Short and sweet, I like it.They have horrible infrastructure, with the poorest people living tightly in favelas and basically standing no chance. Add to that a horrible and corrupt goverment.
We have good infrastructure, but no plan from the government and way too many idiots living here.
Agreed, I had a test and it took 12 days to get my results. An utter disgrace by red and blue states alike. People will not take action unless they know they’re infected, not telling them for 2 weeks is next to useless.funny because we all expect the worst, most excruciating outcome as MN sports fans.
The main reason we can’t get cases down is because we have a large proportion of me first, selfish ***holes in our population of all ages, races, creeds, and orientations that cannot or will not isolate or behave themselves no matter what comes. Australia is struggling with this right now and has recently instituted a $3500 fee for breaking isolation rules...
We have access to rapid testing but as AFAIK not a single blue or red state governor has utilized them to help get the outbreak under control. Contact tracing is an absolute waste of time and money in this climate of widespread irresponsibility and cases.
It’s not them, it’s us.
Testing rates (and confirmed new cases) are falling because the back-log is so ridiculous. Anything over 3 days pretty much renders taking the test useless so many aren't bothering now. We desperately need to rapid tests to be made widely available. That we haven't this far in is inexplicable.Agreed, I had a test and it took 12 days to get my results. An utter disgrace by red and blue states alike. People will not take action unless they know they’re infected, not telling them for 2 weeks is next to useless.
Doubtful, otherwise people would be more afraid of getting it. Never heard of a young, healthy person needing a double lung transplant or dying from seasonal influenza. Doubt it has ever happened. You’ll probably now link to a non-seasonal influenza.It can do all those things.
The 1918 flu and swine flu were essentially seasonal influenzas. The flu can be pretty bad, usually it’s not for younger people, but it certainly can. Usually it’s when the variants of the influenza strain are novel, so not much preexisting immunity and no vaccine. It’s why we try so hard to predict the emerging strains and vaccinateDoubtful, otherwise people would be more afraid of getting it. Never heard of a young, healthy person needing a double lung transplant or dying from seasonal influenza. Doubt it has ever happened. You’ll probably now link to a non-seasonal influenza.
Nope, 1918/swine is not what is being conveyed by Rodents and his cadre as “no big deal, open it back up 100%, we don’t shut down the economy for the flu”. So no, those don’t count.The 1918 flu and swine flu were essentially seasonal influenzas. The flu can be pretty bad, usually it’s not for younger people, but it certainly can. Usually it’s when the variants of the influenza strain are novel, so not much preexisting immunity and no vaccine. It’s why we try so hard to predict the emerging strains and vaccinate
Doubtful, otherwise people would be more afraid of getting it. Never heard of a young, healthy person needing a double lung transplant or dying from seasonal influenza. Doubt it has ever happened. You’ll probably now link to a non-seasonal influenza.
Just saying, the flu is no joke, people forget that. Covid is worse.Nope, 1918/swine is not what is being conveyed by Rodents and his cadre as “no big deal, open it back up 100%, we don’t shut down the economy for the flu”. So no, those don’t count.
If swine flu had turned into a worldwide epidemic with no vaccine possible and significantly novel, it would’ve been exactly the same thing as what we’re having to deal with now.
Again I have to ask the question you left unanswered: Why do you think we (and many other countries) have experienced multiple surges while Sweden has largely escaped that fate? What about places like Brazil? Why do we and other countries have twice the confirmed cases per capita of Sweden and our infection rates are still raging?
It’s not only the flu, but I’d also advise you to not look into complications of strep throat. You might never let your kids go to school again.
My son had strep throat 6 times in 2nd grade. Super easy to treat. Quick trip to doctor and some antibiotics and back to school a day later. Risk factor extremely low in the United States.
A very thoughtful post @RahSkiUMah...
Our infection rates are "raging" because the virus is wildly infectious, but it's not really that lethal to most people. I believe that the actual infection mortality rate is more like 0.05 % because so many people are infected than are actually tested.
