COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[StrangeSox]

22 minutes ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

So, it's starting to come to light that both Georgia and Texas are including both COVID tests AND antibody tests in their totals (the denominator), but only counting positive test results from the COVID tests as the numerator. So, their positive test rates look lower than they really are. Texas, meanwhile, is seeing spikes even WITH the mathematical "help".

 

Virginia and Colorado are also including antibody tests as well I believe, though I'm not so sure about only counting positive COVID tests.

 

Either way, lots of states are juking the stats for total testing, positive test rates, and death rates. We're going to take the "magical thinking" option of pretending the problem isn't even real and suppressing any information to the contrary.

[StrangeSox]

Just now, Kyyle23 said:

 

in the picture on the right, he could be my older brother's twin (minus the tats), down to the facial expression

[NorthSideSox72]

1 minute ago, StrangeSox said:

Virginia and Colorado are also including antibody tests as well I believe, though I'm not so sure about only counting positive COVID tests.

 

Either way, lots of states are juking the stats for total testing, positive test rates, and death rates. We're going to take the "magical thinking" option of pretending the problem isn't even real and suppressing any information to the contrary.

Virginia WAS doing that, but then separated them out after people noticed. So their numbers are now doing that correctly.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Iowa's tactic is to, apparently, do the opposite of what everyone else is doing - they are SLOWING their testing. Since their testing number peaked at around 4500 on the 11th, the testing numbers have been sliding down pretty much daily to now around 2700 per day. Apparently going with the Trump school of "can't have positive cases if you don't test".

5/13 is when they opened up most businesses across all 99 counties, even high-touch businesses, and removed most types of distancing requirements. Let's see where they stand in case count and positivity rate around the end of this month.

 

[caulfield12]

Athletes During the Pandemic Are Learning What Fans Have Always Known

As players return to empty arenas, they are discovering a basic truth: Live sports is an act of social imagination.
 

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/05/bundesliga-sports-return-pandemic-athletes-fans-shared-imagination/611857/

[hogan873]

Outdoor seating at restaurants (with adequate spacing, of course) will likely be included in Phase 3 of the Illinois reopening plan.  Expected to start on June 1.

That's encouraging news.  Hopefully the restaurants and customers will respect the rules so we don't take a step back.

[pcq]

I don't see a bright future for restaurants. Most of us are avoiding unneeded exposure. That will not change for a good while. 

[southsider2k5]

3 minutes ago, pcq said:

I don't see a bright future for restaurants. Most of us are avoiding unneeded exposure. That will not change for a good while. 

And to top it off, the federal government and many state governments have been so untrustworthy as to safety, even if this actually disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't trust them to be telling the truth and still wouldn't change my behaviors back to the old days.

[Dick Allen]

I worry about restaurant reopening. People want to sit down and be served. The demand will be big initially IMO, which will cause social distancing  to give out the window. Not in the seating areas necessarily,  but they may have lines that would rival the weed stores when they opened. 

[bmags]

I think outdoor is going to be fine. Moving forward indoor is going to be difficult as the air conditioning really does seem to cause issues.

I wouldn't advise going with company as much but going with family you live with it should be nice.

[bmags]

but yes restaurants/night clubs/entertainment do not have much of a lobbying group and it has led to them getting short shrifted despite being the most affected, and forcefully limited, by governments. Throw money at them.

[StrangeSox]

I probably won't eat in a restaurant until we hit phase 5 (treatment or vaccine or minimal cases in state). Unfortunately probably the same for travel.

[StrangeSox]

Never could have seen this coming

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by StrangeSox

[NorthSideSox72]

Newly added to IL Phase 3:

--Restaurant OUTDOOR seating with distancing and other rules

--Tennis not only outdoors, but now also INDOORS, again with certain precautions in place

--ALL state parks will open, camping and related outdoor activities including boating, OK for groups up to 10 (was only some parks before)

--Golfing moves up to foursomes

All good news, but the real test will be how well businesses and (probably more so) individuals follow the new rules. That will be the crux. The more selfish people who bizarrely think masks and distancing are somehow trampling their rights (they aren't), the more people will die, and then we go backwards again.

Really just one adjustment left that I really want them to make for Phase 3: they need to answer for child care. You just can't reasonably open nearly all businesses but leave child care to "limited", not to mention no one knows what "limited" means yet. Supposedly we will get guidance on that this week from JB et al, which paired with the CDC Details released a couple days ago (finally), should give camps and day cares the info they need to make their plans.

 

[greg775]

3 hours ago, Kyyle23 said:

The only thing that lost momentum was patience 

IMO it's because of the attitudes of these government officials. If they'd work with us instead of being so mean and dictatorial .... the Chicago mayor haircut thing is one example. The meanness at press conference by the Kansas gov. and Michigan gov and Calif. gov. Now the spike consequences will be great. After two months of this, Americans were going to rebel when spoken down to as they were so often.

