Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[BabaYaga 15,623]

1 hour ago, Kevin O’Shea said:

Weren’t these idiots defiant at the start of this? I’d have to scroll back hundreds of pages but pretty positive they threw a big party after this all started and got real butt hurt at peoples comments complaining about it. People don’t forget. 

 

Tweet a bit misleading as flu deaths generally occur between Dec and Feb....not disbursed evenly over a 12 month period, like say traffic deaths of heart disease.  

[Dahobbs 18,304]

9 hours ago, gmr548 said:

 

 

 

I mean, you threw a pretty aggressive number out there without a source. We can't test your claim now, but New York's death rate has been way elevated relative to normal: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/27/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html&ved=2ahUKEwik-MTr4JHpAhUMCawKHac-C7EQFjACegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1bDXeFPK0M2ZpYNg_glxve

Obviously that spike is driven by COVID, even if it's obviously not every single death. Knowing that, if 20 percent of deaths were going to happen later this year anyway, you're saying you'd expect death rates in NYC and around the nation to drop below average over the rest of the year. And honestly, it'd have to be well below average for that to be true because we're seeing fewer deaths, which I believe are the #3 cause of death, due to people curtailing activity. Does that sound reasonable to you? Keep an eye on those numbers.

 

 

Absolutely agree the spike is driven by Covid, and, given the difference between the spike and the official Covid fatality count, I think it is likely we are still under counting.  

20% was just a blind number and not really a prediction, I just said I wouldn't be surprised if hit that. But, if the Covid-19 crisis magically stops, then yes I expect that age and medical-related fatalities would be lower by some perceptible amount the rest of the year (let's not confuse these numbers with accidental and intentional deaths). Of course, I don't expect Covid-19 to disappear anytime soon, so I'm not sure this really matters. 

[BabaYaga 15,623]

6 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Yale does. 

Only is the score is 27-27....

[Cheeseweasel 26,439]

6 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Which is the proper approach. Regional solutions are required as this bitch is not going to hit everyone/everyplace at the same time.

Get outta here with that logic. IT'S GAME OVER AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT!!!

[po elvis 2,137]

2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

Assuming the Hong Kong data is reliable, I think the US approach may have been suboptimal. 

"This is achieved w/o lockdown, just good ol' test/trace/isolate + social distancing"

Well except for them closing schools and businesses and bars, etc. like any other "lockdown".

[Parliament 14,593]

SIAP

The Education Department has asked the University of Texas System to provide documentation of its dealings with the Chinese laboratory U.S. officials are investigating as a potential source of the coronavirus pandemic.

The request for records of gifts or contracts from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its researcher Shi Zhengli, known for her work on bats, is part of a broader department investigation into possible faulty financial disclosures of foreign money by the Texas group of universities.

The Education Department’s letter, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, also asks the UT System to share documents regarding potential ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party and some two dozen Chinese universities and companies, including Huawei Technologies Co. and a unit of China National Petroleum Corp.

The department is also seeking documents related to any university system contracts or gifts from Eric Yuan, a U.S. citizen who is the chief executive officer of Zoom Video Communications Inc.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-probes-university-of-texas-links-to-chinese-lab-scrutinized-over-coronavirus-11588325401?mod=hp_lead_pos7

[Dahobbs 18,304]

1 hour ago, huge said:

So how do we explain the relatively LOW numbers in Harris County? I know first hand that there have been some lax participants in this shut down.

To what do we contribute this “success”?

Or am I seeing a Shanghai whitewashing of numbers?

Well, it is a bit of a mix of things. I do think that limited testing as resulted in lower reported numbers in Houston. I also think lack of mass transit and Houston's sprawl contributed to lowering the spread. But, I think the primary reason we have lower numbers is that the infection simply wasn't as prevalent here as in other places before the city started shutting down. And while the shutdowns haven't been 100% effective, they've definitely reduced person-to-person contacts by >50%. That said, if things like the galleria start getting busy again, I'd expect the numbers to rise pretty quickly. 

