Coronavirus Thread - mod note post 23 & 541

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

This morning Donald Trump just retweeted Chuck Woolery basically saying Covid-19 is no big deal:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it&#39;s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I&#39;m sick of it.</p>&mdash; Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) <a href="">July 13, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Did Trump say it was 15 cases in the US and soon it would go down to 0? He consistently downplayed the threat because he didn't care. If he did he could have very easily pushed mask use and contact tracing. Instead he worked to actively undermine mask use. Hell he's pushing opening up schools by extorting school districts by saying they will receive no funding if they distance learn this fall. His coronavirus updates where basically live commercials for My Pillow and a bunch of other random Fox News advertisers.

Three's a big difference between making good faith decisions that ended up being wrong due to ignorance - which was clearly the case in the early days in New York - and persistently pushing a false narrative, which is what Trump has done for 5 months. Liberate your states was not a good faith effort, it was made to push opening up the economy when we had just started to flatten the curve. Pushing students to schools when the virus is flaring up again in the US will have obvious consequences.

Trump doesn't care about you. He doens't care about your family or your community. All he wants is to open up the economy and he doesn't care how many people have to die in order for that to happen.

Setting aside the pandemic issue for a moment, I can't believe we live in a world where the "The President of the United States just retweeted Chuck Woolery" is a true, factural statement and not an article from The Onion.

 

[Bench]

Damn dude, that Woolery tweet.

It's so incredible the Democrats can barely organize a coherent campaign but are also simultaneously capable a crafting a deep state conspiracy that involves the media, government agencies, and all our health care networks.

 

[Red Stanley]

Setting aside the pandemic issue for a moment, I can't believe we live in a world where the "The President of the United States just retweeted Chuck Woolery" is a true, factural statement and not an article from The Onion.

If you think that's strange, wait till you hear the one about a dead cat that got a mail-in voting ballot.

 

[Bench]

If you think that's strange, wait till you hear the one about a dead cat that got a mail-in voting ballot.

Said dead cat got a voter registration mailing, not a mail-in voting ballot.

Registration mailings are sent out like spam by organizations to help turnout. You still have to actually get approved to vote by your state. So worry not, dead cats aren't voting, let alone in the mail.

 

[Red Stanley]

Said dead cat got a voter registration mailing, not a mail-in voting ballot.

Registration mailings are sent out like spam by organizations to help turnout. You still have to actually get approved to vote by your state. So worry not, dead cats aren't voting, let alone in the mail.

And here I was hoping the dead cat vote would offset the dead people vote. Where's the dead dog vote when you need it.

 

[Run the Jewels]

You claimed other first world countries are doing great and the US and Brazil are doing poorly in comparison, backed by nothing other than your personal opinion. I gave you a statistical counterpoint. You can choose to ignore it if you like. Here are some more stats: other than China and their dubious numbers, the US has done the most testing out of anyone else. That's almost twice as many as Russia, which comes next. More testing, more cases, death rate still steadily falling or remaining relatively low. I'd still like to see the metric you use to determine the level of incompetence.

Here are the source materials I used:
Coronavirus deaths per million by country | Statista
COVID-19 tests by country | Statista
Graphic: Coronavirus deaths in the U.S., per day

As you can see, none of them are Fox News.

The goal is to stop the spread, so death rate is a poor measure. That doesn't measure how well you have controlled the spread of the virus which is the goal until there is an effective vaccine. Houston hospitals are currently over-run, imagine for a moment what it is going to look like when we have 100,000 cases per day?

Hong Kong just shut down Disneyland because there were 50 new cases, not because someone died of Covid-19.

A useful measure for understanding how well we are controlling spread:

We're 12th overall but 1st among counties with 50,000.000+ population in number of cases per 1 million population.
Brazil is 15th overall but 2nd among countries with 50,000,000+ population in number of cases per 1 million population.

