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What is needed to change the learning curve for COVID? Appears the "head slap" is the only hope.

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  • Not directly related to the "head slap" learning curve, but methods being developed to help discovery of Covid cases. Obviously, there are many scientist's searching for a method of testing.

    MSU and a spit test
  • msf
    edited August 2020
    catch22 said:
    catch22 said:

    The HHS "new" data system in place. You may be the judge, of course: to its quality.

    Here's the new HHS site, HHS Protect Public Data Hub, with data allegedly bypassing CDC:
    https://protect-public.hhs.gov/

    As of now, it reads:
    Confirmed Cases		Reported Deaths
    4,748,806 156,311

    Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    Okay, let's judge the quality. Note the source. That makes the data either obsolete (since data is supposedly no longer being reported directly to the CDC) or untrustworthy (since HHS won't accurately state the source of its data). Given these figures, I go with the latter - sloppy, unreliable presentation.


  • edited August 2020
    Thank you @msf
    John Hopkins reports, as of 10:35am, EST:

    --- cases 4,826,861
    --- deaths 158,321

    Additional. I'm going to observe potential outcomes in/from Sturgis, SD and the annual bike rally. Many have already arrived and the mayor expects 250,000 visitors during the event period.

    For those not aware of this event at Sturgis. I'm not a biker; but know several folks who have attended this "once in a lifetime" event in prior years. I can't imagine being a full time resident there, this year; nor working at one of the bars, restaurants or a motel/hotel. DAMN !!!
  • Okay, let's judge the quality. Note the source. That makes the data either obsolete (since data is supposedly no longer being reported directly to the CDC) or untrustworthy (since HHS won't accurately state the source of its data). Given these figures, I go with the latter - sloppy, unreliable presentation.
    Data is obsolete. HHS takes data anywhere from 2-4 days old (depending on what you are looking at & where you dig to find it). CDC from the day before at 4pm. Johns Hopkins- from the current day.

    HHS Protect Public Data Hub vs CDC vs Johns Hopkins


    It spread like wildfire:

    image


    If a head slap won't work, try turning off the utilities:

    LA to shut off water and power for homes that host parties amid the pandemic





  • Some bars and restaurants are behaving bad - the places are packed with people without face covering just like what LA article described. Sport bars are even worse with fans screaming. Can you imagine the aerosol particles in these environments?

    Hong Kong restaurant group created a playbook on how to operate their business safely.
    Hussain and his team took immediate action and set about in creating a set of guidelines that his 1,000 person team working across 23 restaurants were asked to follow in order to keep employees and guests safe as the restaurants stayed open.

    This included anything from mandatory temperature checks on arrival to handwashing every 30 minutes and a ban on all physical contact – no handshakes, no high fives, and no fist pumps.

    It wasn't long before Hussain and his team was receiving calls from restaurants around the city who had heard about the rules they were enforcing and wanted advice. So, they decided to make their playbook public to help their neighbors.
    Additional detail is in the article, but it works even operating at 50% capacity. Earning less is a lot better than going out of business.
    https://businessinsider.com/hong-kong-restaurant-chain-covid-19-playbook-global-hit-2020-5
  • A review. What is more effective than malignant, deliberate incompetence?

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/trump-coronavirus-deaths-timeline.html
  • edited August 2020
    We, the typical MFO members, read articles such as the Slate one, pay attention to ongoing news coverage from reliable sources such as NPR, and attempt to take such reasonable health precautions as recommended.

    The great majority of Trump voters do none of the above. They are ignorant of the facts, disdainful of health science, and have absolutely no concern for the health or well-being of others when they refuse to wear masks for the common good. Some of them actually prefer to wear guns instead of masks.

    Their president has encouraged them in displays of armed revolt against reasonable health measures. They have murdered others who do not share their twisted and perverted version of democracy, and their president has applauded them as "good people".

    And we are supposed to just sit here quietly and let these subversive neanderthals and their new-found messiah attempt to destroy this nation, piece by piece.

