Coronavirus Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it
#921
Posted 2020-October-13, 14:45
#922
Posted 2020-October-15, 05:22
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![Posted Image](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/10/14/us/coronavirus-cases-us-surge-promo-1602727321697/coronavirus-cases-us-surge-promo-1602727321697-threeByTwoMediumAt2X-v5.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
The number of new coronavirus cases in the United States is surging once again after growth slowed in late summer. While the geography of the pandemic is now shifting to the Midwest and to more rural areas, cases are trending upward in most states, many of which are setting weekly records for new cases.
The rise since mid-September has been especially profound in the Midwest and Mountain West, where hospitals are filling up and rural areas are seeing staggering outbreaks. The regions are home to almost all of the metro areas with the country’s worst outbreaks right now.
Taken alone, case counts are an imperfect measure of the pandemic’s severity, and it is difficult to compare the current numbers with earlier points in the U.S. outbreak when testing was less widespread. But other critical measures are showing a resurgence, too. And the continuing spread of cases to new areas of the country suggests the outbreak is far from over.
“We are headed in the wrong direction, and that’s reflected not only in the number of new cases but also in test positivity and the number of hospitalizations,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. “Together, I think these three indicators give a very clear picture that we are seeing increased transmission in communities across the country.”
“We are starting from a much higher plateau than we were before the summer wave,” Dr. Rivers said. “It concerns me that we might see even more cases during the next peak than we did during the summer.”
The average number of new coronavirus cases per day first peaked in mid-April, when New York City and its surrounding areas were hit hard. New Orleans, southwest Georgia and some resort towns in the West also saw some of the spring’s worst outbreaks.
Over the summer, the number of new cases per day soared past the April peak. The South and West were particularly affected.
Cases remained high after the July surge, and they continue to rise in parts of the South, including Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. In the Northeast, the number of new cases stayed remarkably flat over the summer. But numbers in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while still low, have been rising over the past couple weeks.
The current resurgence is also particularly rural compared with earlier stages of the outbreak, which hit cities in the Northeast and then the Sun Belt.
Of the 100 counties with the worst per-capita outbreaks in the last seven days, more than half are home to fewer than 10,000 people. Almost all have populations under 50,000.
There are reasons for optimism, Dr. Rivers said, like increased testing capacity and better knowledge about effective treatments and containment measures. But, she said, several factors keep her concerned about the current rise. Dr. Rivers pointed to the start of flu season, the continued politicization of control measures like mask mandates and cold temperatures that would force people indoors, where the virus thrives.
“I think we are in a dangerous place,” Dr. Rivers said.
#924
Posted 2020-October-18, 09:56
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What exactly does the word allow mean in this context? Again the passivity is evident, as if humans should just line up in the proper order of virus exposure and submit to natures will. How about instead we channel our inner Ayn Rand and stress the role of human agency? Something like: Herd immunity will come from a combination of exposure to the virus through natural infection and the widespread use of vaccines. Here are some ways to maximize the role of vaccines in that process.
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In that sense, as things stand, there is no normal to be found. An attempt to pursue it would most likely lead to panic over the numbers of cases and hospitalizations, and would almost certainly make a second lockdown more likely. There is no ideal of liberty at the end of the tunnel here.
Dont get me wrong: The Great Barrington strategy is a tempting one. Coming out of a libertarian think tank, it tries to procure maximum liberty for commerce and daily life. It is a seductive idea. Yet consistency of message is not an unalloyed good, even when the subject is liberty
My worldview is both more hopeful and more tragic. There is no normal here, but we can do better with vigorous actions to combat Covid-19, including government actions. The conception of human nature evident in the Great Barrington Declaration is so passive, it raises the question of whether it even qualifies as a defense of natural liberty.
#925
Posted 2020-October-23, 05:30
David Leonhardt at NYT said:
![Posted Image](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/10/23/multimedia/23-MORNING-subSTATECASES/23-MORNING-subSTATECASES-articleLarge.png)
By The New York Times | Sources: State and local health agencies and hospitals, United States Census Bureau
The starkest sign of Vermonts success is that it has not recorded a single Covid-19 death in more than two months.
Vermont is succeeding partly because it has not allowed the virus to become a partisan issue. The Republican governor, Phil Scott unlike many other Republican politicians around the country has consistently told people to take the virus seriously. He started wearing a mask early in the pandemic and has stood at the back of the room in many of the states coronavirus briefings, letting Dr. Mark Levine, Vermonts answer to Dr. Anthony Fauci, dominate proceedings, Bill McKibben, a Vermont resident, wrote in The New Yorker.
Vermont also benefits from having a high degree of social trust among its residents, as Maria Sacchetti explained in The Washington Post. And Vermont has two strong local media organizations VTDigger and Seven Days that keep residents informed and that both took an intriguing step early in the pandemic, McKibben notes: They shut down their comments sections, to prevent misinformation from spreading.
