COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

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That explains why some of the graphs show strange anomalies.


Do you have results you can share? I'd be very interested, especially in the light of...


I'm hoping we are there, but not seeing the evidence yet. Maybe I'm not looking at the right data?


My assumption has been that it's due to the population density? Your thoughts?


Media reports from other countries can provide checks and balances. British BBC, Australian ABC etc


Avoiding "being at the top" seems like a low bar. How do you see the "per capita" numbers finishing up? I doubt that they'll be much to crow about.
91% of deaths in my state are those over 60 years of age. 54% are over 70. Nursing homes are epicenters of the breakouts. Unscrupulous, sleazy people for decades have gravitated to operating nursing homes as profit machines. Deaths are the wages of greed.
 
Urgh no to kids going to school back so soon...
I personally dont want my kids back to school yet at this point.... Let them reopen for non essential stuff first and see how it goes for the next month or so... then we can reconsider for the kids....
They cancelled school here for the rest of the school year.
 
Lockdown skeptics have been saying the numbers reported are falsely skewed upwards. Now the numbers are falsely skewed downward?

Guess I'll just continue to take the current numbers at value then.

YOu guys are starting to get confused.

Think about this:

The people ("lockdown skeptics" as you put it) have been saying the numbers were falsely skewed upwards (for the reasons you already know), are NOT they are the same people who says the numbers are falsely skewed downward...

The lockdown skeptics have interests in claiming low and downward numbers in order to justify reopening...

What you should say is: any numbers should not only be taken at face value, but also with a huge grain of salt...




They cancelled school here for the rest of the school year.
Same here for us... I am glad despite the low risk, but children are the future... they may have better immune systems than most of us, but that's not a risks i want to take...
 
YOu guys are starting to get confused.

Think about this:

The people ("lockdown skeptics" as you put it) have been saying the numbers were falsely skewed upwards (for the reasons you already know), are NOT they are the same people who says the numbers are falsely skewed downward...

The lockdown skeptics have interests in claiming low and downward numbers in order to justify reopening...

What you should say is: any numbers should not only be taken at face value, but also with a huge grain of salt...
I'm not confused at all. I should've clarified I know full well they aren't the same people.

I only find it fascinating that now there's a push from both sides that the numbers are either too high or too low to represent the real numbers, which is why I said I'll just stick to looking at the current numbers & take them as "adjusted" for both arguments in the mean time.
 
Same here for us... I am glad despite the low risk, but children are the future... they may have better immune systems than most of us, but that's not a risks i want to take...

Children may not be found to transmit the virus well, but they do get it from adults. Basically their parents get it and give it to them. Opening restaurants may well put more children at risk than opening schools.
 
What sort of country needs armed guards outside all shops to enforce the wearing of masks?

We have compulsory use of masks inside shops here in Spain. The tiny percentage of people who enter without one are politely reminded by the (unarmed) shop staff that they need one. They either have one, and put it on, or they leave quietly. They don’t pull out a gun and shoot the staff member in the head.

WTF has America become?

oh, and...
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Does your God also have you covered for cancer, or getting run over by a bus? ****wits.
Brainwashed.

Sad.
 
Do you have results you can share?

Unfortunately no. All the data I work with contains protected health information and it's a big HIPAA no-no to share it. I will say that the John Hopkins site though is probably one of the most accurate ones out there in terms of reporting, even we use that to get a picture of the US as a whole.

I'm hoping we are there, but not seeing the evidence yet. Maybe I'm not looking at the right data?

This is from the John Hopkins site. This shows the number of daily cases in the US:

MLdtfYu.png


The high point is April 24th with 36,300 confirmed case, as of yesterday we had 19,100 confirmed cases. Potentially the peak for wave one was April 24th. It's not dropping fast by any means, but it's trending downwards which is better than trending upwards. To show a comparison, this is India's graph:

rRtTOg2.png


Typically the valleys in the graph come from weekend data. Due to reduced staff at labs on the weekends, fewer tests are actually processed, which means there are fewer confirmed cases overall. This is starting to change in some areas as lab techs ramp up and it becomes easier to process the COVID-19 tests. Unfortunately, some areas are still woefully bad at testing in a timely manner. I know in Southeast Michigan it was taking some people up to a week to get their results. Here in Utah they say 48 hours, but it's averaging around 12 hours right now I think.

