John in Jax

I've been watching the "models" very closely over the past month, and they continue to be wildly inaccurate (I've been checking the npr.org site daily). In fact, just a couple days ago, they were predicting that Florida's peak day would be on April 27, and just NOW I checked it, and the new date is May 6! So a jump of NINE days forward! WTH!? Also, still, as of today, no sick person in all of the USA has been denied a hospital bed or a ventilator (if needed). As far as FL goes though, it would not surprise me if the total deaths jump to put the state in the number 3 position behind NY & Conn (the latter is what the models are saying right now), because well, we have a TON of OLD people living in this state...we might even be the state with the most "old people" in the USA. But I guess we'll all see what happens. Y'all surely realize that there are plenty of states that have been affected by this in a very small way, and that they will be opening things up in May, right?

I saw that presser as it happened yesterday, and it was very informative, and very entertaining! I especially liked Dr Fauci’s part near the very start of it, and his interaction with the female reporter who asked him if he was “ordered” to say what he said. All indications that I see are telling me that we’ll be back to “almost normal” in MANY parts of the country come mid May. Obviously the “hot spots”, and hot states (NY, NJ, CONN, & MASS) will take longer. One very interesting thing I saw on TV last night (and it wasn’t totally surprising), is that in NY state, with all those deaths, an overwhelming (over 90%) number of those dying had a hi risk/pre existing condition. So you didn’t go to the doctor!? They certainly would have been able to tell you if it was a strain of the flu, or maybe pneumonia. Most likely would have given you tamiflu or similar too. Glad you & all your relatives made it through OK.

Just throwing this out there......if you take out NY, NJ, Conn, and Massachusetts, the numbers in ALL of the other states seem to be on a par with an average flu year.

What if they put on a light show and nobody was there to see it? Did it still really happen? A LOT of Americans will NOT be down with being “tracked”, including me.

Another fly in the ointment is that in some places, they are falsely attributing deaths to this virus when that is not the “real” cause. Dr. Birx admitted this fact yesterday. ETA: Here’s a good story that talks about these matters: https://www.ft.com/content/f3796baf-e4f0-4862-8887-d09c7f706553

So Auckland has about 1.6 million people, and NY city alone has about 8.7 million people. OK then. How come Florida’s numbers aren’t exploding like everybody in here thought they would, you know, what with that irresponsible Governor who waited forever to close down the beaches and bars? In addition, Florida has TONS of old/high risk people living here; that can’t help matters. I’m confused.

Does the fact that they have LESS THAN 5 million people in the whole country mean anything? Is there anywhere in their country that approaches the population density close to what we have in our larger cities?

And On the Other Hand: "A key forecasting model used by the White House has revised its prediction of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., now estimating a peak of 60,415 by early August. The model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington had predicted a peak of 81,766 deaths in an update on Sunday. Public health experts, including Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have previously estimated that as many as 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from the novel coronavirus." So even though these numbers have been fluctuating WILDLY (Remember when they said that 2.2 million people might die [this was with no lockdowns]? Editing the latter to: By the end of March, the White House was projecting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths as America's best-case scenario for the pandemic. That was WITH the lockdowns...so they were only off by 400% just 8 days ago). Obviously, these new numbers are GOOD news! https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/491715-key-coronavirus-model-revised-downward-predicts-60k-deaths-in-us-by-august ETA: I'm constantly amazed at how many folks in this forum are posting up so many negative, depressing, "doom & gloom" stories, and then actually attacking and/or laughing at others (with Emoji use) for being positive and optimistic. Just astounding.... ETA #2: I'm hearing/seeing/reading that ALL OVER THE WORLD, a LOT of people are being counted as a Covid-19 death, when the actual truth is that Covid-19 was NOT the real cause of their death. So of course, this also SKEWS the numbers. I think that we may never know the "real" numbers, especially since they keep saying that there are so many asymptomatic carriers out there. Re the latter: I don't think you can force people to get tested to see if they had the virus. And I'm pretty sure that a TON of people will pass on that test, if offered.

Wow. IT’S NOT MY OPINION, and I NEVER said that it was! I don’t have the time, and don’t want to scour the internet for the THOUSANDS of cases where this has helped people (and NO reported “side effect” deaths), then cut and paste the stories, and put them in here....the drug is helping people ALL OVER THE WORLD. A quick Google search will let ANYBODY see that. Here’s an example of false hope, I guess: https://www.abc12.com/content/news/Democratic-state-rep-explains-why-she-opted-for-unproven-COVID-19-treatment-not-hospital-569461601.html

LOL So not sure why some of y’all in here are going to great lengths to try and shoot down this drug (I have an idea though), but since I have been locked up at home, I have watched (& read online) a LOT of coverage about this matter, and the overwhelming “anecdotal” evidence is that it is helping WAY more people than hurting them. In fact, I haven’t seen ANY reports of it actually hurting somebody....of someone having a serious side effect. If you’re in a bad situation because you’ve contracted the virus, and the choice is between taking this drug to see if it helps you OR not taking it, the answer seems to be very clear. But yeah, don’t eat fish tank cleaner, and of course consult with you doctor before taking it.

Quoted from the story above: “I ran a floor of COVID-19 positive patients with severe symptoms. Our team used the combo of hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin and it seemed to help! Of the patients that I treated for these four days who where acutely ill — all ages and health conditions — most (loosely defined and footnoted) seemed to improve and were able to be discharged home. I can say that I transferred no one to the ICU but I sent many people home.“ So yet ANOTHER testimonial for hydroxychloroquine! That’s good news. I’m glad that doctors are using it, and didn’t listen to idiotic talking heads on TV who were badmouthing it for days on end.

From a story on The NY Times website, which I just read, and was just updated 33 minutes ago (talking about NY city, the hottest spot in the country): “The number of virus patients in hospitals increased 4 percent since Monday, the fourth straight day that it had grown 7 percent or less after growing at least 20 percent a day for weeks. The number of patients on ventilators in intensive-care units increased, too, but at the smallest one-day rate in weeks, up 2 percent since Monday. As of Tuesday, there were nearly 4,600 patients on ventilators in New York, far fewer than pessimistic projections in recent weeks said there might be. That has helped keep the state from exhausting its supply of ventilators.“ The link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

Regarding the lack of a “centrally based plan”, maybe check out the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution. I’m quite certain that is what the Federal government is trying to abide by (in allowing the states to exercise their own specified rights). ETA: Just seeing that MLB is going to strive to start their season in May. Maybe in front of no fans. More to come, obviously. Good for them! ETA #2: Not sure why people are giving me the “Ha ha” emoji here, because what I posted above is exactly the reason why there’s no central plan, as President Trump has been directly queried about this.....more than once over the past month I might add.....and he has directly cited the Constitution as his reason to not mandate states take a certain action.

Yes, agreed. That’s why I said “some semblance “ of normal, vs the complete shutdown we have now, which is ruining many, many lives. And the longer the shutdown goes on, the more lives will be ruined (economically, emotionally, & physically).

Seems that there’s light at the end of the tunnel! Hopefully by mid May we can get back to some semblance of normal. And maybe after all is said and done the “modelers” at IHME will get pink slips. To date, I still haven’t seen/heard of a single case in all of the USA where someone needed a ventilator, but wasn’t able to get one. Yet every day on my TV, I continue to be told that the sky is falling.