I often just think how many experienced realtors etc. (Florida property Jem's old game) see the normal annual flu season as good for their business (and good for America) since it puts properties on the market. Covid-19 is the same but better to them. Expecting them to do different what they do reminds me of "Did you guys ever watch the show!? " You can't make it up, right on cue: "Cases are ticking up a bit in some areas and I am delighted. I am hopeful that we can get a quick spreading new pandemic that will run through the healthy population and get us to herd immunity. Very exciting!--"
Reply... actually many of the countries you mention or allude to as having success did not practice blanket shutdowns but targeted shutdowns, sealed borders and business deployed sensible measures like checking people's temperatures. I agree there is no question shutting down borders and targeted approaches were the correct move. I have been advocating for that since April. Our blanket shutdowns were never justified by the science or the data after the first 3 weeks. bugen said... Vietnam, Taiwan and many other countries with experience of prior epidemics and knowing China, shut the heck down in January and sensibly over-reacted until they knew what they were dealing with. There is no question this was the smart move. It will be the smart move the next time. They are facing neither economic disaster or simply delaying deaths.
2020 really is the year of hindsight for old fools. Jem, if your mom died you would be on a very different track. I hope though I'm not sure with you. It had to be lockdown until the threat was understood as it was far far too along the exponential growth curve (seems flat then kaboom) as was best estimated by that time. Your approach required millions of people to adapt exacting trained behaviours without any equipment or time to learn the skills to be successful keeping the vulnerable safe. All countries that took it seriously are opening and your straw man of forever lockdown is just silly.
It would be a nice argument to claim hindsight...If I did have 3 months of foresight documented on this website. My approach at the time was discussed with doctors ... one of whom his friend is a well known infectious disease expert. I was just not making this shit up. Locating the PPE and putting the procedures in place took a few weeks in San Diego... but after a few weeks it became apparent to many doctors and staff this shutdown was overdone. Staff was being laid off. Floors closed ... hours reduced. No thinking person... aware of what was really happening in San Diego would have ever said we needed to have a blanket shutdown after the first few weeks. As soon as de Prado put out that model I became even more strident. If people can learn to wear a mask and stay a few feet apart the high risk can learn to isolate themselves or make those potentially exposed to the virus... clean themselves. Its not rocket science. its not exacting behavior and methods. Finally the countries opening again are now just moving into the Swedish model. Did the shutdown really do anything after the first few weeks? Obviously the virus is breaking out in the states... so it did not do much here and mostly hurt. lets see what happens in other hard hit countries likes Spain and France. We shall be able to compare their results to Sweden.
They are not "moving to the Swedish model" they are on the same model they started with. Except for the countries that dicked about they have far fewer deaths. And no, they won't just delay the same number of deaths. Things have progressed. Had the US copied Sweden there would have been an massive death toll in elderly as it takes time to get staff trained and adequate protection measures. Your straw man of forever lockdowns fools nobody.
Reply to your post is inline below: ="jem, post: 5138571, member: 8212"]1. If your only argument is that we should wear ppe and social distance... OK. We have difference of opinion. The vast majority of studies that actually tried to test masks have shown no efficacy. But a few of the recent studies lump them in with social distancing and observe they may have worked. We can have a difference of opinion on that. I think social distancing is useful in that it should help prevent large groups from fitting inside small rooms with bad ventilation. That is where this virus is spread by the super spreaders and where clusters begin. 2. Shut down of low risk groups. With respect to that... you did not balance the harm the shutdown causes against the benefit. Sure if you look at the benefit some lives are saved. Some health benefits maybe be saved in the short run. But... in the long run many will still have to catch the virus. Then you need to balance that speculative benefit against all the damage being done to peoples lives and health. Shutdown also kills people. Shutdown also destroys lives in the long run and the short. We have also suffered a massive delusion about the costs. 3. The short run delusion of spending trillions... Trillions have been spent without being earned. While the fed creates trillions out of thin air, our states do not. We have been living a financial delusion. There will likely be heavy payment paid by many in the future from inflation to taxes to state jobs and retirement programs. Summary The shutdown of low risk groups was never supported by data or science. It did very little good after the first 3 weeks and has caused massive harm. We can not just look at the benefits, if we wish to really determine the best course of action. As of last Friday, 6:00 PM, The state of Texas has implimented more stringent face mask requirements for those who enter a business. Roommate situations are a bitch if there are people in the household who do not wear PPE as you are living in a potentially perpetual hotzone. Idiots.