My assumption has been that it's due to the population density? Your thoughts?

I'm still not sure. The Los Angeles and Seattle Metro areas are pretty dense thanks to their geography, but it's hard to say. The leading theory I've seen has to do with public transportation. People in the NYC megatropolis area tend to rely on public transportation more than people in the Los Angeles megatropolis area. However, this doesn't really explain places like Detroit being a hot spot. Detroit has virtually no public transportation to speak of, nor does its metro area. Oakland County (the county just north of Detroit) is a hot spot and when I lived there if I wanted to take any form of bus, it was super involved and almost always involved driving 10-15 minutes to a stop and hoping the bus was remotely on time.

Media reports from other countries can provide checks and balances. British BBC, Australian ABC etc

This is very true. One of the downfalls we have with freedom of the press here in the US is that networks and publications can just throw whatever they want out there. They can't commit libel or slander, but pretty much everything else is on the table for them to use. Even when they do report things that are true, they put their own spin on it to cater to their viewership. This is why I rarely take news from CNN and Fox News seriously. It's going to have a slant no matter how much they say it's unbias.

While I read the news, I like to rely on actual data more and figure out what it means. I'm not always right though.

Avoiding "being at the top" seems like a low bar. How do you see the "per capita" numbers finishing up? I doubt that they'll be much to crow about.

Not being at the top is about the best we can hope for right now. If we'd taken steps earlier we'd be in a better position and if a certain part of the population wasn't so monumentally stupid we'd probably be better off too.

With the per capita numbers, we will still probably be in the top 15 countries in terms of mortality and total cases. In terms of testing though, I'd put the US in the top five when it's all said and done. While we still have a long way to go with providing adequate testing, that too is trending in the right direction.
 
As best I can tell, the lastest info is that there are still not confirmed cases (worldwide) of any children under 10 transmitting the virus to adults. Even if there have been at this point, it would have been very few according to a few seconds of googling.

I'm sure young kids are capable of spreading the virus, but it seems that they don't do it often. Schools should re-open well before restaurants.
That what they say here to, but then there are studies from Germany that shows that the children has as high counts of virus as adults, but less symptoms. And schools here where suddenly 10-15 teachers fall ill in C19. But no-one even looks at the link in transferring. They just keep saying there is no confirmed cases of children spreading the virus. But where are the studies to back it up?
 
Children may not be found to transmit the virus well, but they do get it from adults. Basically their parents get it and give it to them. Opening restaurants may well put more children at risk than opening schools.

You may be right, or not....
Between the two unknowns, I would rather have the restaurant open first rather than the school...

In one situation, there is slightly more control than the other.
 
Apparently the Australian quarantine rules don't apply to everyone, even when there were supposed to be no exceptions when dealing with overseas travellers, and this must be disappointing for all of those Australian citizens that weren't granted permission to say goodbye to dying relatives...
Despite having served less than half of her required isolation in a Melbourne hotel after arriving from Britain last week, SA and Victorian authorities authorised her weekend flight to Adelaide on “compassionate” grounds to say goodbye to a dying relative.

But as she remained in a stable condition with mild symptoms in quarantine at an Adelaide hotel on Tuesday, authorities scrambled to trace a “significant” number of “close contacts” including passengers, airline and airport staff as well as other visitors.

similars

SA Health refused to publicly release flight details or provide precise numbers of those in isolation.
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/coro...e/news-story/1c8659fde1fec35392699d2b3a9e9959

While I do feel for the family, it's a bit disheartening to have our 19 day streak broken in this fashion (she is not an Australian citizen). We are asked to treat everyone as if they are Covid-19 positive so I have to wonder why isn't our government. I could understand if the dying person had no relatives here at all (apparently they have a large family group here) or if the person travelling was from a low risk country like NZ but this just seems to fly in the face of what has been expected of us.