[Armybrat 41,389]

1 hour ago, Cheeseweasel said:

You've obviously not been near any Walmart stores in the last 30 days.

Herd immunity in action for hoof & mouth disease. Or is it mad cow disease?

[clapclapclap 9,000]

38 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Well then eff it, I'm going to San Marcos!!!! 

Good luck and godspeed, Davy Crockett.

[pacman 7,502]

1 hour ago, landman said:

The average flu does this every year as well, albeit over 6-8 months.  And there's a vaccine for it.

 

On the fortunate side, if we see a covid vaccine it is likely to be much more effective. Part of the problem with influenza, or "regular flu", is that it mutates quite often making the vaccine ineffective. I don't believe coronavirus shares that trait.

Edited May 1, 2020 by pacman

[BabaYaga 15,623]

Ohio extends shelter in place till end of May.  But their highest case count was 2 weeks ago, with less than 100 deaths.  The majority attributed to nursing homes.  So another month?  What then changes at the end of May vs. the beginning?  It does little to keep the curve below the medical capacity line.

I think one of the ways they are making the calls are based on days to double. Ohio known cases have doubled in 13 days and deaths have more than doubled in 10 days.
For comparison, Texas known cases have been 16 days to double and deaths have doubled in 14 days.

[Armybrat 41,389]

52 minutes ago, utee94 said:

I don't believe any theaters decided to open up, so I suppose the answer is "no."

 

When we used to go out to the movies on geezer discount matinee Tuesdays, there were usually no more than a dozen of us old farts spread out in the whole screening room.

But to us those places are dead now, just like Doug Neidermeyer. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Armybrat

[Liquor and Poker 3,659]

1 hour ago, utee94 said:

I understand your frustration.  All I can say is, there was obviously a significant decrease in human interactions.  We'll never know to what extent it helped, so if that's your main point, well, you're right.  We will never know.

There are logical deductions that can be made, as the rate of increase in deaths that was rapidly rising, has leveled off, now 4-5 weeks after most stay-at-home orders were issued across the counties and municipalities here in Texas. 

As for the final part of your post-- we're NOT still doing it.  State of Texas orders are changing as of today.  Various counties and municipalities are allowing limited reopenings as of today.  More will follow.

Some believe that's a terrible idea, and some believe we should have opened weeks ago.  Those beliefs don't affect the fact that things are opening up regardless, so I really don't understand your point that we're continuing to do the same thing.  Factually, we aren't.

 

 

But here's my fundamental lack of understanding about our approach.  There appears to be consensus that, if 100% isolated for 14 days straight, this whole thing would have been over and done with, full stop.  However, as I recall, the numbers earlier on this thread (back when this thread had fun infographics) showed that if we have 80% diligently following the social distancing guidelines, but 20% waiving their "IDGAF" flag and doing whatever (or worse, being forced to work because their boss knows the right guy to get declared "essential"), it really isn't all that effective in doing much more than purely "flattening" the curve - basically the same infection and death rate but slowing it so it happens over a longer time period. 

Assuming that's true, was that the only point of all of this?  We effectively destroyed the economy and made everyone miserable and broke, but really all we got was removing the potential that hospitals would be overwhelmed  - ostensibly because that would have resulted in some extra percentage of people extra dying who wouldn't have otherwise? The "dying in the aisles" thing is horrific idea, and thus that's a very worthwhile goal, but if we're still going to have most of the people who were going to die from it die anyway, was this whole thing not a very blunt instrument to use for that type of surgery?  I get that I say this as a person who doesn't work in healthcare.

Don't get me wrong - I was (and still am) in favor of a prolonged "weld the doors shut" isolation period.  To me, we could have done (and still can do) something just a bit more extreme for a much shorter period and be pretty much over and done with it.  But if that's not gonna happen, why this TSA-style window dressing of a prolonged SIP with so many exceptions and caveats that it's effectively meaningless just to stop those half-measures once they've done their collateral damage and say "let's see what happens" anyway?

