After 'Defiant' Reopening, Tesla Plant Had 450 Covid-19 Cases (sfgate.com) 202
The Washington Post reports:
Tesla's Bay Area production plant recorded hundreds of covid-19 cases following CEO Elon Musk's defiant reopening of the plant in May, according to county-level data obtained by a legal transparency website.
The document, obtained by the website PlainSite following a court ruling this year, showed Tesla received around 10 reports of covid-19 in May when the plant reopened, and saw a steady rise in cases all the way up to 125 in December, as the disease caused by the novel coronavirus peaked around the country. The revelation follows The Washington Post's reporting in June that there had been multiple covid-19 cases reported at Tesla's facilities in Fremont, Calif., after Musk decided to reopen despite a countywide stay-at-home order, daring officials to arrest him. The data, covering the months between May and December, showed there were around 450 total reported cases. Roughly 10,000 people work at the plant...
Despite around 10 cases in May, according to the data, the health department told The Post in early June that there were no known cases of workplace infections affecting county residents. Tesla and the Alameda County Public Health Department and representatives did not respond to a request for comment...
Tesla also came under fire for its treatment of workers. It had promised they could remain home if they felt uncomfortable returning to the line. The Post reported in late June and July that workers concerned about covid exposure received termination notices after they did not return to work. The data released by Alameda County shows there were 19 reported cases in June and 58 reported cases at the plant in July.
The document, obtained by the website PlainSite following a court ruling this year, showed Tesla received around 10 reports of covid-19 in May when the plant reopened, and saw a steady rise in cases all the way up to 125 in December, as the disease caused by the novel coronavirus peaked around the country. The revelation follows The Washington Post's reporting in June that there had been multiple covid-19 cases reported at Tesla's facilities in Fremont, Calif., after Musk decided to reopen despite a countywide stay-at-home order, daring officials to arrest him. The data, covering the months between May and December, showed there were around 450 total reported cases. Roughly 10,000 people work at the plant...
Despite around 10 cases in May, according to the data, the health department told The Post in early June that there were no known cases of workplace infections affecting county residents. Tesla and the Alameda County Public Health Department and representatives did not respond to a request for comment...
Tesla also came under fire for its treatment of workers. It had promised they could remain home if they felt uncomfortable returning to the line. The Post reported in late June and July that workers concerned about covid exposure received termination notices after they did not return to work. The data released by Alameda County shows there were 19 reported cases in June and 58 reported cases at the plant in July.
How many died (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously I get it has wiped out about a hundred million world wide but how many died at Tesla! No doubt this smear campaign is about moving to Texas.
Re:How many died (Score:4, Informative)
COVID isn't just about deaths. Many survivors have long-term health problems. And from my friends that have gone through it, it's the worst month of their lives. Looking at just the fatalities is missing much of the story.
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Many survivors have long-term health problems.
Are there any stats for that, and how they compare to long term health problems from the ordinary flu?
Re:How many died (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because death is obviously discrete but other outcomes are hard to measure or categorize. You don't know things that are going to affect people in 10 years, and even what the boundaries of a "long haul" illness would be. We address what we can measure
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And since this is Slashdot, we categorize problems in binary: either nothing happened, or the worst happened!
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Unfortunately, the focus exclusively on death rates wasn't confined to Slashdot and other techy sites.
Re:How many died (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do people think death is the only nontrivial outcome of a viral infection?
Obviously it's the only one that matters. My aunt got polio when she was a child and it didn't kill her so its not a big deal, right? Nevermind the fact that she's had to deal with chronic pain her whole life and has been using a cane to get around since childhood. She has been almost completely bedridden for the last 5-10 years. Insignificant, I tell you.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm pretty sure they have firewalls to protect Tesla's servers. /s
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Well how many elderly people did those 450 spread it to?
Let's calculate the base rate (Score:3)
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They just brick up the evidence in the wall of the old coke oven and look for a new "lucky" guy to fill the vacancy.
