The New York Times Releases Its Dataset of US Confirmed Coronavirus Cases (nytco.com) 148
The New York Times has made one of the most comprehensive datasets of coronavirus cases in the United States publicly available in response to requests from researchers, scientists, government officials and businesses who would like access to the data to better understand the virus and model what may come next. From a report: The Times initially began tracking cases in late January after it became clear that no federal government agency was providing the public with an accurate, up-to-date record of cases, tracked to the county level, of people in the U.S. who had tested positive for the virus. The Times led effort has grown from a handful of correspondents to a team of several dozen journalists, including data scientists and student journalists from Northwestern University, the University of Missouri and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, working around the clock to record details about every case. The Times is committed to collecting as much data as possible in connection with the outbreak and is collaborating with the University of California, Berkeley, on an effort in California. By Friday, March 27, The Times had tracked more than 85,000 cases in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories, over the past eight weeks. More than 1,200 people in the U.S. have died so far.
30K in NY state alone (Score:1)
January 22: “We have it totally under cont (Score:3, Interesting)
February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
February 26: “The 15 (cases in the
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Re:30K in NY state alone (Score:4, Informative)
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So, there are some downsides to living packed like sardines in a dense urban city, relying on public transportation, and not having any 'elbow room'.
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On the other hand people living in the middle of nowhere have a good chance to die alone, and no one would know for months.
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So?
Is that any worse than dying in a city and no one caring?
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The next hospital is usually way closer and so is the neighbour.
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You seem to be thinking the extreme other case, which I am not.
I'm thinking smaller cities....the normal ones across the nation where you see your neighbors house, but you don't share a wall with them.
Suburban type areas....where you have a house with plenty of yard (front and back)....etc.
You can readily drive to shops, grocery, etc....you have hospitals.
That's the model I'm talking about...not the extreme rural (which there is of course)
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Suburbia is fugly. I'd rather live in a small apartment building where the room saved is used for meadows and forests and where both public transport and walking is possible. Also, this way if I have a heart attack I'd be able to crawl to the neighbours' door and ask for help.
Actually, I already live like this.
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"Suburbia is fugly. I'd rather live in a small apartment building where the room saved is used for meadows and forests and where both public transport and walking is possible."
Exactly where is an apartment dense city where meadows and forests are preserved? No, Central Park doesn't count. It's not a meadow or forest.
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Actually, I live like this in a 3 bedroom house, with front and back yard, covered parking.....(carport it is a bit older than newer houses which all have fully enclosed garages).
I have a nice look
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Obviously this is going to spread fastest in areas with the greatest population/commuter density, but that doesn't mean other areas immume - they are just going to lag in terms of how rapidly it spreads.
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Many of those rural/low density locations had infections well before NY (for example, Arizona had its first case 36 days before NY). It didn't explode. It's probably not going to explode, because geographic separation is basically social isolation on its own. In NYC, your kids all play in the same park - and thus they don't get to play. In much of the rest of the US, they play in their own backyard, which is typically fenced off from others. The risks of contact are much, much lower.
This is probably al
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People in rural areas will learn this disease doesn't care where you live. They aren't safe just because they live in an isolated back water.
Re:30K in NY state alone (Score:4, Informative)
Looking at the actual data [worldometers.info], it appears those "rural" flyover States have a LOT fewer cases and deaths due to coronavirus.
New York has 44,635 cases of infection, and 519 deaths. That's with a population of 19.5 million people. Nebraska has 81 infections - and no deaths. And that's with a population of 1.93 million. So you're (44635*19.5/(81*1.9)) 5600 times MORE LIKELY to get infected in New York than in Nebraska.
Likewise, check NJ - 6876 infections, 81 deaths, 8.9 million people. West Virginia? 76 infections, 1 death, 1.8 million people. Orders of magnitude different rates.
California? 4204 infections, 85 deaths, 39.6 million people. North Dakota? 52 infections, 0 deaths, 762,000 people. Orders of magnitude differences again.