We're seeing this push to reopen because that 80% has been sitting at home for 6-8 weeks.  A real quarantine/shutdown could likely have been done in half that if we were serious about it, and it would have effectively stopped this thing in its tracks.  Yet because we didn't/wouldn't/couldn't do that we're reopening before we even hit our peak in Texas according to the UT tracker.

I may be laboring over quite a few misconceptions in these thoughts, but if so, I am not the only one.

[WBT 20,966]

18 minutes ago, po elvis said:

"This is achieved w/o lockdown, just good ol' test/trace/isolate + social distancing"

Well except for them closing schools and businesses and bars, etc. like any other "lockdown".

And I wouldn't trust a damn thing China says about HK.  No incentive there to make things look rosier.

[huge 3,831]

17 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Well, it is a bit of a mix of things. I do think that limited testing as resulted in lower reported numbers in Houston. I also think lack of mass transit and Houston's sprawl contributed to lowering the spread. But, I think the primary reason we have lower numbers is that the infection simply wasn't as prevalent here as in other places before the city started shutting down. And while the shutdowns haven't been 100% effective, they've definitely reduced person-to-person contacts by >50%. That said, if things like the galleria start getting busy again, I'd expect the numbers to rise pretty quickly. 

Forget testing, I am talking about COVID deaths.  Something like 100 as of this week.  In otherwords, Memorial Day weekend in Chcago.

 

We will see soon enough.  25% restaurants are going to be at capacity tonight in many areas around town.

[StruggleBus 3,922]

3 hours ago, Somnio said:

That does not look good, and that is with unprecedented shelter in place orders around the country.

And now we're going to start easing away from social distancing?  Does not sound like a good plan at this point in my opinion.

Yeah, let's just sit the fuck at home for the next year what happens. Right?

[ChiTownDoc 21,345]

5 hours ago, justhookit said:

You read the whole thing? Numbers to me look really weird. Overall I can explain it away to inaccurate tests and a testing group that likely has a much higher exposure rate, but the zero hospitalizations throws me.

of course the numbers since the beginning of this in January haven’t made a whole lot of sense.

I didn’t read it.  Was just commenting on the last paragraph of the post.  Lots of shitty numbers out there.  Let’s just get that out there - again.  

[pacman 7,502]

6 minutes ago, StruggleBus said:

Yeah, let's just sit the fuck at home for the next year what happens. Right?

[Incredulity 11,874]

10 minutes ago, StruggleBus said:

Yeah, let's just sit the fuck at home for the next year what happens. Right?

[Eskimohorn 5,682]

The average flu does this every year as well, albeit over 6-8 months.  And there's a vaccine for it.

The overall mortality rate in NYC was over 300% above previous periods. 7-state survey saw mortality double. Likely, its because corona deaths are being undercounted and need to be more closely examined and standardized.

[Dahobbs 18,304]

15 minutes ago, huge said:

Forget testing, I am talking about COVID deaths.  Something like 100 as of this week.  In otherwords, Memorial Day weekend in Chcago.

 

We will see soon enough.  25% restaurants are going to be at capacity tonight in many areas around town.

Testing impacts deaths. As I said, I believe the the main reason is that it just wasn't very prevalent here before we shutdown. It was starting to circulate, but we managed to slow it down in time. Opening back up without a plan will change that. 

[Eskimohorn 5,682]

