shoshin

Putting science in quotes says a lot. We will finish the summer with 150K or so dead when we had our first single case in December, and after a prolonged shutdown. In September, we will have tens of thousands at least of active cases heading into flu season. You can listen to scientists or common sense. The fall/winter will be worse than the summer and will be set up to be much much worse than the last few months. The next 3 months are like Feb 2020 in that it is an opportunity. We need to take a lot of action so we are ready for what is to come. If by some chance things don’t get worse, what have we lost in preparing for what appears an inevitable case spike? A lot less money spent than we will lose from more shutdowns. I want to see a coherent plan for how we will be ready for the fall by doing smart things this summer. Working towards treatments and cures (“science”) is great but it’s only part of it.

Why would I be happy about it? We are celebrating case declines that happened because we shut down and now may stay slightly down because of weather. We know it will get worse, and barring a huge breakthrough, much worse in the fall. We need to be ready with rapid testing and tracing or our hospital system may get overrun and/or we will be back in shutdown mode. We also need to remain extremely diligent with masks and distancing (not shutdown—that’s not possible) to drive the cases lower and lower. Rising cases or level cases through the summer will set up a bad fall and winter. The “things thing is over” type thinking is naive at best, dangerous at worst. I want Trump’s advice to shut down to be the only time he has to drive that kind of thing.

In many places, Yes, especially the big sites of initial outbreaks. Cases are rising in Texas and really rising fast in Wisconsin. We will be starting from a large base of cases come the October surge. I’m worried about that considering what happened this spring started with so few cases. We need to open etc but it sure looks like we are setting up a huge second wave. We see it coming. I hope we are ready for it.

Another interpretation: The pandemic took root most severely in New York City, began to spread locally in high density areas around it, and there were a few other outbreaks near other cities. The shutdown stopped it from spreading more widely.

You have been saying and said, “This thing is over.” I can only go off your words.

It’s down. Not way down. And the summer of 1918 was awesome. I’ll call it over when we have it under control through a flu season. Until then we need to plan for its inevitable return this fall and work like MFers on treatments.

Every human is a life with loved ones. No one is a utility. It ALWAYS was and always will be. They day it isn't is a day we don't want.

No one in this board likely is as exposed to hospice as much as me and I agree that we have a very hard time dying well and accepting it in the US. But there's accepting and being compassionate about death and then there is being callous. Every number is a human.

Your callousness notwithstanding, you ask a good Q. I can see it generally by extrapolating state nos but cannot find the specifics. I am digging for my own curiosity. Thank you. Besides some of CA, most beaches are open no? NY, NJ opened their beaches. If they did it....I assume most have done it.

I’m saying that studies don’t back up her claim, probably because most Covid patients get better. With all the anecdotes and people who have gotten it and studies that have been done, the fact that all the studies show it’s not working is why we are hearing so much less about it. It would be awesome if it worked.

That is a strange way to count. In PA, nursing home deaths account for 69% of all our deaths. 3% of all the people in nursing homes in PA died in the last 8 weeks. It’s staggering.

I'll be in OCNJ next weekend and through most of the summer. His post is already outdated. Everything is open on the beach starting this weekend, with distancing.

Not true in Texas, which has increasing cases. FL is level the last two weeks (which is good). GA maybe slightly down to level.

The Tiberius link came from a leaked internal admin document. Probably why it's become a topic.

Ha--got it. I thought we were talking about Tiberius's post. You were talking about Peleton's. Both were driving at the same topic (Trump counties are seeing spikes). I missed Peleton's and don't know if Kenosha was in his article.

Who said it was rural? The guy who Tweeted it just said they voted for Trump, and the original slide, which appears to be an internal admin doc, didn't say anything about it being rural.

The smallest increase appeared to be in Kenosha, WI, which went up over 200 cases. Most of those places weren't small increases. Other problems with the data as I noted but it being tiny numbers wasn't one of them.

That's funny. My mom did the same thing. She says Poloncranz or whatever his name is is doing a lot of "wink-wink" encouragement for people to get tested for this reason. It doesn't affect my area. We have some serious BS arbitrary number to meet. A single B word of a metric.

The virus doesn't care what your politics are.

Same. Took the Google-owned Project Baseline test as well as the Quest antibody test this week (Monday and yesterday respectively). Waited no more than one day. No doctor's RX needed. I live in a populated area so it's probably easier for me but still pretty trivial finally. My experience with each in case anyone is interested. I did them both out of slight boredom and curiosity over a mild cold-flu that made it through our house in Feb. I took the Project Baseline test (tests for active infection) by signing up online and reporting to a local Rite Aid. Went to the drive-through. They push a little package out to me with a swab, vial, and wipe. Open the swab, shove it into nose and swab each side for 15 seconds. Drop it into the tube and wipe things down with wipe. Got result by email in 4 days. Free. Quest antibody was a little different. Cost was $130 and signed up online. Showing up at Quest, there are signs everywhere that there are active people being tested so that's nice(!). I checked in by flashing a QR code at a scanner and was able to sit outside in my car until they were ready. I got a text and walked directly in to a patient room. Drew two vials of blood. I had to sign (!!!!) a bleached e-pen but otherwise no contact with hands. I was inside for no more than 5 minutes, and probably closer to 3. Got results in 20 hours by email. Both negative unfortunately--was hoping for the antibody one to be positive!

Promising preliminary in vitro lab experimental result. Sounds like it's one of several approaches they hope to combine in a Covid cocktail.

Maybe true but at least a couple of those are sites of prisons and meat packing plants so they are misleadingly high.

The cdc stuff is just a reworked version of the documents that were “rejected” earlier this week. Lightweight stuff but smart for businesses to follow to avoid liability. With no masks until this week, still no mask for him, and his never ending testing that no one has access to, he isn’t leading by example. Not many people will be working in a workplace where there are entire workplace tests daily. He needs a special bubble but he does not appear to understand the danger.

My neighbors recovered and during recovery, never drove their minivan. Unlike HCQ, no studies on avoiding minivan as treatment yet, though it’s working for most people. Most people get better with zero intervention. Trump requires everyone around him to wear masks and get tested every day. He’s in a few high risk categories (old and obese) and is exercising all the caution he can.

Bad look for our leadership to say Obama left behind no pandemic playbook, then retract that statement in the face of exactly such a playbook, then admit to knowing nothing about the playbook’s details. This is the danger of suiting up in partisan uniforms and not working together. Still, McConnell added Thursday that "as to whether or not the plan was followed and who's the critic and all the rest, I don't have any observation about that because I don't know enough about the details of that to comment on it in any detail."