  • The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that:
    Nearly 100,000 kids test positive in 2 weeks: More than 97,000 children in the U.S. tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, according to a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Association. This figure accounts for more than a quarter of all children who have tested positive nationwide since March.
    Lets send all the kids back to school: yet another great idea from "president" Trump.
  • edited August 2020
    Science aside, I imagine many also saw this shocking report, with so many heartfelt earnest resentful pleas for tolerance of intolerance and intolerance of tolerance

    overflowing delusions

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/evangelicals-trump-christianity.html
  • Amplifying the report from the Chronicle is this current article from The Wall Street Journal. The article is very extensive, and the selected extracts below have been severely edited for brevity.

    Latest Research Points to Children Carrying, Transmitting Coronavirus

    Children might be more vulnerable to Covid-19 than once believed, with new research suggesting that they are able to contract and spread the virus, especially if they don’t take precautions such as wearing a mask.

    Several studies and reports published in recent weeks found coronavirus infections among children of all ages at places ranging from schools to camps to homes. Other research suggested that kids, especially older ones, can be a driving force behind transmission.

    “Are they susceptible to catching the virus? Absolutely. Are they able to transmit the virus? Absolutely,” said Joelle Simpson, interim chief of emergency medicine at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

    The change in thinking comes as schools prepare to begin a new year, including some still deciding whether it would be safe for children to return to classrooms. President Trump and some members of his administration have urged schools to reopen.

    Some schools in the U.S. can likely safely reopen, researchers say, but the new findings suggest the facilities should proceed carefully. And, they added, schools should wait until community transmission is under control. They also should take steps that can reduce the risks for students and staff, such as widespread masking and frequent cleaning, along with social distancing and good ventilation, experts recommend.

    About 97,000 new Covid-19 cases among children were reported in the two weeks ending July 30, a 40% increase from the total number of cases before the period began, according to a report published last month by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. More than seven out of 10 of the new cases among children were from states in the South and West.

    In the U.S., 45 children under the age of 15 years have died from Covid-19, compared with nearly 25,000 deaths of people between the ages of 45 to 64, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its data also show far lower rates of hospitalization among children.

    Yet the latest research indicates children may be carriers just as much as adults. Even when experiencing only a mild or moderate case, children under the age of five might have anywhere between 10 to 100 times as much of Covid-19’s genetic material, viral RNA, in their upper respiratory tracts as older children and adults, according to a study published last month in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

    The study didn’t show children were able to transmit the virus. Yet researchers say the findings suggest children are likely capable of spreading the coronavirus.
    </<i>blockquote>

  • ADD to the CDC / HHS Covid data base change:

    The manager of the Trump administration’s new virus database refuses Senate questioning, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
    The private health care technology vendor that is helping to manage the Trump administration’s new coronavirus database has refused to answer questions from top Senate Democrats about its $10.2 million contract, saying it signed a nondisclosure agreement with the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

    Article
  • Saw the article. This is absurd on its face - it would mean that all a president would have to do to avoid Congressional oversight would be to sign commercial agreements containing NDAs with private companies.

    The part you didn't mention: the company contracted to do the database work is majority owned and run by ... wait for it ... a real estate developer. You don't suppose he has any connections to Trump?
  • These cretins make Saturday Night Live look tame by comparison. Even a team of writers who had been drinking heavily couldn't make up this stuff.
  • edited August 2020
    It will not seem strange to most people but I am increasingly unconcerned with the individual things that are happening, many of which I assumed impossible. Now I am concerned that no matter what the act is, constitutional or not in the lay person's understanding of the constitution, there is no way to stop anything that a club of crooks, with legitimate derived power, decide to do. By derived power I mean stacked courts, broken legislative balance of power, corrupt and incestuous civil service politicization, etc. It truly never occurred to me that a stacked Supreme Court, for example, could overturn the provisions and intent of the Constitution by a simple erroneous to most scholars interpretation. But, you know, they can and will.

    There appears to be no way out.
  • I am a bit more optimistic. The way out is for EVERYONE to vote in such large numbers that there will be no doubt Trump is finished. Even cities that had elections with many polling stations closed ( ie Milwaukee) had large turnouts
  • edited August 2020
    I'm with Anna. Even if Trump is dislodged it is going to take decades to cleanse the "system" of the filth that has been introduced. I'm not at all optimistic that can be accomplished... more likely, given human nature, the perversions that have been introduced to our national government will be replicated by others now that it has been shown to be both possible and effective.

