The Coronavirus thread

[elrodvt]

This is a nice timeline. Hard to keep track of all the goofs made by the Trumpers.

https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid19-developments-in-2020

It doesn't cover what i just read that recent reviews that strongly indicate the virus was already spreading weeks or months before we knew or at least before china came clean. I expect we'll eventually find it came before people even knew about it in China.  Wish we would complete the Wuhan investigation and hope China didn't actually create it in the Wuhan lab for the sake of improving relations. I kinda viewed that theory as tin foil hat crap given scientists comments but have recently read  USA health and intelligence agencies are still not willing to say they can prove it was not and we may never know for sure. Tough to prove a negative unless you can get Patient 0.

[Dale]

7 hours ago, elrodvt said:

This is a nice timeline. Hard to keep track of all the goofs made by the Trumpers.

https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid19-developments-in-2020

It doesn't cover what i just read that recent reviews that strongly indicate the virus was already spreading weeks or months before we knew or at least before china came clean. I expect we'll eventually find it came before people even knew about it in China.  Wish we would complete the Wuhan investigation and hope China didn't actually create it in the Wuhan lab for the sake of improving relations. I kinda viewed that theory as tin foil hat crap given scientists comments but have recently read  USA health and intelligence agencies are still not willing to say they can prove it was not and we may never know for sure. Tough to prove a negative unless you can get Patient 0.

In another grim milestone, surpassing 100,000 Covid deaths under Biden. That’s nearly as many Americans as died in WWI. Hey guys, am I doing this right ?

[Windsurfer]

7 hours ago, Dale said:

In another grim milestone, surpassing 100,000 Covid deaths under Biden. That’s nearly as many Americans as died in WWI. Hey guys, am I doing this right ?

Until boneheads start using masks and taking this seriously, there'll be many more.

[Dale]

5 minutes ago, Windsurfer said:

Until boneheads start using masks and taking this seriously, there'll be many more.

In my neck of the woods, whenever I’ve gone out, months on end, EVERYBODY is wearing a mask. Turns out mask-mandates are as effective as building a chain link fence around a mosquito swamp,

[urbanlover568]

54 minutes ago, Dale said:

In my neck of the woods, whenever I’ve gone out, months on end, EVERYBODY is wearing a mask. Turns out mask-mandates are as effective as building a chain link fence around a mosquito swamp,

Another wrong statement....

 

[Dale]

1 minute ago, urbanlover568 said:

Another wrong statement....

 

Do you believe people who didn’t wear masks murdered your departed loved one ?

[urbanlover568]

Just now, Dale said:

Do you believe people who didn’t wear masks murdered your departed loved one ?

You are sounding like Kellyanne Conway and deflecting. 

[Dale]

Just now, urbanlover568 said:

You are sounding like Kellyanne Conway and deflecting. 

Answer the question ...

[Windsurfer]

14 minutes ago, Dale said:

In my neck of the woods, whenever I’ve gone out, months on end, EVERYBODY is wearing a mask. Turns out mask-mandates are as effective as building a chain link fence around a mosquito swamp,

My Taiwanese vendors sent me boxes of masks for our employees last March. I tried and tried to get them (my employees)  to wear them. I finally got fed up and closed the doors. In the meantime, I kept up with Taiwan and their infection rates. Unbelievable . Check it out. Just about zilch. 

I also made a couple of trips across the country last summer due to my mom passing in August. As I drove across the country I told my wife, "Watch the following states, "Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri."  This was last July.  WITHIN A MONTH of me telling her this, those places exploded with Covid.  The only reason I said what I said was because, without fail, every single one of those states seemed anti mask. Nobody wore one.  All the local DJS on the radio stations were mocking mask wearers and strangers at hotels and places along the way gave me strange looks because I wore a mask. I got to back to Charlotte and saw the same attitude. Mecklenburg soon spiked.  Currently, we're living in Oregon in a small town where everyone wears masks. The current rate is below 2% and has been for a while.  It's good to be around people who care.

[Dale]

1 minute ago, Windsurfer said:

My Taiwanese vendors sent me boxes of masks for our employees last March. I tried and tried to get them (my employees)  to wear them. I finally got fed up and closed the doors. In the meantime, I kept up with Taiwan and their infection rates. Unbelievable . Check it out. Just about zilch. 