#926
Posted 2020-October-23, 08:59
#927
Posted 2020-October-24, 03:27
Perhaps this image will help. I took this photo while walking the poodles today - a small black one and a heavier white one with a tinge of orange.
People always compliment me on the dogs. I explain that I call one Trump and the other Obama because the white one is fat and stupid. Even in one of the most conservative suburbs in Australia this always gets a knowing laugh.
The children are playing cricket. The local council just installed a drop-in pitch - for free. There is a small audience out of sight on the left sitting on the grass. They clap politely now and then. Nothing unusual.
I was once taken to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs that was different.
Once when I collected three Senior academics from Dartmouth Medical school at Sydney airport in my car to drive them back to the University, I asked them to do up their seatbelts.
The three of them, white males, looked at me in surprise - they absolutely could not believe it when I told them that I could not start the car until they did because it was illegal to drive in Australia if everyone was not wearing seatbelts.
Americans seem to me to have no concept of doing something to ensure that the entire community benefits.
Australians have universal health cover. We have to wear seat belts because if there is an accident and someone is injured then everyone in Australia contributes to the care of that person and to the welfare of them and their family.
It is unfair not to do a small thing like wearing a seatbelt to mitigate the risk.
This why it is so hard for Australians to grasp why Americans faff about and complain about masks and social distancing. It just seems so stupid. 'Normal' people take care of each other. In the USA that contract does not exist.
We jointly ensure that everyone can be educated through to the level of a college education without crippling loans.
Everyone can access the same health care as each other: no charge.
If you lose your job you can access reasonable support.
When you retire, you will be looked after.
Drugs are affordable.
Sure, bad things do happen, our government is not perfect. One in one hundred year catastrophe's continue to happen every bloody year and they still don't have a system in place to watch out for them.
Some people still want more than they're entitled to.
BUT
There is a community responsibility. There is a social contract.
That's what 'socialised medicine' looks like. That's what a successful first world country looks like.
It's not a bad thing.
![Posted Image](http://i.imgur.com/Iom2zgP.jpg)
#928
Posted 2020-October-26, 18:35
Jonathan Wolfe at NYT said:
Theyre restrictive, tedious and hotly contested, but since the early days of the pandemic weve known masks to be an efficient and cost-effective way to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
And theyre even better, it turns out, when you oblige people to wear them.
Take Kansas, where a real-world experiment in face coverings emerged this summer. In early July, Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, issued a statewide mask order, but was forced to let counties opt out of it under a law limiting her emergency management powers.
Only 20 of the states 105 counties enforced the order, which required residents to wear masks in public. Those 20 counties saw half as many new coronavirus infections as the counties that did not have the mandate in place, according to a new study from the University of Kansas.
Cellphone-tracking data from the University of Maryland showed no differences in how often people left home in the counties with or without mask mandates, so it seemed likely that the masks made the difference.
Experts say its part of a countrywide trend: Localities that impose mask mandates often see fewer cases, fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths and lower test-positivity rates than nearby localities that do not.
Other studies have turned up similar results in Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. A recently published report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 75 percent drop in coronavirus cases in Arizona less than a month after mask-wearing became enforced and bars and gyms were shuttered.
#929
Posted 2020-November-02, 15:31
#930
Posted 2020-November-02, 16:28
Cyberyeti, on 2020-November-02, 15:31, said:
I think that you are mentally ill and are desperately grasping at straws...
Most of what you have posted in the past has been nonsense and I see little reason to pay attention to your latest idiocy.
#931
Posted 2020-November-02, 16:54
Cyberyeti, on 2020-November-02, 15:31, said:
The article certainly makes valid points (well, we are close to 300 deaths/day than 200 deaths/day, but I guess if you are "rofessor of Evidence-Based Medicine" you can't be bothered to be moderately precise about numbers when that gets into the way of your anti-lockdown message). But it's all besides the point. For some reason the current UK government keeps trying to be the smartest person in the room, and rely on the fanciest modeling that is projecting number of deaths with great certainty into the far future.
But just a simple careful look at all the numbers would have revealed to anyone with a modest amount of common sense that we are on a dangerous trajectory and have to urgently do more. We are at ~300 deaths day. Hospital admissions were doubling about every two weeks. In the NW, hospitals are basically at capacity. Every measure you take takes at least a week to have an effect on cases, about two weeks on hospital admissions, and about 3-4 weeks on deaths. Unless Boris wanted to be "PM of more than 1000 covid deaths/day in TWO waves" he had to act now.
Now I could be convinced that shutting retails is overdoing it a little bit. But the bigger issue is that yet again, this UK government acted way too late.
I guess the basic problem is that when you build your government on a lie ("We WILL do Brexit and it WILL BE GREAT") and make everyone sign up to that lie, you have by definition kicked common sense out of the room. That's why they can only get their backbenchers on board with such ridiculous projections of 4000 deaths/day by Mid November (or claiming they know NOW in which area hospitals will be overwhelmed by Christmas).
