Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

What exactly is the alternative, just continue life as we did before the virus? First of all, it wouldn't be the same. People wouldn't pack arenas, classrooms and restaurants. Do you have kids and would you have sent them to school?
If you were a high school basketball coach, would you have sent your players into the state tournament?
Without any government action, we would have had a major slowdown. Not as much as we did, I'm sure. But still very major.
Beyond that, do you really think that more people would not die if we had 5,000-10,000 people at an NBA game rather than the usual 20?

How exactly would you want this to have played out?

 

i should preface my comments by saying there is NO PROOF suggesting who may have called in the bomb threat. That said, i really hope that this was not some prank by some dumb-arse acting on the growing hatred of all things China. Freaking moron did not even get the country correct if so!!!

Bomb threat against China Airlines flight closes Anchorage airport

 

looked at todays numbers, new cases,deaths,number of tests vs the last 3 sundays. new cases today 26726, the last 3 sundays 26509, 26113, 27766. deaths today 1137, last 3 sundays 1156, 1570, 1727.as you can see they are going down, and even though there were about 200 more cases today than last week, there were 30000 more tests done, if you figure a 10% positive for total tests, you would subtract about 3000 new cases from today, thus being lower than the other 3.if we assume all numbers are lower on weekends, we can still compare sat/sun numbers since testing and death reporting would in theory be the same on each of those days, maybe a little bit higher with more being done on weekends now.

 

Still haven't seen any recent news about Panthera, but Blue Flame made the news again.

Maryland Cancels Big Coronavirus-Mask Order

 

That is a huge assumption. Nobody knows for sure that would have happened. We were even told by the scientists just a few weeks ago that 60,000 deaths would be the cap. There are a lot of big decisions being made here on guesswork. For all we know, we could be prolonging the devastating effects of the virus by not allowing nature to take its course.

 

Honestly, in terms of the deaths, the past 7 days looks an awful lot like the 7 day period preceding it.

 

Do you think that if a million Americans had died in two months Disney would have stayed open? The NBA would have finished out the season? Schools would have stayed open? Life would have been normal for everyone other than the dead?

 

We were told that by one model that has consistently had unrealistically low projections. Many other models have shown much higher projections.

 

We can play the "what if" game all day long. The bottom line is we do not know a million deaths would have happened.

 

How fast were deaths doubling at the time we shut everything down? If the death rate had continued that way, where would we be now?

The data is available, anyone can do the math.

 

With no changes in societal behavior, a million deaths seems reasonable. But of course that is moot because even without states mandating closures of schools and businesses, the amount of social activity would have been greatly reduced thus reducing the number of cases and deaths.

 

but what is important is they are stabilizing, not really going up, as are new case numbers with many more tests per day, imo, a good trend

 

in fact,deaths have gone down every day since april 28, 5 straight days, another, imo, good trend of course they will go up mon/tues due to weekend catch up, but it is the midweek numbers going down, days with full reporting.

 

another point to consider, as I think most everyone knows, numbers can be made to look like people want them to look, so basically all sites are shooting in the dark.

 

California man arrested and released 3 times in 1 day under no bail due to covid19, that should scare the hell out of people who want to empty the prisions,this may be apples and oranges, but that is what castro did in the 80's.

 

Why is it unrealistic? I can spend 10 minutes in a grocery store, not cough, not sneeze, only talk to people either at a distance or from behind the presented barrier, but I can certainly keep my mouth shut if that's what it takes to avoid having to wear a mask. Safety in this regard isn't binary. Not sure why so many are getting upset about this (not saying you are). I wish folks would do more thinking about the nuances involved.

First, thank you for taking the time to post all the references. This first one includes the following from a US doctor:

I've talked with not only doctors, but also nurses that have had SARS-CoV-2, and they are not all as impressed with the demand to wear masks in as many settings as is being presented. Obviously not all doctors and nurses agree, but let's not act like this is wild and crazy thinking on anybody's part.

This link doesn't cover the nuances that I've described. I recognize that you think adhering to such nuances is unrealistic, but I don't understand why you would think that.