But here's my fundamental lack of understanding about our approach.  There appears to be consensus that, if 100% isolated for 14 days straight, this whole thing would have been over and done with, full stop.  However, as I recall, the numbers earlier on this thread (back when this thread had fun infographics) showed that if we have 80% diligently following the social distancing guidelines, but 20% waiving their "IDGAF" flag and doing whatever (or worse, being forced to work because their boss knows the right guy to get declared "essential"), it really isn't all that effective in doing much more than purely "flattening" the curve - basically the same infection and death rate but slowing it so it happens over a longer time period. 
Assuming that's true, was that the only point of all of this?  We effectively destroyed the economy and made everyone miserable and broke, but really all we got was removing the potential that hospitals would be overwhelmed  - ostensibly because that would have resulted in some extra percentage of people extra dying who wouldn't have otherwise? The "dying in the aisles" thing is horrific idea, and thus that's a very worthwhile goal, but if we're still going to have most of the people who were going to die from it die anyway, was this whole thing not a very blunt instrument to use for that type of surgery?  I get that I say this as a person who doesn't work in healthcare.
Don't get me wrong - I was (and still am) in favor of a prolonged "weld the doors shut" isolation period.  To me, we could have done (and still can do) something just a bit more extreme for a much shorter period and be pretty much over and done with it.  But if that's not gonna happen, why this TSA-style window dressing of a prolonged SIP with so many exceptions and caveats that it's effectively meaningless just to stop those half-measures once they've done their collateral damage and say "let's see what happens" anyway?
We're seeing this push to reopen because that 80% has been sitting at home for 6-8 weeks.  A real quarantine/shutdown could likely have been done in half that if we were serious about it, and it would have effectively stopped this thing in its tracks.  Yet because we didn't/wouldn't/couldn't do that we're reopening before we even hit our peak in Texas according to the UT tracker.
I may be laboring over quite a few misconceptions in these thoughts, but if so, I am not the only one.

Left unchecked, the coronavirus shuts down shit on its own, completely overwhelms resources, and can still be deadly after it ravages a community. But, yes, not having a clear strategy of some kind is a kick in the nuts.

Texas is just now getting a testing and tracing program together after being near last in per person testing.

[Cheeseweasel 26,439]

5 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

its because corona deaths are being undercounted

You sure about that?

[Guest Lobo]

Great; UT system being investigated for undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Lab.  I blame A&M somehow.  

[BabaYaga 15,623]

 

8 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

The overall mortality rate in NYC was over 300% above previous periods. 7-state survey saw mortality double. Likely, its because corona deaths are being undercounted and need to be more closely examined and standardized.

Undercounted?  Most notices I've seen over inflate the attribution of COVID and under represent infection rates due to limited testing.  

[Dahobbs 18,304]

22 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

But here's my fundamental lack of understanding about our approach.  There appears to be consensus that, if 100% isolated for 14 days straight, this whole thing would have been over and done with, full stop.  However, as I recall, the numbers earlier on this thread (back when this thread had fun infographics) showed that if we have 80% diligently following the social distancing guidelines, but 20% waiving their "IDGAF" flag and doing whatever (or worse, being forced to work because their boss knows the right guy to get declared "essential"), it really isn't all that effective in doing much more than purely "flattening" the curve - basically the same infection and death rate but slowing it so it happens over a longer time period. 

Assuming that's true, was that the only point of all of this?  We effectively destroyed the economy and made everyone miserable and broke, but really all we got was removing the potential that hospitals would be overwhelmed  - ostensibly because that would have resulted in some extra percentage of people extra dying who wouldn't have otherwise? The "dying in the aisles" thing is horrific idea, and thus that's a very worthwhile goal, but if we're still going to have most of the people who were going to die from it die anyway, was this whole thing not a very blunt instrument to use for that type of surgery?  I get that I say this as a person who doesn't work in healthcare.

Don't get me wrong - I was (and still am) in favor of a prolonged "weld the doors shut" isolation period.  To me, we could have done (and still can do) something just a bit more extreme for a much shorter period and be pretty much over and done with it.  But if that's not gonna happen, why this TSA-style window dressing of a prolonged SIP with so many exceptions and caveats that it's effectively meaningless just to stop those half-measures once they've done their collateral damage and say "let's see what happens" anyway?

We're seeing this push to reopen because that 80% has been sitting at home for 6-8 weeks.  A real quarantine/shutdown could likely have been done in half that if we were serious about it, and it would have effectively stopped this thing in its tracks.  Yet because we didn't/wouldn't/couldn't do that we're reopening before we even hit our peak in Texas according to the UT tracker.

I may be laboring over quite a few misconceptions in these thoughts, but if so, I am not the only one.

Bold in order:

(1) Flattening the curve also reduces total infected and total deaths (even not counting deaths due to overwhelmed healthcare system). But, how much the totals are actually reduced depends on a variety of factors, including random chance. 