Re:How many died (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, proving that a COVID exposure occurred in the workplace is very difficult, but a reasonable person might conclude that 450+ plus cases in the workplace -- which is a "major outbreak" as defined by 3502 -- would lead to other employees being exposed in that workplace and any illness/fatality would be on the employer.
https://www.dir.ca.gov/OSHSB/d... [ca.gov]
Re: How many died (Score:3)
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In California, Cal OSHA has enacted regulations which state COVID-19 is a recognized workplace hazard that must be mitigated. Exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace is considered work-related. So, yes, your "flu" bullshit notwithstanding, COVID is a workplace incident. Obviously, proving that a COVID exposure occurred in the workplace is very difficult, but a reasonable person might conclude that 450+ plus cases in the workplace -- which is a "major outbreak" as defined by 3502 -- would lead to other employees being exposed in that workplace and any illness/fatality would be on the employer. https://www.dir.ca.gov/OSHSB/d... [ca.gov]
That's over the course of 8 months. Per those regulations, it has to be 20 more more cases in a given month that used the same spaces of the factory. While still sounding likely, it's not a given.
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A state that is prioritizing the health of workers over company profits? How terrible.
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You know what we call that state? A Canadian province!
Merely needs to be perceived as well meaning... (Score:5, Insightful)
A state that is prioritizing the health of workers over company profits? How terrible.
No, a state that is prioritizing theatrics. That considers any brainfart a senior politician has to be worthy of implementation. No scientific basis necessary, just the perception that it is well meaning. "Well meaning" is how one gets elected in California. Actual problem solving ability is not required.
We literally have a Governor that attends maskless indoor dining and partying with fellow elites while issuing guidelines that the public put their masks on in between bites of food. Yes, literally, no shit, both of these literally happened.
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If you have your arm ripped off at the workplace and live to tell the tale do you think OSHA also just turns around and says "meh"? It's called Cal OSHA with the H standing for Health. Not Cal OSFA with the F standing for fatality.
It is the plan we voted for (Score:2)
So the plan is to shut down every time there's a risk of even a single person dying?
Apparently that's the plan a slightly majority literally voted for.
Re: How many died (Score:2)
Re:What they are getting into - reason and science (Score:4, Insightful)
As stated no-one died so what's the problem?
Are you stupid? Do you not understand exponential growth? How many people did those 450 infect, and how many of those died? How many people did that second group infect, and how many of those died? No good way to know, but the fact is he could have killed hundreds by this action.
So Tesla number up as national numbers up (Score:4, Insightful)
As stated no-one died so what's the problem?
Are you stupid?
Apparently you are. How does Tesla's stats compare to other local communities? Was Tesla's factory actually a hot spot? Its right there in the summary, the Tesla number went up when the numbers went up nationally. An intelligent person would realize its premature to say the Tesla Factory was itself a hot spot without more data.
Re: So Tesla number up as national numbers up (Score:3, Informative)
Its numbers would not have rose if it was closed.
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Questions that don't get asked about BLM protests.
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Comparison to the local community is irrelevant. The local community might be full of anti-mask idiots, that's no excuse for Tesla not to do better.
The local community is in California, anti-mask is not an optioning in public venues. And a very pro-mask local government is well documented when you look at the history of the controversy. However to be clear masks were never the issue with Tesla, rather political theatre leading to closure decisions that were not science based.
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As stated no-one died so what's the problem?
Are you stupid? Do you not understand exponential growth? How many people did those 450 infect, and how many of those died?
Do you not understand that we cannot shut down the economy and expect it to magically restart where we left it at some point in the future? 0.132% COVID death rate is tragic, but the cure cannot be worse than disease.
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That is Heritage, and they are highly biased. Go to CDC directly.
Re:What they are getting into - reason and science (Score:4, Informative)
Ok.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volum... [cdc.gov]
During March 1–December 31, 2020, state-issued mask mandates applied in 2,313 (73.6%) of the 3,142 U.S. counties. Mask mandates were associated with a 0.5 percentage point decrease in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 1–20 days after implementation and decreases of 1.1, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8 percentage points 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after implementation...
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov]
In the entire country since Jan 4, 2020 until March 10,2021, only 216 children between the ages of 0 to 17 have died of Covid.
Have we flattened the curve?