And then we have this in W.A. :boggled:
Fremantle port workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 when they boarded an infected live export ship that had apparently been cleared by a federal department to dock, despite knowing some of the crew were ill.
But the Fremantle Port Authority only found out after up to half a dozen local workers boarded the ship, Mr Dawson said.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/c...crew-uae/af7f2948-6b39-4165-bef3-7ccc6f11f065

What's going on here :confused:
 
In Sir Terry Prachett's Discworld Book, "Thud!", there's a rather eye-opening section about most people in position of guarding or policing.

Paraphrasing from memory, but it was basically the following:
  • Before the event (murder/burglary) happens, guards get lackadaiscal. They pass the time and they get used to the routine. They follow the routine
  • Minor mistakes happen but nothing is picked up
  • Something happened, so everyone is on super alert status
  • Eventually, people go back to a routine at some point as there is a successful reduction in crime/infection
With the second situation, it could have been a genuine mistakes as the cases has been so low and so successful (in comparison to other countries) that some parts were forgotten to be checked as thoroughly as they should have.

The authorities really should have enforced proper quarantine and I think after this one, they will look to either closing down borders or limiting it.

It makes no sense how this lady got to Australia from the UK, even though she isn't even with a Austraian citizenship, if I have read it correctly.
 
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So I've been back on the road for a few weeks now.

It's amazing how many people have mysterious afflictions that prevent them from wearing a mask in public; you know they're just faking it because they feel "shamed" even though you haven't said anything about their lack of a mask. If there were genuinely this many people with "breathing problems", then I figure the automobile would have been extinct decades ago. [/end rant]

Wearing a mask for 7-8 hours a days isn't fun, but it just takes practice. The first hour sucks, and you want to give up. You just take some outdoor breaks, or just find an empty part of a building. I think of how racing drivers wear a balaclava or mask and I figure if they can do it, then so can I. Besides, it's the only skill I'll have in common, other than being bipedal. When the five o'clock shadow starts to appear around 3pm, it gets a little fussy. One perk is that it's hard to tell if you're frowning or not smiling; on the flip side, they can't tell if you're sarcastic.

I carry a letter saying how "important" my job is, though this doesn't really bother me. Nobody's asked to see it, anyhow. (Heck, half the time I've visited Canada in the past I haven't even had to show my work papers and contracts, just the passport.)

I'm not yet flying, so I can't speak for the airports, other than to pick up rental cars; $170 a week with unlimited mileage is quite cheap for a mid-sized vehicle, though nothing exciting. Was hoping for a diamond in the rough, but my guess is that rental car companies are shedding their most desirable vehicles ASAP; my local market isn't typically a good one for exotics and luxury cars. About half of the 40-some-odd vehicles in the Avis lot are late-model Chevy Malibus or Kia Optimas, which were my mounts for the last two weeks.

Local airport (HSV) "strongly urges" face masks. Saw about 50% the people without masks that were milling around the rental car counters and baggage claim. Since it's the 120th busiest airport the US, about 60-75% of the flights have been cancelled. Basically, the smallest markets have a morning and evening flight, of which the later exists to serve the subsequent morning flight...yin and yang. This would be a terrific PITA if I was flying, so I'm glad to be behind the wheel again.

Hotels don't offer a free cooked breakfast. You can get it in a bag to go: an apple, granola bar, a pre-packaged muffin. Coffee stations are still out up front. One room from Marriott didn't have the coffee maker; might have just been "missing" rather than removed...I didn't ask. (Before you suggest that the founders/owners of Marriott might not drink caffeinated beverages, no...they've always had non-decaf coffee.) Rooms have all had refrigerators and I've been dealing with that for a while, so I don't know how I'd live without that now-common feature of mid-priced hotels.