(2) Most may be correct, but that could still be a 49% reduction. Shelter-in-place and shutdowns generally are very blunt instruments. But, there are also the only instruments we really had available at the time. Mass testing, contact tracing, and isolation would have been more effective and avoided substantial economic damage, but we didn't and don't currently have the capability. 

(3) A harsher shutdown would have likely been more effective at reducing additional spread. But, we still would need a plan on the back-end of it to make sure things don't flare up again. 

In general, I do worry that we are going to end up in a worst of both worlds scenario absent a miracle vaccine or treatment or a sudden focus on doing what needs to be done: creating an effective system of aggressively identifying and isolating infected individuals. 

[Armybrat 41,389]

11 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Great; UT system being investigated for undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Lab.  I blame A&M somehow.  

Old news

[dcar00 14,947]

1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

Tweet a bit misleading as flu deaths generally occur between Dec and Feb....not disbursed evenly over a 12 month period, like say traffic deaths of heart disease.  

it makes a good tweet.  Everyone knew this was going to spike and 10's of thousands would die.  the concern was millions.  we are looking at an average of 1000 per state over 2-3 months.  one life is bad but this could have been so so much worse.

Edited May 1, 2020 by dcar00

[Dahobbs 18,304]

6 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

 

Undercounted?  Most notices I've seen over inflate the attribution of COVID and under represent infection rates due to limited testing.  

Yes, under-counted. NY has seen significantly more excess deaths than the numbers attributed to Covid-19. The historical norm for weekly deaths in NY is in a pretty tight range, and they've seen a several fold increase over that range. Only a portion of that increase is currently covered by the Covid-19 fatality count. Italy has seen the exact same thing.  

[Stringer 1,487]

8 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

 

Undercounted?  Most notices I've seen over inflate the attribution of COVID and under represent infection rates due to limited testing.  

If normally 100 people die in any given March, 200 die in March 2020 and you report 50 COVID deaths, that probably means you're undercounting.  Significantly.

This is happening in multiple studies I have seen and what EskimoHorn pointed out in NYC and 7 other states.

[BabaYaga 15,623]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

Bold in order:

(1) Flattening the curve also reduces total infected and total deaths (even not counting deaths due to overwhelmed healthcare system). But, how much the totals are actually reduced depends on a variety of factors, including random chance. 

(2) Most may be correct, but that could still be a 49% reduction. Shelter-in-place and shutdowns generally are very blunt instruments. But, there are also the only instruments we really had available at the time. Mass testing, contact tracing, and isolation would have been more effective and avoided substantial economic damage, but we didn't and don't currently have the capability. 

(3) A harsher shutdown would have likely been more effective at reducing additional spread. But, we still would need a plan on the back-end of it to make sure things don't flare up again. 

In general, I do worry that we are going to end up in a worst of both worlds scenario absent a miracle vaccine or treatment or a sudden focus on doing what needs to be done: creating an effective system of aggressively identifying and isolating infected individuals. 

It doesn't reduce the total number - it disburses it over a lengthier period of time, which was never the original point.  We are generally seeing more furloughs than infection cases in most hospitals.  That along should tell you something (outside of NY & NJ).  As for a more harsh shutdown.  That's fine to pontificate in arrears, but at the time Pelosi tried to enact legislation banning bans of travel & NY was telling people the subway was "safe" and "fine" to use.  How exactly would that have gone down?  Use of the national guard?

[atomheartbevo 90,636]

6 hours ago, justhookit said:

and to top it off a sooner doctor posting repeatedly with no mention of ou sucking.

He is smart enough to be living in Chicago and not Oklahoma?

And actually, there have been plenty of OU sucks posts.   

[WBT 20,966]

10 minutes ago, Stringer said:

If normally 100 people die in any given March, 200 die in March 2020 and you report 50 COVID deaths, that probably means you're undercounting.  Significantly.

This is happening in multiple studies I have seen and what EskimoHorn pointed out in NYC and 7 other states.

