Coronavirus Pandemic Accelerating, Warns WHO (reuters.com) 226
The global coronavirus pandemic is accelerating, with Thursday's 150,000 new cases the highest in a single day, World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. From a report: "Almost half of the cases reported were from the Americas," he told a virtual briefing. "The world is in a new and dangerous phase ... the virus is still spreading fast, it is still deadly, and most people are still susceptible."
Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing this virus was smart enough to avoid all those mass protests or it'd be even worse.
Political weaponizing of Covid-19? (Score:2)
Another wasted FP, eh? 'Nuff said and I feel free to change the Subject to something more relevant.
Not claiming to be psychic, but I just started wondering about Patient Zero. Each fresh outbreak of Covid-19 must have a Patient Zero, right?
Obviously and perhaps unfortunately, WHO has no authority to seek out any Patient Zero. That's within the purview of each affected country. Too bad that many of the most badly affected countries are completely lacking in the resources to pursue Patient Zero before it was
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No. Each fresh outbreak is part of the original outbreak. It never went away
It's probably more useful to think about it in the context of an infectious disease..
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You misunderstand "patient zero". "Patient zero" is the "we can't trace this outbreak back any further" patient. You've got to remember that a very large number of cases are asymptomatic. In the recent outbreak in Beijing they could only trace it back to a fish market. Well, fish can't carry COVID, so all we know is that one of the customers was probably a carrier. If it were a clerk, they'd have been able to trace it further. So somebody, possibly a housewife with a college kid, brought the disease t
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Why mod this troll? The media's cognitive dissonance on this is amazing.
It's fascinating seeing things like: "physicians have joined the protests across the country, and an open letter by 1,200 health professionals say protests should not be shut down to fears of covid-19 transmission"
and "hundreds of far-right protests defy covid-19 restrictions.."
Time magazine: The same goddamn day (June 13th).
I haven't exactly looked, but from perusing cnn/msnbc i've yet to see a single mention of the possibility that ma
Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:5, Informative)
but from perusing cnn/msnbc i've yet to see a single mention of the possibility that massive rallies across the world have spread covid.
Then you're blind. May 31st [nytimes.com]. June 1st [cnn.com]. Also June 1st [theatlantic.com]. June 3rd [go.com]. Also June 3rd [bloomberg.com]. June 4th (use of tear gas may aid spreading). [washingtonexaminer.com] June 15th (not national news) [azcapitoltimes.com].
Would you like me to continue, or would you like to blame real news media for doing their job? Even the Fox tabloid had an article (one article only, Vasily) on June 1st with the same question: will these protests lead to spread of the virus?
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And that mob of white kids we saw on video "liberating" high-end mountain bikes from an REI in the impoverished ghetto of Santa Monica, CA, were doing so to bring climate into the debate.
Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every protest seems to bring out those who just want to take advantage of the chaos that's going on. Kids go looting during protests, and kids also go looting during a blackout, and so forth. They're not what the protests are about, they're not even doing any protesting except to hang out in what seems to them to be sort of a loud and angry party atmosphere.
Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is how many unarmed black individuals are being killed by police. In many cases, the police then cover up the details or file false reports to cover their own ass.
I get it, being in law enforcement is a stressful job. My dad was a cop for over 25 years. I knew all the officers on his shift, they are good people. They did not want to go out and get into a dangerous situation, they wanted to do their job and go home. They should, however, be held to a higher standard than civilians. Being willing to lie to protect co-workers.. when that happens they lose the moral high ground. The police helped create this "us vs them" mentality when it should have always been about "us, the community".
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Put it this way also, for all those who hate "black lives matter" and try to make it "all lives matter":
- after 9/11 happened, lots of people started wearing FDNY tee shirts, even if they weren't from New York.
- after the Boston marathon bombing, the slogan started going around, "Boston Strong".
- there's a "Stand with Parkland" slogan.
and so forth.
And yet no one butts in there complaining "but don't all cities matter?", "what about the other high schools", or "we can't all be Spartacus, this is dumb!" No o
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I haven't exactly looked, but from perusing cnn/msnbc i've yet to see a single mention of the possibility that massive rallies across the world have spread covid.
Are you kidding? With the Seattle protests that seemed to be what the local media spent most of their time talking about - how the protests could become "super spreader" events.
On a side note: I have also read speculative-but-reasonable stories arguing that outdoor gatherings - even without adequate social distancing - might not be problematic with regards to spreading COVID-19 for various reasons. That's one of the reasons some people were saying that if Trump wants to have his rallies, he should at least
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Whenever a right-winger says "the media is ignoring X," the media is always actually talking about X plenty.
Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is that the former group wore masks and actually worked to maintain some level of social distancing. The latter group did not make any efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus.
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The argument about protests leading to mass spreader events appears many times in main stream media, however, it never happened in reality. You can look at the COVID-19 charts for Minnesota, Washington and all these places with big and out of control protests. There is nothing worth noting in Minnesota, there is some rise in Washington. There are catastrophic rises in COVID-19 infections in all those places which just had to open their businesses, but not in those places mostly known for their large protest
Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:5, Informative)
It's fascinating seeing things like: "physicians have joined the protests across the country, and an open letter by 1,200 health professionals say protests should not be shut down to fears of covid-19 transmission"
Given how the overwhelming majority of protestors covered their faces far more than joe-blow-don't-give-a-shit does when he goes to pick up beer from the shops, there is no cognitive dissonance here.
Do you still not understand that this virus doesn't magically radiate between people but actually has certain transmission vectors that among other people physicians are actually good at controlling?
Hell even the police were in good shape thanks to riot helmets.
Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps that's because protests generally happen outside and most of the protesters are smart enough and courteous enough to wear a mask. Also they tend to be somewhat spaced apart.
That's a bit different than packing people shoulder to shoulder to hear a speech. Especially when the speaker sets the poor example of refusing to wear a mask, even in a sterile manufacturing facility.
Time for coronavirus protests (Score:4, Funny)
Protestors by and large wore masks (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still not a good idea, but given the alternative (keep getting shot by cops) I can't say I blame them.
Moreover, the reason the protests were so large was high numbers of unemployed who are about to get evicted or foreclosed on. There is a massive, massive housing crisis about to take off in 12 days when the emergency anti-eviction protections expire and are not renewed. These are folks panicking and unable to know how to deal with the panic because in America you're not allowed to talk about your bad financial situation.
The goal here is to force these folks back to work so the economy will get moving again and the GOP can win in November. The trouble is that it will spike cases and lead to hospitals being overwhelmed. When that happens folks start dropping like flies. COVID-19's high survivalist rate goes to shit when there's not enough beds.
Meanwhile the Republican led Senate is blocking any relief to those folks. If you think the last round of protests were fun wait and see what 2 million homeless do in about 45 days. It's a dangerous game they're playing with your life.
Re: Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Informative)
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Hello Texas.
I mean, we have to do something to help stop the spread of California.
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Re:Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:2)
So says the epidemiologist.
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Maybe I'm stupid, but that seems possible in other countries once the curve drops low enough (and with better preparedness could be done early on for future diseases).
Re: Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not entirely. The "flatten the curve" was a "We don't know what to do, so lets act to keep the health systems from collapsing while we figure out what to do" response. But they forgot to implement the second step.
Re: Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
while we figure out what to do" response. But they forgot to implement the second step.
We even figured out what to do, at least scientists have.......but then States have gone crazy, doing things like threatening to defund places that require masks [axios.com]. Brilliant leadership, that is.
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Countries like South Korea and New Zealand who have mostly succeeded at preventing the virus from spreading within their borders, are relying on the rest of the world to develop herd immunity to kill off the virus, and make it safe for them to return to normal. It's the "I don't have to outrun the tiger, I just have to outrun you" strategy. Locking down in itself only works e
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How can you say it's discredited?
The herd immunity idea was the idea that you can use naturally acquired immunity to fight the disease. At it's stupidest that was basically the idea of "let everyone get sick, it'll be fine", but there was an actual idea that you let the virus run through the young population whilst shielding the older / more vulnerable ones. After the epidemic more or less completes, the immunity in the already infected young people means the disease doesn't manage to survive to infect the elderly so provides a herd immu
Re: Hmm, has it been 2 weeks yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Countries like New Zealand and S. Korea got to that position by responding vigorously and proactively to the coming problem.
NZ is returning to normal other than keeping their borders closed so people from other countries that responded poorly don't re-import the plague. They haven't seen a new case from within the country in a few weeks. They went for option 3, eradication, and it worked. They have seen a total of 3 cases in the last few weeks, all in people coming in from outside. All are in isolation.
Had the U.S. been more concerned about the population and Main street rather than "What will Wall Street say?", we could be there too.
Instead, the U.S. half-assed it and had to do a prolonged lockdown. Then jumped the gun on reopening without adequate precautions and now it's blowing up all over again. Kinda like if the doctor puts a cast on your leg and says come back in 6 weeks but on week three you rip the cast off and go jogging.