I also made a couple of trips across the country last summer due to my mom passing in August. As I drove across the country I told my wife, "Watch the following states, "Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri."  This was last July.  WITHIN A MONTH of me telling her this, those places exploded with Covid.  The only reason I said what I said was because, without fail, every single one of those states seemed anti mask. Nobody wore one.  All the local DJS on the radio stations were mocking mask wearers and strangers at hotels and places along the way gave me strange looks because I wore a mask. I got to back to Charlotte and saw the same attitude. Mecklenburg soon spiked.  Currently, we're living in Oregon in a small town where everyone wears masks. The current rate is below 2% and has been for a while.  It's good to be around people who care.

No nation is more mask-compliant than Japan. And serology studies indicated that nearly half of Japanese had been infected by June 2020. The virus had likely blown through Asia before anyone had a chance to panic.

[urbanlover568]

 

4 minutes ago, Dale said:

Answer the question ...

You know what dale, it's people who read your posts and any other anti-maskers post and actually think it's factual will go out and not wear and mask and could be asymptomatic and spread to others. I personally think it's incredibly selfish behavior. 

4 minutes ago, Dale said:

No nation is more mask-compliant than Japan. And serology studies indicated that nearly half of Japanese had been infected by June 2020. The virus had likely blown through Asia before anyone had a chance to panic.

The Youtube video has facts to rebuttal your anecdotal BS. 

[Dale]

3 minutes ago, urbanlover568 said:

 

You know what dale, it's people who read your posts and any other anti-maskers post and actually think it's factual will go out and not wear and mask and could be asymptomatic and spread to others. I personally think it's incredibly selfish behavior. 

The Youtube video has facts to rebuttal your anecdotal BS. 

Your YouTube does not note that we should mark 2020 as the year scientists pretended we could hide from an aerosolized, submicroscopic particle.

[kermit]

1 hour ago, Dale said:

No nation is more mask-compliant than Japan. And serology studies indicated that nearly half of Japanese had been infected by June 2020. The virus had likely blown through Asia before anyone had a chance to panic.

Umm, This peer-reviewed journal article describing serologys tests in June 2020 suggests otherwise. What did I miss? The imputed rate of exposure found in this research in Japan as of June 2020 was found to be well less than 1% of the population.

Quote

Abstract

We used 2 commercially available antibody tests to estimate seroprevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection in Japan during June 2020. Of 7,950 samples, 8 were positive by both assays. Using 2 reliable antibody tests in conjunction is an effective method for estimating seroprevalence in low prevalence settings.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4088_article
 

[Dale]

Apologies, may have been off a month: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1

Also, cross-immunity accruing from past severe flu seasons (which also were not stopped by masks).

Edited February 22, 2021 by Dale

[Durhamite]

2 hours ago, Dale said:

Your YouTube does not note that we should mark 2020 as the year scientists pretended we could hide from an aerosolized, submicroscopic particle.

You're probably right, it's those submicroscopic particles or windmills that is causing the life expectancy of Americans  to take a one year dip over the last year...or maybe the flu?...definitely not a novel virus. 

U.S. life expectancy fell by a year in the first half of 2020, CDC report finds (statnews.com)

I do totally understand, it's a catch-22 situation, ignore the virus and counter measures to mitigate the virus, the death rate is obviously higher.  Or deal with the "draconian" recommendations to isolate causing all sorts of other mental and physical side effects, and economic pressures that ultimately kill people or essentially render them insane  Either way,  it was going to be  tough, but for sure it is much worst than the flu or simply a footnote of a  little passive submicroscopic particle. 

I've never understood this line of thinking though (ignore and pretend it doesn't exist), to even think Americans wouldn't notice or realize a pattern of deaths associated from concentrations of people and to avoid it like a "plague".  I fully realize the previous fearless leader tried that posture but either the science or common sense was going supersede that notion as  it is a world-wide event.   No matter political affiliation, at some point, everybody is going to get the hell out of the way of a freight train.  Even those who claim they're not afraid of the freight train (liars they are).

[Dale]

9 minutes ago, Durhamite said:

You're probably right, it's those submicroscopic particles or windmills that is causing the life expectancy of Americans  to take a one year dip over the last year...or maybe the flu?...definitely not a novel virus. 

U.S. life expectancy fell by a year in the first half of 2020, CDC report finds (statnews.com)

I do totally understand, it's a catch-22 situation, ignore the virus and counter measures to mitigate the virus, the death rate is obviously higher.  Or deal with the "draconian" recommendations to isolate causing all sorts of other mental and physical side effects, and economic pressures that ultimately kill people or essentially render them insane  Either way,  it was going to be  tough, but for sure it is much worst than the flu or simply a footnote of a  little passive submicroscopic particle. 