I would posit that, based on the data, your conclusion is completely wrong; if anything we've learned that living "in an isolated back water" actually significantly less likely to get the infection and massively less likely to die from it.
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Of course they have fewer cases, but if they have ANY cases then exponential growth applies. Don't forget that rural areas have much less ability to test as well, so numbers as of now are being under reported in rural areas.
Please don't take the current situation as an indication you will not be exposed. You and I may have our differences but I want every American to be as safe as possible.
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So...
We're being told to socially isolate to contain and avoid the virus. Those back water towns are socially isolated. And thus they'll get the infection rate of NYC? Your logic just does not hold. The facts speak for themselves...
Consider Connecticut - right next door to NYC. The population is 1/6th that of NYC, but the infection rate is about 1/40th and the death rate about 1/30th. NY had its first case on March 2nd, and Connecticut just a few days later, March 8. Yet the rates are massively dif
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You are just looking at current rates. This isn't just going to go away. A vaccine is at least a year away. Even in small towns, you still need to take steps to limit your contacts with other people. I live in (and work for) a state with a large rural population and we are still advising everyone to take the same precautions.
Not looking to argue about it, just trying to help people stay safe out there. I'm kinda on the front lines with what I do, so it's just habit now.
Bill de Blasio gave some truly bad adv
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That's deceptive. They do end up with less infections, but not by the amount you see in this data. This is because they get it later than the urban areas, so their curves are shifted.
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So - the data is wrong? Nebraska's first case was March 6th, just a few days after New York. Are you suggesting that in the next 4 days we'll see Nebraska's corona virus infection and death rate jump by a few orders of magnitude? Really?
Arizona's first coronavirus case was found on January 26th, over a month before NY's first case. And the infection and death rates are a fraction of NY (about 3%, in each category). You sure you want to stick to your conclusion?
NY is screwed because of the massively h
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"Are you suggesting that in the next 4 days we'll see Nebraska's corona virus infection and death rate jump by a few orders of magnitude? Really?"
Potentially. That's how exponential spread works.
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Well, explain Arizona. First case happened 36 days before New York. And they have about 1/30th the infection and mortality rates per capita as New York. My bet would be that Nebraska will be like Arizona, not New York. Want to take that bet?
You can't just go by first case. It's too random. R0 is the average, not the exact number of people a given infected person will infect.
The first case may stay home and infect nobody.
The first case might be a taxi driver and infect everyone he drives around.
Usually you would start comparing after 50 or 100 cases say, to remove some of the randomness.
Maybe you can look through the data here [cnn.com] and see if it supports your conclusion or not.
The graph is a bit fiddly without letting you choose the states you
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I'll just endorse this answer because it pretty much covers everything I would have said. Not every spark starts a fire, but once one is started it will spread.
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Where did you learn math, watching Dumb and Dumber To or Idiocracy?
Is that also where you learned geography? I have to assume so, since you seem to consider California and New Jersey "rural backwaters".
If the reported numbers were accurate, the correct formula would be (44635 / 19.5) / (81 / 1.9), which would indicate you are 53.7 times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 in New York than in Nebraska, not 5600.
But New York is testing orders of magnitude more people than Nebraska, while Nebraska doctors
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Looking at the actual data [worldometers.info], it appears those "rural" flyover States have a LOT fewer cases and deaths due to coronavirus.
New York has 44,635 cases of infection, and 519 deaths.
New York started out with only a couple of cases.
(and only a couple of weeks ago, too...)
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Grew up on a farm in West Virginia. We had a hand pump in the kitchen, an outhouse, and a party line phone shared by the six other families in the holler.
That isolated enough for you smart guy?
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If they have even one case reported, there are dozens that are not. And one turns into two, and then into four, and then eight, doubling every two days.
You are NOT safe anywhere in the world right now unless you take steps to make yourself safe. Please do that.