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NYC and the east coast has the European strain of the coronavirus, probably from all those rich people fleeing Italy before the borders were shut down. The west coast has the Chinese strain of the coronavirus, probably from international travelers from Asia.
Spoiler alert: Europe also has the "Chinese" strain as northern Italy has a huge textiles industry staffed by cheap immigrant labour from China.
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actual data that shows even the fastest locales in the USA are in states where mass protesting was considerably less than others, i.e., Florida, Texas and Arizona.
It'll take some time for any effect from the protests to work through. I guess probably two weeks from the start of the protests, depending which numbers you look at. I wouldn't judge this yet.
Which just as an aside, that kind of blows out that "it'll go away once the weather gets warm" theory eh?
This does seem to have been a pretty wrong theory. Basically a bunch of people still seem to think that this is a standard flu and are basing their ideas and models on that rather than looking at actual evidence.
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An (informal) study I saw said that there was an effect. It was something like 2% (or possibly 0.2%) less infectious per degree Centigrade above room temperature. Of course, that was talking about outside temperature, and didn't factor in air conditioning.
So. Less infectious when it's warmer, but not THAT less infectious until the temperatures get over 100F. IIRC there are estimates that it can't survive at over about 120F. (The police car sterilizer said it used air at 130F to sterilize the inside of
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Of course, that was talking about outside temperature, and didn't factor in air conditioning.
This is the key bit I think. Current information is most infections seem to be indoors and due transmission through air. Air conditioning and generally cooler spaces where people tend to be even when it's hot outside probably mean this effect isn't strong enough to be useful. Given the level of spread in places like Saudi Arabia and other hot countries like Brazil I wouldn't be too hopeful for outdoors temperatures making a difference.
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I remember when this started and an Indian coworker of mine said that it was unlikely to show up there because people don't get the flu often in hotter climates. A week later there was a big outbreak in India.
Remember, the common cold is also a corona-virus, and we do have such a thing as the "summer cold".
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It's taking out our tourists now. My town's economy depends on vast herds of them grazing. We may yet have to resort to vat-grown tourists to stay in business.
Guess what, reopening would always have an increas (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop freaking out about what was always an expected result of re-opening - a rise in new cases.
Some of that is from testing, some of it is from people being out more. But in the end, hospitals still have plenty of capacity and that is the important thing to monitor - which states that have reopened, are monitoring.
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Exactly. Closing was to "flatten the curve" not "stop the spread." We can stay shut "until there is a vaccine" or "a cure" or "herd immunity". None of which MAY ever happen. How long will they shut everything down waiting? How long will farms and many other people work while everyone else is living on a government check eroding the value of the money that the farmer etc are being paid with?
The correct response is: if you are >=65, stay home. If you have a comorbidity, stay home. Everyone else, go
Re:Guess what, reopening would always have an incr (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, until, like New Zealand, you have completely eliminated it within your borders. Then you be super careful not to let any infected people in, except they failed there.
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Or, until, like New Zealand, you have completely eliminated it within your borders. Then you be super careful not to let any infected people in, except they failed there.
They haven't exactly failed. There's still no new case known of someone getting infected in NZ even from the two UK people they allowed through. Came close to failure? Yes. Made mistakes? Yes. Actually failed? Not in any serious way.
The China cases are more serious since it seems to have been days of circulation before they spotted the problem; still, it's much easier to eliminate a few hundred cases than thousands so they start from a much better situation.
Re: Guess what, reopening would always have an inc (Score:2)
Burn him!
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Re:Guess what, reopening would always have an incr (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop freaking out about what was always an expected result of re-opening - a rise in new cases.
Some of that is from testing, some of it is from people being out more. But in the end, hospitals still have plenty of capacity and that is the important thing to monitor - which states that have reopened, are monitoring.
Most states have reopened at this point, but those same states haven't done much to actually prepare for any type of considerable uptick in patients needing critical care/ICU. Arizona opens up, and starts complaining about hospitals reaching capacity within two weeks? Even a bad tarot card hack can accurately predict this future.
Exactly where are all those automaker-manufactured ventilators? Still being manufactured, or sitting in upgraded hospital rooms? Where are the billions of masks, gloves, and other PPE at right now? Civilians can barely put their hands on PPE stock, which tends to say a lot as to how large that shortage still is, and how unprepared hospitals are to handle any kind of considerable outbreak.
