Coronavirus - International stories and thoughts

I love the OP posts. Don’t actually read them, just the retorts where everyone easily shoots holes in the silliness.

 

What about Trump, is he lyin’ too?

 

When raw numbers don’t tell your story go to percentages if they don’t tell your story go to percent increases for a brief moment. OP is right I guess America nailed it. We are the covid battling envy of the world. Forrest Gump has a saying appropriate for now.

 

All I know is Trump's America hasn't seen a 7600% surge in new cases. Yet, if we get even a 2% increase, the media blitzes our smartphones with horror and gloom. And the 7600% surge in new cases is happening in what's supposedly the best healthcare system in the world. You conveniently sidestep the point that many posters here (perhaps including yourself) declared victory in all the other developed countries, but that clearly is not the case. And yes, the current situation is demonstrably worse in France, the UK and even Germany. If after 7 months of containment measures, your rate of spread is faster, then you're in worse shape.

So, keep your head buried in the sand. The obvious truth here is that France simply delayed the inevitable and even at a rate of 350 new cases a day, the world's best healthcare system was unable to stamp out this virus and now it's making the California wildfires look like a minor brush fire with how fast it is spreading there. But somehow, Trump was supposed to have us cleared of this virus by now.

Where we moving the goal posts to next? This is fun.

 

Raw numbers tell us that the per capita death rate in France will eclipse America's per capita death rate in no time. The virus is spreading there at more than 3x the rate it is here on a per capita basis. They're already not far behind us in per capita death, as it stands today. Do the simple math. It's just a matter of time. Posts like this just show that even when the inevitable is blatantly obvious, certain ones choose to be in denial.

 

Canada is shutting down some areas due to an increase in Covid. Pretty much mandating that families cannot have guests in their homes. No visitors, not even family that doesn’t live at the house. They are being quarantined in their homes, Covid positive or not.

I received this information tonight from some Canadian friends who wish they could come to Florida and spend time at their beach condos.

 

I love your posts honestly. It’s fun to watch you try and gaslight folks.
You have 2 countries in Europe that passed us this week in daily per capita cases out of 50 or so countries and both saw rises after opening back up, and after holiday season when they opened borders. And somehow that validates failure being ok.

And I never claimed France and the UK as success stories, only that they were better than us...read all of my posts going back months. In fact for the UK specifically I have criticized frequently, though haven’t said much on France. I have however claimed Germany as success story, and their daily per capita infection rate, even with their current spike, is a fraction of ours. They had 2600 cases today as their 7 day moving average and 13 deaths. Ours are 44k and 725. So if you want to use them, have at it. And Europe as a whole is still better than us with a death rate about half of ours per capita, which I pointed out above. So given that Boris is a Trump Clone and made all the same Mistakes, you are left with one country, France, as the real anomaly. If that’s where you want to hang your hat, have at it. Ignore every other country to make your point.

If you want to make the argument that the deaths are worth the risk to the economy, that’s at least worth discussing, Because that is at the heart of the numbers you keep dwelling on. But arguing that shut down measures and contact tracing don’t work is a waste of energy. Europe lowers their numbers, opened back up and saw a spike. The us lowered it’s numbers after gaffing it’s way through the first wave, opened back up and saw a spike (and now a third one) None of this is inevitable. And trying to convince yourself it is is only a rationalization for failure.

but I’ve wasted enough time on this, have the last word, heading to bed.

 

Your level of analysis has been quite suspect over time. What exactly are you predicting?

 