What does a 10x number do to the infection fatality rate? https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/25/coronavirus-cases-10-times-larger/ CDC chief says coronavirus cases may be 10 times higher than reported The number of people in the United States who have been infected with the coronavirus is likely to be 10 times as high as the 2.4 million confirmed cases, based on antibody tests, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. CDC Director Robert Redfield’s estimate, shared with reporters in a conference call, indicates that at least 24 million Americans have been infected so far. The antibody tests examine a person’s blood for indicators that the immune system has mounted a response to an infection. The serological surveys are being done around the country as epidemiologists try to measure the reach of the virus to date. Redfield said he believes 5 to 8 percent of the population has been infected so far. Significantly, that would mean 92 to 95 percent remain susceptible to a coronavirus infection. Experts say this is the critical data point showing that the pandemic remains in its early stages and people need to continue to try to limit the viral spread. AD The CDC director’s comments came as case counts continued to surge to record levels in many states, particularly in the South and West, during warm-weather months that many had hoped would provide a lull in the pandemic. Stay safe and informed as the United States reopens with our free Coronavirus Updates newsletter Across the United States, 39,327 new coronavirus infections were reported by state health departments on Thursday — surpassing the previous single-day record of 38,115, which was set on Wednesday. Texas, Alabama, Missouri and Nevada reported daily highs. The death toll also spiked, to about 2,500, as New Jersey added 1,854 probable deaths to its overall tally. Amid signs that Texas has lost control of the epidemic, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced the state would pause its reopening to try to halt the flow of infections. He said he is focused on strategies to slow the viral spread “while also allowing Texans to continue earning a paycheck to support their families. The last thing we want to do as a state is go backwards and close down businesses.” AD As part of that pause, he suspended elective surgeries at hospitals in hard-hit Bexar, Dallas, Harris and Travis counties — home to the cities of San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Austin, respectively. The rolling average of daily new cases in Texas has increased 62 percent from the past week, jumping from 2,610 on June 18 to 4,227 on Thursday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. The daily count has set a record each day for 13 consecutive days. The economic crisis triggered by the pandemic continues to roil the corporate sector. Macy’s said it is laying off 3,900 corporate employees and managers. Chuck E. Cheese’s parent company filed for bankruptcy protection. Both actions were due to the virus’s impact on sales, the companies said. Apple said Thursday it is re-closing 14 stores in Florida. The state reported a second consecutive day of more than 5,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases. AD Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economic official, said during an appearance on Fox Business Network that the administration does not anticipate a second wave of infections, which has been projected by health experts, and that new hot spots popping up across the country are scenarios Americans will “just have to live with.” Some officials in the Trump administration, including the president, argue the surging cases simply reflect expanded testing. But infectious-disease experts, including Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dispute that, saying they also reflect increased community transmission. Redfield said that younger people are the leading edge of that transmission. “Young people, many newly mobile after months of lockdowns, have been getting tested more often in recent weeks and driving the surge in cases in the South and West,” he said. AD “In the past, I just don’t think we diagnosed these infections,” he said. Redfield’s comments oscillated between downplaying the latest news bulletins and declaring that the rising numbers are indeed worrisome. He said that a color-coded map of infections can make the country look as though the surge is widespread — “substantial portions of the United States are in red” — but said that only 3 percent of counties nationwide have actually become “hot spots.” He also repeatedly pointed out that young people, who are less likely to have a severe outcome from the virus, are getting tested more often. But under questioning, he said he was not downplaying the significance of the surge in cases in places such as Texas, Florida and Arizona. “This is a significant event,” he said. “We had a significant increase in cases. . . . We need to interrupt that.” AD Redfield said Americans need to weigh their individual risks as they go about their