Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Before I respond, let me say this, I haven't been following or posting on many of the threads as I normally have, so I am unfamiliar with some of the specific instances that you mention.

That said, yes, it's a problem if people respond with half-truths or with alternative fact claims. If deliberate, far worse. But I honestly haven't seen the posts since I've mainly only read what was on the last page of threads.

Anyway, my concern is still as stated earlier. It's in large part a fear that generally speaking, many people didn't quite grasp the danger in the first place and thus the improvement will lead to these same folk to misunderstand the risk, especially so in the face of some good news.

Then there are the social & political forces to open things up that can easily override a prudent understanding of the risk, because people have way of blocking out bad news when there is some overriding other interest. IN this case, it would be a need/intense desire to get back to work.

BTW, my comment to you wasn't meant directly at you, however, I was thinking in terms of the tweet linked to above and, again, a more general concern about many in how they think about this, and perhaps being driven more by economic concerns than a proper scientific one.

...the latter of which is why I am not inclined to shout PTL because of some small good news.

 

I don't know if the Germany info is false or not because I have not looked into it. What I do know is the Georgia chart is false, and you have not called that one out.

 

I acknowledged them as false. I called it "messed up" data...and then mentioned it had been corrected. They had already been called out by that point.

 

Understood. But good news is needed too. It's how life works. Even small doses can be very helpful when drowning in bad news.

 

I don't know. I'd say the armed militia should be condemned for their actions (can't be arrested), and the Michigan law should be changed to not allow them actually inside the building like they were, effectively shutting down the legislature.

I mean, currently the legislature cannot go back to work because they would likely face armed threat should they do so. At some point, it might start looking like that Oregon Wildlife Occupation, and then it would indeed start resembling actual domestic terrorism.

Hold on to your hat I guess. See what happens next week.

 

The Georgia chart has not been corrected.

 

They aren’t estimates, they are taken from reported cases based on infection date so they don’t line up to the worldometer numbers. It’s a number provided every day by the RKI who provides the info that the German government uses for its policy decisions.
And I also follow worldometer every day as my first source of info, but it isn’t the end all be all for a variety of reasons. If the argument really now is that i was posting things that weren’t true because the group germany uses for their official estimates is wrong and worldometer is right, then we really have jumped the shark. If the argument is that it was temporary and can be minimized or taken in stride, or caused by a few big localized outbreaks in a declining environment, that’s certainly a valid discussion to have.

But time for bed.

 

If to make people feel good. I think what's needed more is a clear(er) understanding of the danger. This is after all still about an uncontrolled contagious virus, which doesn't care about good or bad news, it just does what it does. The irony in some of this is that many of those who want so badly to open things back up seem also not to want to change their behaviors or be told they have to, yet a change in behavior(s) is a critical element that will allow for further opening thins up in a safer way.

*Speaking of which, I meant to respond to you about Trump/Pence. Their lack of wearing masks and at some events preventing people from wearing them are what I find arrogant. You want to lead, do so by example....actions louder than words. They absolutely blew an opportunity and the neg consequences many. NTM, it signals to supporters that wearing a mask is unimportant and further that this disease is not dangerous. This to me is one among their many public facing faults.

 

My guess is probably because those who are at risk are taking precaution. Those who are young and healthy are likely the majority making up the new cases.

 

So if the cases are there, the risk still remains. I think almost 600 pages in many have lost track of what they’re arguing. My statement was in response to buckeyegator making the claim that more tests will automatically mean more positives. If the goal for reopening safely is reduced cases, it doesn’t matter if you test the world 3 times over. If cases are actually decreasing then positive tests should be going down. Like you said, “we know they’re there” well, then they’re there, and not going down. The fast is there are more active cases and that’s what matter, not how many tries it took to find them. I thought we were working towards reduced cases.

 

It seems they think the test creates the infection, or some bizarro logic.

No, testing just identifies cases out in the world. People should want to get as close to true numbers as possible. Better data = better decisions. If you identify more people with the virus, on average they will spread the virus to less people (due to self-quarantine). So in reality, testing more people will REDUCE the real world number of cases and help to slow the spread of the virus. This would help to reduce the real numbers people care about, hospitalizations and deaths.

There is not likely a way to test 100% of people, some people wouldn't even want it if there was no good reason. But everyone with constant risk of exposure, and anyone who may have been exposed in the home to a positive case, should absolutely be tested whether they have symptoms or not. That is the only way to stop the asymptomatic spread.

 

Exactly.

95 posts some random small data set from some particular location, and then anyone who doesn’t immediately hail the result as a magnificent and meaningful trend is shamed as rooting for death.

It’s ridiculous.

 

Ok. So yes. We agree.

 

The one that they are using now has. The one posted earlier is the old chart. Read the article @dutchen posted a while back.

 

I want to clarify, I was not insinuating you intentionally gave false info. I lumped you into a pile of others.

But I will reread, but I thought the one article actually said "estimates".

 

We are saying the same thing...but positive tests dont mean the number is higher. You are missing the fact that the previous number was much higher...we just weren't testing and catching.

The higher testing catches more. It makes the reported number increase.

A higher percentage of positives are now caught.

To say the number is not going down, we would have to know the number of missed positives when the testing sucked.

We don't know.

It makes sense to say that as the numbers stay level or only slightly increase as testing doubles in some areas that the actual number of people actually infected MAY be going down.

The lack of testing early on really hurt our ability.

But no the total known number can go up AND the actual number can be going down at the same time.

 

It doesn't seem that way at all. Read my post just before this one in response to this.

You cant claim the testing was bad...and claim to know the actual number of infected people previously in the same breath. The actual infected number has likely gone down...we just catch more because of the advanced testing numbers.

But sure, through out some silly comment that we thing "testing causes" the virus.

 

Agree. I held a staff meeting yesterday because a few folks were not wearing them. I hate wearing a mask...but we require it. I have never really supported the idea of them not wearing them.

 

I was just broadly thinking of Trump's "testing is overrated", and that a few posters actually seem to have latched on to the idea it's "no big deal" if testing is insufficient. It's not an understatement to say testing correctly is the key to recovery, both economic and health. There's that old saying, you can't fight what you can't see. Testing is the way to "see" the virus.

I'm not really sure what you guys are discussing there, it seemed to be a data reporting glitch in Georgia? I wasn't really following what you all were arguing. Obviously there is also the case of the accuracy of some tests (i.e. the "rapid" test from Abbot that may actually be a disaster of inaccurate results - false positives and false negatives). That particular test was something Trump was pimping previously, so I wonder if he feels "betrayed" and now that's the reason he's back in a "testing is overrated" mode? Obviously accuracy is right up there with expedience. Data has to be both timely and useful to drive good decisions. Especially at the individual level. Quite a difference between "positive" or "negative". Hopefully that rapid test gets sorted out, one of the issues is supposedly there are like 100 different tests now. Maybe not all are accurate, which is obviously a huge issue to anyone relying on them to give information.

 

California had more new cases than Texas yesterday. Aren't they on lockdown? Illinois and NY also had more new cases than Texas.