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It's totally not normal that a journal collects and shares public health data with government organizations rather than the other way around. I hope whichever government agencies use it have paid for this data. Journalism is a waning business, but no journalism means no actual democracy for a long time to come. So it'd be weird if NYT sponsored the public sphere, rather than the other way around.
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I have been ignoring anything and everything related to this "pandemic" .... I don't have time for insects.
Yet here you are, participating in an article about a pandemic. For a person with no time to do so, you sure seem to being doing it.
Nothing Confirmed from China (Score:1)
since they kicked out the journalists. No comment NYT?
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China has reported 55 new cases since yesterday.
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They weren't reporting any new cases last week and they got blasted by Taiwan and other countries. The WHO is just kowtowing to China at this point, there as of yet haven't been allowed any independent observers into China.
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They weren't reporting any new cases last week
Why are you always lying about this guruevi?
CNN have constant updates [cnn.com] and mention China's new cases multiple times a day.
All the corona trackers have daily China data.
What news sources are you looking at if you can't find numbers from China?
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They weren't reporting any new cases last week
They have reported new cases every day. You're confused by the fact that for four consecutive days they had no new cases in Wuhan or Hubei.
and they got blasted by Taiwan and other countries.
Bullshit unless you have a citation. I've seen nothing about any alleged "blasting" for non-reporting... which would be crazy because they have been dutifully reporting every day.
Re:Nothing Confirmed from China (Score:5, Informative)
The work stoppage had ALWAYS been implemented by exceptions of necessity that were priortized for national needs. Among the first classes were government workers with social distancing implemented. Among the first classes were ordinary citizens involved with food production and distribution to avoid panic buying and hoarding.
This necessary RISK has always been an aspect of China's policies. Having workers return to a spectrum of enterprises has always involved calculated risks and, therefore, very slow in its implementation: Incremental and accorded by necessity.
What China's policies achieved was digging out Wuhan from collapse and preventing any other city from runaway clusters.
Re: Nothing Confirmed from China (Score:2)
I'm staying in my own wheelhouse. You should too.
Re: Nothing Confirmed from China (Score:2)
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And you believe the US numbers, where they just aren't testing people?
Perhaps South Korea is believable, but most countries appear to be lying in one way or another. Sometimes it's innocent, as in cases where they really don't have a public health system of any strength. Or the government isn't trusted enough by the people to do anything useful. (And yes, there are almost always valid reasons to not trust the government. But that doesn't affect the point.)
The US has been denying that it's affected until
Re:Nothing Confirmed from China (Score:4, Funny)
Hey now - US lack of testing seems to mostly be due to incompetence.
Obviously we are lying about the reasons behind the incompetence, but we are telling the truth about the results of that incompetence.
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If they have confirmed 85k cases, that means at least 85k tests have been performed.
Since not everyone will test positive, that means more than 85k tests have been performed.
We have 325 million people here. not everyone is going to get tested.
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Massachusetts is reporting detailed numbers about the number of tests performed. The MA Wikipedia COVID page has the chart at the bottom of the page.
At the moment it is kinda hard to tell how much the growth rate in MA is being driven by an exponential (though overdue) growth in test availability versus an exponential growth in people meeting the criteria for getting tested by presenting symptoms.
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Anecdotal reports from nurses and doctors around the country are saying the number of deaths being reported is not correct. In some cases it's simply a lag between when the person dies and when that statistic gets added to the total.
In other cases, and similar to what you said, people who die aren't being tested to confirm even though that is why they were admitted, or in some cases are being said to have died from the flu.
More than likely we are near or over the 1,500 mark for deaths but because of the abo
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It would be no surprised if anyone who does from any kind of flu related malady is classified as a Wuhan Virus death
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And you believe the US numbers, where they just aren't testing people?
