COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

[Sideline]

I don't get why it's so hard for people to understand this. I really don't.

Because

 

[Jaded-Fan]

The testing period from which these tests were taken was basically the month of July.

Allegheny County reported 244 new positive COVID-19 cases Friday, many of them long-term care residents and staff, along with a single-day record 33 hospitalizations, and 4 additional deaths, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.

With Friday’s new cases, Allegheny County’s total is now at 8,094 cases. In the last 24 hours, the new 244 new positive cases come from 2,616 test results that span from June 30 - July 30.

At least 77 positive coronavirus cases reported Friday are known to be among long-term care residents and staff.

 

[Andy99]

COVID patient didn't recognize body after double transplant

 

[Jaded-Fan]

COVID patient didn't recognize body after double transplant

Just because the virus is the most dangerous to older people and people with underlying health issues does not mean that young seemingly healthy athletic people do not get seriously harmed or killed by it.

Far too many people, especially young people, are not taking this as seriously as they should.

Nothing new.

You are young, illness and death only happens to someone else. Old people. And you are never going to get old, right? So F them, I am going to have fun.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Amen. Maybe people aren't cool aviation drinkers like us fine specimens.

Here's hoping those places on Craig Street stay alive.

 

[Fordy]

Data and health directors' observations suggest that pandemic lockdown increased overdoses, which declined as state reopened

 

[KIRK]

Sound familiar?

This is why I keep saying the only two options were to shut it all down until a vaccine OR accept that you're going to get hit eventually and do things to mitigate the impact and protect the most vulnerable. And then if there's a flare up, you move again to mitigate things.

New York got slammed. They went through it, and now they're not getting hit-- even though there's not exactly fidelity to the guidelines-- because their most vulnerable already were attacked.

Texas got slammed more recently, but there's so little appreciation here for the timeline. The cities actually locked things down the week of March 16. Texas never had a first wave, but the second the state reopened a little too much in late May (the bars and some other stuff) and you got the protests, the first wave hit. Not as lethally as New York, because it's a more spread out state and there were more proactive measures to protect the most vulnerable.

Honestly, look at every state on the mainland. Who didn't get hit eventually?

And that's not some prescription to 'do nothing'. It's merely to note that no matter how proactive you may have been and no matter how much it may seem you stopped it while other places were getting hit, the truth is the only way to permanently avoid that first wave is to fully shut everything down until there's a vaccine that's universally available at earliest.

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-whi...ses-plummet-rest-europe-suffers-spike-1521626

I think this goes to what I mentioned above. Sweden got hit by its first wave and tried to mitigate the impact. Now it's the turn of other countries.

Again, this isn't about whether they were right but instead to note shutting it all down is the only way to avoid a first wave.

 

[KIRK]

I will add this. Places like New Zealand and even Hawaii have 'beaten it' about as much as you can, but they're islands that fully shut down AND quarantined themselves, and I think as they've reopened are pretty much limiting entry to confirmed healthy people. It's the exception to what I noted above, but it only works for an island.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

This is why I keep saying the only two options were to shut it all down until a vaccine OR accept that you're going to get hit eventually and do things to mitigate the impact and protect the most vulnerable. And then if there's a flare up, you move again to mitigate things.

New York got slammed. They went through it, and now they're not getting hit-- even though there's not exactly fidelity to the guidelines-- because their most vulnerable already were attacked.

Texas got slammed more recently, but there's so little appreciation here for the timeline. The cities actually locked things down the week of March 16. Texas never had a first wave, but the second the state reopened a little too much in late May (the bars and some other stuff) and you got the protests, the first wave hit. Not as lethally as New York, because it's a more spread out state and there were more proactive measures to protect the most vulnerable.

Honestly, look at every state on the mainland. Who didn't get hit eventually?

And that's not some prescription to 'do nothing'. It's merely to note that no matter how proactive you may have been and no matter how much it may seem you stopped it while other places were getting hit, the truth is the only way to permanently avoid that first wave is to fully shut everything down until there's a vaccine that's universally available at earliest.

And in a map that I linked yesterday most of the states who have had the biggest drops in cases the last couple of weeks are the ones that many were laughing at, still are, really. Texas, Florida, etc. And the places with the biggest increases are states who were in trouble before, NY, California, etc.

The point is not to now make fun of those states having a resurgence, but to say that you can not get smug and superior, this virus will humble you quickly. All we can do is hold the fort until a vaccine.