UK: 34th
Italy: 37th
Canada: 52nd
France: 56th
Germany: 61st
South Korea: 149th

Source: Coronavirus Update (Live): 13,203,501 Cases and 574,476 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Trump is incompetent. He completely ignored Covid-19 as a threat back in February and ignored Dr. Fauci back in March when hes suggested the virus could kill 100,000 - 200,000 people. After Dr Fauci gained popularity because he was speaking from a position of expertise he wasn't allowed to talk to Trump because Trump didn't like the message. Of course the GOP is now trying to smear him and have him fired for having the audacity to speak on a topic for which he is better informed than 99.999999% of Americans. Trump encouraged his followers to liberate their states and has never pushed for masks to be worn. At a bare minimum he could have used the "bully pulpit" to push mask use but he never did. Now he's pushing for schools to teach in person which is almost guaranteed to supercharge the spread of the virus. So the current surge in cases is tied to both his action - and inaction in the case of masks.

I've read enough to understand you don't find any of this convincing. I don't have any more time today to discuss this topic.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

And here I was hoping the dead cat vote would offset the dead people vote. Where's the dead dog vote when you need it.

Voter suppression.

Outside polling places they station people to stand there and keep throwing tennis balls in the other direction.

 

[RabidBadger]

A few points:
1. Using Chinese numbers and/or suggestions on the matter does the opposite of strengthen your argument.
2. Let me dispute your indisputable claim of Trump not taking the virus seriously - the US restricted travel from China back in January amid media, local political opposition and much of Europe calling Trump xenophobic. I wonder if you remember what your opinion of the virus was back then.
3. Some have branded Trump a tyrant, yet many of the same people want him to be more authoritative when it aligns with their political views. No thanks. How about less authoritative leaders period.
4. As far as I know there is no vaccine for any corona virus. Rinse and repeat till vaccine essentially means forever. Economically speaking, a locked down economy can't sustain continued stimulus packages.
5. For someone who bemoans the politicizing of the virus, you sure do a lot of that.

Wow, Trump restricted travel from a non-caucasian country he was embroiled in a trade war with. Who'd expect that from an egalitarian guy like him? You'll have to pardon me for thinking a guy who blamed the Obama administration for leaving him faulty test kits for covid19, that did not exist during said administration (not to mention he doubled down on it when called out on his error), is not really engaged with what is going on.

There is a vaccine for K9 coronavirus. That strain manifests itself as as an enteric disease rather than respiratory. I'm not trying to be a wang by pointing that out, it just happens to be in my wheelhouse. The first bit was obviously wang material

 

[RabidBadger]

Damn dude, that Woolery tweet.

It's so incredible the Democrats can barely organize a coherent campaign but are also simultaneously capable a crafting a deep state conspiracy that involves the media, government agencies, and all our health care networks.

Man, if you can't trust a non-specific tweet from a 70s game show host regarding medical and political discourse then I don't know what to say for you. I hope to never be at that level of cynicism

On another note, Chuck Woolery has just vaulted himself to the top of candidates to replace Fauci, or perhaps secretary of state with the current admin.

 

[Red Stanley]

Wow, Trump restricted travel from a non-caucasian country he was embroiled in a trade war with. Who'd expect that from an egalitarian guy like him? You'll have to pardon me for thinking a guy who blamed the Obama administration for leaving him faulty test kits for covid19, that did not exist during said administration (not to mention he doubled down on it when called out on his error), is not really engaged with what is going on.

There is a vaccine for K9 coronavirus. That strain manifests itself as as an enteric disease rather than respiratory. I'm not trying to be a wang by pointing that out, it just happens to be in my wheelhouse. The first bit was obviously wang material

Is K9 a human disease? As far as I've read, there's no vaccine for any corona virus that infects humans. I could be wrong, of course. Agreed on the ulterior motives behind restricting travel, but it still happened and covid was used as the pretext so you can't just dismiss it.

 

[Red Stanley]

The goal is to stop the spread, so death rate is a poor measure. That doesn't measure how well you have controlled the spread of the virus which is the goal until there is an effective vaccine. Houston hospitals are currently over-run, imagine for a moment what it is going to look like when we have 100,000 cases per day?

Hong Kong just shut down Disneyland because there were 50 new cases, not because someone died of Covid-19.

A useful measure for understanding how well we are controlling spread:

We're 12th overall but 1st among counties with 50,000.000+ population in number of cases per 1 million population.
Brazil is 15th overall but 2nd among countries with 50,000,000+ population in number of cases per 1 million population.

