in the US avoid this plague? What a crock of pooh unless you're old with comorbidities and living in lower NY, upper NJ and urban areas of MA/CT. Guess time will tell. Signed, "Frontline" Registered Nurse P.S. Don't forget to be afraid of the "Second Wave"!

Edited: 05/07/2020 at 07:00 AM by Quadro

That is true for the flu yes. Where did you get information that deaths include probable cases without lab confirmation and at what numbers? Please post a link to the source. Everything I am seeing points to cases being vastly under reported.

Tom's CDC link. You know the CDC who said millions would be dying according to their "models". https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru...dates/cases-in-us.html Agree the number of cases is WAAAAAY under-reported, the number of deaths is misleading and WAAAAAAY over-reported. BTW public service announcement if you wear a mask without eye protection, you are not protected from this virus.

Actually no, the data points to deaths being way under reported. Year over year overall death rates going back 5 years in hard hit areas is way way higher even once you subtract out the known covid-19 cases. There wasn't a drastic increase in suicides, murders, etc. to account for it either.

There there is this:



No, Not the Flu.

I agree A1A is a joke. Glad to see the speed limit lower and those crosswalks to nowhere going away. Speed kills. Maybe we should close the roads to prevent this? Sure no one can go anywhere but if it saves just one life it's worth it, right?

If you die from cancer but have COVID-19 how is that counted?

If you die from a heart attack and have Covid-19 how is it counted? Was it the heart condition by itself or the virus pushing your body past a threshold that it was able to handle? How do you determine they 'died' from cancer or the the virus? If the cancer was going to kill them anyway, but the virus caused them to die days, weeks, or months earlier than they would have otherwise how do you make that determination?

Imagine a patient with end-stage renal disease, on dialysis three times a week, hypertensive, poorly controlled type-2 diabetic, smoker, hx of CHF & pneumonia, DVTs, gout and prior MIs. One night they code and die from a MI while admitted to the hospital for new onset fever and cough. The patient tested positive for COVID-19 per the admission labs. What did they die from?

Agree it slows my potential to contaminate but most people are wearing them to protect themselves. PPE and microbiological ignorance is off the chain right now.

Can't rightfully make that determination.

And a covid discussion "no I really know the facts" spawns......

Let's not get carried away about being spot on. I support the soft opening, but packing hotels right away should not be part of phase 1 right out of the gate.

The other one not addressed was the situation THEY created with closing beach parking yet allowing road parking to get out-of-control with no enforcement.

The crosswalks already have their own debate going. Again the point is ol Curt feels he has no stake in trying to resolve this as your county rep. Sat Beach I know did ask for crosswalks, no doubt. But they have little/no say in the design, placement and implementation. I agree they have tried to pass the buck and slip responsibility. At the heart of this issue, regardless of how we got here, this all falls squarely on the FDOT.

As stated, in short, we are poorly represented, but that certainly does not stop with Brevard county. Back to debating an endless topic of opinions disguised as facts.

I beleeve riddler, he really says he know the facts, and he sound serious like a real doctor, so it must be so. /end thread.

oh look, the troll being a troll. wrong board dipshit, take it to nsr

NOW - if i agree with you , i'm a troll? yeah that makes sense.

The specific link. His link does not contain information backing up your statement. I asked for a link to probable cases that never got confirmed and how many there were.

Also regarding the mask, you should know the mask is to reduce 'your' potential spread around other people. Go look at the droplet tests that have been done.

Mask is to help you keep the funk to yourself.

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Hello Tom, The formula is # deaths / population. its not over cases because that changes based on the number of people tested. another interesting problem for those wanting to be scared by Covid is that the overall death count compared to last year at this time is about the same or maybe less. Total flu related deaths in NYC comparing time periods was about 10% higher than 2019 and lower than a few years before. if we did nothing ? is it really worth trashing the US economy, minority jobs, retirement savings accounts, etc. over. ? I guess not in an election year.

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it's never too late to have a happy childhood...

Well that's a really odd way to look at statistics. Kinda like saying only .001% of people that drink bleach die from it because I'm including all the people that didn't drink bleach in the whole world!

So they didn't have the virus until the person testing them gave it to them? lol

Wow, really?

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I was right.