I've never been a complete stickler for cleanliness in a room, but now I spend about 10 minutes wiping down every surface with those bleached wipes. In the past, I would just grab a hand towel and clean off anything questionable. I know that basically anything in a room is probably three degrees (or less) from a blue movie, but when you've been though this routine for almost 10 years, you don't get so freaked out. After all, it's going to be your home for the next few days, and if you're really spooked out, just ask for another room.

Dealerships have typically created taped-down suggestions for customers to stand away from the personnel. Some offer masks and all the ones I've been to have offered hand sanitizer. My company has reimbursed those expenses. One general manager used a non-contact thermometer on every employee and offered on request to do so for customers. (I think he just liked using it as a toy.)

One of the joys of the job is to sample all sorts of food and restaurants, but I've just gone to supermarkets like I'm used to and usually just stretching that out for five days. I've lost 25 pounds in past ten months and still chipping away at things, so I try to stay on the wagon.

Roads are a little less full - I've been in some rural areas, so I can't really tell too much. Drove though Nashville in rush hour and only had to crawl for about one minute at that Gordian knot of I-24, I-40, and I-65. Usually, that's a half-hour drag to go about three miles. There's honestly little I want to do socially, so I just go for drives, which is still okay.
 
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School for our children in MI has moved totally online with teachers using Google classrooms for lecture and TCI for school work. They meet two to three times a day for a half hour each course.
 
You may be right, or not....
Between the two unknowns, I would rather have the restaurant open first rather than the school...

In one situation, there is slightly more control than the other.

Schools here opened a couple of weeks ago for the youngest, middle and high schools last week and this week, we have no significant rise in new cases.
 
PIMS, which is now going by MIS-C, is starting to show up in young adults.

https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-inflammatory-syndrome-mis-c-young-adults.html

It sounds like the leading theory still has to do with the body's immune system going into overdrive.

===

Also, I find this a bit hard to believe (Ignore that Newsweek used 2 in 10 instead of 1 in 5):

Two in 10 Americans Know Someone Hospitalized or Who Died From the Coronavirus, Poll Shows

I'd believe 1 in 5 Americans know someone who had a positive test or thought they had, but not someone who's been hospitalized or died. The best guess data I've seen for the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 is somewhere right around 195,000. Now couple that with the 98,000 deaths the US has had. Now to account for some errors, let's just call it 300,000 people who've either passed away or been in the hospital due to the virus or .01% of the total US population. Based on this, what Newsweek and Pew Research are saying is that 65 million Americans know someone who accounts for 300,000 people. That means that just one hospitalized or dead person knows 218 people.

Am I just off on my math or is this really bogus?
 
No new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, nobody in hospital with the coronavirus | RNZ News

“Only 21 people in the country still have Covid-19.

Dr Bloomfield said New Zealand's labs processed 4279 tests yesterday, bringing the total to 267,435.

He said New Zealand was staying at alert level 2 to be certain that there was no further spread of Covid-19 and also to ensure border procedures were safe and secure.“

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national...id-19-nobody-in-hospital-with-the-coronavirus
 
No new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, nobody in hospital with the coronavirus | RNZ News

“Only 21 people in the country still have Covid-19.

Dr Bloomfield said New Zealand's labs processed 4279 tests yesterday, bringing the total to 267,435.

He said New Zealand was staying at alert level 2 to be certain that there was no further spread of Covid-19 and also to ensure border procedures were safe and secure.“

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national...id-19-nobody-in-hospital-with-the-coronavirus

Yeah apparently we haven't had any new cases for like the last 5 days or something.
After the lockdown of 4 weeks for level 4, level 2 is practically freedom anyway...Pretty much feels like things are back to normal really.
 