My most direct experience is in Washington state, where we are definitely testing. The latest numbers of the Washington state COVID-19 website https://www.doh.wa.gov/emergencies/coronavirus [wa.gov] show 46,380 people tested so far with a 93% negative result rate. So US numbers aren't al crap, and there is testing going on.
However, I read recently https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/27/822407626/mystery-in-wuhan-recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-negative-then-positive [npr.org]:
In February, Wang Chen, a director at the state-run Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, estimated that the nucleic acid tests used in China were accurate at identifying positive cases of the coronavirus only 30%-50% of the time.
I wouldn't be surprised to f
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Maybe. It may be that the tests aren't as reliable as we believed. It may be something else. Some virologists have speculated that people can harbor reserves of the virus after they have officially cleared it from their system that can then re-emerge and become infectious. Or perhaps people can catch it more than once. Or something else. But it *could* be defective tests.
Paywall warning (Score:5, Informative)
The content isn't 'available' it's behind a paywall.
Also, the NYT is claiming that no US government is providing the data, when USGIS and CDC have been providing zip-code level data for weeks now to all relevant parties and researchers which they themselves sourced to make this map. Many states and counties have been providing detailed data publicly to their citizens.
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A more useful reference, besides having to source your own county/state reference (which Arizona and NYS have refused to do thusfar):
https://usafacts.org/visualiza... [usafacts.org]
Downloadable public data from January onwards.
I guess the actual raw data being available just doesn't fit the NYT narrative.
Fitting - in the math sense. (Score:2)
A more useful reference, besides having to source your own county/state reference (which Arizona and NYS have refused to do thusfar):
https://usafacts.org/visualiza [usafacts.org]...
Downloadable public data from January onwards.
Oh, goodie! It should be fun to compare this against what the NYT reports - and publicly ask them about the discrepancy if they come up with higher numbers.
I guess the actual raw data being available just doesn't fit the NYT narrative.
It will be interesting to see how it fits their reporting. B-)
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It's nice to have a second organization doing this, but trashing the NYT and then talking up your own source for doing the same thing i
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They have removed their paywall, ever since i think the first of the month.
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Not when I go.
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They have removed their paywall, ever since i think the first of the month.
Yes, it's removed for coronavirus reporting, anyway.
You do have to sign in, though.
Re:Paywall warning (Score:5, Informative)
The data are actually on Github [github.com].
Also, you can read NYT when you a) disable Javascript and b) accept only session cookies.
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You can also read the NYT for free by using Reader mode, built in to Firefox. It skips the paywall entirely.
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"The content isn't 'available' it's behind a paywall."
Delete your fucking cookies.
Archive (Score:2)
Is it anonymized? (Score:2)
Is it anonymized? If not, how do they avoid prosecution under HIPAA?)
It will be interesting to see a count by an organization with a political bias giving them an incentive to expose, rather than hide, the extent of the spread and the count of the dead.
It could also help NYT clean up its reputation regarding accuracy of reporting, if they can resist padding the figures. Even if they can't, it will be useful both as a high-end estimate and to put pressure on the administration to release more, and/or more
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The aggregated data is available from CDC and state governments. NYT is just blabbering about and guessing if the described method is actually the methodology they used.
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The aggregated data wasn't available when the NYT started collecting it back in January.
It's good to have an independent source.
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Yes, the alleged administration is above phutzing with the data in the same way a brick is above the Sargasso Sea (thanx Douglas Adams).
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When and why was this map started? The map was first shared publicly on Jan. 22. It was developed to provide researchers, public health authorities, and the general public with a user-friendly tool to track the outbreak as it unfolds. All data collected and displayed are made freely available through a GitHub repository, along with the feature layers of the dashboard, which are now included in the ESRI Living Atlas. For a detailed explanation for the dashboardâ(TM)s development, please refer to this article in The Lancet by Professor Lauren Gardner.
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"Is it anonymized? If not, how do they avoid prosecution under HIPAA?)" What, you think the NYT is going to list the names of everyone? The NYT has a fine reputation in accuracy. Hell, they even print retractions when they find an error...unlike some other organizations we know of...wonder which those could be, eh?