That is incorrect. Deaths per week went well more than a standard deviation above the ten year mean starting about late March. Weeks where the average is 52k deaths have been hitting 65k+. That is more excess death than would reasonably be attributed to chance.

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Thanks Tony, I understand how the 0.02 figure was calculated. It's why I agree with the OP's assessment of Mr. Smith's response.

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add a signature since I'm here in profile anyway

What he said about reopening is bang on. Except for the use of % after .02. Tom your number is probably as over an estimate as his is under. We now suspect many cases up to 85x based on some studies may be undocumented which will have a dramatic effect on overall mortality rates.

The fact is that the number of new cases daily in the US started to level off in late March (CDC). Despite shutting down and stay at home April had the same number of daily cases. It may have "flattened the curve" we don't know, but that was the argument for shutting down. It is too soon to say if reopening will effect the numbers. Lets hope they begin to decline.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

Regarding A1A - Sat Bch spearheaded both the original crosswalks and, when they didn't work out, they blamed the state and then demanded the new speed limit and crosswalk design. The "State" did not ram this down anyone's throat. Oh, and BTW, Sat Beach worked to remove the throughlane at the Pineda/A1A intersection even though it is about 3 miles north of their city limit. Don't let anyone tell you differently. The culprit was Sat Bch who was able to enlist everyone else.

Consider what we know about the impact this virus has on clotting factor this has on some people in regards to stroke/heart attack, even asymptomatic people. Talk about really confounding numbers and counts.

I was pretty happy the police did not get involved with the parking along A1A in southern Brevard. Even at Spanny on the busy days it was crowded but not "out of control."

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

I guess if you're one of the ones illegally parking on the side of the road and accessing a beach that they are trying to keep people from gaining access to, you would be happy.

But practically speaking, closing a beach park (Bonsteel, Ponce, Spessard) but then allowing as many or more cars than the beach park holds to park on the side of the road is completely asinine. Especially with cars going 45 mph or more on A1A while there's a bunch of people opening doors into the road, having their little kids walking along A1A with no oversight etc. whatev.

"PPE and microbiological ignorance is off the chain right now"... as is the ability to understand data


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Bald Brother

"Surfing is prayer of a high order, the sea a beautiful church, the wave a silent sermon"
Tom Blake

Fortunately the Police and Park rangers are more understanding than you are. BTW on the south side of the inlet people park alongside A1A all the time when the Park is open-same speed limit.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

Edited: 05/07/2020 at 01:28 PM by daner

In reply to: (I guess if you're one of the ones illegally parking on the side of the road and accessing a beach that they are trying to keep people from gaining access to, you would be happy. But practically speaking, closing a beach park (Bonsteel, Ponce, Spessard) but then allowing as many or more cars than the beach park holds to park on the side of the road is completely asinine. Especially with cars going 45 mph or more on A1A while there's a bunch of people opening doors into the road, having their little kids walking along A1A with no oversight etc. whatev.)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- but daner-- that stretch of A1A over on your side of the Inlet used all the time by mostly beach Anglers, has relief from the easement of some 10-15 yrds, where the Spanny and ''Billie's'' roadside cluster--- is right up against the edge of the pavement with kids and open vehicle doors encroaching into traffic like a cartoon. I had a couple small kids come chasing each other around their suv up a car length ahead right onto the hwy around Billie's couple a week ago, the Powerwagon in front of me somewhat overreacted and swerved across the centerline to avoid runn'n'm down, forcing the on coming guy who was fortunately paying attention to also avoid taking a head-on by swerving outta dudes way onto his shoulder. FUUU--!! I am pretty confused by the inconsistency of Law Enforcements' handling of all that bs parking alongside the road bs. Did I say bs?! You gotta be able to actually, 'see', outta those glasses your looking through at the same thing everybody else is mate~~

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ola ~

Edited: 05/09/2020 at 04:54 AM by equipeola

Call BS on the Commisioner's "Currently less than.02% are dying from it." statement. Tell him to figure out how many COVID-19 cases there would have to be for 76,801 deaths to equal only ".02%".

Perhaps a lot of people don't know how to deal with simple percentages. The presumed total population of the USA is 333,546,000. So, .02% of that number is only 66,709 deaths. Compare that to the assumed .01% death rate for common "Flu".

