Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

the last 14 days we have done about 6 million tests, with about 300,000 positives, a 5% positive result. i believe most states were to have a 5% positive or less for 14 days to re-open, so it seems the country as a whole has met that, yet some people still focus on negatives, quoting hospitalization figures from people who most likely tested positive long ago and just now need to be hospitalized, the spikes in few areas, alot of them smaller areas that are easy to see spikes occur with only minimal new cases.they cannot see the forest for the trees, new tests are massively up, new positives are also the same as 2 months ago each day, deaths and hospitalizations are down, so, how low do some want, a 1% positive rate, 0 deaths, 0 hospitalizations, lets get real, we are making real; headway, to actually enjoy the positives for once.

 

Before we can address that question, we have to get folks like you to acknowledge that ending social distancing leads to more cases. I will keep pointing out the data that shows that to be true so you can better understand the ramifications.

 

another stat, since may 1 until now, 39 days, we have averaged 22,770 new cases a day.for the 30 days in april we averaged 30,185 new cases a day, what more do you want to see to show we are on the right side of this?

 

imo, and the numbers in the above posts seem to prove that, since opening up of states and lack of social distancing, as you say is happening, positive cases are going down, how do you explain that?most states have been re-opened at least a month, and like i show, cases are going down week to week, month to month.

 

We need to answer questions like why are some states that reopened seeing lower percentages of positive tests, but Arizona has seen the highest level ever this past week at 12% positive? Are different things open in Arizona that aren't in other states? Is it mask wearing and Arizona has a lower percentage of people wearing masks versus other states? Is it another factor?

Answer these questions and we can hopefully figure out how to open more while mitigating the risks. Risks will never be zero, but then there are good reasons why most of us wear seatbelts or use sunscreen.

Meanwhile, states like Arizona need to reconsider going back to lockdown if the numbers continue to go in the wrong direction.

 

looked on the covid 19 testing site, granted it is behind, saw that for the last 10 days arizona averaged 921 new cases, a 8.5% positive average, looks like for some reason the big jump started about 5 days ago, although testing did increase over those 5 days, so like i have said, more tests will equal more positives.

 

Certainly 7k-8k decrease in daily cases is positive and likewise a decline in daily deaths. Perhaps though it's in the way you frame it, saying we're on the "right side of this." After all, we have still been experiencing over 20k new cases and thousands a deaths a day, and there remains the possibility that the numbers can spike, not to mention, there are a still hella lot of unknowns. IOW, it's still an uncontrolled virus.

IMO, the positive news must be moderated by these points because we cannot will our way toward things improving drastically.

 

I guess you didn't read the link in the last post. Here's a snippet:

The number of Arizona cases likely is higher than official numbers because of limits on supplies and available tests, especially in early weeks of the pandemic.

The percentage of positive tests per week increased from 5% a month ago to 6% three weeks ago to 9% two weeks ago, and 12% last week. The ideal trend is a decrease in the percent of positive tests out of all tests. [emphasis added]
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It's not just more tests leading to more positives in Arizona. It's a higher rate of positive tests too. Why? That's a good question and one that needs to be studied. Is Arizona doing something different that is causing the percentage of positives to jump? Can it be avoided in other states?

 

Just going by Arizona's dashboard:

April 10th to May 8th: 8187 new cases, 1395 new hospitalizations
May 9th to June 6th: 16373 new cases, 1048 new hospitalizations

I picked May 9th because that's when it looked like there was a drop off in new hospitalizations (11 days of 40 or more new hospitalizations during that stretch, averaging 45.5 for those 11 compared with 26 days of 40 or more new hospitalizations during the prior stretch, averaging 50 for those 26).

I picked June 6th because that was the last date of posted hospitalization numbers.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

to me, and maybe i am wrong, but increased testing, lower new cases, deaths, and hospitalizations is indeed on the right side of getting this behind us, if not the right side, how would you phrase the positive results?

 

so there were 2 times the new cases, yet less new hospitalizations, did you look at the deaths and the number of tests done over those 2 periods?

 

I linked it above, you can look at the graphs. Testing is way up since end of April. Deaths appear to be trending downward.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

so those are positive things then, right?

 

I don't know, I'm an amateur with this stuff. The dashboard looks positive, to me. The articles referenced by AzCat suggest that the hospitalization rate is increasing:

If they are at 1,243 inpatients, then that would suggest that the dashboard data is way off or I'm not reading it correctly.

[EDIT: dashboard has a wide discrepancy between "hospitalizations" and "hospital covid-19 specific metrics" not sure what the criteria are for each]

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Good news for UF. 10k tests and 5 positives. That’s a crazy low percentage. Still predict we have fans in the stands for games this fall. I would guess 50% minimum at this point.

 

WHO is walking back their statement about asymptomatic transmission.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...hp-top-table-main_who-12pm:homepage/story-ans

 

There are two strains, East and west coast. That’s what I’ve read. Could the west coast strain in Arizona be deadlier or easier to spread?

Shouldn’t the Arizona heat also help with the virus?

 

It’s bizarre, as that is a tremendous 180 and then withdrawal (so a 360).

I’m not sure why the righties grabbed on to that either, as clearly part of their premise previously had been the disease was far more prevalent, and therefore less deadly due to all the “asymptomatic” people who had it but never knew they had it. How can asymptomatic transmission be “rare” if so many people have it and are asymptomatic? This isn’t MERS. It didn’t stay isolated.

I think the issue is we aren’t effectively tracing people who are asymptomatic. The overwhelming number of asymptomatic probably have no idea where they got it, or if they passed to others. How could they? By the very nature of the concept “asymptomatic carrier”, it almost assumes the data of that group is bad/incomplete. That being said, it would be interesting to see what numbers they have, what % they have to reach their conclusions even if we know the data is incomplete and has to be theorized, it’s all about probabilities after all.

 

the coin came up heads yesterday, tails today, that's my take and i am sticking to it...