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PIMS, which is now going by MIS-C, is starting to show up in young adults.

https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-inflammatory-syndrome-mis-c-young-adults.html

It sounds like the leading theory still has to do with the body's immune system going into overdrive.
I wish this is what people would start focusing on more than the death rates & spreading, "It's a 99% survival, you'll be fine!". Well, not just MIS-C specifically, but the lasting effects like it being shared. We've known for a long time if you get it, you'll likely live, but these first hand accounts are still alarming. Some people get over it, some say their taste/smell loss has lingered, some people report having lasting breathing issues or month-long pneumonia, & a couple reports claim specific individuals will have to have some sort of testing done every week for years, b/c of the state of their lungs left by the virus. I understand that as time has passed, we've learned more that the virus is no longer a case of, "If you get it, it may be like a bad flu or you could die from a very low chance" to a much broader spectrum of that still includes a low chance of death, but I guess the novel part of this virus remains in defining just how it will affect someone since there are varying reports of the different ways it has affected people during & after its time in the body.

That's more or less, the risk I don't want to take. It's not about a 99.99999% survival rate, but the unknowing of how my body reacts. I'd rather not take a risk of it even being something like a lasting pneumonia. I'm hoping the number of cases where there are concerning post-virus effects of any diagnosis is low, but I've read enough reports that seem to agree that 1 common result of the virus' effect on the body after it has passed, is leaving tiny holes in the lungs (not sure of the medical terminology) where the breathing issues originate from.
 
I wish this is what people would start focusing on more than the death rates & spreading, "It's a 99% survival, you'll be fine!".

Absolutely. It's the same with Influenza as well, people often forget that you can have complications long after the disease has left your body. When I got Influenza B a couple of years ago, I was laid up in bed for a week feeling like crap. By day five I was up and moving around again, but it took months before I was able to breathe normally. I got winded walking up three flights of stairs at work when I used to be able to run up them without a problem. I had to use my albuterol inhaler frequently for about six months as well when normally I just need it occasionally. If all that happened from the flu, I have to imagine I'd have similar, or worse, effects from COVID-19.
 
Absolutely. It's the same with Influenza as well, people often forget that you can have complications long after the disease has left your body. When I got Influenza B a couple of years ago, I was laid up in bed for a week feeling like crap. By day five I was up and moving around again, but it took months before I was able to breathe normally. I got winded walking up three flights of stairs at work when I used to be able to run up them without a problem. I had to use my albuterol inhaler frequently for about six months as well when normally I just need it occasionally. If all that happened from the flu, I have to imagine I'd have similar, or worse, effects from COVID-19.
Out of curiosity, what do you make of this recent discussion on Twitter/Reddit about the higher than usual number of pneumonia deaths being reported? People seem to take it as a sign that the Covid deaths are much higher than reported (since I've read that pneumonia can be a side effect/symptom). Which sort of makes sense to me, esp. when there was a lot of uproar on how "any death with Covid in the body is listed as a Covid death", & they need to be separated. Seems to me, that in this scenario of the pneumonia deaths being separated which result in a very large amount of pneumonia deaths reported, that these could be numbers just as easily tacked onto the current number of Covid deaths. Of course, one would have to prove each of these pneumonia-caused deaths were a result of Covid, but it doesn't seem coincidental that there's a unexpectedly large amount of pneumonia deaths happening at the same time as a virus that can cause it to begin with.

Here's the link, should be top comment. The user says he compiled his data directly from the CDC, but I will quote it as well.

Some have requested the data on other states. Here are links to CDC data:

CDC national and state-by-state numbers for 2020 (since Feb 1) here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

CDC mortality numbers from 1999-2018 can be searched by month, state, and cause here: https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html

Here is what the article states about national and regional numbers:

“Pneumonia kills about 50,000 people each year in the U.S., according to the CDC.
This year, at least 89,555 deaths have been attributed nationwide to pneumonia between February and mid-May.
It tends to follow a typical flu season, coming on in December and peaking in January and February before declining in March to April.
But preliminary CDC data from this year show pneumonia deaths steadily climbed in March to peak in April, mirroring the trend line for deaths linked to the coronavirus outbreak.
Surrounding states are also seeing death counts several times greater than normal:
Indiana: 1,832 COVID-19 deaths; 2,149 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 384)
Illinois: 4,856 COVID-19 deaths; 3,986 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 782)
Tennessee: 336 COVID-19 deaths; 1,704 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 611)
Ohio: 1,969 COVID-19 deaths; 2,327 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 820)
Virginia: 1,208 COVID-19 deaths; 1,394 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 451)
West Virginia: 72 COVID-19 deaths; 438 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 117)”
 
