Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Cases last 4 days, 1,005, 1,007, 988, 979. Really climbing at a steady pace huh.

The folks who didn't want to re open said cases increase exponentially, that hasn't happened. I am not going to change your mind and don't care to. Get back to me once we start seeing hospitals overrun and you can say you were right to not re open. For the 50th time, the goal was never to eliminate all the cases, that isn't going to happen. It was to not overrun the healthcare system. Simple question, is that happening in Texas since re opening 20 days ago?

 

20 days ago (May 1st) there were 34 deaths and 1,142 new cases.

May 20th there were 50 deaths and 1,411 new cases.

If we use 7 day average to remove daily variation (on the 19th there were only 22 deaths), the numbers are a little different but the story is the same.

May 1st 7-day average deaths 32, new cases 918.
May 20th, 37 deaths, 1274 new cases.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/texas#historical

 

Interesting new model that shows that moving shutdowns forward by just a week could have cut the current death total in about half.

Differential Effects of Intervention Timing on COVID-19 Spread in the United States

 

54,000 Fewer Americans Would Have Died if U.S. Went Into Lockdown on March 1, Columbia University Estimates
By Jeffery Martin On 5/21/20 at 12:50 AM EDT

New modeling from Columbia University indicates that a majority of U.S. fatalities caused by the coronavirus could have been prevented if the country had initiated mitigation procedures two weeks earlier. Data from the study indicates that if the U.S. had started to enact social distancing and locked down metropolitan areas on March 1, the death toll from the coronavirus would have been reduced by approximately 54,000 individuals. California, which was one of the states hit hardest by the virus, did not enact its stay-at-home orders until March 19.

"Efforts to further raise public awareness of the ongoing high transmissibility and explosive growth potential of COVID-19 are still needed at this critical time," the study said. Researchers also noted the need to expand testing and contact tracing capacity in order to properly track any second wave of infections that may occur. The study has yet to be peer certified and is based on "idealized hypothetical assumptions." In a Wednesday statement, the White House reacted to the study. "What would have saved lives is if China had been transparent and the World Health Organization had fulfilled its mission," the statement said.

54,000 fewer Americans would have died if U.S. went into lockdown on March 1, Columbia University estimates

 

Those were the two weeks when Trump was blatantly lying to the American public about the severity of the virus.

 

So they are including people with positive antibodies in total case counts...? Where should they be placed?

If we are referring to acute cases perhaps they don't have as many with symptoms who are seeking to be tested?

 

How many less would have died if Nursing homes weren't forced to take back COVID sick patients or just accepted them back before getting them tested? In Florida alone 40% of the deaths were from Adult care facilities….

 

Not really that's the term used when an infectious disease is spread.

 

‘How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’
How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.
Mixing the two tests makes it much harder to understand the meaning of positive tests, and it clouds important information about the U.S. response to the pandemic, Jha said. “The viral testing is to understand how many people are getting infected, while antibody testing is like looking in the rearview mirror. The two tests are totally different signals,” he told us. By combining the two types of results, the CDC has made them both “uninterpretable,” he said.

 

Actually saw that coming; freaking trainwreck right now.

 

Coronavirus Fight Club breaks out in Tampa, with a paint fight at a Home Depot. (Experts are not sure if paint fighting is a symptom of coronavirus, but they have not yet said that it isn't.)

Bizarre paint battle between 4 men at Florida Home Depot

This could be a trend to keep an eye on, especially if the Kardashians take up paint fighting.

 

I saw two old dudes about duke it out over a parking spot at Costco. Keep in mind there was a spot open right next to the one they were battling over.

 

See post #11409 a few below yours. If we’re increasing efforts testing to find the sick what good does it do to include those already recovered? Active cases matter for a safe reopening, not recovered cases. If we knew for fact that there was immunity once infected, I suppose that could be relevant, but at this stage saying you have antibodies is just a fun fact.

 

People who recover from COVID-19, test positive again not contagious, Korean study suggests

 

that doesn't have anything to do with having immunity after infection. People probably will have immunity but for how long? I hope it's like the people who got SARS and were (I believe) immune for 3 years.

 

I saw a piece on the news that referred to folks testing positive for second time that the virus wasn't an active virus and couldn't infect others. It was also referring to the Korean study.

This was in the article though.

They also checked the blood from a small subset of patients and found that most had neutralizing antibodies that protect them from getting sick again.

Followed up by this, lol
However, some of these people did have symptoms. Right now, it's not clear whether they continue to shed virus or whether this is a reactivation, just like we see, for example, in chickenpox and shingles," Ashton said.

 

Well shoot. That's what I get for glancing instead of reading thoroughly. The headline with that last statement is a bit confusing though.

 

Same thing almost happened to me once. I had a guy that wanted to rumble over a parking spot. He thought I cut him off to take a spot 2 spots closer than the one he apparently "wanted". In reality, it was just an easier angle for me to park in that one since we were coming head on at each other, that we way each took the spot on the left, rather than having to take a tight turn to park on the right side of the isle while squeezing past each other. I didn't think anything of it because there was a spot for both of us regardless, and I was aware of that (i.e. I wasn't being a dick and "stealing" the last spot).

This guy jumps out of his car screaming that I took his spot, with his wife holding him back, most embarrassingly he also had a teenage daughter with him who I'm sure was mortified of the father. I was like "oh, I didn't know that one was yours, so you want to switch?" This befuddled him and he went off with his family. LOL.

People are weird.

 

The aggressor in this story was absolutely losing his mind because the other guy was parked in a spot and reading a book while his wife shopped. The jerk in this story was screaming for the other guy to "GET OUT OF MY SPOT!!!" and honking while holding up a line of 4 or 5 cars behind him. It made zero sense.

 

I saw an article about this. The biggest spike in TX came from a meat packing plant in north Texas. (Perhaps 2.)
CNN tried to blame the spike on the re-opening, but meat packing plants would be open anyway.