"Monitoring" dangerously low levels of ICU capacity won't do jack shit here. Actually doing something about that problem, is what will prevent us from having this same conversation a month from now, when we learn that 30 days of "monitoring" did nothing but confirm what Captain Obvious was saying 3 months ago; Not Enough Capacity.
And let's remember why people actually freak out here. They're worried that the only resource that can save their life, will be at capacity. Stop assuming this is all about new case numbers.
Yes they have (Score:2)
those same states haven't done much to actually prepare for any type of considerable uptick in patients needing critical care/ICU.
They all have, in preparation for the initial wave that was never as large as the maximum predictions.
As a result, lots of cities set up convention centers and hotels with beds, and other things along those lines.
Most of that is shut down, but the result is that they all have practice scaling up capacity if needed.
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those same states haven't done much to actually prepare for any type of considerable uptick in patients needing critical care/ICU.
They all have, in preparation for the initial wave that was never as large as the maximum predictions.
As a result, lots of cities set up convention centers and hotels with beds, and other things along those lines.
Most of that is shut down, but the result is that they all have practice scaling up capacity if needed.
Have they practiced for what they're going to do to replace the dead nurses and doctors around the world? (We had already lost over 1,000 of them by March.)
It takes a hell of a lot more than rubber gloves and empty convention centers (that don't yet have ICU equipment) to prepare to keep tens of thousands of humans alive on machines.
Fact Check - 600 by June... (Score:2)
We had already lost over 1,000 of them by March
Only source I could find, said 600 by June [khn.org].
Reminder that the total number of health care workers in the U.S. is well over 16 *million* [kff.org].
empty convention centers (that don't yet have ICU equipment)
When they had them set up they did [thehill.com].
Since they had practice putting them up, they could be set up again quickly if needed - though so far, no-one needs to.
That stuff is all in storage now, but can easily be pulled out... and at this point millions more ventilators have b
Re:Guess what, reopening would always have an incr (Score:5, Informative)
But in the end, hospitals still have plenty of capacity and that is the important thing to monitor
Not in Florida they don't. Florida ICUs are running out of capacity [newsweek.com]. Palm beach county hospitals are an example. As of yesterday they were at 74% ICU utilization [foxbusiness.com] and only 8 pediatric beds available out of 32.
Obviously not all these beds being used are from covid-19. However, as the number of cases in Florida keep hitting new daily highs, expect more virus patients to be admitted which will lead to bed rationing if not outright shortages.
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Had them Apple Bottom Jeans (jeans)
Boots with the fur (with the fur)
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It's not true that reopening local economies inevitably results in an upward trend in new cases. States have had mixed results. Some have continued to see downward trends in new cases even after they lift restrictions.
I recognize this isn't necessarily the product of better management. Circumstances differ between states. Economic sacrifices that might be tolerable for one state could be intolerable in another. But in either case it's important to monitor the situation so you know when transmission is goi
Just wear a mask already (Score:5, Interesting)
Christ, the solution here is absurdly simple. Everyone wears a mask, whether they think they've been exposed or not, whether they show symptoms or not. The mask only needs to be about 50% effective to have population level effects [citation] [pennlive.com]. Why is it so controversial to wear a friggin' mask?
Then the pandemic will be over, and we can go back to normal, if that's really, ultimately your goal. A couple months of having to have a pocket full of breath mints and we're done.
Re:Just wear a mask already (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it so controversial to wear a friggin' mask?
Because we live in a hyperpartisan political age where even basic science has to become politicized. People in one of the two large groups have decided that masks are a symbol of the Hated Other Tribe. And this isn't just a US thing, because nationalism and authoritarianism don't stop at borders. That said, in the US, at least a majority of self-identified Republicans and self-identified Democrats do support mask wearing although the fraction of Republicans appears to be declining https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/23/republicans-and-democrats-wear-masks [yougov.com]. And even with the Black-Lives-Matter protesters, while many of them are wearing masks, a substantial fraction are not. And even masks won't by themselves be great protection when one has very large crowds engaging in chanting and singing, both of which are behaviors which make spread much more easy; it isn't a coincidence that many of the superspreader events have been at choirs and religious groups https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-super-spreader-events-reveal-gatherings-to-avoid-2020-5 [businessinsider.com].
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Deserves "Insightful" moderation, but I never see a mod point to give, so I can't help.
