Coronavirus and the Washington Capitals

[g00n]

Never meant we shouldn't use mask or other means. Just this conversation started with me stating death rates are many times less than early numbers showed, and I was called dumb shortly after (for various statements probably, but anyway there is still no scientific evidence I was wrong on many accounts).

Personally me, Im sitting at home with my 8y child for 3+ months. Our business is on total pause. But Im calm because I think its not even the summit. Why worry?

Im just arguing for the sake of getting more clear picture, because I know here is a good place to have normal conversation about various topics.

This is an understatement of your role in this thread.

You began by downplaying the situation as just another flu that's being hyped via media hysteria. You said it would only kill those who would've died from flu anyway, and it wouldn't pass 37K deaths worldwide (currently over 520,000 dead and rising). You threw doubt at containment measures, disputed the viral outbreak in Russia, gave Sweden credit for what's become a disaster, posted anti-American conspiracy theories about pandemic preparation and false narratives about the origin of the virus, and generally shit on the facts in favor of party line Russian propaganda.

So excuse us if we aren't going to pat you on the back for some unsupported claim that the death rate would fall somewhat, which we all knew since everyone understood initial testing was insufficient.

 

[kicksavedave]

Never meant we shouldn't use mask or other means. Just this conversation started with me stating death rates are many times less than early numbers showed, and I was called dumb shortly after (for various statements probably, but anyway there is still no scientific evidence I was wrong on many accounts).

Personally me, Im sitting at home with my 8y child for 3+ months. Our business is on total pause. But Im calm because I think its not even the summit. Why worry?

Im just arguing for the sake of getting more clear picture, because I know here is a good place to have normal conversation about various topics.

I think its fair to say death rates are not as accurate as they could be, but the idea of extrapolating out unknown numbers into a percentage is folly, IMO. Look at it like this:

We know how many tests are given, how many positives/negatives, thus the percentages of infection vs tests. We then also know how many of those infections result in deaths. These are absolute numbers, apart from inaccurate classification of cause of death. So lets say we do 1M random tests, we get 100K infections, and we get 1k deaths. We have 10% rate of infection and .1% death rate. We can compare those rates vs other local results, either state by state, county by county, or country by country. But of course if we only tested people who are sick, we would get positive results more like 80/90%, so even test result rates don't mean very much.

What we DON'T know and cannot accurately quantify is how many people who are not tested are actually infected (would lower infection rate) or how many people die because of Covid without Covid being the actual cause listed (would increase death rate).

One thing we also know is, when more people are tested, it MAY lead to lower test result rates vs when people only got tested when they felt sick. Now people are getting tested purely as precaution, which should lead to a lower positive rate - UNLESS the virus is spreading faster which means two conflicting drivers of test rates are occurring at the same time. We CANNOT quantify this perfectly, we can only guess at it.

Finally, We can use actual test result rates to compare identical strategies over time. So if we test 1M people in June, and test 1M people in July, the results SHOULD tell us if the spread is increasing or decreasing.

Any talk that the infection rate is higher than known, thus the death rate is lower than measured, is good in theory but impossible to properly measure. If we use that theory to act as if the virus isn't as serious as its made out to be, we relax our precautions and then the virus IS as serious as its made out to be. We know this because this is EXACTLY what happened across the whole US since March. A sizable portion of the population, motivated by a combination of bad science or selfish political views, decided for themselves that the virus was not as harmful as "the media" is making it out to be, so they went back to normal living. That is when the spikes started occurring and now those people are back to facing total lockdowns.

 

[kicksavedave]

Additionally, if someone tests negative its not very definitive, false negatives are very common. If someone tests negative in June, and tests positive in July, it could have been a bad test in June, or it could be the caught the Covid since the first test. But in this case they show 1 negative and 1 positive which totally jacks up the total %s over time.

If we tested EVERY American in January it would be 1 in 400 million. But as of now we have at least 2.8M known cases out of 400M, but probably higher. So again, a snapshot in time of test results is meaningless. What matters is test rates over time per 100,000 or per 1M people. Those show the true trends, and its not pretty. Not in the US and NOT in Russia either.

 

[txpd]

Not gonna mention names but reading this thread has improved my esteem of certain posters whose hockey opinions I rarely agree with.

Good. Maybe its time to reevaluate some hockey opinions. Eh?

 

[895]

Good. Maybe its time to reevaluate some hockey opinions. Eh?

No I don't think Brooks Orpik can play for the Washington Capitals or any NHL team right now.

 

[Eirikrautha]

Not gonna mention names but reading this thread has improved my esteem of certain posters whose hockey opinions I rarely agree with.

Funny, it just confirmed for me that some of them are wrong about everything...