So perhaps Sweden's approach wouldn't be the best move here? Is there no path forward besides Sweden? Artificially hindering spread doesn't make things worse afterwards, it delays infections (and potentially slightly reduces them long term).I think Sweden is doing well because they are a very healthy country, and they did not attempt to artificially hinder the spread.
I mean if your base philosophy is that we need a purge I'm not sure what info to present you with. The average age of a cancer patient is around 70, should we stop dropping billions into cancer research while we're at it? Again the problem is not deaths, but hospitalizations and healthcare burden. I am all for an approach that protects healthcare and keeps the economy in mind.I saw a comparison of age demographics between today and 1957 (the first Hong Kong flu pandemic), from memory they had like 4% of the population over the age of 80 back then, now we have closer to 20%. We also have millions of people kept alive by antivirals and amazing cardiac therapies. So we are trying to protect a much more vulnerable population, but we're doing it with the sacrifice of the young.
Then why not seek out some infectious disease experts or public health experts opinions? Is this guy where you get the herd immunity ideas from? How come that goal post keeps moving? 2 months ago "the virus was dying" "we're at herd immunity"...The politicians and media enjoy the social control they can achieve by scaring the s#it out of the population.
I strongly recommend that you follow @alexberenson on twitter.
So you are saying that the death rate from strep throat is similar to covid? Strep has about 1200 deaths per year and covid so far is 160,000 deaths and we're only into the beginning of August.And there are rare complications. Your post sounds a bit like the COVID denialists “just the flu”. This is near to my heart - I have extended family that went through the gauntlet on this, heart inflammation, extended antibiotics, etc. And, the mother is a smart, informed RN. **** happens and things can go sideways at time for various reasons. You don’t hear much about it because these things are very much off the national radar. There are very serious complications that can develop from many common and usually treatable conditions. Can you tell me the absolute risk of a child developing MIS-C?
GR please read this whole post, especially the later information.
For the hundredth time, baseline lethality itself is not necessarily where the danger lies, however, at 0.05% IFR:
0.0005 * 2 * 1000 = 1 (aka 100%) so if we calculate from current deaths:
160500 * 2 * 1000 = 321,000,000 infections, almost all of the population of the U.S. has already been infected by your estimate?
There are very honest, hardworking people who's job it is to investigate and analyze the mortality rate, they take much more than an educated guess. They have to submit their work to a group of fellow experts for their methods to be evaluated and analyzed before publication. This isn't twitter analysis. Let me also head you off, this isn't some political conspiracy by healthcare workers and intellectuals. I have known many conservative and liberal academic researchers, I dare say I even know more conservative medical doctors than liberal ones.
So perhaps Sweden's approach wouldn't be the best move here? Is there no path forward besides Sweden? Artificially hindering spread doesn't make things worse afterwards, it delays infections (and potentially slightly reduces them long term).
I mean if your base philosophy is that we need a purge I'm not sure what info to present you with. The average age of a cancer patient is around 70, should we stop dropping billions into cancer research while we're at it? Again the problem is not deaths, but hospitalizations and healthcare burden. I am all for an approach that protects healthcare and keeps the economy in mind.
Then why not seek out some infectious disease experts or public health experts opinions? Is this guy where you get the herd immunity ideas from? How come that goal post keeps moving? 2 months ago "the virus was dying" "we're at herd immunity"...
Is this guy why you're stuck on lockdowns or Sweden? I could still see some partial quarantines/targeted lockdowns in the future if places were to get really bad but he's basically living on the fallacy of another national lockdown right around the corner... How is this guy qualified to give public health advice? It's kind of dangerous.
The thing about twitter experts is if you google the shit they tweet the argument starts to breakdown really quickly because they leave out many of the important nuances. "The sunbelt has won despite no lockdown" - yes let's pretend they didn't enforce any measures except not lockdown, their population didn't start to take it more seriously as their cases rose, and their healthcare workers haven't done anything to help. This guy is like a freshman in college, he has no idea what he doesn't know. Let me show you something:
Arizona - https://covidtracking.com/data/state/arizona
Texas - https://covidtracking.com/data/state/texas
- May 12 stay at home lifted
- May 27th cases start rising, hospitalizations also start rising
- June 17th mask order enacted
- ~June 23rd - Deaths start rising (~3-4 week lag behind cases)
- June 29 - Bars and other business close
- July 1st cases peak, start to fall (2 weeks post mask??)