Fortunately, most respected scientists think it likely that a vaccine will be available by years end.

But not just available, but in huge quantities. Testimony today before one of the committees explained it well. One of the biggest advances was no longer needing to grow a vaccine in chicken eggs. They only need to grow a vaccine that mimics the protein on the outside of the virus which they attach to cells with. That triggers the RNA to tell the body to make T-Cells to fight the virus. They have had a 100 percent response to that new type of vaccine. I repeat. One hundred percent.

And it takes very little vaccine to trigger the response.

How little?

A two liter bottle such as you keep soda in would hold enough vaccine to immunize 30 million people.

So what does that mean?

It means not only a safe effective vaccine, but almost immediately enough quantities to immunize everyone. The limiting factor is not the vaccine itself but delivery. Enough vials for doses.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

 

[ZeroPucksGiven]

I will add this. Places like New Zealand and even Hawaii have 'beaten it' about as much as you can, but they're islands that fully shut down AND quarantined themselves, and I think as they've reopened are pretty much limiting entry to confirmed healthy people. It's the exception to what I noted above, but it only works for an island.

Yea people crowing about NZ compared to the US had me rolling. Like it's comparing apples to watermelons. The landmass, population, density, etc are all significantly different

 

[KIRK]

And in a map that I linked yesterday most of the states who have had the biggest drops in cases the last couple of weeks are the ones that many were laughing at, still are, really. Texas, Florida, etc. And the places with the biggest increases are states who were in trouble before, NY, California, etc.

The point is not to now make fun of those states having a resurgence, but to say that you can not get smug and superior, this virus will humble you quickly. All we can do is hold the fort until a vaccine.

Fortunately, most respected scientists think it likely that a vaccine will be available by years end.

But not just available, but in huge quantities. Testimony today before one of the committees explained it well. One of the biggest advances was no longer needing to grow a vaccine in chicken eggs. They only need to grow a vaccine that mimics the protein on the outside of the virus which they attach to cells with. That triggers the RNA to tell the body to make T-Cells to fight the virus. They have had a 100 percent response to that new type of vaccine. I repeat. One hundred percent.

And it takes very little vaccine to trigger the response.

How little?

A two liter bottle such as you keep soda in would hold enough vaccine to immunize 30 million people.

So what does that mean?

It means not only a safe effective vaccine, but almost immediately enough quantities to immunize everyone. The limiting factor is not the vaccine itself but delivery. Enough vials for doses.

Texas is about 22% off its July 15 peak seven day rolling average of new diagnoses. Florida is about 14% off its July 17 peak. And those two 'mock worthy' states-- combined population 50 million-- COMBINED have experienced fewer deaths than New Jersey (population just under 9 million) and a bit under half of those that happened in model state New York (population just under 20 million).

Other data:

Arizona is 31% off its July 7 peak.

Keep an eye on Alabama too. Two weeks into their mandatory masks, and they're 11% off their July 19 peak.

Georgia's rolling average has been on a plateau for the last 11 days.

 

[KIRK]

Yea people crowing about NZ compared to the US had me rolling. Like it's comparing apples to watermelons. The landmass, population, density, etc are all significantly different

The island is the biggest thing. You shut it down and quarantine and, when you open it up, you can restrict entry. Only place you sort of can do it like that in the US is Hawaii.

That said, yes density is a huge thing too . . . Wyoming, Dakotas, etc.

 

[Snooki Stackhouse]

Anyone else have Penguins season tickets? Apparently the Penguins are going to bill me for 2020-2021 and I'm not sure why they think they'll be playing 41 home games this year. I'd hoped for a suspension on ticket payments until there was more clarity on what, if any, games will be played in front of fans. Let's get through this playoff and then we can talk about me paying for tickets.

 

[ZeroPucksGiven]

The island is the biggest thing. You shut it down and quarantine and, when you open it up, you can restrict entry. Only place you sort of can do it like that in the US is Hawaii.

That said, yes density is a huge thing too . . . Wyoming, Dakotas, etc.

Was the NZ PM Ardern criticized for closing it's borders? I can't remember...

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Anyone else have Penguins season tickets? Apparently the Penguins are going to bill me for 2020-2021 and I'm not sure why they think they'll be playing 41 home games this year. I'd hoped for a suspension on ticket payments until there was more clarity on what, if any, games will be played in front of fans. Let's get through this playoff and then we can talk about me paying for tickets.