To make it easy to understand, , , ,

.02% of 333,546,000 is 66,709

.2% of 333,546,000 is 667,092

2% of 333,546,000 would be 6,670,920


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Dora Hates You

Edited: 05/09/2020 at 05:29 AM by dingpatch

Actually. Everyone knows the "facts." Just what color glasses you wear determines your outlook.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

Edited: 05/07/2020 at 03:54 PM by daner

NSR

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"If I say it's safe to surf this beach, captain, then it's safe to surf this beach!"

Auto crashes are not contagious.

So far, Florida's covid-19 deaths have been heavily weighed toward elderly nursing home residents.

It may be slightly reassuring that the dead were mostly already in bad shape. Maybe also that younger victims tend to be working in low-wage jobs (think of the steak and hamburger shortage). But there are enough cases of young people being killed or losing their health to give pause. Cases of stroke are particularly creepy

.

Florida's death rate began decreasing because people self-quarantined and were careful when they went shopping or went out for exercise or sunlight. I fled supermarkets a couple of times because of too many people.

While it seems reasonable to open up a bit (I've been to two supermarkets, local bookstore, dentists, foot doctor in the past couple of days), I'm willing to bet that local cases will soon increase. It's time to hunker down.

The CDC's statistics and estimates have come under attack. CDC, for starters, keeps the nation's vital statistics. They get a copy of every death certificate in the country. It takes a while to sort them out, so they provide preliminary results (which are marked), estimates, and later on, final results, which sometimes have flaws (in January and February, covids-19 was not well known and later on, a lot of probable victims died at home and tests weren't done to provide firm cause of death). CDC has estimation procedures, worked out from years of handling flu, and its figures, with uncertainties, are honest.

A pretty simple, powerful tool for checking what's going on is "excess deaths." CDC has estimates of how many deaths to expect, by state, for for the entire cycle of the year. Right now, in some states, spikes in excess death stand out. New York especially. Florida not so much. The New York Times has compiled their own graphs as part of their free covids coverage. By the way, Stalin's Soviet Union had honest census data, so historians were able to use a variant on "excess deaths", looking at age cohorts for missing people, to determine the Soviet Union's loss of population during World War II. My recollection is that around 35 million people were missing. The official figure had been 20 million, enough to be shocking, but far short of reality.

Edited: 05/07/2020 at 07:13 PM by ww

Regardless of your political affiliations, wether the "controversial" death rate is .02% or 5.9% is only interesting and otherwise moot when you consider what the current critical infection rate has done to our health system.

So, perhaps in a year, or so, all of the actual, factual, data will reveal that a .02% death rate is valid (which is twice that of flu). BUT, that in and of itself will do nothing to discount the overwhelming effect COVID-19 is having on our health system.

OK, full steam ahead, let's get the economy going again but, only if we double or triple the number of ICU beads in every hospital. Then again, where are the additional/extra/new health workers going to come from? How long does it take an unemployed burger jockey to become a RN?

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Dora Hates You

Edited: 05/08/2020 at 12:38 PM by dingpatch

Infection fatality rate is far higher than that.

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come on man, that was transparent. nice try though and keep it on nsr

But.... I can't prop you up on NSR. I try to be nice, and you get in your feelings. Geez.

I never said the parking wasnt hazardous dude. FYI They park on both sides of A1A to the south. One side has some lots to pull off but many park in areas right along the side and when MH is firing woo hoo it's just like Spanny was last week. When I see that I slow down. Drive defensively and you may avoid "other people over reacting" lol

But I agree the roadside parking is more dangerous. Unfortunately the govt closed the safe places to park and surfing was allowed and us moron surfers had no choice. The police understood I guss.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

Edited: 05/09/2020 at 06:57 AM by daner

"Currently less than.02% are dying from it."

Isn't this factored by the number of people who have actually caught the virus and not the population as a whole?

As of now, 1,288,569 people have tested positive for the virus.

As of now, 77,344 have died from it.

Either this thing is way, way, way more widespread than we think it is or someone needs to work on their math skills.

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I was right.

Sorry late to the thread... From Curt Smith "Fear is not an attribute and if you are that worried about the virus, don't go to motels or beaches " huh? Is he capping on his constituent? a$$