- July 17th - hospitalizations start to fall
- Last week of July - deaths remain relatively stable, maybe have started to fall this week (~3-4 weeks post case peak - watch for this trend in other states)
Florida - https://covidtracking.com/data/state/florida
- Early June, full reopening - Cases and hospitalizations begin to rise by 2nd week of June
- June 26 - new cases per day have increased ~3x and rising - Bars closed, restaurant restrictions
- July 2nd - Mask order and gathering size restrictions
- July 6th(ish) - Deaths begin to rise ~3-4 weeks post new case rise
- July 16th - Cases peak, have fallen/remained steady since
- July 27th - Hospitalizations begin to fall
- Expect deaths to start falling this week or next based on lag
Georgia - https://covidtracking.com/data/state/georgia
- Phased reopening early May, full reopening ~June 5 (bars open)
- June 7th(ish) cases start to rise, accelerated rise within a week
- June 19th - A number of larger cities issue mask orders
- June 23 - New cases per day increased ~5x since June 1st, bars effectively closed (prohibited to sell alcohol)
- July 7th(ish) - Deaths start to rise first week of July (~4 week lag behind cases)
- July 16th - Average cases per day peak, start to fall/hold steady
- July 23 hospitalization start to fall
- Deaths probably peak this week or next
- Past 2 weeks, testing falls to extremely low levels due to hurricane, expect surge in coming weeks - hospitalizations falling - hopefully sign cases are actually falling but something to watch
In almost all cases, case counts began to fall 2-3 weeks post increased restrictions, bar closures and/or mask mandates. This just all looks at public health mandates, think about how peoples attitudes change when they start to see people around them get sick and their governor takes it seriously... Maybe I'm imagining it but I think you can really visualize the impact of these measures. So is it herd immunity or human intervention making a difference in these states?
- Phased reopening starting last week of April, BARS never allowed to reopen
- Case decreases end mid May, start to increase beginning of June
- ~June 20 - Rise accelerates, hospitalization soon follow
- June 11th executive order strongly
- Late June-Early July - Mask orders in numerous large cities, Governor openly supports mask wearing but refuses to mandate
- Deaths are low and variable, start to increase ~July 10 (3-4 weeks post case rise)
- Cases peak around July 24 - held relatively steady
- Hospitalization hold steady since ~July 20
- Deaths have held steady since late July, probably will still increase
- Georgia has been the least restrictive of the bunch, instead of falling their cases have held steady so far...
So you are saying that the death rate from strep throat is similar to covid? Strep has about 1200 deaths per year and covid so far is 160,000 deaths and we're only into the beginning of August.
So you are saying that the death rate from strep throat is similar to covid? Strep has about 1200 deaths per year and covid so far is 160,000 deaths and we're only into the beginning of August.
You were implying that I (and others) may not send their kid to school due to the risks involved with strep throat. I cited a real life example of my own kid who had strep multiple times and we still sent him to school. Then I posted facts about death rates of covid vs strep. Now you are calling that theatrics and I'm an asshole? Color me confused.This is what I was originally responding to parts of which are ludicrous. We can argue over incidence rates of complications, which is worse in young people and children. I was pointing out there are everyday issues people are blissfully ignorant of.
“Seasonal influenza (which is what you refer to) is completely known, doesn’t kill young healthy people as covid rarely does, doesn’t cause weird, unexplained illness/symptoms in some people for months, and doesn’t cause long term symptoms.
Covid is still largely unknown scientifically.
That’s the actual reason for caution and doubt. Not all the BS theatrics you lie about and make up, like an asshole.