However this discussion on this very Slashdot is excellent evidence of your thesis. The entire topic of Covid-19, every aspect of the disease, from Patient Zero to masks to medications to social distancing to ventilators, has become a political football. There is a neutral and even a scientific perspective, but you'll be hard-pressed to detect it.
Let me try a different angle on the topic. Maybe this is a controversial sta
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Because we live in a hyperpartisan political age where even basic science has to become politicized.
You make it way more complicated than it seems. The reality is Americans have an endless problem with "MUH RIGHTS"! You know, somehow those same people who are happy to see the government stomp on peaceful right to assembly are the first to say "help help I'm being oppressed" when someone asks for them not to spray their bodily fluids on others.
The problem is that will prevent the economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Trouble is, this is an election year. So we cannot have the economy be bad.
Now, we could fix the bad Main Street Economy just like we did with the Bad Wall Street Economy: by pumping Trillions of dollars into it. We've got the money. The things that are shut down right now are not essential services, they're fun events & places to eat out and date. We could divert the resources from those to supporting folks sheltering in place.
Trouble with that is it means handing out "free money". And the trouble with that is that once the American working class gets a taste of freedom from living paycheck to paycheck and being constantly on the edge of homelessness they're going to come to expect it as a right, not a privilege.
And make no mistake, that cannot be allowed to happen. It is absolutely critical that 60-70% of Americans live every day of their lives one paycheck away from disaster. Otherwise they won't have the requisite hate and anger needed to properly divide and rule them via bigotry and wedge issues. Take away the Welfare Queen story and Americans work together in harmony, and the 1% can't live like God-Kings anymore.
It's a dangerous line our ruling class is walking. If they screw it up we'll get a dictator and military Junta...
Re:The problem is that will prevent the economy (Score:4, Insightful)
We've got the money. .
What! Where?
Print it. (Score:2, Troll)
For basic needs there are no shortages except the ones we create for ourselves. Usually for the express purpose of keeping people in a constant state of mild terror at the thought of becoming homeless. Frightened people are much easier to take freedom away from.
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The problem is that the rich and establishment are terrified of Modern Monetary Theory. Firstly just a lot of them are ignorant trolls that pander to other ignorant trolls who can't wrap their head around something that is counter to everything they've been fed for generations.
But then there is also, if we used MMT and implemented UBI, suddenly, you don't have to take shit from rich people anymore. Sure, anyone that wants more than the basics in life will want to work, but it means if you've got a shit jo
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He said it right there, the trillions going to Wall Street, just gotta redirect it. Don't believe the neo-liberal propaganda about "debts" and austerity.
What do you mean a couple years ago? (Score:3)
Re:Just wear a mask already (Score:5, Insightful)
the solution here is absurdly simple. Everyone wears a mask, whether they think they've been exposed or not, whether they show symptoms or not...Why is it so controversial to wear a friggin' mask?
I agree, although as to why people aren't wearing masks, my guess is that, for many people, the virus is still mostly an abstract thing. Sure, it's constantly on the news, but cable news in particular has a penchant for hype, so I think some of that is taken with a grain of salt. And anecdotally, up until about two weeks ago, I didn't know a single person that has had the virus, and knew one person who knew one person who has had the virus. Since then, this older couple I know has tested positive, and another person told me the one of their relatives has it, but that's it.
My guess is that as the virus hits closer to home, there is a tendency to take it more seriously, so mask usage would go up, even though using a mask earlier would likely prevent the virus from hitting closer to home in the first place. It's just human nature.
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Ditto. Though my anecdote is a bit older than "up till two weeks ago" - more like up till April.
Still, as of today, I don't personally know anyone who has had the virus....
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Christ, the solution here is absurdly simple. Everyone wears a mask, whether they think they've been exposed or not, whether they show symptoms or not. The mask only needs to be about 50% effective to have population level effects [citation] [pennlive.com]. Why is it so controversial to wear a friggin' mask?
How hard is it for you to grasp that people don't like being told what to do, no matter how it may benefit them or us? Smoking, drinking, drugs, obesity, texting and driving, casual sex. Which one of those can I bolt on a "Why is it so hard for you to stop?" for you? Which one would you obey, you know for the rest of us?
Then the pandemic will be over, and we can go back to normal, if that's really, ultimately your goal. A couple months of having to have a pocket full of breath mints and we're done.