This last one, even though it references...

...mainly highlights on the sociological aspects of everyone coming together to wear masks. There's merit to such a thing, and I'm not opposed to such a resolution, but people need more input before they can be expected to buy into such a thing (been saying this since the beginning on here, people just don't get it, and we're left with folks who expect action that they have no logical reason to expect...this leads to frustration and division). If it's truly a goal, let's find out what it takes for everybody to buy in and see if that can be accomplished...and skip all the shaming and the name-calling which only serves to divide folks.

Please let me know if I've said anything unreasonable here.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Unreasonable . . . I don't know and don't care to make any claim to that effect. I don't know why you appear to be defensive, though. All I did was provide some information about the facial protection phenomenon. If you want to argue that it's this or that, I've got nothing to discuss with you. Your suggestion about keeping your mouth closed throughout the grocery visit might be totally reasonable for you alone. That in itself is debatable, but this pandemic is not just about you, is it?

 

Not trying to be defensive at all; thought it was a respectful response. There are "mask truthers" and "mask nazis" that are getting defensive about the topic for sure. I'd rather everyone take a chill and take a minute to respect where others are coming from. For what it's worth, I entered this particular discussion about masks because that tiny impact on our global community that I am asking about actually is about me (as a personal response to the judgy folks when it comes to expecting others to wear masks). I'm not telling others that they are fine to not wear masks, I'd just like to see people quit jumping to conclusions about those who are not wearing masks. Let's all have a little respect for another's viewpoint and quit making it out like there's only one answer here. If that's "defensive," then guilty as charged.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Trump says it's safe to reopen states. Also ups his estimate of deaths from 65,000 to 100,000. But we will be at 100k by the end of May. He's going to have to up that estimate every month.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...3ee34a-8d64-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html

 

tl;dr version:
There's far more evidence supporting mask-wearing than not, and it's a simple and cheap measure. It's low-risk, high reward, and the ONLY practice common to major population centers that are clearly past the peak of infections without ever having thousands of cases per million. Not widespread testing, not compulsory lockdowns, not geography or culture, but widespread mask-wearing.

1) Most laws are not made for most people, most laws are made for the few. I wouldn't steal, rape, or murder even without laws against them, and most people wouldn't either, but some would if there is no deterrent. You might be mindful enough to not require wearing a mask, but some won't.

2) Evidence supporting the effectiveness of the general public wearing masks is scanty because there's been little motivation to conduct such studies until now. What you need to know is that mask-wearing has been standard practice in healthcare settings when treating respiratory viral illnesses. It's proven effective there, and while not certain, it's highly probable that it'll be effective outside of the healthcare setting as well.

3) What's also PLAINLY obvious is that the ONLY countries thus far that has had limited # of cases relative to the population and have clearly gotten over the worst of the virus have been countries that adopted widespread mask-wearing. Look at the numbers for the East Asian and SE Asian countries, they all have ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE less cases than the west despite wide-ranging political environments as well as healthcare quality. The only exception is Singapore, guess what their stance on mask-wearing was? That's right, the only country in East and SE Asia to have case/million in the thousands like Europe and the US recommended people NOT to wear masks until their cases exploded. Singapore had very high testing rate, thorough contact tracing, and shut down travel around the same time as say Hong Kong. They did everything right, except when it came to masks, and you see the results. I cannot stress this enough. The common factors for major population centers that have gotten COVID under control (i.e. densely populated places that are clearly past the peak with limited # of cases per capita) is not testing, lockdowns, geography, or culture, but widespread mask-wearing.

4) Even if we don't have definitive evidence, what's the harm of doing it? Wearing a mask is simple and cheap, with high upside and little to no downside. It's a classic low-risk, high-reward situation. Obviously nobody knows everything about this virus, but places like Hong Kong, Japan, SK, and Taiwan have shown that you can get away with relatively short and less disruptive lockdowns if you wear masks. Heck, Japan has had a pretty lackadaisical approach to COVID in general, with no widespread testing or compulsory lockdowns, and they're doing quite well. People there wear masks.