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/da... [jhu.edu]
Notice that while the X axis for all states has the same date spread, the Y axis for each is notably different. California's peak is around 46,061 cases, while North Dakota, which looks worse, is only 1,408 cases. South Dakota's is only 1,458 cases, and neither enforced state wide mask mandates. All the curves look essentially the same in shape. Mask mandates were imposed when cases were flatlined at less than 100/day, when cases were rising exponentially, when cases peaked, and mask mandates were imposed while cases were falling. Regardless, the curves of states with mask mandates look essentially identical to states without mask mandates.
When I was a senior in high school in 1959 a flu pandemic hit. Over the next few months 116,000 died, equivalent to 232,000 today. There was no panic, no hysteria, no factory closings or job layoffs, no social distancing and folks were not forced to wear masks. If one felt sick they went to the Dr or the hospital. The rest went to work or school, which remained open, as did shops, sporting events, and social gathering places. There were no Karen's or Ken's to act as self-appointed hall monitors. People back then were a LOT more civil and polite than they are today.
Re: What they are getting into - reason and scienc (Score:2)
There have been around 500,000 deaths in US out of an unknown number of infections, but less than 331 million.
Even if population attack rate is 30% (it is not believed to that high) that is only about 100 million infections.
So IFR is probably more like 0.5%.
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Belief is tragic. Seroprevalence, the number of people showing prior-infection with SARS-CoV-2 in November, was around 50 million in the US; before the crazy uptick of "cases" in December/January. Hospitals were empty during this time.
By today we have somewhere around 70 million who have experienced SARS-CoV-2. That means if you know 5 people at least one has already experienced SARS-CoV-2. If you know 10 people, chances are at least 2 of them have experienced it.
Most survivors do not have long-term hea
Re: Hispanic misbehavior is spreading the coronavi (Score:2)
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I'll give you the unicode problem, however if you click on [Options] you'll see a drop-down menu for "Comment Post Mode" where you can choose from a few modes. Your line breaks problems are probably from that.
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Elon is African American.
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He must be related to Michael Jackson then... you know, because of his skin colour?
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Not all Africans are black.
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Not all Africans are black.
Another example, Charlize Theron.
(I honestly can't believe you had to point that out to someone.)
Call it the Law of Montgomery Burns? (Score:5, Informative)
Typically, billionaires are gonna be billionaires. What are a few lives lost (or severely injured) in the pursuit of even yet just a bit more money?
From https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/elon-musk-doubles-down-on-covid-19-skepticism-and-says-he-won-t-take-future-vaccine-1.5126528 [ctvnews.ca] on that reopening:
When Swisher confronted Musk with the possibility that people would still die in the process, he replied bluntly: "Everybody dies."
"The question is what, on balance, serves the greater good," Musk continued, adding that the lockdowns did not accomplish that and the pandemic is a "no-win situation."
Just oozing compassion for his fellow people. Really does come off as Burns.
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Indeed. The "greater good" meaning his pile of money. This guy really is a psycho.
Indistinguishable (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. The "greater good" meaning his pile of money. This guy really is a psycho.
He had essentially the same opportunities that you did, but he's solving many of the worlds problems simultaneously, and making himself rich in the process, and you are not.
Calling him psycho is indistinguishable from envy.
Re:Indistinguishable (Score:5, Insightful)
As a teenager, I never got pocket money by just grabbing tens of thousands of emeralds from my father's safe from the mine he owned half of and selling them to Tiffany's for cash. I never got a multi-million dollar investment from my dad in my internet startup idea and wasn't in a financial position to become the biggest stockholder in Paypal by continually writing checks even as I was fired for fucking up their tech stack. Nor did I have $250MM to throw into rockets or electric cars when pitched on the ideas.
To claim that he had the same opportunities is like pointing out anyone could have made an OS monopoly ignoring Gates's mom's friendship with the IBM CEO.
They're totally orthogonal! I call Charles Manson psycho without being envious and I'm envious of Brad Pitt without calling him psycho!
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Even if he is a psycho talking his own book the point stands. How much harm has been done with these lockdowns? How much benefit? Was there a better strategy available?