Oh for FUCKS sake. Masks or not, no way in hell is this is over in "a couple months". These idiotic "studies" must not account for actual humans being involved when they assume 100% fac
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Considering that if things continue, there WILL be a full scale revolution against the incompetent and corrupt politicians, I am really surprised that more isn't being done to really get on top of it, make everyone wear masks, keep people from socializing in person, and get this resolved QUICKLY. These politicians probably haven't stopped to think that once we start seeing 85+ degree temperatures that the current protests may seem like a warm-up to the big event in July/August where government may collaps
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That's not quite right. Masks help, but social distancing remains necessary. I suspect that redesigning air flow patterns within buildings so that they were vertical rather than horizontal would be nearly as effective. Both cut down on the amount of social distancing needed. So would a faster airflow.
Visual aid (Score:2)
Feel it when I turn the screw
Kick you 'round the world there ain't a thing that you can do [youtube.com]
WHO CARES (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say for the monks of technology this was nothing other than a blip.
Before people start going off (Score:5, Informative)
"Americas", which over 1/2 the cases being reported, also includes South America. Peru for example had almost 40k of those 150k cases.
US cases have had a slight uptick in the last week (up like 5-10% off the lows) but nothing like we saw 5-7 weeks ago.
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Sorry - Chile - not Peru. Went back to the data and my brain crossed those two countries.
Re:Before people start going off (Score:4, Informative)
You are looking at things as a "total cases" here in the USA, without realizing that things are accelerating across The South and Midwest, and slowing in the Northeast. If you look at it from a county by county basis, then the Northeast(where the majority of the population is) has slowed down due to social distancing, but is ACCELERATING in places like Nevada, Mississippi, and Florida. The USA is really more a combination of five regions than just a single big entity, and you can't assume that the improvements in the Northeast reflect what is happening in other places.
Remember as well that while the New York City area had a LOT of cases early on and the rest of the country didn't see a lot of cases, we are now seeing that the New York City area is getting better while things are getting a lot worse in other parts of the country. Florida is exploding with a number of hospitals exceeding capacity.
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"Americas", which over 1/2 the cases being reported, also includes South America. Peru for example had almost 40k of those 150k cases.
Quick quick look over there!
Ghebreyesus should resign (Score:2)
To praise Germany and China without any further distinction is an act of resignation. When people's lives are at risk and leaders need to be held responsible can one not hand out praise just for participation. One cannot lead with praise alone. Germany has done exceptionally well and it is because of China that we are in this trouble.
But it's Tedros (Score:2)
Stop lying (Score:2)
https://www.who.int/about/fina... [who.int]
I can believe it. (Score:2)
When clueless people assume it is a hoax... (Score:3)
There are too many people out there who assume that they are healthy, so they forget that they can spread the disease to others, even if they show no symptoms. They also still believe what Trump said early on about it being a Democratic Hoax, even after that has been proven to be incorrect. Those are the people who are still spreading the disease around the country, refusing to wear masks, refusing to follow social distancing, or even considering that they may be killing others due to their lack of understanding about what is going on.
They also can't figure out that in the Northeast, 5000 people may be only one percent of the population, while in their own small town, that might be 40 percent of the population. That means that if they see 5000 people where they are have the disease, that is REALLY serious, yet in New York City, 5000 wouldn't be seen as terribly serious(compared to what we have already been dealing with).
So, the disease is still spreading quickly in the first wave where they are across The South and Midwest, while the Northeast is in the general calm between waves.
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There are a large number of people who figure that if they don't show up for work, they won't eat next week. They've got to be REALLY sick before they avoid taking transit to work.
It's not (Score:5, Informative)
The death rates are still going strong. Hospitals are nearing capacity when before they were not. There are plenty of other indicators that show it's not just increased testing.
Re:It's not (Score:5, Insightful)
Florida is probably going to need those hospital ships before too much longer. They're already out of ICU capacity in 26 hospitals.
Fuck, I didn't know it had gotten that bad (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
This is a good thing. At least compared to what was happening before - a lockdown so severe that hospitals weren't coming anywhere near close to capacity. Absent a vaccine, the way this virus plays out is enough people get it (CDC estimates 70% of the population) that it dies out on its own due to herd immunity (basically accomplishing the same thing as vaccination, but via infection). If you think of it that way, you realize that once you flatten
Re:It's not (Score:5, Informative)
You're thinking of this virus as "Get it once and you're done", but that's not the correct picture.
Those who recover are often permanently injured, with strokes, muscle death, partial kidney failure, partial lung failure, etc. Often these are the kind of after effect that one never recovers from. Other times it takes years to recover.