 

[Silky mitts]

Clicking on this thread is phase 3 of my Return to Post initiative. Back in April and May I looked at fatalities as the indicator of how many infected people were walking the street (3-4 weeks prior) because of testing inconsistencies and the predictability of that statistics’ trend lines. Now I look at the trend line of people infected next to daily number of tests on a state by state basis, with an emphasis of positive test %, to indicate the number of infected walking the streets about 2 weeks ago. Maryland has been hovering around 4.8% since June 16th, a fine number for a major metro area but it’s not like you want that to increase by opening restaurants or schools. Alberta has been at 1% during that span, Toronto slightly above 1%. If this is the one team sporting event we get in an 11 month span, and this is after 2 first time winners in top 10 markets in 2 years, it will be the high point for the NHL in America. People that have barely watched hockey will watch every game. They’re the one sport that had a good plan: get out of America, limit travel as much as possible, finish by flu season. Donald Fehr - central figure the last time I suffered from sports withdrawal - has emerged as a hero. Really trying to be optimistic about the restart.

 

[Raikkonen]

You said

1) it would only kill those who would've died from flu anyway, and it wouldn't pass 37K deaths worldwide (currently over 520,000 dead and rising).

2) You threw doubt at containment measures,

3) disputed the viral outbreak in Russia,

4) gave Sweden credit for what's become a disaster,

5) posted anti-American conspiracy theories about pandemic preparation and false narratives about the origin of the virus,

6) and generally shit on the facts in favor of party line Russian propaganda.

1) I said it has comparable death rate to flu which caused 37K deaths in US last season, never said it wont be more than 37K worldwide, didnt I?

2) may be I did, OK, I dont remember details

3) I dont see any facts against that stance: we had pneumonia outbreak in Russia before pandemia, that's in stats, after worldwide outbreak we have very low death rates also, what did I dispute back then?

4)
I dont see what kind of Swedish disaster you see, they had a plan and they executed it

Now what they wanted to actually achieve, what they achieved and what they have been saying (officials or not) - could be different things. Do you have facts to help your opinion?

5) anti-American conspiracy has facts behind it: US scientists (with 2 scientists from China) worked on the very similar kind of coronavirus, spent a lot of money for that and helped to build that lab in Wuhan, and now saying its all China fault (latest spin from today/yesterday is that China has been sending ppl to other countries for 2 months before virus was identified)

To this day, there is no evidence for what White House has been saying (blaming China), and its ok with you

I cant help you with facts either, but I know that you have no facts, and you dont understand that seemingly

6) party line Russian propaganda is much better than your gov's laughable speaches including Russian meddling (no reason and no evidence), all the political and economic BS including sanctions, and the best one is the latest thing about Taliban (no evidence again, but "just because Trump is Putin's agent" ofc).

That laughable BS aims for one thing only: to get US companies (and international companies where US residents have shares) economical advantages over other companies (often - European).

Sometimes you dont need to do more to have an advantage, you just can get less losses than your competition. This is what all American movements on international economic front are about lately. They are making others life worse.

Nobody checks what White House claims.
Democrats claim Putin elected Trump. Sounds irrational? Who cares? Prohibit something between Germany and Russia, just because of that.
Democrats gain power/influence/money, Germany loses money, its all good.

Even when your own system finds no evidence ppl dont doubt what they hear.
You claim something about Russian propaganda without facts, and I cant do anything about that.
When CAS found no evidence for doping you didnt change your mind either.
No problem to disagree.

Anyway, I made my bet (on the coming end of US "civilization").

 

[Jacoby4HOF66]

 

[g00n]

Internet memes based on hearsay claim that hospital laboratories falsify COVID-19 tests to inflate numbers without evidence

 

[txpd]

Here's the bottom line. We can believe or not believe anything we want. The rest of the world save for Brazil believes something else. They are having success with that something else and they are telling us to get with the program or take a hike.

 

[txpd]

Wife just texted me. Woman in line in front of her at TJMaxx tells the staff she wont wear a mask because she has asma. I don't know what to say

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

If you think we're doing an adequate job controlling Covid then I don't know what to tell you. There is not a shred of data that supports that the country as a whole has this under control. The only places where trends look encouraging are places where elected officials took swift and decisive actions that were backed by science, such as New York City and DC.

All we really need to know about our response and our status with the world is that EU will not allow American citizens to travel there. Imagine how badly we had to f*** this up for the EU to look at us and be like, "nah, we're good; keep your dirty Covid tourist money out of our economies." America isn't on the approved list but countries like Rwanda, Serbia, Georgia, and China are. It's just pretty pathetic to see the selfish, ignorant, and misinformed all ruining it for everyone else.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Wife just texted me. Woman in line in front of her at TJMaxx tells the staff she wont wear a mask because she has asma. I don't know what to say

These kinds of excuses will just keep popping up....maybe it's true and she does have asthma....but so f'ing what lady, Covid is a touch worse!

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

These kinds of excuses will just keep popping up....maybe it's true and she does have asthma....but so f'ing what lady, Covid is a touch worse!

Having asthma is even more of a reason to wear a mask and to ask others to wear a mask. I'd say it's Darwinism at it's finest except the ones without masks are putting the rest of us in more danger. I'd be totally fine with them not wearing a mask if not wearing a mask meant you only hurt yourself but unfortunately that's not the case. Do these idiots claim that drunk-driving laws, enacted based on medical science and data to prevent the irresponsible from harming others, stomp on their rights or is it just masks because it's a little bit uncomfortable for these tough patriots?