I've never understood this line of thinking though (ignore and pretend it doesn't exist), to even think Americans wouldn't notice or realize a pattern of deaths associated from concentrations of people and to avoid it like a "plague".  I fully realize the previous fearless leader tried that posture but either the science or common sense was going supersede that notion as  it is a world-wide event.   No matter political affiliation, at some point, everybody is going to get the hell out of the way of a freight train.  Even those who claim they're not afraid of the freight train (liars they are).

You may have missed where I submit that, had Covid never been ‘discovered’, we’d have experienced a normal deaths year. Per the CDC, the virus was in the US in Dec 2019, if not earlier. The US was winding up back-to-back mild winter burdens of death. On March 11 came the ominous declaration from the WHO. Panic and chaos turned hospitals and nursing homes into killing fields. NPI’s killed a goodly percentage of the rest of the excess deaths.

[kermit]

1 hour ago, Dale said:

Apologies, may have been off a month: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1

Also, cross-immunity accruing from past severe flu seasons (which also were not stopped by masks).

Its certainly interesting, and a shocking swing in antibody presence from May to December. That said, I'll point out that it is a weak study, this doen't make it wrong, but its worth approaching with caution

• Sample size is small (615 people)
• The sample was not randomly selected, it consistent of volunteers. I believe this is unusual for epidemiological studies. This may lead to self-selection bias (volunteers may have suspected previous exposure and wanted to be tested to find out). Its not clear from the study design that this was controlled for
• The sample was only from Tokyo, I don't think its kosher to ascribe national trends from this sample. A secondary issue that arises from this is the possibility of some high-prevalence pockets within Tokyo -- the lazy sample technique here may have over sampled those pockets.
• This study appears to be an outlier. I have not see the report, so just going from  a news story, Reuters describes a Japan Ministry of Health random sample study of 15,000 across two prefectures which found at 0.91% positivity rate in December 2020. They report a four-fold increase, but it still aint close to 50%  ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan-tests/covid-19-infections-in-tokyo-may-have-jumped-nine-fold-antibody-survey-shows-idUSKBN2A50BD )

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by kermit

[Dale]

5 minutes ago, kermit said:

Its certainly interesting, and a shocking swing in antibody presence from May to December. That said, I'll point out that it is a weak study, this doen't make it wrong, but its worth approaching with caution

• Sample size is small (615 people)
• The sample was not randomly selected, it consistent of volunteers. I believe this is unusual for epidemiological studies. This may lead to self-selection bias (volunteers may have suspected previous exposure and wanted to be tested to find out). Its not clear from the study design that this was controlled for
• The sample was only from Tokyo, I don't think its kosher to ascribe national trends from this sample. A secondary issue that arises from this is the possibility of some high-prevalence pockets within Tokyo -- the lazy sample technique here may have over sampled those pockets.
• This study appears to be an outlier. I have not see the report, so just going from  a news story, Reuters describes a Japan Ministry of Health random sample study of 15,000 across two prefectures which found at 0.91% positivity rate in December 2020. They report a four-fold increase, but it still aint close to 50%  ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan-tests/covid-19-infections-in-tokyo-may-have-jumped-nine-fold-antibody-survey-shows-idUSKBN2A50BD )

I surmise that the virus blew through Asia before anyone had a chance to panic. Japan is a nation of 126 million that has been driven mad over a few thousand deaths.

[kermit]

22 minutes ago, Dale said:

I surmise that the virus blew through Asia before anyone had a chance to panic. Japan is a nation of 126 million that has been driven mad over a few thousand deaths.

Yea, I get what you are saying. But if your theory is based on the Hibino et al. study alone its foundation appears to be kinda questionable.

Edited February 22, 2021 by kermit

[Dale]

8 minutes ago, kermit said:

Yea, I get what you are saying. But if your theory is based on the Hibino et al. study alone its foundation is kinda questionable.

Gotcha.

[dylansukkert]

Today we hit the 500,000 death milestone. With the vaccine ramp up and slowing cases and deaths I don’t think we will see 600,000. Will be interesting to see what happens, I hope I am correct. 

[DEnd]

2 hours ago, Dale said:

You may have missed where I submit that, had Covid never been ‘discovered’, we’d have experienced a normal deaths year. Per the CDC, the virus was in the US in Dec 2019, if not earlier. The US was winding up back-to-back mild winter burdens of death. On March 11 came the ominous declaration from the WHO. Panic and chaos turned hospitals and nursing homes into killing fields. NPI’s killed a goodly percentage of the rest of the excess deaths.