Yes, we are definitely undercounting and most of the excess deaths are probably due to covid.

I've also read articles saying that emergency room visits for heart attack and stroke are also down since the shutdowns.  The speculation is that people aren't seeking the care they normally would.  So this could be a small factor as well.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8,975]

Yes, under-counted. NY has seen significantly more excess deaths than the numbers attributed to Covid-19. The historical norm for weekly deaths in NY is in a pretty tight range, and they've seen a several fold increase over that range. Only a portion of that increase is currently covered by the Covid-19 fatality count. Italy has seen the exact same thing.  

I wonder what the comorbidity graphs are going to look like from May-say September. Probably going to see a certain decline in deaths for those months from these other conditions

[BabaYaga 15,623]

4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Yes, under-counted. NY has seen significantly more excess deaths than the numbers attributed to Covid-19. The historical norm for weekly deaths in NY is in a pretty tight range, and they've seen a several fold increase over that range. Only a portion of that increase is currently covered by the Covid-19 fatality count. Italy has seen the exact same thing.  

So using aggregate per and post global pandemic numbers tells you the whole story?  Really?  So a rise of mortality rates during a pandemic go up?  The issue is causality and attribution - which we have neither of. 

I posted yesterday a Sheriff in CA used to manage about a suicide a week.  Now they are seeing more than 5 per day.  There is an ocean of nuance not being discussed.  Traffic fatalities are down.  Immune systems are shot from being inside for weeks on end.  You can bat this back and forth all day.  

[Liquor and Poker 3,659]

2 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

It doesn't reduce the total number - it disburses it over a lengthier period of time, which was never the original point.  We are generally seeing more furloughs than infection cases in most hospitals.  That along should tell you something (outside of NY & NJ).  As for a more harsh shutdown.  That's fine to pontificate in arrears, but at the time Pelosi tried to enact legislation banning bans of travel & NY was telling people the subway was "safe" and "fine" to use.  How exactly would that have gone down?  Use of the national guard?

To me, the "harsh shutdown" can be done at any time.  So yes, at the specific time you mentioned, it wouldn't have been possible without tanks in streets.  But 3 weeks after that?  Maybe more plausible.  And it would have been over by now.  Now?  Not so much.  But if cases skyrocket after the re-opening?  Maybe.

I'm thinking we're just going to roll back and forth through SIPs like rolling blackouts in '70s NYC.  Cases go up enough, the lockdown comes back.  They plateau, the lockdown eases.  Rinse and repeat without end until herd immunity (if that works) or until someone "cures" this thing - which I also think is weirdly being treated as a "given" by most people.  Just need to wait a year and we'll have a vaccine.  It seems that very few people are even considering the possibility that none of these 102 or so different vaccines will work out.

At this point I'm just getting discouraged because it feels like we're literally just meandering drunkenly without a real plan hoping it will all work itself out.

[BabaYaga 15,623]

Just now, Liquor and Poker said:

To me, the "harsh shutdown" can be done at any time.  So yes, at the specific time you mentioned, it wouldn't have been possible without tanks in streets.  But 3 weeks after that?  Maybe more plausible.  And it would have been over by now.  Now?  Not so much.  But if cases skyrocket after the re-opening?  Maybe.

I'm thinking we're just going to roll back and forth through SIPs like rolling blackouts in '70s NYC.  Cases go up enough, the lockdown comes back.  They plateau, the lockdown eases.  Rinse and repeat without end until herd immunity (if that works) or until someone "cures" this thing - which I also think is weirdly being treated as a "given" by most people.  Just need to wait a year and we'll have a vaccine.  It seems that very few people are even considering the possibility that none of these 102 or so different vaccines will work out.

At this point I'm just getting discouraged because it feels like we're literally just meandering drunkenly without a real plan hoping it will all work itself out.

That's fine is you use the assumption this started when it hit the news cycles - but what about the alternative theory gaining steam that this has been circulating for months prior without anyone's knowledge? 

To your point about no vaccine materializing - that is a very real possibility.  Then what?  