 

[sycamore]

If you think we're doing an adequate job controlling Covid then I don't know what to tell you. There is not a shred of data that supports that the country as a whole has this under control. The only places where trends look encouraging are places where elected officials took swift and decisive actions that were backed by science, such as New York City and DC.

Here in PA they've done an outstanding job of handling it. I'm in one of the most populous counties in the state (Chester County) and we've already moved to Code Green.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

What does code green equate to?

I feel lucky to be in a state like VA, at least it’s not worsening so far here.

 

[sycamore]

What does code green equate to?

I feel lucky to be in a state like VA, at least it’s not worsening so far here.

Code Green = minimal restrictions. The code after green is "code back to normal".

 

[g00n]

Israel had the coronavirus under control. What happened? - CNN

This is disturbing. Israel went from 20 new cases a day in mid-May to over 1,000 and climbing today. Schools opened and had to close down again from what I heard. Yet some US governors with RISING cases and terrible controls are still trying to open schools in a month or so. No way.

Discouraging for any "we're safe enough to fully re-open" efforts short of finding a cure or vaccine. That goes for any sports with live fans in the stands...

 

[Raikkonen]

Ive read yesterday that our docs dont know exactly what it is now. The more they know the more its apparent that its not like usual virus, and functioning differently like nothing they have seen. For example, some say it isnt even pneumonia (what they see in lungs). Also some said (in that same article, which is speculations and opinions ofc) that there is no cure still even with those modern remdisivir (sp?) and other types of meds. So they are still fighting symptoms, as usual with flu.

 

[g00n]

Ive read yesterday that our docs dont know exactly what it is now. The more they know the more its apparent that its not like usual virus, and functioning differently like nothing they have seen. For example, some say it isnt even pneumonia (what they see in lungs). Also some said (in that same article, which is speculations and opinions ofc) that there is no cure still even with those modern remdisivir (sp?) and other types of meds. So they are still fighting symptoms, as usual with flu.

There's more going on with antivirals and the like, which reduce or control symptoms (I guess similar to Tamiflu). That's probably the best bet for the next few years barring some kind of miracle vaccine.

Even without a Covid-19 vaccine, there's reason for hope (opinion) - CNN

 

[kicksavedave]

Ive read yesterday that our docs dont know exactly what it is now. The more they know the more its apparent that its not like usual virus, and functioning differently like nothing they have seen. For example, some say it isnt even pneumonia (what they see in lungs). Also some said (in that same article, which is speculations and opinions ofc) that there is no cure still even with those modern remdisivir (sp?) and other types of meds. So they are still fighting symptoms, as usual with flu.

Remdesivir is not a cure, its an antiviral treatment. As Goon says, it slows replication of the virus to allow the bodies immune system to catch up. It shortens the duration and increases the chances of recovery, but it is not a miracle cure. *Unfortunately. So it will help, but nothing short of a 90%+ effective vaccine will allow us to go completely back to normal. And if the virus mutates away from a vaccine like the seasonal flu does, then we're all f***ed for a loooong time.

* I say unfortunately not only as someone who wants to go back to normal, but as an employee of the company that makes Remdesivir. If it was a miracle cure I could retire from the stock bump.

 

[Empty Goal Net]

Some politicians and others are willing to accept what seems to be an unusually high level of collateral damage. They tell citizens it's okay to resume most normal activities - subject to whatever social distancing and smart practices rules are in place for their areas - but do not engage in any public conversation about what level of death/long-term health effects is acceptable. [Maybe the apparently wacko Lt. Gov. of TX is an exception here, in that a few months ago he made a statement to the effect that it's okay if a few old folks die off because of reopening.] AND, as we are seeing, they fail to secure sufficient PPE and care space to accommodate spikes in cases. I think we all know deaths could happen, even under a lockdown scenario, but the number likely to occur in the US is higher than it needs to be due to incompetence of elected officials.

If political and business leadership could ensure that sufficient testing and PPE and the like were available to allow critical sectors of the economy - especially health care and food supply - to function normally, then we could move on to doing the same for education and other activities. But the US and most countries have not been able to keep food processing workers safe, so it's hard to see how anyone involved in education can feel safe about the prospect about going back to in-person schooling. Again, these non-leaders want to push to reopen, but they haven't created the conditions that facilitate a safe reopening.

 

[g00n]

I'm from Florida. Our coronavirus crisis doesn't surprise me | Geoffrey Kabaservice

There could be some other factors peculiar to Florida that explain the virulence of the pandemic’s spread here. Partisanship is hard-edged here, and not wearing a mask has become a mark of Republican tribal identity. Many conservatives I know (particularly men) consider mask-wearing to be an infringement upon their constitutional freedom. Skepticism of science and experts, along with ingrained contrarianism – some otherwise sane Floridians I know resolutely maintain that the virus is a hoax, or no worse than seasonal flu – surely plays a role in some cases as well.

Florida is a mess. Pretty much the hotspot of the entire world.

 

[txpd]

So, these no mask people. they are no longer going to go to the doctor. right? they dont believe what they are told and refuse to do what they prescribe. right??? your doc or chuck woolery. who do you trust?