Ummm... No.  While there has been an increased death rate due to deferred care, it isn't nearly as high as the COVID death rate.  Anecdotally, I work with COVID patients, previously I worked with the general medical patient population and at times with relatively large subpopulations of Dementia and Palliative Care.  During the peak times we were seeing death rates from COVID  that were more than twice as high on our unit as  previous average death rates for the entire hospital.  There were days I had put more people into body bags than I had in some previous years.  We are not in Panic and Chaos, we know what we are doing, and we are advocating for our patients and working hard to improve their care.  The biggest issues we have with COVID are large spikes of it which cause bed availability issues, and no way to directly treat a coronavirus infection.   If we had treatments available that worked liked HIV treatments we'd have a much lower death rate from COVID, those treatments don't exist though.     

39 minutes ago, dylansukkert said:

Today we hit the 500,000 death milestone. With the vaccine ramp up and slowing cases and deaths I don’t think we will see 600,000. Will be interesting to see what happens, I hope I am correct. 

No, we'll hit it.  Unfortunately. Though I hope you are correct.  

[elrodvt]

Japan is a strange case. Having been there over 30 times for work I've come to somewhat understand it but this time I'm at a lost as to why they didn't quarantine. Yes, they do have high rates of mask wearing when sick, as all of first world Asia does. Even a sniffle drives masking out of politeness. Still, until recently, there was no acknowledgement that unless 6' and outdoors you're at risk and virtual employment doesn't suit their culture all leading to a LOT of unnecessary risk. I'm wondering if businesses prevented that policy to save $? They're king there - I'll have to ask some people I know who live there.

There was an interesting (and disturbing) story on bbca, 3 nights ago I believe, detailing a huge and somewhat inexplicable jump in suicide rates asking female young workers who tend to be working in salary-man or service jobs. Young women have a terrible life now as their culture is in the middle of a transition to having more females in the work force. 

I hope their delay doesn't cost them the summer Olympics but I bet it will.

Edited February 22, 2021 by elrodvt

[Dale]

9 hours ago, DEnd said:

Ummm... No.  While there has been an increased death rate due to deferred care, it isn't nearly as high as the COVID death rate.  Anecdotally, I work with COVID patients, previously I worked with the general medical patient population and at times with relatively large subpopulations of Dementia and Palliative Care.  During the peak times we were seeing death rates from COVID  that were more than twice as high on our unit as  previous average death rates for the entire hospital.  There were days I had put more people into body bags than I had in some previous years.  We are not in Panic and Chaos, we know what we are doing, and we are advocating for our patients and working hard to improve their care.  The biggest issues we have with COVID are large spikes of it which cause bed availability issues, and no way to directly treat a coronavirus infection.   If we had treatments available that worked liked HIV treatments we'd have a much lower death rate from COVID, those treatments don't exist though.     

No, we'll hit it.  Unfortunately. Though I hope you are correct.  

My favorite Covid death was the 35 year old FL roofer. Struck by lightening. Thrown to the ground. Many bones broken. Massive internal injuries. Severed spine. Brain dead. Died of Covid. Honorable mention: the dozens of hanging deaths attributed to Covid.

https://alachuachronicle.com/local-covid-19-death-certificates-all-show-multiple-co-morbidities/

Edited February 22, 2021 by Dale

[Dale]

5 hours ago, elrodvt said:

Japan is a strange case. Having been there over 30 times for work I've come to somewhat understand it but this time I'm at a lost as to why they didn't quarantine. Yes, they do have high rates of mask wearing when sick, as all of first world Asia does. Even a sniffle drives masking out of politeness. Still, until recently, there was no acknowledgement that unless 6' and outdoors you're at risk and virtual employment doesn't suit their culture all leading to a LOT of unnecessary risk. I'm wondering if businesses prevented that policy to save $? They're king there - I'll have to ask some people I know who live there.

There was an interesting (and disturbing) story on bbca, 3 nights ago I believe, detailing a huge and somewhat inexplicable jump in suicide rates asking female young workers who tend to be working in salary-man or service jobs. Young women have a terrible life now as their culture is in the middle of a transition to having more females in the work force. 

I hope their delay doesn't cost them the summer Olympics but I bet it will.

Tens of billions of private dollars suggests the Olympics will go on. But the Japanese public seems terror-stricken. Upwards of 80% want them cancelled.