lives. “When you must go out into the community, being in contact with few people is better than many, [and] shorter periods are better than longer,” he said. Above all, he said, people should maintain social distancing, wash hands frequently and properly wear a face covering when they are unable to socially distance. The death toll nationally from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has dropped since it peaked in April, during the catastrophic outbreak in New York City and nearby areas. Many experts have warned that the effects of the reopening of the economy in May and the increased mobility and decline in social distancing could reverse that recent trend. Covid-19 can lead to a protracted illness, and in those cases there is typically a lag of several weeks between an infection and death. AD On Thursday, the CDC also made significant changes in how it categorizes people at elevated risk of a severe outcome from covid-19. The agency had previously said that people over 65 face higher risk. But it removed that age marker, saying that risk increases steadily with age. Conditions that pose a higher risk for serious illness include chronic kidney disease, serious heart disease, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), a weakened immune system from a solid organ transplant, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and newly added: sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that affects 90,000 to 100,000 people in the United States, mainly African Americans. Officials clarified that obesity means a body mass index of 30 or higher. Roughly 40 percent of the adult population is obese under that definition. A person who is 5-foot-5 and weighs 180 pounds has a BMI of 30. That same person who weighs 240 pounds would have a BMI of 40. AD For the first time, agency officials said pregnant women with covid-19 may face a higher risk of hospitalization and treatment in intensive care units and respiratory help with a mechanical ventilator. The same data, however, shows that pregnant women are not at higher risk of dying. Officials said they are still researching the effects on newborns. Although pregnant women are at risk for severe disease associated with other respiratory illnesses, such as influenza, there has been limited data related to covid-19 on pregnancy until now, health experts said. In the CDC report on pregnancy and covid19 released Thursday, researchers compared the impact of the disease on more than 8,000 pregnant women and 83,000 nonpregnant women from Jan. 22 to June 7. Pregnant women were over five times as likely to be hospitalized as nonpregnant women, 1.5 times as likely to be admitted to intensive care units, and 1.7 times as likely to require mechanical ventilation, the report said. There was no higher risk for death among the pregnant women. AD The CDC report also found that black and Hispanic pregnant women appear to be disproportionately hit by covid-19. “This is the most convincing evidence that pregnant women with covid-19 are more likely to have severe disease, although the absolute risk is still low,” said Denise Jamieson, chair of the gynecology and obstetrics department at Emory University School of Medicine and chief of gynecology and obstetrics for Emory Healthcare, who was not involved in the report. Among pregnant women with confirmed infections who reported race or ethnicity, 46 percent were Hispanic, 22 percent were black and 23 percent were white. That suggests the disproportionate impact of the disease on blacks and Latinos: In 2019, white women accounted for 51 percent of those who gave birth, compared with 24 percent who were Hispanic, and 15 percent who were black. Steven Goff, Teo Armus and Hamza Shaban contributed to this report.
Imagine if we had appropriate testing to back up those claims? I said it from the very beginning, Trump could lower the death rate if he understood increasing the positive numbers through testing.
This is fantastic news!!!! Let it spread, spread, spread. We need to get to herd immunity and get this silliness behind us.
We agree on that one. By now we should be able to test and trace clusters like clockwork. CDC, Federal Govt, Trump, State Governors and probably most local leaders... with the exception of a few... Govt has failed one of their main tasks. Republican leadership - Democrat leadership... they are almost all failures The media for not holding everyone accountable who should be... (this is a major problem for society... we no longer have a diverse and adversarial 4th estate because ownership has been so concentrated) They are all disgusting failures right now. Not just as leaders but as people. This was not hard... Transparent data... ability to shut down clusters as they begin (or clear explanations of why its not happening) What the hell is wrong with these people? Corruption? Incompetence? (but we have real scientist who can even separate out antibody tests from live virus tests) Sending infected people to old folks homes? This level of failures to do duty is beyond the worst case scenarios is my book.