There *are* a large number of people who seem to have complete recoveries, but it's hard to be certain this is correct. Partial kidney failure doesn't have any noticeable symptoms until there's a small additional problem, and then you live hooked up to a machine the rest of your life. (Well, not constantly hooked up. But dialysis isn't easy, and has a high mortality rate. And requires frequent trips to a specialist hospital. How frequent depends on how damaged your kidneys are. It can range from once a month to several times a day.) There are also liver problems, heart problems, etc. The variety of problem is so various that *I* (a non-medical professional) think it's basically due to small circulating blood clots (which are known to occur).
Re: (Score:3)
"asymptomatic" means no visible symptoms. Damage to the kidneys isn't visible, and also isn't recoverable from, unlike liver damage which will be recovered from over time. The heart is in between. Micro-strokes can also avoid notice, but do permanent damage. Minor damage to most muscles can be worked around, but I believe muscle cells also have trouble regenerating. There's just enough redundancy that you don't notice the reason you're a bit weaker. And that's "plausible effects in asymptomatic cases"
Re:It's not (Score:4, Informative)
Absent a vaccine, the way this virus plays out is enough people get it (CDC estimates 70% of the population) that it dies out on its own due to herd immunity (basically accomplishing the same thing as vaccination, but via infection).
If R0 is less than 1, then most people will not get sick. We can get R0 below 1 with contact tracing, masks and hand washing.
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Since they are testing more, they are find more cases.
We should stop testing right now [thehill.com] (and other sources) ...
If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” Trump said during a White House event highlighting administration actions to help senior citizens.
Hopefully the President doesn't believe we'd have fewer actual cases if we did less testing, but I wouldn't bet on this. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds a lot like defunding the police to be honest. Similarly we could cure cancer if we'd just kill all the oncologists.
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Sounds a lot like defunding the police to be honest.
There's probably some truth to that but, to be fair, most pushes to defund the police are about reducing their budgets and expenditures for military-style gear and other thing the police have and do and re-direct that money to other things that might actually be more beneficial for the communities they serve -- like using/sending someone other than the police, like several mental health-care workers, to deal with an unstable, unarmed person -- or, thinking of Atlanta, for someone sleeping in their car in a
Re: (Score:2)
You *can't* know all the details. Different people mean different things. Slogans are almost never workable plans, and "Defund the police" is certainly one of them. OTOH, "Demilitarize the police" wouldn't mean anything to many people, even though it's much better logically.
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The percent positives depends on the test and the population being tested. Even if we were to assume that the test was totally accurate, different tests measure different things. A test for IgG wouldn't give the same percentage as a test for IgM, and neither would give the same results as a nasal swab test. And we don't currently HAVE a test for TCells being activated, which may be the most important measure.
N.B.: I am not a medical professional. This is how it looks to me, but I may have some of the d
Re: (Score:2)
You are more certain a vaccine is possible than I am. I think it's probably possible, and perhaps one of the early versions will work, at least somewhat.
One of the more promising of the early vaccines doesn't prevent you from catching COVID, but seems to ensure that any subsequent case that you catch will be relatively mild. This would be more exciting if the numbers were larger, and if most people didn't have mild cases anyway. And, of course, we don't have any idea of how long even this reduced immunit
Re: (Score:2)
"If everyone took masks seriously from day 1, the pandemic would have been over 2 weeks after that. A recent study from China shows that actually getting the disease only gave about 2-3 months of detectable antibodies. Our chances of a good vaccine are about as good as they've always been for the common cold."
If the "powers that be" had told us that masks would help from day one, we would have worn them from day 1. But they lied to us, and told us that no citizens should be walking around wearing a mask (
Re:F the WHO (Score:5, Insightful)
If the "powers that be" had told us that masks would help from day one, we would have worn them from day 1.
True - but we also saw that both China and South Korea stamped out the virus pretty quickly with their use. The latter especially so with their comprehensive testing and tracing program. The mistake was letting perfect be the enemy of good and waiting far too long to revise statements. Nobody should be hoarding N95 masks, but everyone can handle a couple layers of cotton cloth.
The problem is that it requires a high compliance rate - it doesn't keep you from getting infected, it prevents infecting others.
I can't recall the President telling anyone not to wear masks
He has refused to. At the very least, this is implicit dismissal of their usefulness. And that's made masks a hugely partisan issue where it was completely unnecessary. It has led to making the very act of wearing a mask as a label as to which political party you belong to.
at the time the lesser masks, like the cloth masks, were thought to be not effective.