UK: 34th
Italy: 37th
Canada: 52nd
France: 56th
Germany: 61st
South Korea: 149th

Source: Coronavirus Update (Live): 13,203,501 Cases and 574,476 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Trump is incompetent. He completely ignored Covid-19 as a threat back in February and ignored Dr. Fauci back in March when hes suggested the virus could kill 100,000 - 200,000 people. After Dr Fauci gained popularity because he was speaking from a position of expertise he wasn't allowed to talk to Trump because Trump didn't like the message. Of course the GOP is now trying to smear him and have him fired for having the audacity to speak on a topic for which he is better informed than 99.999999% of Americans. Trump encouraged his followers to liberate their states and has never pushed for masks to be worn. At a bare minimum he could have used the "bully pulpit" to push mask use but he never did. Now he's pushing for schools to teach in person which is almost guaranteed to supercharge the spread of the virus. So the current surge in cases is tied to both his action - and inaction in the case of masks.

I've read enough to understand you don't find any of this convincing. I don't have any more time today to discuss this topic.

If the goal is to stop the spread, it's pretty much an impossible goal for countries like the US and Brazil. The geopolitical landscape is completely different from say S. Korea and Japan, both of which were very successful at controlling the virus in their own way. I can think of one country where it might be possible and that's N. Korea. I don't for a second believe the Chinese numbers and their reported 4.5 thousand death toll. As for the rest of it, didn't mean for it to get so heated. Thanks for the discussion. Cheers.

 

[RabidBadger]

Is K9 a human disease? As far as I've read, there's no vaccine for any corona virus that infects humans. I could be wrong, of course. Agreed on the ulterior motives behind restricting travel, but it still happened and covid was used as the pretext so you can't just dismiss it.

Is K9 not "any"? You stated you didn't know if there was a vaccine for "any coronavirus" in your initial post that I responded to. You didn't specify until your follow up post.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Is K9 a human disease? As far as I've read, there's no vaccine for any corona virus that infects humans. I could be wrong, of course. Agreed on the ulterior motives behind restricting travel, but it still happened and covid was used as the pretext so you can't just dismiss it.

There hasn't been a vaccine worked up for a coronavirus because they have tended to fall into one of two camps.

1) So deadly that they burned themselves out of victims too quickly (SARS 1, MERS)
2) Mutated to become non-lethal but still easy enough to spread to become endemic (Common cold, others)

There hasn't ever been a consistent need/desire for a vaccine because it is either so bad that it goes away very quickly or is so mild that it's nothing but an annoyance. As soon as the danger of a coronavirus passes, the funding to get a comprehensive vaccine to kill it off wanes.

So that's not necessarily a worry like "We've never been able to vaccinate for one". It's more that they tend to mutate to the point where you don't have to, one way or another.

 

[Ricelund]

Damn dude, that Woolery tweet.

It's so incredible the Democrats can barely organize a coherent campaign but are also simultaneously capable a crafting a deep state conspiracy that involves the media, government agencies, and all our health care networks.

Yes, it's a worldwide Deep State hoax to oust Donald Trump from office.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Damn dude, that Woolery tweet.

It's so incredible the Democrats can barely organize a coherent campaign but are also simultaneously capable a crafting a deep state conspiracy that involves the media, government agencies, and all our health care networks.

There has been a big power void since the Clinton's got knocked out of power over there I guess...

 

[Red Stanley]

There hasn't been a vaccine worked up for a coronavirus because they have tended to fall into one of two camps.

1) So deadly that they burned themselves out of victims too quickly (SARS 1, MERS)
2) Mutated to become non-lethal but still easy enough to spread to become endemic (Common cold, others)

There hasn't ever been a consistent need/desire for a vaccine because it is either so bad that it goes away very quickly or is so mild that it's nothing but an annoyance. As soon as the danger of a coronavirus passes, the funding to get a comprehensive vaccine to kill it off wanes.

So that's not necessarily a worry like "We've never been able to vaccinate for one". It's more that they tend to mutate to the point where you don't have to, one way or another.

That makes sense and on the flip side begs the question of why should covid19 be any different and not just burn out without needing a vaccine? I guess we'll see.

 

[Red Stanley]

Is K9 not "any"? You stated you didn't know if there was a vaccine for "any coronavirus" in your initial post that I responded to. You didn't specify until your follow up post.

My bad.

 

[Bench]

That makes sense and on the flip side begs the question of why should covid19 be any different and not just burn out without needing a vaccine? I guess we'll see.