I have them.

I spoke to them months ago, and they said that if I renewed I got a 10% bonus, or at least I think that it was 10%. And if I applied by balance from selling some tickets this year, or from cancelled games, to next year it would be 25%. He further said that the bonus would not be a direct discount but a gift card to use of tickets, concessions, I suppose gear, whatever.

The amounts coming out were not changing though, I still had to pay when due.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I think this is a bad decision by Wolf overall, not because I think it's wrong in theory (some places are controlled enough to warrant going back to school) but because I don't trust the school board to make the right call

Like look in reply to those tweets, someone seriously asks "when are you going to stand with high school sports and activities like marching band?". Those are the kind of people that run the school boards, do you really want to let them decide? They're not going to be concerned with the health and safety of teachers and students, they want to know when they can drink beer and watch high school football again.

 

[KIRK]

I think this is a bad decision by Wolf overall, not because I think it's wrong in theory (some places are controlled enough to warrant going back to school) but because I don't trust the school board to make the right call

Like look in reply to those tweets, someone seriously asks "when are you going to stand with high school sports and activities like marching band?". Those are the kind of people that run the school boards, do you really want to let them decide? They're not going to be concerned with the health and safety of teachers and students, they want to know when they can drink beer and watch high school football again.

Seems to be a prevailing theme, no? The problem isn't opening up things. The problem is that there are so many idiots out there. Not sure there's a 'good' or 'right' answer here.

BTW, I'd be more inclined to be a hard no on schools if I didn't see people like Gates and Fauci-- hardly proponents of erring on the side of opening up stuff-- saying to open the school judiciously.

 

[ZeroPucksGiven]

They pushed my kids' school start date back 2 weeks to Aug 31st

Right now their plan is to divide them up in groups. Group A will report on certain days. Group B will report on the other days

They also color coded their plan

Red: all remote learning
Yellow: mix of in person and remote
Green: all in person learning

Right now they plan to start the year in Yellow

 

[ColePens]

I say it all the time... the school debate is one of the toughest debates I think that is out there. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. I truly think a well thought out hybrid plan will work. But damn... you need leadership for that. Someone has to step up and lead that.

 

[CascadiaPenguin]

...It's an annoying thing that I've noticed a lot of these media organizations are doing. It's fear mongering and taking things out of context to get clicks. Article titles like "we may be dealing with COVID-19 for 10-20 years", "we could never return to normal after COVID-19", "COVID-19 is here to stay" and such are solely made to scare the shit out of people and get people to click on the links. It's downright bogus and everyone is doing it.

I suppose we can agree to disagree the difference between clickbait and headlines. The journalistic purpose of a headline is simply to get people to read the article in a manner that is true to the story. Headlines aren't abstracts one might find in a medical journal, or even summaries of the content. They are invitations to read. At some point when headlines become more sensational and less reflective of the underlying article, they become clickbait. This is especially true when the underlying articles are fact-challenged. The NY times track record with respect to facts is excellent, as any nonpartisan media analysis group agrees. This is in contrast to "fake news", which is a non sequitur generally used to defame reporting that challenges an agenda. I think the Times does sometimes use left-center language in their headlines while attempting to compel readers, but the vast majority of the underlying articles fact-check AND are in harmony with the headline. To me, that is a significant difference as compared to clickbait, but I respect your disagreement if that is the case.

 

[AlphaMikeFoxtrots]

I had to get tested after my dad got a positive result following a whole day together. A seven day turnaround is...something we should really strive to do better on, just saying.

 

[Andy99]

I had to get tested after my dad got a positive result following a whole day together. A seven day turnaround is...something we should really strive to do better on, just saying.

I was in contact with someone who turned out to have Covid and my insurance company won’t refer to me to get a test because “it’s too busy..too many people want tests...just quarantine yourself.” The city offers free tests but I can’t get one for two weeks! People, this is why we’re failing to control this thing...

 

[Jaded-Fan]

I say it all the time... the school debate is one of the toughest debates I think that is out there. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. I truly think a well thought out hybrid plan will work. But damn... you need leadership for that. Someone has to step up and lead that.

As you have seen in this thread. Finding people willing to lead is not the problem. There are many very vocal about leading one way. And as many vocal about leading the exact opposite way.

Finding people to bridge the two and find agreement is becoming rare.

 

[Jaded-Fan]