Given there is no vaccine and no way to stop the spread ... at least nothing as been shown to be overly effective... I’ve often wonder if we aren’t just prolonging the inevitable.
In fact I think the CDC actually supported this idea. We were all told we had to flatten the curve. Not end the curve, just flatten it, slow it down. Well we did. It’s still spreading, it’s still contagious, it’s still killing people. All we have done is slowed down the progress a bit. Prolonged the epidemic so that our hospitals can keep up... at least that was the idea.
We have no idea what we are doing. No one does.
Firat we were told the virus spread through contact, primarily in solid objects, then through the air but only by large particles... masks and 6 feet apart everyone. We were told it would die out in the summer heat ... hahahahaha...
Then we had the gaiter anger. People misread a study at duke and demonstrably declared gaiters unsafe and people wearing them causing deaths. Of course last week a study showed just the opposite.
And now in the last month we come to hear that the virus is spread through microdroplets. Through aerosols. If indoors, with little air current 6 feet is not enough. Face shields and most masks not enough.
But outside.... well not a lot of studies on that. But it seems that being outside greatly decreases your chances of getting it. At least for now. Next week we might learn something different.
Long story all to say.... we are just riding this storm out. Think what you will, and take precautions...but until their is a wide spread readily available vaccine.... Covid is here to stay. We will see spikes and dips just like any other illness. We will see deaths rise and fall. Anomalies like kids getting it and dying and elderly getting it and thriving. We see this with the flu, we see this with chicken pox, we see this all the time. Covid is just easier to spread and catch so it’s more in our face.

 

Glad to see they are being proactive. I wish we had Canada's leadership. For two very similar cultures, they've outperformed us in Covid mitigation with a third of the GDP impact.

 

Again, it's foolish to declare victory at half time with this virus. Canada could easily see an explosion like France, Italy and Spain. France's spread exploded over 7600% in a matter of weeks. We don't know the same will happen in Canada, but what France shows us that even with riding at 350 new cases a day, the outlook can turn dour, very dour, in just a matter of days. Not to mention Canada are giving up a lot of civil liberties to "contain" their spread for the now.

 

Glad you think France posting 26,000 new cases in one day, a country a fraction of the size of the US, is just "gaslighting." And going from 350 new cases a day to 26,000+ ... just more "gaslighting".

 

Why are you rebutting people about forming conclusions early? Do these words ring a bell . . . ?

Currently: 8 million cases, 219,800 fatalities
But you are lecturing people about getting ahead of themselves?

 

You are correct that it is not good. If France doesn't take measures, their fatality rate of 500 deaths per million could catch up with, say, Florida at 718 per million. Florida would lead every country in Europe in population-adjusted fatalities, save for Belgium and the little fairy-tale states. The US is rapidly closing on Spain, sadly. Florida already passed it.

And Canada, if it lost its mind, could go from 254 fatalities per million to 663, the US average. However, that would require more than doubling the current rate and a major brain melt.

Back in the Spring I was selfishly thankful that Italy, France and the UK got the big outbreak first because it would give us time to learn about Covid-19 and take preventive measures. But the US death rate has blown past those countries. It is a failure of leadership at the highest level.

The pitiful fact is that the USA is at the bottom in fatalities of the G7 rich countries. We had the preeminent disease control agency in the world, and it was so mismanaged we have 220,000 dead. And the 7-day moving average of new cases is back above 50,000 new cases daily. And increasing.

Your response will be that we can't be compared to other countries because 'Murrica and we're different but that just isn't true. The US is benchmarked against other rich, western nations all the time. And the EU has an aging population with a median age of 43 years, much higher than the US at 38 years, and slightly higher than Florida at 42.2 years. Italy's is 45.5 years. Germany is even older, at 47 years.

The percentage increases you cite are off a very low base. We've never gotten that low. Spin all you like, but the national response to the pandemic is a relative failure.

 

Europe experiencing the second waves now. The discussions by people critical of mitigation and social distancing measures here because of this experience have it exactly wrong. We all knew there would be second waves as people moved around and weather cooled and people spent more time indoors. Which happened in August with European vacations and as the weather changed in September. The pathetic argument that we are on the right path here because of the spread now in Europe has it directly wrong. The spread in Europe is not because mitigation doesn’t work, but because mitigation was lessened. In the US, We are seeing spikes now in places that had been relatively successful and cases increasing. We should be considering mitigation.

 

It's amazing, but people will scoff at this and claim it's fake news or poor tactics. These people think they actually have better intel on the virus than high-level government officials in places like the Czech Republic. Instead, they will follow the advise of Trump and cite situationally low hospitalization numbers, despite the facts that Trump has hosted spreader events and . . . you know . . . had to go to the hospital.