Uhhhh, so you agree with researchers and clinicians that the IFR is around 0.5%, awesome, proud of you. So by your math (and researchers) 10% of the population has been infected, but you say we're now at herd immunity? More than half the country has immunity?For the hundredth time, baseline lethality itself is not necessarily where the danger lies, however, at 0.05% IFR:
0.0005 * 2 * 1000 = 1 (aka 100%) so if we calculate from current deaths:
160500 * 2 * 1000 = 321,000,000 infections, almost all of the population of the U.S. has already been infected by your estimate?
Nice catch. Move my decimal point to the left.
What that broad number doesn't account for is that more than half the country already has some kind of immunity, the virus has proved that it usually doesn't make healthy young people sick. So the key to solving this pandemic is to protect the vulnerable without destroying the healthy. That means doing what my frail in-laws are doing, don't leave the house until the danger is past.
I agree with you that when hospitals are full, there should be local public health measures at the county level.
You seem to think that statewide measures are helping to avoid the devastation that hit New York City. No, New York City casualties was a function of a massive rate of infection via subways, the fog of war, and early ignorance of the exact nature of the virus.
Look what NYC is doing today, checkpoints at the border for all visitors. This is pure theater, it's like strip searching Scandinavian grandmothers for bomb vests at airports.
You seem to think the economic devastation is worth all this? Closing schools is worth all this? Canceling sports is worth all this? All the domestic violence and suicides are worth all this, all the riots are worth all this?
This is a stage 2 pandemic, and we are treating it like a stage 5.
No, quit shilling for the most foolish government action in 50 years.
You know GR, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but I don't think you actually care about anything except what you already think is right. I've already stated numerous times and in my last thread: I am all for an approach that protects healthcare and keeps the economy in mind. I used to work in research, I now work in the medical device/elective surgery field. Hospitals shutting down leads to me not earning a living, I would like to avoid that at all costs and I wholeheartedly believe going "Sweden" would lead to further hospital shutdowns and economic devastation. Better or worse than other scenarios? I don't know. Neither do you.You seem to think the economic devastation is worth all this? Closing schools is worth all this? Canceling sports is worth all this? All the domestic violence and suicides are worth all this, all the riots are worth all this?
This is a stage 2 pandemic, and we are treating it like a stage 5.
No, quit shilling for the most foolish government action in 50 years.
You were implying that I (and others) may not send their kid to school due to the risks involved with strep throat. I cited a real life example of my own kid who had strep multiple times and we still sent him to school. Then I posted facts about death rates of covid vs strep. Now you are calling that theatrics and I'm an asshole? Color me confused.
And for the record we chose to send our kids to school (hybrid) this fall vs 100% online (those were the only choices we had). So I'm not someone that is freaking out.
Again, the thread is about the impact of covid on College Football. if you want to just talk about covid, there is a very long thread for that on the off-topic Political Board.
As far as football is concerned, we really won't know what happens until teams start holding organized fall practices - and even then, we are dependent on teams being open and honest about test results.
FWIW - the Gopher athletic Dep't said they would have monthly updates on testing. To the best of my knowledge, they still have not released anything on July, so the last numbers we have are from the end of June.
I am NOT claiming a conspiracy - just stating that each school is going to have to figure out what to do in terms of testing and reporting test results. and I do believe that it is entirely possible that a school might try to keep positive test results from becoming public.
Conferences can release schedules - but if teams start coming up with too many positive tests, those schedules won't be worth squat.
Agreed, I had a test and it took 12 days to get my results. An utter disgrace by red and blue states alike. People will not take action unless they know they’re infected, not telling them for 2 weeks is next to useless.
SON, I apologize for making this thread off topic, this will be my last post arguing with GR on the topic.
Uhhhh, so you agree with researchers and clinicians that the IFR is around 0.5%, awesome, proud of you. So by your math (and researchers) 10% of the population has been infected, but you say we're now at herd immunity? More than half the country has immunity?
I already know what you're referring to. You have been presented a twisted interpretation of information (COUGH Alex Berenson?), there is evidence some people have innate cross reactivity with covid, that does not mean full immunity. This "innate immunity" is thought to be the explanation of why some people are asymptomatic. That doesn't mean you aren't infected and can't spread it, and those asymptomatic/innately immune people are apart of the 0.5% IFR estimate. IT DOES NOT mean 50% are already fully immune, it means 50% are likely to be asymptomatic. We've known that for a while. It doesn't really change anything.
