Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

When one lacks an open mind, values and compassion its hard to change.

 

We are still on a tighter criteria than the flu deaths. Flu deaths are purely an estimate. The weird thing is that the same people that are mad at probable cases based on symptoms are totally fine using numbers that are estimates based on less. Almost like the desired outcome is dictating the concerns over methodology rather than the other way around...

 

How is cooperating with the president in keeping people calm and telling them all is well a big middle finger to the president?

 

The CDC would be the ones advising for or against public gatherings. If the CDC had advised either campaign to not hold a rally, they all likely would have heeded the advice. Candidates holding rallies in an election year is to be expected. Congresswomen inviting people to come to Chinatown as a big FU to the president isn't really the expectation.

 

Yes, totally unexpected for Congresspeople to suggest people visit parts of their district.

Which is a more dangerous activity, going to Chinatown or going to a large event held in an enclosed space? Was Trump telling people that they shouldn't go to Chinatown at the time?

 

How is cooperating with the president in keeping people calm and telling them all is well a big FU to the president?

 

I assuming that you're referring to Pelosi. You may want to read this.
Trump attacks Pelosi with false claim she 'deleted' a video urging people to go to Chinatown | Daily Mail Online
Not sure that could be considered a big FU to the president considering that subsequent to Pelosi's visit, at different MAGA rallies, he called concern over the virus a Democrat hoax and suggested that the virus would disappear.

 

You just described yourself old man

 

To say COVID-19 is just like the flu at this point is the height of ignorance. Even if the Coronavirus acted just like a flu virus, there are still some major differences between the annual flu and COVID.

COVID is a novel virus. This means the populace has 0% immunity. There is a portion of the population that has natural immunity to the flu having been exposed to certain strains in the past meaning they have antibodies. In addition, about 45% of the population get a flu vaccine annually. Though not 100% effective, this does stop many people from getting sick, and since they aren't sick, they can't infect others.

Using the RO of 2, meaning every sick person infects 2 others, we can see quick, exponential growth of COVID-19. 1-2-4-8-16-64-128. Assuming with the flu, 25% of the population has immunity, it means that at the third generation, instead of 4 people being sick, it's just 3. Doing the progression, it looks like this: 1-2-3-5-8-12-18-27. The first mathematical model is simple X*2. The second model looks more like this: (X*2).75. With COVID-19 and 0% immunity, in the 7th generation, there are already 223 sick. With just 25% immunity, there are only 76.

Again, this assumes the flu has the same RO as COVID-19, which is false. With the flu, onset of symptoms usually happen within 48 hours of infection, leaving little time for a person to be out and about while contagious. In contrast, COVID-19 often takes a week to 10 days before onset of symptoms. The RO of the flu is much lower than COVID-19.

Last, we have known treatments for the flu that we know will work a good percentage of the time. COVID-19 is novel. We are learning more and more every day. But out of 100 flu patients that go into the hospital versus 100 that go in for COVID, there is today, a higher survival rate for the flu.

COVID-19 already causes the death of more people in the US in 1/4 of a year than the flu does in a full year. And COVID-19 deaths are only going to continue to rise. If we open up the country too early, this number will only get bigger. We've already seen what happens in Italy and New York when shelter at home orders are given too late, and the virus has the chance to run amuck in the general populace. And unless it can be proven and agreed upon that a significant percent of the population had COVID-19, were asymptomatic, and carry antibodies, then opening up too soon is too great a risk.

 

It's one thing to disagree with me or someone else , but to say it's silliness is like you actually think you're and I'm wrong. Look at the study being done in California I believe by Sanford and another group, basically stating they believe that 50 to 80% more have already been affected and recovered, meaning those numbers you and others trust so much are way off making no worse than the flu. It's pure silliness on your part to believe in all these models since everyone have been wrong for the start. Nobody wants anyone to die period, but locking down our country is not the answer either

 

To say it worse than the flu and to continue with this madness of keeping our country locked down is ignorant

 

I don't think you know enough about me to make that statement. I'm an engineer by trade, and my world view tends to be fact driven.

You are making statements about COVID that are objectively false by linking it to the flu. Do some research. Look at the data. The death toll is higher than the flu, with far fewer infections. Even if we assume 10x the reported infection level, the death rate is still way above the flu. The flu has 100x more infections annually than coronavirus so far. But COVID has already killed more people. How can you draw equivalency from this information? Any rational human being should be alarmed at what the data is telling us.

This virus isn't a left vs right issue, although for some reason our resident Trump supporters seem to take it very lightly compared to the mainstream. Why is that?

 

That test is heavily flawed as an opt-in study with a test that has a false positive rate that will cause fairly substantial overestimation. That has been covered extensively. However, even assuming that the results are the case, then the spread rate is more than 3x that of the flu. So it is still not at all like the flu. If we bought that study, the likelihood is that as soon as we re-open, we will lose somewhere in the realm of 200,000 more people as the disease spreads, as we would essentially be unable to stop it with that sort of a spread rate until we gained herd immunity.

 

45,000 Confirmed Covid-19 deaths.

40,000 deaths in just the last 3 weeks.

19,000 deaths in the last 7 days.

Deadliest media hoax ever.

 

Corrected your post.
You just described yourself old man the current President of the United States.

 

Yep, just like the flu