Oh goodness, we are way, way beyond that.

SARS infected around 8,000 people. Only 8 people in the US were confirmed to have SARS.
MERS was almost exclusively Saudi Arabia and infected around 2,400 people.

COVID-19 has 13,271,756 cases worldwide and counting. There are over 60,000 new cases daily in the US alone.

 

[Red Stanley]

Oh goodness, we are way, way beyond that.

SARS infected around 8,000 people. Only 8 people in the US were confirmed to have SARS.
MERS was almost exclusively Saudi Arabia and infected around 2,400 people.

COVID-19 has 13,271,756 cases worldwide and counting. There are over 60,000 new cases daily in the US alone.

More than likely it's a lot more than 13 mil with the way it spreads and the fact that a lot of people are asymptomatic or experience very mild symptoms making them believe it's something else. The speed and ease of the spread also means it's going to burn through the available host pool faster. It's already mutated a bunch of times, meaning a vaccine could be a pipe dream regardless of how long it stays in circulation.

 

[MBH]

The goal is to stop the spread, so death rate is a poor measure. That doesn't measure how well you have controlled the spread of the virus which is the goal until there is an effective vaccine. Houston hospitals are currently over-run, imagine for a moment what it is going to look like when we have 100,000 cases per day?.

So what stat do you use?
Because when testing is up by 600 percent but confirmed cases is up by 70 percent, pretending the virus is spreading is more than a little disingenuous.

The very real likelihood is that the peak cases came in early April.

 

[MBH]

Oh goodness, we are way, way beyond that.

SARS infected around 8,000 people. Only 8 people in the US were confirmed to have SARS.
MERS was almost exclusively Saudi Arabia and infected around 2,400 people.

COVID-19 has 13,271,756 cases worldwide and counting. There are over 60,000 new cases daily in the US alone.

Way, way, way more.
Anyone who thinks "confirmed cases" is even 1/10th of the actual count is out to lunch.

 

[Run the Jewels]

So what stat do you use?
Because when testing is up by 600 percent but confirmed cases is up by 70 percent, pretending the virus is spreading is more than a little disingenuous.

The very real likelihood is that the peak cases came in early April.

States like Arizona and Florida are regularly returning positive rates in 20% of their tests. That's insane! One thing we can all agree on is testing is better than it was in March when it was extremely difficult to get tested. Our testing capacity has improved but it is still very slow in returning results.

With all that said, if 20% of your tests are positive and you are approaching 100,000 new cases per day you have totally failed to prevent the spread of the virus.

 

[Red Stanley]

States like Arizona and Florida are regularly returning positive rates in 20% of their tests. That's insane! One thing we can all agree on is testing is better than it was in March when it was extremely difficult to get tested. Our testing capacity has improved but it is still very slow in returning results.

With all that said, if 20% of your tests are positive and you are approaching 100,000 new cases per day you have totally failed to prevent the spread of the virus.

Another thing to keep in mind when citing numbers is that having the disease and being sick are two different things. On top of that, "new" cases include people who have recovered, but test positive due to having antibodies. The number of hospitalizations and deaths (as in actually died from the disease, not died from something else while having covid, which serves only to inflate totals and collect insurance) is what I look at to see how an area is doing. Those have been steadily declining since April in most areas. You will see spikes here and there as the virus works its way across places that weren't near the original epicenters. There's a strong possibility this thing already is or will soon become endemic and may never be eradicated, unless it mutates itself out of existence/relevance.

 

[Bench]

Way, way, way more.
Anyone who thinks "confirmed cases" is even 1/10th of the actual count is out to lunch.

Right. That only highlights even further how different this than the aforementioned viruses.

He asked why this would be any different than the others that didn't need a vaccine. I figured 13 million was a good starting point to help understand.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Right. That only highlights even further how different this than the aforementioned viruses.

He asked why this would be any different than the others that didn't need a vaccine. I figured 13 million was a good starting point to help understand.

Yes, the big difference is that COVID is killing a large amount of people, but it isn't killing 20+% of people who contract it, like SARS 1 and MERS did. It is also spreading as much or more than the common cold. So it is keeping people alive to spread itself around. This is why something like Ebola which is WAY WAY WAY WAY more deadly is less of a global threat and more of a regional one.