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I mean, I would have no problem holding Musk personally responsible for reopening in spite of a state order and giving each affected family $250 million. That would make him no longer a billionaire.
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Hmmm.
Looking at the numbers, we have half the number of covid cases at that factory than we had in the general population. If you worked there, your chances of getting the disease were LOWER than if you were just some random person on the street.
So, unless he forced people at gunpoint to show up for work, I'm not sure what, exactly, he did that was so terribly evil.
Note that this is disregarding any laws that may have been broken. Not knowing the relevant laws in the State(s) in question, I have no rea
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According to the Article Tesla had 450 cases with 10,000 workers. That leads to 4.5% recorded COVID rate. If this is true then Tesla did an incredible job! That is basically 1/2 the general rate of CA as a whole.
Of course CA is a big state and I did not calculate local rates. And I do not think t
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What a weird way to look at the problem. Other than ignoring local variations, you're comparing to a rate that includes cashiers and other customer facing jobs.
If you threaten to take away someones job to coerce them into doing something wrong, that's bad. See also, why sexual harassment laws exist.
Wrong side of history (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk is doing a lot of interest stuff and pushing boundaries specially in space (which I'm very exited about), but his treatment of workers at tesla and his stance on COVID-19 will go down in history as what not to do, he is really wrong on this, because not only risking the life of the employees, but their family members and causing the pandemic to drag on longer than it should.
If people followed the lockdowns properly, as it was done in new zealand, china and other places, it would suck bad for a couple of weeks and later you pretty much came back to your old life, just wearing masks in public places until everyone is vaccinated, but these people that go against completely undermine the lockdown and cause it to extend and be a lot less effective and be repeated.
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Well to be fair, he cares a lot more about money (even though he has more than he will ever need) than he does about other people's health.
And if you look at it that way, his actions are perfectly reasonable.
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Well to be fair, he cares a lot more about money (even though he has more than he will ever need) than he does about other people's health.
And if you look at it that way, his actions are perfectly reasonable.
Sure. And his actions are what is usually called "evil" and called something "everybody needs to fight". The US really needs to get over its fascination with money and start calling people with lots of it to account.
Bezos grinding an axe? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who has a few axes to grind with Elon Musk. But I'm sure that wouldn't slant the reporting at all, for Bezos is an honorable man.
Seems like a good time for this quote... (Score:2)
The majority of human beings are not yet human beings at all, but simply machines for the creating of wealth for others.” -- The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
I dodged a bullet (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a really good offer to do contract work for Tesla last year. Professionally and financially it would have been great. But it was at this particular Tesla plant, so I passed on it. Now I see from a covid point of view it was a good decision.
And the the wildfires hit, making it virtually impossible to be outdoors. So even my free time would have really sucked.
I lament passing on the actual work, but I don’t lament protecting my health.
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Re:I dodged a bullet (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just about being killed. COVID19 can cause bad long term health issues. Also, it's not just you but all the people you infect and all the people they infect and so on.
elon is the richest now (Score:3)
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After all that is what was important about the whole situation, right?
Firstly he's not, secondly do you think he's the only one who has called for the reopening of the economy? Most people who ran any kind of business have been pushing for this.
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That's a 4% infection rate (Score:2)
An infection rate of 4% is not great but it's also not disastrous. I will say this much, the workers should have been given hazard pay for working in a pandemic.
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Or, hear me out, we could not have produced luxury cars during a pandemic-enforced lockout.
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Or, hear me out, we could not have produced luxury cars during a pandemic-enforced lockout.
So - give up on our clean energy future? How many deaths would that cause? Deaths from pollution and never-ending wars over oil would far outstrip those saved by keeping this factory closed.
Tesla is dragging the rest of the auto industry into the EV future, among its other projects.
This factory had a 4% infection rate, most of which probably happened outside of work, and less than half of the national rate [worldometers.info].
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Or, hear me out, we could not have produced luxury cars during a pandemic-enforced lockout.
I would have no problem with this if the government were actually providing for people so they didn't have to work, you know, like every other first-world government. Unfortunately, without sane leadership providing money to pay the bills then Tesla workers are damned if they do work and damned if they don't work. I just think they should get something for it.