It's like a good leader at work. These bosses who are loudmouthed jerks ... nobody wants to produce for them and will do the bare minimum to not get fired or to suck up to them. The leadership in this has been appalling. Work together; don't throw people in jail for putting food on their table and making sure their kids don't starve.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said:

And to top it off, the federal government and many state governments have been so untrustworthy as to safety, even if this actually disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't trust them to be telling the truth and still wouldn't change my behaviors back to the old days.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/patchwork-pandemic-states-reopening-inequalities/611866/

Quote

 The bigger risk, she says, is that demoralizing bouts of shutdowns and reopenings will nix any prospect of economic recovery. “You only get to say Go out, trust me once,” she says. “They won’t believe you the second time.”

 

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, greg775 said:

IMO it's because of the attitudes of these government officials. If they'd work with us instead of being so mean and dictatorial .... the Chicago mayor haircut thing is one example. The meanness at press conference by the Kansas gov. and Michigan gov and Calif. gov. Now the spike consequences will be great. After two months of this, Americans were going to rebel when spoken down to as they were so often.

It's like a good leader at work. These bosses who are loudmouthed jerks ... nobody wants to produce for them and will do the bare minimum to not get fired or to suck up to them. The leadership in this has been appalling. Work together; don't throw people in jail for putting food on their table and making sure their kids don't starve.

Thanks Trump.

[StrangeSox]

1 hour ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

Newly added to IL Phase 3:

--Restaurant OUTDOOR seating with distancing and other rules

--Tennis not only outdoors, but now also INDOORS, again with certain precautions in place

--ALL state parks will open, camping and related outdoor activities including boating, OK for groups up to 10 (was only some parks before)

--Golfing moves up to foursomes

All good news, but the real test will be how well businesses and (probably more so) individuals follow the new rules. That will be the crux. The more selfish people who bizarrely think masks and distancing are somehow trampling their rights (they aren't), the more people will die, and then we go backwards again.

Really just one adjustment left that I really want them to make for Phase 3: they need to answer for child care. You just can't reasonably open nearly all businesses but leave child care to "limited", not to mention no one knows what "limited" means yet. Supposedly we will get guidance on that this week from JB et al, which paired with the CDC Details released a couple days ago (finally), should give camps and day cares the info they need to make their plans.

 

Hope these changes are based on medical expertise and not economic or political pressure

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

I probably won't eat in a restaurant until we hit phase 5 (treatment or vaccine or minimal cases in state). Unfortunately probably the same for travel.

It doesn’t help that American and United are blatantly lying about not selling middle seats.

Many of the flights that are going out, people are ending up stuffed together like sardines.

Only Delta seems to be following the guidelines (that are mere suggestions and not enforced, or enforceable, by TSA or FAA) of only 60% capacity in cabins, 50% in first class, no middle seats sold, no seats sold in bulkhead areas or in close proximity to flight attendant jump seats.

In the beginning, they were brazenly attempting to monetize your health (fears) by encouraging passengers to pay various fees not to have someone sitting next to you (let’s say, $47 on a typical domestic flight) but that was quickly seized upon as being in terrible taste and junked.

 

Trump on H1N1/Obama response 

In 2009, then-businessman Trump said, "I think it's fine. It's the flu. It's the flu," noting that mankind has had epidemics and flus before. 

"It's going to be handled. It's going to come. It's going to be bad. And maybe it will be worse than the normal flu seasons. And it's going to go away. I think it is being handled fine. I think the words are right."

"But, you know, you're letting people in from countries that have bigger doses of it, and everybody's coming into the country, and the Mexicans aren't stopped and nobody's stopped," before immediately noting, "I'm not saying they should be stopped."

"It's called the flu. Have you had the flu many times, Neil (Cavuto)? Probably. You know, we all have."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/obama-trump-swine-flu/index.html

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Tedros Adhanom-Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, on Wednesday said that more cases had been reported to the agency in the last 24 hours than any time since the novel coronavirus outbreak began. 

“We still have a long way to go in this pandemic,” Tedros said at a briefing in Geneva. “In the last 24 hours, there have been 106,000 cases reported to WHO – the most in a single day since the outbreak began. Almost two-thirds of these cases were reported in just four countries.”

Those four countries, WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove confirmed to CNN in an email, are: the United States, Russia, Brazil and India.

 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/korean-soccer-team-hit-with-record-fine-over-placing-sex-dolls-in-stands-195721079.html

This might be the funniest thing of the week.... $80,000+ fine?   I guess all sense of humor is going out of the world, since they’re not anything close to provocative, at least compared to real life fashions in K-pop and nighttime dramas.  Ozzie/Swisher-Gate...this is not.