    I believe that 2018-2020 will be documented by future historians as the time frame that defined the final demise of the American democratic experiment.


    cc: JA, BF, AH, JJ, TJ, JM, GW

  • It was already happening, slowly, painfully slowly. Old_Joe is correct. It beggars the imagination, what these utterly unethical thieves have gotten away with. I will vote. But I have zero hope. The tRumpster and his criminal tong: will there ever be a reckoning? The Senate is full of criminals, too, who have forsaken their oath of office. No integrity, no ethics. ZILCH. Uncle tRumpster and little Jared walk into a room together, and people mutter: "there goes Null and Void."
  • This is a five minute NYTimes video from a couple of years ago, even more relevant now:
    https://nyti.ms/2F7niwO
    (if you're not a subscriber, there's a brief lead-in ad)

    Is There Something Wrong With Democracy
    For years, the number of democracies in the world had been on the rise, but recently the trend has stalled. The New York Times journalists Max Fisher and Amanda Taub explore why some democratic countries have backslid, while others never quite made it.
    IMHO it is not a written Constitution that makes for a democracy - the Soviet Union had a fine written Constitution. Rather, it is the strength of democratic institutions. See section 2 of the video, starting at 2:20.
  • I think this post office fiasco is just another deflection from Trump to change the subject of his horrible Covid response. Reading some articles only nine states plan mail is ballots (sent to all registered voters) vs absentee ballots (you request ballot) and the post office has plenty of capacity to handle the voting mail volume. The American public and media are so easy to sidetrack.....oh look, another shiny ball. Deflect, deflect, deflect....
  • edited August 2020
    Seems to me that if "deflection" is the name of the game it's pretty silly, because neither the USPS ball nor the coronavirus ball are at all shiny. Merely lurching from one fiasco to another and then back again doesn't seem like much of a strategy.
  • Here’s a long piece from Ed Yong at The Atlantic __Sept 2020__ That I don’t think has been posted before.
    COVID‑19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society:
    its shortsighted leadership,
    its disregard for expertise,
    its racial inequities,
    its social-media culture, and
    its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism.

    ...the U.S. has withdrawn from several international partnerships and antagonized its allies. It has a seat on the WHO’s executive board, but left that position empty for more than two years, only filling it this May, when the pandemic was in full swing.
    Since 2017, Trump has pulled more than 30 staffers out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s office in China, who could have warned about the spreading coronavirus.
    Last July, he defunded an American epidemiologist embedded within China’s CDC. America First was America oblivious.

    In 2018, he dismantled an office that had been assembled specifically to prepare for nascent pandemics.
    American intelligence agencies warned about the coronavirus threat in January, but Trump habitually disregards intelligence briefings.
    The secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, offered similar counsel, and was twice ignored.

  • Thanks @Robt for posting Yong’s article. He did interviews on TV following publication and got his message out. A Brit, by his accent. I’ve been impressed by what The Atlantic is doing these days and I’m tempted to become a subscriber again.

  • beebee
    edited August 2020
    NYT article on assigning "excess deaths" to Covid-19. Looking at the data that way reveal the US has had 200,000 excess death compared to recent year data.
    Across the United States, at least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus.
    The True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000

    Another study see a 43K increase in excess deaths:
    covid-19-fatalities-excess-fatalities-forecasts-again
  • Thank you for the articles. In Nov-Dec 2019 there were higher respiratory related death in the northeast. Don't know if that was COVID related.

    Flu vaccine is available now on the West coast. Our family took them last week and it will last over the winter. Just want to prepare for the worst condition for both the flu and COVID until the new vaccine is available in early 2021.
  • You know what's rich now.... Trump dropped out the the Iran deal and now he wants to invoke portions of the deal he dropped out of!! What an idiot.
  • He's like a hyper-active but not too bright kid who just blurts out whatever his little brain is trying to process at any given moment.
  • Not watching the conventions because I know who I'm voting for but I just read Julia Louis-Dreyfus hosted the last night and threw this out there: funny....

    “Joe Biden goes to church so regularly he doesn’t even need tear gas or a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there,” she said.
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