NYC was fucked because the virus was spreading there for probably 2 months before we caught it, no doubt about it. The checkpoints are maybe a bit extreme and maybe political theatre, I won't lose my shit over it, it essentially effects NYC themselves...
So after all that you're still of the opinion that any public health measure is a bad one? I'm sorry but you're just closing your eyes, plugging your ears and screaming LALALA.
You know GR, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but I don't think you actually care about anything except what you already think is right. I've already stated numerous times and in my last thread: I am all for an approach that protects healthcare and keeps the economy in mind. I used to work in research, I now work in the medical device/elective surgery field. Hospitals shutting down leads to me not earning a living, I would like to avoid that at all costs and I wholeheartedly believe going "Sweden" would lead to further hospital shutdowns and economic devastation. Better or worse than other scenarios? I don't know. Neither do you.
My opinion: I am for school reopenings. Young kids are at very low risk of serious complications and the limited studies in other countries have shown schools being open aren't a huge risk, and potentially spread infection less than adults. When a teacher dies, that's gonna be a tough pill to swallow though.
My opinion: Sports can and should be played with minimal spectators (just like Sweden!), and reevaluate that decision often. You're also assuming all athletes just want to play.
I have no idea how much domestic violence/suicides increased, that's a fear tactic statement. Is it more human harm then covid? More deaths? How do you quantify it?
Riots and protests were dumb in a pandemic.
I would say we treated it like a stage 5 at first, which I've said many times, universal lockdowns were a mistake (and again it's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight). 6 months ago we had no clue what we were dealing with, still don't fully. Yet you still think I'm "shilling" for lockdowns. Sorry GR this is where my argument with you ends. I am shilling for intelligent, measured approaches, and maximizing low risk high reward policies that are consistently reevaluated and changed as new information comes available. FYI If Alex Berenson starts saying "engineers are building bridges wrong, come drive over my bridge I just built cause it's better for the economy", don't do it.
I hope I've presented you with new information and challenged your views. Have a good day.
It's a good thing we haven't been in lockdown in months. Even Sweden is hurting economically. There is no perfect solution, but we CAN push for smart, well thought out strategies. Is that what you're pushing? All I'm hearing from you now is the options are increased suffering and death or increased suffering and death. I guess you're certain which option is worse, you couldn't possibly be wrong, and if you were you'd take full accountability.I think you make an intelligent post, I think you like most public health people have a knowledge silo that is very important. But your statement "I have no idea how much domestic violence/suicides increased, that's a fear tactic statement. Is it more human harm then covid? More deaths? How do you quantify it?"
You can quantify, they are up, and their will be a strong trend going forward as humanity works through the very personal disasters of bankruptcy, unemployment, divorce, depression. Deaths in long term care facilities can be counted right now, the very real human tragedies that unfold from a depressed economy don't affect politicians right now. This is my wheelhouse, this was my fear from the beginning...and it has already unfolded in manifold ways. The riots don't happen without the lockdowns, the massive spike in child abuse don't happen without the lockdowns.
I am a independent contractor with no pension, benefits, or strong job security who earns most of my wages on commission. I have been impacted to the tune of around $10k this year. I am heavily invested in preventing further shutdowns, as I currently see it the only way that happens is to respect the virus, manage the spread, protect healthcare systems. "Be like Sweden" is short sighted and not well thought out, it will hurt us no doubt about it, we don't have Sweden's demographics or population compliance - you've already agreed with me on that. Some industries are going to be pained, I'm willing to share in that pain if I have to for my fellow American. If you told me I'm going to be hit with a temporary covid tax that would go towards unemployment claims I'd be okay with it, some of my fellow Americans are suffering worse than I.It really bothers me that you government employees with fantastic pensions and job security are so dismissive of the suffering that goes on in the market economy.
But again, great post, I learned a lot from you and I respect your opinion.