Out of curiosity, what do you make of this recent discussion on Twitter/Reddit about the higher than usual number of pneumonia deaths being reported? People seem to take it as a sign that the Covid deaths are much higher than reported (since I've read that pneumonia can be a side effect/symptom). Which sort of makes sense to me, esp. when there was a lot of uproar on how "any death with Covid in the body is listed as a Covid death", & they need to be separated. Seems to me, that in this scenario of the pneumonia deaths being separated which result in a very large amount of pneumonia deaths reported, that these could be numbers just as easily tacked onto the current number of Covid deaths. Of course, one would have to prove each of these pneumonia-caused deaths were a result of Covid, but it doesn't seem coincidental that there's a unexpectedly large amount of pneumonia deaths happening at the same time as a virus that can cause it to begin with.

Here's the link, should be top comment. The user says he compiled his data directly from the CDC, but I will quote it as well.


I do think that some of the spike in pneumonia deaths are a result of COVID-19. However, one of the contributors to pneumonia is inactivity, especially in older people. That's why when you're in the hospital they give you that device with a tube and a ball and have you breath through it (called a spirometer). For younger people, this really isn't a problem, you're running around your house, finding things to do, going for walks, etc. With older people though, many of them just held up in their house, which is often smaller since they no longer have a family living there. This inactivity could very well contribute to an increase in pneumonia cases, especially if they caught a cold or the flu.

The Flu Season was also longer this year thanks to more active strains of Influenza A and B. Essentially B calmed down mid-winter and then A came in and decided to ramp up through spring. This was prior to lockdown too since we started seeing an increase of A around December/January. In older people, the flu can be incredibly deadly and if they're in a lockdown state and aren't moving around, this amplifies the risk for pneumonia.

Another thought is that with decreased doctor's appointments, fewer people were getting the Pneumococcal Vaccination. I'm not sure how much this contributed, but it's certainly a possibility.

Still, I think many of those cases of pneumonia were triggered by a bout with COVID-19. The flu will trigger pneumonia in some people and I can't really see a reason why COVID-19 wouldn't either since it's thought to be a respiratory disease (there's some thought it might be cardiovascular). Even then, I'm not sure I'd contribute those deaths to COVID-19 since that wasn't the cause of death, pneumonia was. It might be worth mentioning COVID-19 related pneumonia as a statistic, but unless they're doing testing to see if the person either had an active virus or antibodies in their system, it wouldn't be very accurate.

I also don't really agree with some's logic that if the person had COVID, it's a COVID death. If you're asymptomatic, but tested positive, and died due to a brain aneurysm, that's not really COVID related. Unfortunately, there are some people that want to count those people in the death toll and I think that can really skew data. I mean if we're going to count those people, why not count the person who fell off their roof doing a home improvement project because they were at home for two months on lockdown? Or the people who couldn't go to the doctor to get something checked out because the doctors were simply not seeing patients? Or any of the other scenarios that one can come up with. Also, do you contribute things like an increase of cardiovascular disease or cancer to COVID because people are sitting in their homes, not exercising, eat crap food, and drinking/smoking more? It becomes one of those things that really has no end point. I think that stuff should be tracked in a way, but not included in any official COVID death toll.
 
Appreciate your insight as always, Joey!
That's why when you're in the hospital they give you that device with a tube and a ball and have you breath through it (called a spirometer)
Little hand-held device, blow into it to keep the ball up for 30 seconds? If so, I'll always remember that little bastard. Used it 3 times after a lung-operation (had a small hole), showed up on my bill as a $900 charge. :dunce:
 
Little hand-held device, blow into it to keep the ball up for 30 seconds? If so, I'll always remember that little bastard. Used it 3 times after a lung-operation (had a small hole), showed up on my bill as a $900 charge. :dunce:

Yup that's it and the hospital typically pays less than $5 apiece for them.
 
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