Useless without comparison data (Score:2)
Fake News: What science substantiates the claim? (Score:2)
There is no evidence that says the 450 cases were contracted because the plant remained open.
new wheels... cancun vacas... (Score:2)
I wonder how many people at the Alameda County Public Health Department recently got new cars, or paid vacas to Ted Cruz's fav spot, or new bank accounts in the Caymans.
Numbers in perspective. (Score:4, Informative)
The current COVID-19 total case rate for Alameda County is 4900 per 100,000. If 450 cases occurred among 10,000 workers, that 4500 per 100,000. Taking into account that the county data is more recent, and the Tesla data is older and in very round numbers, the conclusion I'd make is that your chance of getting COVID as a Tesla worker at the plant was approximately the same as your chance of getting COVID as a resident of the surrounding counties.
But there's a few important caveats before you can take away that conclusion. You can't conclude that going to work had no or little effect on workers' risk because county-wide aggregate numbers may be driven by a small number of high risk groups (it's the old 80/20 rule). So saying that a worker's risk is about average for the county is not the same as saying that in-person work didn't increase their risk. It's possible that they may have moved from a below-average exposure risk category to an average one.
Another thing to consider is risk to the workers is only part of the calculation in a public health order. There's also impact on the course of the entire epidemic. When the epidemic is on the increase, public health authorities try to set up firewalls to keep it from growing faster. Tesla's re-opening of the Fremont factory was, if I recall correctly, around June, a time at which state and county new cases began to rise sharply.
Why do people worship Musk? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't why people think he's so amazing, I really don't. Yes, he's clearly bright -- but he's also got a massive and very frail ego, remember his response to the teacher who called the so-called rescue sub a publicity stunt -- called him a 'pedo' and only backpedaled when people called him out and lawsuits were filed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
He fragile ego reminds me a lot of Trump actually, deflect, defer and attack when called out. Or calls things a success when they just aren't
https://www.news18 [news18.com]
Holy Crap! Do the math... (Score:4, Informative)
We can argue about whether the ends justifies the means. But that's an incredibly high infection rate.
Re: Lets get this shit over with. (Score:5, Insightful)
This would have been over a year ago if people weren't so stupid and governments didn't make half assed compromises to appease stupid people.
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True. But if most people were not fuckups, this world would be a paradise. Instead it is a complete mess with hunger, disease, poverty, war, overpopulation , ignorance and climate change looming in the distance. Also, if most people were not fuckups, the likes of Musk would never have gotten any power or money, because they would have been identified as unfit and dangerous early on.
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This would have been over a year ago if people weren't so stupid
Predicating policy on the nonexistence of stupidity is stupid.
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Not really, I am lamenting that we put them in charge of anything not that they exist at all.
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This would have been over a year ago if people weren't so stupid and governments didn't make half assed compromises to appease stupid people.
Citation required. We have plenty of states that did more and less. Have you compared California vs. Florida numbers? What does this tell you?
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I don't even think this is necessarily malicious or an attempt at a hatchet job. Too many people are just stupid when it comes to properly researching
Another Tesla smear (Score:2, Informative)
Bay Area case average was 48 per 100k, so they were a little below the general community. Good job, Tesla! It may be most likely that some cases spread in the workplace, but apparently not to a level that justified any further shutdown.
The article is clearly biased against Tesla.
At the time the state had given them permission to open, and the city had given them permission to open, and it was only the county that told them to remain closed. The article makes it seem like Tesla ignored all guidance.
Furthermore, other car manufacturers (GM and others) had resumed production, and there was still significant short interest in Tesla stock.
The article is not reporting news, it's just another Tesla smear.
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The article is clearly biased against Tesla.
At the time the state had given them permission to open, and the city had given them permission to open, and it was only the county that told them to remain closed. The article makes it seem like Tesla ignored all guidance.
So it's okay to break a county ordinance as long as it doesn't break state law or city law? Sorry, but the law doesn't work that way. You are obligated to comply with the most restrictive intersection of all laws and regulations that apply to you, not the least.
Furthermore, other car manufacturers (GM and others) had resumed production, and there was still significant short interest in Tesla stock.