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Is it anonymized? If not, how do they avoid prosecution under HIPAA?)
The New York Times probably isn't required to follow HIPAA. In general HIPAA applies to medical professions, not everyone.
What are the criteria for a COVID-19 death? (Score:2)
What are the criteria for a COVID-19 death? I haven't been able to find this anywhere.
Surely it can't be "he died, and he tested positive for the virus." So, if not that, what is it precisely?
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Respiratory failure and pneumonia is pretty much indicative.
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The test is the only really good answer, but yeah, those are too rare to use on testing corpses. There's also a thing in the lungs where all of a particular kind of lung cell died. I've heard this called "ground glass in the lungs" and "the lungs were full of pus", but I've no idea why those two things should describe the same thing.
So, basically, if you want to be really sure you've got to do an autopsy on the corpse in an environment you don't mind getting exposed to COVID-19, and try to avoid getting i
Re:What are the ... a COVID-19 death? addendum (Score:2)
I forgot:
Some folks lived through the problems with their lungs, got taken off the ventilators, and soon died of an unexpected heart attack. I don't know that they would show the same postmortem symptoms. So the test is probably the only way to be sure. (And the test has a failure rate.)
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the "ground glass" refers to a certain appearance in radiology images of damage to lungs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I don't know, but it depends...
In Italy it is exactly that, which is maybe one of reasons their reported death rate is so high.
Presumably elsewhere, in addition to testing +ve for the virus, a diagnosis of pneumonia would be required, whether by clinical observation or postmortem.
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It varies by jurisdiction, with each country adopting its own approach. I'm not sure how consistent the definition is across the multiple US states.
Why is this even a post? NY Times was not 1st. (Score:2)
The sad truth... (Score:2)
As macabre as it sounds, the virus is a politician's and insurance company's wet dream. It targets the oldest and sickest, those who present the highest monetary burden to gov't and private health systems.
COVID is a horrific but effective long term "stimulus package" for them.
Re:Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, US senators posi (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I think that we all know that the reported number of Coronavirus patients is pretty meaningless at this point, considering the lack of test kits available. The real number of infected is most likely a multiple of the reported amount.
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There are also probably loads of people who are infected by will never get tested because their body fights off the infection and they don't become seriously ill. Even if we had the capacity to test everyone who wanted to be tested, we'd still have an under-reporting on the number of cases.
Re:Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, US senators posi (Score:4)
It's not unusual for "famous" people to be more likely to have this. They travel more and meet with people who travel more (and just more people on the whole) than the average person.
They also have private medical care and access to test kits. That really helps boost the numbers.
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The only world leader to test positive so far was tested by his country's national health service, as a result of explicit guidance from the country's chief medical officer.
I guess you'll complain now that he had access to the CMO.
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It's not unusual for "famous" people to be more likely to have this. They travel more and meet with people who travel more (and just more people on the whole) than the average person.
We don't ration healthcare in America, we're not Socialist.
Some people are just more important than you and get a test even when you don't.
I can't remember why celebrities were more important than doctors and nurses, but I'm sure there was a good reason.
Well if they had an antibody test (Score:2)
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Yeah, I think that we all know that the reported number of Coronavirus patients is pretty meaningless at this point, considering the lack of test kits available. The real number of infected is most likely a multiple of the reported amount.
It's not just the lack of test kits though. They cannot keep up with processing to obtain results.
U.S. Communities Struggle to Deal With Coronavirus Testing Backlogs [wsj.com]
New York, which accounts for nearly half of the coronavirus cases in the U.S., is doing 28% of the tests nationwide, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. More than 12,000 people are being tested daily, Mr. Cuomo said, as commercial laboratories, local urgent-care centers and New York City hospitals have scaled up efforts, state officials said.
Dr.