The original SARS outbreak was nearly 20 years ago. We know that cloth masks slow down a coronavirus. They have been used time and time again in East Asia over the years since. Anecdotal evidence is enough here. Theoretical arguments about particle size in 2020 were always silly.
"Shutting down the economy was a response to no masks. "
It was to keep the virus from spreading too quickly and overwhelm the hospitals such that ventilators were not available for all. It worked, not a single patient that needed a ventilator in the USA went without one.
Yeah - nobody had masks yet. It isn't part of our culture...yet. Shutting everything down gave people time to get mass-produced and makeshift masks into people's hands. Re-opening the economy could have happened much faster if there wasn't so much bickering about this. And yet the Democrats are blamed for wanting to "extend" this. They aren't the ones against wearing masks. This is not about economics. The state of the economy was a record-breaking 128 months of economic growth up to February, most of which was during a prior administration. I'm not sure how the President would claim an economic victory in either case.
wear inside but not outside. It is going to be really, really difficult to contract it outdoors unless sitting very close for an extended period.
I agree. Aside from crowded sidewalks, fairs or stadium seating and such. But at the grocery store, I see maybe 25% wearing masks now. And I never saw 100%.
This whole ordeal is like stopping a course of antibiotics on the 3rd day. Completely unnecessary childishness ruining something so very simple.
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>"The problem is that it requires a high compliance rate - it doesn't keep you from getting infected, it prevents infecting others."
No, it can, indeed, help prevent YOU from being infected, also. Consumer-grade masks can't stop bare viruses, which are too small to be stopped, but it can stop droplets. If someone infected is not wearing a mask and talking to you at close range and you ARE wearing a mask, your own mask can help stop those droplets from reaching your respiratory system. A mask can also r
Re: (Score:3)
It's also a relatively dangerous tool that really should be used only in the worst cases.
The reason the FDA pulled the drug is because, and this might be news to you, it doesn't fucking work! Read that again a few more times in case you missed the first time. HCQ does not work, has never worked, and will never work. It has zero effect on convid-19. None. Every single study shows it does nothing except possibly cause more patients to die than would have otherwise.
Stop the goddamn trolling about this use
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I agree with you. Not sure why you're saying I'm trolling but glossing over me saying the exact same thing:
the FDA gave emergency authorization for HCQ for many months. If it made a sizable impact, we would hear about it.
Just read "should be used" as "should be attempted." And now we know "shouldn't be attempted," and had always expected that.
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What I don't get about HCQ is who is making the money off of it to keep pushing it? If it was a newer drug, in patent, I could completely see the money angle on this. As it's a generic drug that anyone can make, I have a hard time seeing it. Unless someone had a huge stockpile of the crap that was going to expire and they needed to offload it. Even then, it would be small change. Unless it's just mass insanity like the QAnon 'movement' (read: cult). If so, this country is really fucked.
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Well, some of the president's friends had a small stake in it, but it doesn't seem like sufficient reason. (Should I emphasize that "small"?) Seems more likely something he saw on the web, and he *was* reported to have been visited by a group a day or two before he started pushing it. I can't remember what the group was named, I just filed the even in my mind under "more wacko's". I have the vague impression that they were religious.
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Trump's statement was actually perfectly at the beginning. We knew very little, there was the possibility and small case studies that indicated a possible benefit, and further study was warranted. Given the economic impact, stockpiling the stuff even made sense, in the event it did work.
A simple: "We didn't know then, it showed promise, but
Re: (Score:2)
And such glowing reviews:
https://www.silive.com/coronav... [silive.com]
"The treatment has worked in a smattering of cases,"
https://nypost.com/2020/03/22/... [nypost.com]
Oh, yes. A "Florida Man" story is certainly the most reliable source here. His own doctors said it wasn't the medicine that did it.
https://www.france24.com/en/20... [france24.com]
People with mild symptoms mostly got better (they do anyway) and also this:
"Last week, doctors in Paris reported that they tried to replicate the results of the Marseille study and failed."
https://www.th [the-sun.com]
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Except countries that have socialized medicine and don't have the profit motive also agree it doesn't fucking work! Quit pushing this bullshit that just kills more people and doesn't treat Covad at all.
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Don't be a moron and wear your mask while exercising.
I wore a mask while exercising this time last year too. What do you have against people who practice hypoxic training?
Look up how many people normally die in any given time.
Most people did look it up. The answer is a fuckton less people die normally in Europe. That's a metric fuckton. In the USA it's the imperial fuckton.