#932
Posted 2020-November-02, 17:40
hrothgar, on 2020-November-02, 16:28, said:
Most of what you have posted in the past has been nonsense and I see little reason to pay attention to your latest idiocy.
I think you are just extremely rude. The new lockdown makes absolutely ZERO difference to me, I have been effectively observing the new restrictions for the best part of 8 months because I can't afford to get the virus.
Also to Cherdano - I think the 200/day may be just for England not UK wide as these restictions only apply to England.
#933
Posted 2020-November-02, 17:45
Cyberyeti, on 2020-November-02, 17:40, said:
Also to Cherdano - I think the 200/day may be just for England not UK wide as these restictions only apply to England.
Wrong.
#935
Posted 2020-November-02, 18:21
Zelandakh, on 2020-November-02, 18:05, said:
Missing the point I was making, it's 200/day in England, the remainder are in Scotland, Wales and NI. Since the restrictions only apply to England, the UK figures are not as relevant to making that decision. The UK figures broken down by country are in a link in the article.
#936
Posted 2020-November-02, 19:22
Cyberyeti, on 2020-November-02, 18:21, said:
You can get the breakdown by individual nation here. The last full day reported was Eng 278; Sco 24; Wal 13; NI 11; Total 326, which represents a doubling from the previous week's figures in England and Scotland and more or less no change for Wales and NI (141; 11; 16; 6; 174).
#937
Posted 2020-November-03, 03:58
Zelandakh, on 2020-November-02, 19:22, said:
Why does this bear no resemblance to what's in the link in the article to the official goivt figures ? where the highest recent number shown is 204 in England (+52 in the rest of the UK)
https://coronavirus-.../details/deaths
OK, worked it out, you're looking at the second graph, I'm looking at the first, both are reasonable, I'm not sure which they were referring to.
#938
Posted 2020-November-03, 16:56
Cyberyeti, on 2020-November-02, 18:21, said:
You know, I thought hrothgar's attack on you above was really uncalled for. But you do make it really hard to be sympathetic to you.
So you made a simple clear error. The article you cited discusses projections of number of deaths for the entire UK. (Which you could have found out by looking at the heading of the first graph in the article you linked to.) It doesn't talk about deaths in England only.
But when someone points out that error, you just keep digging yourself in deeper.
Also, it does not make sense to look at the last few days of the first graph on https://coronavirus-...details/deaths/ . That shows the number of days YESTERDAY THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN REPORTED TODAY. But of course some deaths take a few days to get reported.
But I guess I shouldn't criticise you too harshly for that. Your esteemed "Professor of Evidence-based medicine" seems to have made the same mistake - that's the only way I can make sense of the brown line in the "MRC models & observed outcomes" chart in this article.
Meanwhile, hospitals in the NW are full, and admissions are still growing exponentially. And today, 397 covid-19 deaths were reported.
#939
Posted 2020-November-03, 20:45
cherdano, on 2020-November-03, 16:56, said:
So you made a simple clear error. The article you cited discusses projections of number of deaths for the entire UK. (Which you could have found out by looking at the heading of the first graph in the article you linked to.) It doesn't talk about deaths in England only.
But when someone points out that error, you just keep digging yourself in deeper.
Also, it does not make sense to look at the last few days of the first graph on https://coronavirus-...details/deaths/ . That shows the number of days YESTERDAY THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN REPORTED TODAY. But of course some deaths take a few days to get reported.
But I guess I shouldn't criticise you too harshly for that. Your esteemed "Professor of Evidence-based medicine" seems to have made the same mistake - that's the only way I can make sense of the brown line in the "MRC models & observed outcomes" chart in this article.
Meanwhile, hospitals in the NW are full, and admissions are still growing exponentially. And today, 397 covid-19 deaths were reported.
OK, mea culpa, but if you'd pointed out the heading first time rather than just saying "you're wrong" that would have helped.
I ignored the last few days of the first graph where it dropped off.
Yup the NW needs to be locked down, my area does not and my fear is that public cooperation will be lost here. I will stay compliant with the new lockdown rules because that's what I've been doing for 8 months. I go to 3 places only, the doctor, the supermarket and to visit a friend who has had a lockdown induced breakdown, which we do outside on the heath appropriately distanced.
From what I can gather, there are basically only any number of cases here at the university (which came to light when they recently made mass testing available to students) and a poultry processing plant at the other end of the county.
I'd love to know what fraction of the 397 deaths are actually OF covid rather than WITH covid.
#940
Posted 2020-November-03, 21:32
Cyberyeti, on 2020-November-03, 20:45, said:
What precisely is the distinction you are trying to draw here? If I run an asbestos company and for any employees that die, I go to court and say "S(h)e died of a respiratory disease with asbestos, not from asbestos", how sympathetic do you think the judge will be? In the UK, covid death certificates will often list more than one cause. The figures indicate certificates where covid is mentioned but it does not have to be the sole cause to be included, and rightly so.
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