JIT Medicine is a problem (Score:2)
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Article dates 3/25. Assuming he only started testing 12k a day on the 25th (unlikely) that would be 36,000 tests in three days (25-27 inclusive). In three days they will have tested more people that are confirmed to have the virus in he entire nation (80k or so).
And that is only in New York City.
There is a shitload of testing going on. But we have 325 million people, so no, you cant get a test if you want, even if we started making these 4 months ago.
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Humans are always over-confident in their own abilities. It
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I'm not sure what the fuss is over. Trump did eventually get tested and was apparently negative for the virus. Maybe everything that's being reported is bullshit, but I'm assuming that the president's personal doctor has a better idea than armchair quarterbacks on Slashdot in this one particular regard.
Is that still the same doctor that said Trump was the healthiest president ever?
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Then again this is reported from Trump's White House, when have they ever been accused of telling the truth?
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I'm not sure what the fuss is over.
~Alvinrod
The fuss is over discussion on this board when Britain was claiming containment was pointless because, a year from now, more than half the population of earth will be exposed to and become infected-- that's why their leader, at first, promulgated "herd immunity" was a viable response. It was qualified with sequestering the older, but inviting spread!
At the same time, a competing vantage of the more prudent policy of social distancing (advisory quarantine) and a work stoppage to slow infection rates (what
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Trump did eventually get tested and was apparently negative for the virus
Many TDS suffers say that you're wrong. Or at least they hope so.
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Metamod has not been advertised or even meaningfully exposed in a decade or more. As far as I know, unless you know the direct URL, there is no path through any clickable link on the site to get there. It also does not work the same way it used to (fair/unfair) you can merely score the comment positive or negative. If you want access to it, it's here [slashdot.org].
Re:Slashdot has been bad since beta (Score:4, Interesting)
Metamod has not been advertised or even meaningfully exposed in a decade or more. As far as I know, unless you know the direct URL, there is no path through any clickable link on the site to get there. It also does not work the same way it used to (fair/unfair) you can merely score the comment positive or negative. If you want access to it, it's here [slashdot.org].
That's not my experience in the least. I'm frequently invited to meta-mod. The meta-mod is plus or minus with an array of category. The only variations have been 1) Months ago, the system would prompt me to meta-mod more than once in 24 hours, but the regulation has always been any meta-mods over 10 per day have less weight, and 2) When I began posting more frequently, an exchange of posts in which I had been involved were in the queue for meta-moderation.
/. to distinguish it from psuedonymous and anonymous discussion any where else is to not moderate in threads in which you participate, I decided to skip those after a lot of nerdy conflict.
Given one of the few and vital and unique attributes of
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The rate of new UIDs seem to have accelerated.
There was a huge jump when they made us long-time ACs get accounts.
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Err...you do realize that big newspapers hire more than journalists, yes?
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And then Trump proceeded to downplay the severity of the threat and now wants to "re-open" the economy.
In the $2 Trillion gov. expenditure about to be voted on in the House, it started in the Senate where the Democrats insert a clause that Trump and his family of grifters were not to profit from it. When it wen to the final Senate vote, that clause was mysteriously missing. The Democrats were having none of it and demanded it be put back in before they'd agree to a vote. It was put back in.
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Well, as long as the numbers of deaths keep rising, we know it hadn't spread to a majority of the population as of about 20 days earlier.
For some states and localities we actually have a rate for number of positive versus negative tests and considering tests are being concentrated on the symptomatic, it is pretty safe to assume that the rate among the general population is lower than that positive test rate.
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You're missing the logic here. If the number of COVID-19 related deaths we have confirmed are still rising, there's no way the pool of viral hosts were exhausted 20 days or so ago. If it had been, then we'd be at saturation and the death rate would start to fall due to built up immunity in the population (which may or may not be long-lasting, but would result in a lower sustained rate of infection in either case.)
And on the second point, in order to make an opposite assumption (that COVID-19 is more wides