GM and other car manufacturers weren't in locations with insane levels of coronavirus activity. That comparison is moot.
The article is not reporting news, it's just another Tesla smear.
I happen to think that a company violating county health rules, resulting in 100x as many of its employees getting coronavirus
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So it's okay to break a county ordinance as long as it doesn't break state law or city law? Sorry, but the law doesn't work that way. You are obligated to comply with the most restrictive intersection of all laws and regulations that apply to you, not the least.
Tell that to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who's threatening to sue Austin over their continued mask mandate after the Governor rescinded the state mandate. From Twitter and Fox (and other sources):
Twitter [twitter.com]
I told Travis County & The City of Austin to comply with state mask law. They blew me off. So, once again, I’m dragging them to court. Adler will never do the right thing on his own. His obstruction won’t stop me from keeping TX free & open!
Fox [foxnews.com]
Texas AG Paxton sues City of Austin for not lifting mask mandate
Austin refused to lift its mask mandate, despite Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order
Note: Texas has previously won against its localities on this sort of thing...
Austin Mayor Steve Adler responded:
Wearing a mask doesn't slow down opening up businesses. It doesn't slow down getting more and more children in school in person. The health folks here in Texas seem to be pretty unanimous that wearing masks helps minimize the risk that we're not going to be able to open up schools or open up businesses.
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The parent comment points out a serious shortcoming in journalistic integrity that has become rampant, and is ugly at its core.
The observation of cases at Tesla's plant cannot be considered in a vacuum; it needs to be considered in the environment surrounding the plant. While a good comparison is indeed the community at large, another good comparison would be the cases at other businesses that had in-person employment, with similar work conditions (as in, not public-facing companies).
Report only cherry-pic
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So what other companies ignored the health order and stayed open in that County so we can compare?
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The parent comment points out a serious shortcoming in journalistic integrity that has become rampant, and is ugly at its core.
No, not remotely. "I disagree with you" is not the same thing as "you lack integrity." If anything, this article gave Tesla the benefit of the doubt far more than most articles on other employers' coronavirus outbreaks. So if there's any lack of integrity, it is from these journalists going way too easy on Tesla because of its popularity, not the other way around.
The observation of cases at Tesla's plant cannot be considered in a vacuum; it needs to be considered in the environment surrounding the plant. While a good comparison is indeed the community at large, another good comparison would be the cases at other businesses that had in-person employment, with similar work conditions (as in, not public-facing companies).
I disagree. Those other businesses were open because they were deemed essential. The illnesses and deaths arising out of those other business
Re:...so slightly lower than the community average (Score:4, Insightful)
Bay Area case average was 48 per 100k, so they were a little below the general community. Good job, Tesla! It may be most likely that some cases spread in the workplace, but apparently not to a level that justified any further shutdown.
The proper comparison is 450 cases between between May and December in a population of 10,000 Tesla workers versus the ~50,000 cases [acgov.org] between May and December in Alameda County in a population of ~1,671,000 residents.
That puts Tesla's rate at 4.5% vs Alameda County at 3.1%.
So Tesla's workers were at a slightly higher risk of catching COVID than those in the surrounding community, not "a little below".
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If my math is correct, they were at a #A5C higher risk than those in the surrounding community. My math may not be accurate, though.
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Complete fail on my part in quoting the wrong number and converting to relative, but that aside, Alameda County is not entirely representative of Tesla’s workforce. Once you add in Contra Costa and maybe even San Joaquin counties you are safely above Tesla’s infection rate.
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Contra Costa is at 5.6%, San Joaqin 9.2%. I use LA Times for my dashboards. The fact remains that Tesla is essentially at the community level and there is no evidence presented that they have had any significant clusters at the factory.
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The Tesla plant is not isolated from the county it is in. It's likely that cases throughout the surrounding area were higher than they would have been if Musk hadn't reopened the factory.
Re:...so slightly lower than the community average (Score:4, Informative)
Bay Area case average was 48 per 100k, so they were a little below the general community. Good job, Tesla! It may be most likely that some cases spread in the workplace, but apparently not to a level that justified any further shutdown.