Edited May 21, 2020 by caulfield12

[Balta1701]

4 hours ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

Newly added to IL Phase 3:

--Restaurant OUTDOOR seating with distancing and other rules

--Tennis not only outdoors, but now also INDOORS, again with certain precautions in place

--ALL state parks will open, camping and related outdoor activities including boating, OK for groups up to 10 (was only some parks before)

--Golfing moves up to foursomes

All good news, but the real test will be how well businesses and (probably more so) individuals follow the new rules. That will be the crux. The more selfish people who bizarrely think masks and distancing are somehow trampling their rights (they aren't), the more people will die, and then we go backwards again.

Really just one adjustment left that I really want them to make for Phase 3: they need to answer for child care. You just can't reasonably open nearly all businesses but leave child care to "limited", not to mention no one knows what "limited" means yet. Supposedly we will get guidance on that this week from JB et al, which paired with the CDC Details released a couple days ago (finally), should give camps and day cares the info they need to make their plans.

 

From what we know now, I'd be particularly worried about the Indoor Tennis. Just-published paper, 50 minute dance session twice a week, basically everyone in the session wound up infected.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-0633_article

Quote

During 24 days in Cheonan, South Korea, 112 persons were infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 associated with fitness dance classes at 12 sports facilities. Intense physical exercise in densely populated sports facilities could increase risk for infection. Vigorous exercise in confined spaces should be minimized during outbreaks.

....
Characteristics that might have led to transmission from the instructors in Cheonan include large class sizes, small spaces, and intensity of the workouts. The moist, warm atmosphere in a sports facility coupled with turbulent air flow generated by intense physical exercise can cause more dense transmission of isolated droplets (6,7).

 

[caulfield12]

55 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

From what we know now, I'd be particularly worried about the Indoor Tennis. Just-published paper, 50 minute dance session twice a week, basically everyone in the session wound up infected.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-0633_article

 

They’re going to have to be really careful about studying air conditioning impacts...especially centralized systems...as many are under the assumption 100 degree temps in south Texas could/should be “killing off” the disease when it’s ultimately leading to greater spread indoors.

Wuhan is extremely hot and humid from late May through the first two weeks of Sept.   Buses, subways, restaurants, cinemas, gyms...nobody can survive this time of the year without air conditioning.    Florida, Georgia, South Carolina...heck, most of the Southeast, has that similar weather pattern in the summer months, stretching from KC/StL to Balt/DC and then everything across the south from Florida over to east Texas.
 

We’ve already seen issues with airplanes...and there was also that well-publicized case in southern China where a restaurant fan (this was at least two months ago) spread it from 1 to 6-7 others in the same concentrated seating space.

[greg775]

From what I read, today sounded like a bad day regarding the virus. And it's not even virus season. Scary what could take place this winter.

[Kyyle23]

11 hours ago, greg775 said:

IMO it's because of the attitudes of these government officials. If they'd work with us instead of being so mean and dictatorial .... the Chicago mayor haircut thing is one example. The meanness at press conference by the Kansas gov. and Michigan gov and Calif. gov. Now the spike consequences will be great. After two months of this, Americans were going to rebel when spoken down to as they were so often.

It's like a good leader at work. These bosses who are loudmouthed jerks ... nobody wants to produce for them and will do the bare minimum to not get fired or to suck up to them. The leadership in this has been appalling. Work together; don't throw people in jail for putting food on their table and making sure their kids don't starve.

Could you possibly imagine if "please wear a mask so that you don't die" wasn't interpreted as a condescending statement.   Such dictators

[caulfield12]

At more than 5 million cases, the virus has infected more people in under six months than the annual total of severe flu cases, which the World Health Organization estimates is around 3 million to 5 million globally.

The pandemic has claimed over 326,000 lives, though the true number is thought to be higher as testing is still limited and many countries do not include fatalities outside of hospitals. Over half of the total fatalities have been recorded in Europe.
source:  Reuters

 

So we’re talking 456,400 - 521,600 on a global level, most realistically....and with Brazil copying the Trump Doctrine politically and temperamentally, it means South America will soon be overrun, then Central America, Mexico, and we can go back to June, 2015, and protecting from barbarian hordes invading from the south/border security as a campaign issue.
 

Attacking the CDC, WHO, China, Obama, Joe Scarborough, Nancy Pelosi.  Check.

Spending $600 million on machines that were supposed to clean/disinfect masks 20 times for reuse when the actual number has turned out to be 3-4 times, making not simply procuring the masks in the first place...well, it is what it is.  Check.  Even at $1.50 instead of the pre-virus cost of 0.58, that would be 400,000,000 N95 masks, more than enough for every American, with 70,000,000 left over.

Another $354 million contract to a Virginia company to create a national drug stockpile despite their having no experience doing so.  Check.   What’s a $100 billion anyway, it’s not even Bezos’ net worth, even after divorce.

Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk is just going around telling everyone “he has a blank check from the Trump administration.”

No oversight of Treasury/Mnuchin programs for medium and large companies.

No oversight of Jared Kushner.

No oversight with every IG who crosses Trump Saturday Night Specialed. 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by caulfield12