[dcar00 14,947]

6 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

 

At this point I'm just getting discouraged because it feels like we're literally just meandering drunkenly without a real plan hoping it will all work itself out.

This summarizes the Surl perfectly..and it keeps working itself out.  no worries man. we got this.

Edited May 1, 2020 by dcar00

[B00M 6,729]

Between the lack of actual news, truly pointless speculation, straight up misinformation, bitching about negs, and CR vs non-CR "debates" ... Reading this thread has become a complete waste of time. 

[Cheeseweasel 26,439]

1 minute ago, BabaYaga said:

Then what?  

[stork642 4,511]

39 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

The overall mortality rate in NYC was over 300% above previous periods. 7-state survey saw mortality double. Likely, its because corona deaths are being undercounted and need to be more closely examined and standardized.

[Brisketexan 106,874]

8 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

 

At this point I'm just getting discouraged because it feels like we're literally just meandering drunkenly without a real plan hoping it will all work itself out.

 

2 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

This summarizes the Surl perfectly..and it keeps working itself out.  no worries man. we got this.

You mean America.  This summarizes AMERICA perfectly.  But you're also right -- it summarizes the Surl perfectly.  Wait....the Surl is a microcosm of America?

Yeah, when you realize that, THAT'S when you post "GAME OVER" without any irony.  Surly is America.  America is Surly.  That's like a mobius strip of perfect fuckery.

[InkaUtexas 26,860]

38 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Great; UT system being investigated for undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Lab.  I blame A&M somehow.  

or Shaka.

[Cheeseweasel 26,439]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Surly is America.  America is Surly.

[Tex Long 4,661]

1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

or Shaka.

You've spelt "Derka" incorrectly.

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

2 minutes ago, B00M said:

Between the lack of actual news, truly pointless speculation, straight up misinformation, bitching about negs, and CR vs non-CR "debates" ... Reading this thread has become a complete waste of time. 

So go thru and look at when it typically has been derailed. It's been pretty much whenever a CR dweller has come in and bitched they couldn't enthrall everyone with their unique, and all seeing, political theory of this fucked up situation.

I was just put in timeout for calling out one of them. Apparently the use of the term obtusely stupid is frowned upon by some here...

[Dahobbs 18,304]

14 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

It doesn't reduce the total number - it disburses it over a lengthier period of time, which was never the original point.  We are generally seeing more furloughs than infection cases in most hospitals.  That along should tell you something (outside of NY & NJ).  As for a more harsh shutdown.  That's fine to pontificate in arrears, but at the time Pelosi tried to enact legislation banning bans of travel & NY was telling people the subway was "safe" and "fine" to use.  How exactly would that have gone down?  Use of the national guard?

Yes, it does (or perhaps more correctly, can) reduce the total. How much it reduces the total just depends on the reduction efforts and on random chance. I don't understand the rest of your post. (1) The point of the shutdowns was to prevent massive rise in deaths and healthcare utilization, so if it works we should expect to see less healthcare utilization. (2) We see furloughed healthcare workers even in NY because our healthcare system is geared toward treating conditions other than Covid-19. A bunch of our normal healthcare workers have little purpose in treating Covid-19 (e.g., surgeons). Unfortunately, those services also tend to be the bulk of how hospitals and doctors make money, so we also see those systems having to deal with a lot less income than normal, even if they are filled to the brim with Covid-19 patients.  (3) What the fuck does Pelosi have to do with anything? At what time? What are you even talking about?

5 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

I wonder what the comorbidity graphs are going to look like from May-say September. Probably going to see a certain decline in deaths for those months from these other conditions

Assuming no Covid-19, there will probably be a drop of some sort. Hard to say how much though. 

5 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

So using aggregate per and post global pandemic numbers tells you the whole story?  Really?  So a rise of mortality rates during a pandemic go up?  The issue is causality and attribution - which we have neither of. 

I posted yesterday a Sheriff in CA used to manage about a suicide a week.  Now they are seeing more than 5 per day.  There is an ocean of nuance not being discussed.  Traffic fatalities are down.  Immune systems are shot from being inside for weeks on end.  You can bat this back and forth all day.  

