Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

We have more cases than New York overall, despite them having a two month head start on us during the time when we didn't know anything about the virus. I'm not sure New York is who you want to be comparing us to for states doing worse than us.

States with fewer cases than Florida, population adjusted, include Arkansas, Montana, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Kentucky, Iowa, Wyoming, South Dakota, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Alaska, and North Dakota. If we are going to spike the ball on states we are doing better than, those are the states we should be comparing ourselves to.

We are at 15th in the number of cases per capita, New York is at 30th.

 

That's going too far. But at least privately owned businesses in NY can decide how they want to conduct their business, unlike in FL.

 

Fair enough.

Re: Fauci. He was a little sloppy with his comments early on, as in early March. Regrettable imo, but also somewhat understandable given the legit concerns about N95 and other mask availability and the lack of evidence regarding cloth masks.

It's only like the flu in the sense that the're both highly transmissible viruses, and as a general rule, infectious diseases are dangerous. But covid is not seasonal and it's much deadlier than the flu, especially for older adults & others with high risk factors (which is a large #).

I know you have some serious health issues. I wish you nothing but improved health. I think that if we diverge on this point it's probably because we are coming at it from at two different positions: the individual vs the group. I know you wrote in a comment to someone else that you don't expect the others to cater to you (or something to that effect). But I do in a sense. Except that it's not just to you only, it's to & for us all. That's the crucial idea behind the entire population being vaxxed or close to it. In short we all get vaxxed for ourselves & each other.

 

Cases mean zero. Too many false positives to put into question the accuracy of the data. Hospitalizations/deaths should be the metric except even those are absurd with the way they count a covid "death". Unfortunately politics(on both sides) got involved and for sure too many deaths early on weren't counted as covid deaths but after about 2 months now we have a bunch of suicides and car accidents and drug overdoses counting as "covid deaths". Sucks to not have accurate data.

 

like radio city music hall?

 

Im guessing the numbers will show a huge spike but time will tell. Miami had 1500 people show up to the regeneron clinic the other day. Friend of mine working the testing site in Rockledge said they were slammed with probably 1/3 coming back positive. No idea how this will result with deaths and hospitalizations. Hopefully we won't see the numbers we saw last year between vaccines, natural immunity and monoclonal antibodies but we will see a spike in cases. It is happening now.

COVID Surge In Miami-Dade, More Test Sites Coming, Request For More Monoclonal Antibody Treatments

 

Thank you for the kind wishes. And yes I did say that, mostly to address the point of people saying everything had to be fully shut down because of the elderly, immune compromised, etc. I wanted to show that it absolutely is possible to function & live life if you take appropriate precautions. For the year prior to Covid, I didn't have the luxury of everyone else wearing masks or shutting down to keep my risk down. I could either stay home & send my kids to stay w/dad permanently or adjust...or do nothing & likely get seriously ill or die. That's all.

 

The new UW projections are crazy.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

 

nothing like a little scare tactic.

 

NY is just starting their Winter Wave. Let’s talk after the winter.

 

We are also starting another wave.

 

We were always going to get a winter wave. Omicron is going to guarantee everyone gets a wave.
We are having a mild winter so far. My bet is we don’t get anywhere near NY winter wave.

Hospitalizations wise, everyone is very lucky Omicron is dominating Delta already and being a much weaker variant.

 

They get no benefit from “scare tactics”, aren’t these University researchers? Seems to me they would just be trying to model the best they can. Their aim would be to show accuracy, which is what would give them credibility.

These were the guys who initially had the 2.1 millions potentially from their early model w/ zero mitigation. As I recall, early mitigation measures brought their figures down to like 80,000 before we started seeing second and 3rd waves and pressures to “liberate” the economy. So the estimates shot back up. So they had both high and low estimates. I don’t think they have bias. Part of what they have to do is predict human behaviors, which aren’t always rational. Essentially, they are trying to forecast the impossible, but I’m sure they have a method to their madness. The epidemiological data is at least straight forward to plug into a model.

 

so in reality they are throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.

 

No.

 

Your link makes the point I have been trying to tell you. There is a difference between "fit" and healthy. Must eat high nutrition, low calorie, vegetables.

The link states:

"The marathon running population does not constitute solely persons with excellent cardiovascular health. Marathon runners, especially those with a family history of heart disease and other coronary risk factors, should not consider themselves immune to either sudden death or to coronary heart disease and should seek medical advice immediately if they develop any symptoms suggestive of ischemic heart disease. Physicians should not assume that "physically fit" marathon runners cannot have serious, life-threatening cardiac disease."

 

The CT scan for calcium is a good thing. Calcium builds up from damage to endothelial cells. Doctors are less concerned about calcium than soft plaques. Calcium is stable, but it evidences prior damage from soft plaques or other issues.

If the calcium score is high, they will give you an echo and stress test to make sure your arteries are open. If you have blood flow and the heart structure is healthy, they likely would not do an invasive procedure.

The calcium score allows you to make lifestyle changes to help control cholesterol etc. In your case, it would be diet because you already exercise.

insurance does not pay for the calcium test, but it is worth it. I paid $80 at a hospital.

 

Did you read the article? He said that the reason is because the vaccine being used for boosters is not being used for first vaccines in parts of the world, allowing more mutations.

 

No. They have a methodology I’m sure. Plugging in epidemiology data is probably easy for them, the tricky part was the human behaviors angle. But at this point, I’m guessing that stuff isn’t that unpredictable anymore, and this “update” to their model is mostly just reflecting the Omicron spread that is going to happen.

 

Early news from South Africa is promising. Their wave crested and crashed fast.