You divided when you should have multiplied (or vice versa). Tesla had only 10,000 employees at that plant, not a million employees. The Bay Area average of 48 per 100k would be 4.8 per 10K, which is a way smaller number than 450. So Tesla's reopening in defiance of county orders resulted in about 445 extra coronavirus cases that would otherwise not have existed, and statistically, probably about 2 deaths. In the first generation.
If we assume the worst-case propagation — unmitigated spread — that's 1112 extra cases and 5 deaths one week later, 2781 cases and 13 deahs two weeks later, 6953 cases and 34 deaths three weeks later, 17,382 cases and 86 deaths four weeks later....
So were it not for mitigation strategies taken by the general public, the entire world could already have gotten COVID just from the cases that Tesla added by themselves. Musk's actions had serious consequences, and IMO there should be serious punishment, both for him and for the company. And I say this as a Tesla vehicle owner and shareholder.
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So Tesla's reopening in defiance of county orders resulted in about 445 extra coronavirus cases that would otherwise not have existed, and statistically, probably about 2 deaths.
Why are you using 50+ year old mortality rate to estimate the number of deaths in your calculation? Is average Tesla worker close to retirement?
Fine, lets go with your numbers - 2 extra deaths as a the result of reopening. Insurance calculates compensation at $65K per year of loss of life. Median US age is 38, life expectancy is 79 years, so 41 years of life lost times 2 people times 65,000 is $5.33 million. If I use average US salary, that would be 2 days of payroll for that site. If you are asking them
Re:...so slightly lower than the community average (Score:5, Informative)
You divided when you should have multiplied (or vice versa). Tesla had only 10,000 employees at that plant, not a million employees. The Bay Area average of 48 per 100k would be 4.8 per 10K, which is a way smaller number than 450. So Tesla's reopening in defiance of county orders resulted in about 445 extra coronavirus cases that would otherwise not have existed, and statistically, probably about 2 deaths. In the first generation.
You can't just combine numbers willy-nilly without considering dimensions. Those have different units and May to December is 8 months. (Getting numbers *two orders* of magnitude different should have made you incredibly suspicious.)
A quick back of the envelop using total cases/population to date for LA County scaled to 8 months gives - 1.21 million cases/10.0 million pop = 12% * (8 months/11 months) = 8.7%. So expect ~870 out of the 10000 employees to have been a covid case during that period. Even if the local case rate was *half* of LA's case rate, Tesla wouldn't be guilty of causing an increase in infections. And if Tesla is doing active testing of their employees they're going to find cases at a higher rate than would be reflected in county-wide measurements.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe the average was higher elsewhere because they were infecting everyone else. Maybe they contribute to the 500 deaths a day in California in December. We do not live in isolation.
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Your maths is all wrong. I don't know what 48 per 100k but clearly, it isn't the wrong number to compare to the 450 / 10000 Tesla cases.
Let's redo the maths.
Alameda county population: 1.671 million
Alameda county covid-19 cases at the beginning of May 2020: 1719
Alameda county covid-19 cases at the end of December 2020: 53236
(53236 - 1719) / 1671000 = 3.1% (percentage of people who caught covid-19 in the county between May and December)
Tesla factory workers: 10000
Reported cases at Tesla between May and Decemb
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The math is a little more complicated than that --- you have to make sure the number of infections is being counted for the same period. Do we have that information?
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That’s what happens when I post from bed... I quoted the wrong number— the 48/100k was in the last 14 days. It was 4,980/100k to-date in Alameda County, and higher in neighboring counties.
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He's like by left-leaning people? I suppose if you redefine "left-leaning" to be "believes in climate change". Other than that, I don't really see a lot of love for Musk.
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Are you sure that no household members got sick and died from what the worker brought home? As well as no long Covid cases?
Can I break the law with impunity if no one dies?
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You left out whether they're comparable. Some factories have no problem operating with social distancing etc in place, others not so much.
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The ones in China would have been subjected to HARD LOCKDOWN along with anything else if there was Covid in the region. I'm not usually a fan of China, but on this count you have to score one for them. A HARD LOCKDOWN for a brief period of time is much less disruptive to the economy than the half-assed American version that drags on for over a year.