Does it tell the whole story? No. But, we do know that we have seen reductions in some of the most common causes of deaths (e.g., accidents, thus the reason insurers are returning premiums). I suppose you could play dumb and just assume that a massive rise in deaths during a pandemic is coincidental and has no causal relationship to the disease. But, as I said, that is dumb. Is every single excess death directly caused by the disease? No, of course not. Is it very likely that a vast majority of them are? Yes, I think so. 

[JBJ 3,817]

23 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

But here's my fundamental lack of understanding about our approach.  There appears to be consensus that, if 100% isolated for 14 days straight, this whole thing would have been over and done with, full stop.  However, as I recall, the numbers earlier on this thread (back when this thread had fun infographics) showed that if we have 80% diligently following the social distancing guidelines, but 20% waiving their "IDGAF" flag and doing whatever (or worse, being forced to work because their boss knows the right guy to get declared "essential"), it really isn't all that effective in doing much more than purely "flattening" the curve - basically the same infection and death rate but slowing it so it happens over a longer time period. 

Assuming that's true, was that the only point of all of this?  We effectively destroyed the economy and made everyone miserable and broke, but really all we got was removing the potential that hospitals would be overwhelmed  - ostensibly because that would have resulted in some extra percentage of people extra dying who wouldn't have otherwise? The "dying in the aisles" thing is horrific idea, and thus that's a very worthwhile goal, but if we're still going to have most of the people who were going to die from it die anyway, was this whole thing not a very blunt instrument to use for that type of surgery?  I get that I say this as a person who doesn't work in healthcare.

Don't get me wrong - I was (and still am) in favor of a prolonged "weld the doors shut" isolation period.  To me, we could have done (and still can do) something just a bit more extreme for a much shorter period and be pretty much over and done with it.  But if that's not gonna happen, why this TSA-style window dressing of a prolonged SIP with so many exceptions and caveats that it's effectively meaningless just to stop those half-measures once they've done their collateral damage and say "let's see what happens" anyway?

We're seeing this push to reopen because that 80% has been sitting at home for 6-8 weeks.  A real quarantine/shutdown could likely have been done in half that if we were serious about it, and it would have effectively stopped this thing in its tracks.  Yet because we didn't/wouldn't/couldn't do that we're reopening before we even hit our peak in Texas according to the UT tracker.

I may be laboring over quite a few misconceptions in these thoughts, but if so, I am not the only one.

The point was that the virus was thought to be potentially much more dangerous 30 day ago.  This was a freeze to (1) avoid the worst possible scenario that could have existed 30 days ago (2) gather information on what this thing actually is so we know how to proceed.

Even though the average period of infectiousness is <14 days (4-12 days depending who you ask), there are many cases where infectiousness has extended beyond 30 days. Going solitary confinement for 2 weeks won't work.  This isn't a matter of how hard we shutdown; it's going to be difficult to stop through purely artificial means.

10 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

(1) Flattening the curve also reduces total infected and total deaths (even not counting deaths due to overwhelmed healthcare system). But, how much the totals are actually reduced depends on a variety of factors, including random chance.

Here's my problem with this: we currently aren't flattening the curve in the way you are using the term.  Flattening the curve in that manner involves cutting thru the top off the peak, which we aren't doing.  We are sitting in the base camp delaying the climb.  I don't think it was the wrong thing to do 30 days ago when information was limited and much different.  It's dumb to continue to do so.

[Eskimohorn 5,682]

You sure about that?

No, because I said likely. In the 7-state study deaths spikes over 100% and in NYC over 300% since the outbreak started. They’re not all slipping in bathtubs.

[Cheeseweasel 26,439]

Just now, JBJ said:

Here's my problem with this: we currently aren't flattening the curve in the way you are using the term.  Flattening the curve in that manner involves cutting thru the top off the peak, which we aren't doing.  We are sitting in the base camp delaying the climb.  I don't think it was the wrong thing to do 30 days ago when information was limited and much different.  It's dumb to continue to do so.

That's a great analogy.