The all-new "US Politics and coronavirus" thread

[Frank Newgent]

Very interesting. When interviewed, patrons and the Iron Hog Bar owner all said the same thing: quarantining or wearing a mask should be their "choice." This attitude exists in many places and it usually doesn't work out too well. The scary thing is, surveys show as many as 25% of people infected a) have no symptoms and b) are unaware they're contagious.

The Iron Hog Bar is in Ozaukee County Wisconsin, which has a population of about 90,000. They have recorded 107 cases and 9 deaths. The high death rate, over 8% or double the state average, suggests there have been a lot of unrecorded positives. I got the impression from the people interviewed by the local reporter, they know what they're doing is not too smart but they feel lucky. That they won't be one of the ones to get sick. Ironically, the age group with the second highest number of infections in their area is the 20-29 group. They account for about 20% of confirmed cases. Link

This is a scene from the Iron Hog Bar last evening.

My brother - who has PCA, a variety of Alzheimer's - is a resident in a care facility in that town, Port Washington.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Pretty much. I fear Wisconsin is going to serve as an example for the other states, and quite possibly as an example in history of medicine textbooks of the future.

It takes special effort and hard work to do something dumber than Missouri. Congrats, Wisconsin! *recognizes game*

 

[Giordano]

And this kind of crap is why I'm convinced that literally everybody in the US is going to catch the virus and should have everything planned out for when they do get it and prepare for the worst. It's the combination of the Federal government doing literally nothing...correction, WORSE than nothing and actually encouraging the spread of the virus; states that do try to help their citizens being sabotaged by the feds; and the "MUH RIGHTS!1!" morons becoming increasingly violent towards any measures whatsoever to stop the spread of the virus, while believing that "bravery" somehow makes them immune. The economy is going to tank worse than before, lots of people will die and there's nobody to stop it. America is full of stupid, stupid people.

Ah, someone who shares my depressingly pessimistic view!

And your post again brings up the question of just why these idiots think limiting the spread of covid-19 is only about them and their own risk. Play Russian roulette if you want but not if I am standing down range of you!

Finally I do think a lot of Americans are stupid but no more a percentage than any other country. What differs is the bait that gets a rise from a given population. Americans (such as I) have been trained to Pavlovian response to talk of “freedom” and “you can’t tell me what to do.” And Trump plays on this. In other countries the bait may differ... And those in authority are usually more responsible (at least in terms of the response to the disease).

 

[Andy_Ross]

Opening up is all good apparently, Trump claims

Good numbers coming out of States that are opening. America is getting its life back! Vaccine work is looking VERY promising, before end of year. Likewise, other solutions!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Opening up is all good apparently, Trump claims

Good numbers coming out of States that are opening. America is getting its life back! Vaccine work is looking VERY promising, before end of year. Likewise, other solutions!

Tra la la la la, "the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead
Wake up you sleepyhead
Rub your eyes, get out of bed
Wake up the wicked witch is dead"

 

[TragicMonkey]

Tra la la la la, "the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead
Wake up you sleepyhead
Rub your eyes, get out of bed
Wake up the wicked witch is dead"

Well, they were right about one witch, anyway, when they sang that.

This situation strikes me more like people in a slasher film announcing that the killer's run off, so it's now safe to separate and wander around the abandoned asylum where all those teenagers were murdered exactly twenty years ago tonight.

 

[Resume]

Opening up is all good apparently, Trump claims

Good numbers coming out of States that are opening. America is getting its life back! Vaccine work is looking VERY promising, before end of year. Likewise, other solutions!

Might as well just move this tweet right on over to the Trump Lies thread.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Yes, I understand that, but my point was apparently after Fox upper management told the news staff to 'tone down' reports downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus epidemic, the talking heads seemed to be complying. A website that tracks Fox News said certain phrases the hosts used to downplay the seriousness of the epidemic -- I don't remember what those phrases were -- began to be used noticeably less. In March they forced Trish Regan out and in April they parted ways with Diamond & Silk.



Reportedly though, there is a battle going on in Fox upper management. One side urges caution while the other side says, 'Let 'em sue.'

They issued the memo.

All that's left is to say "I was in and out of a lot of meetings at that time, I have no recollection of how the coverage may or may not have changed after our guidance was issued."

Then they can throw the Executive Producers under the bus and it will be their turn. "I really spend a lot of time working on our ratings models and promotional campaigns to drive viewership, so you should talk to the Senior Producer about content and style..."

And so on.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Pretty much. I fear Wisconsin is going to serve as an example for the other states, and quite possibly as an example in history of medicine textbooks of the future.



It takes special effort and hard work to do something dumber than Missouri. Congrats, Wisconsin! *recognizes game*

Hey, I'm from Missouri!

Wow, that was reflexive.

I meant to say: you're not wrong.

:9

 

[Ziggurat]

This is really amazing stuff. I don't know who to be more angry with, Trump or Pelosi.

 

[Emily's Cat]

As you can see, Arizona has really ramped up the testing but the graph below (from the AZCentral news site) shows results by the week and AZ is still on an upward curve for cases.

I don't know how to do a screen capture.
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php

Click on Laboratory Testing.

The percentage of positive PCR tests peaked the week of April 5, has decreased since then:

April 5 - 11%
April 12 - 10%
April 19 - 7%
April 26 - 6%
May 3 - 5%

It's been decreasing for over 5 weeks.

Arizona only had a very few serology tests prior to April 19, so I'll provide the number of tests as well as the percentage.

April 12 (38) - 31.6%
April 19 (217) - 5.1%
April 26 (13,189) - 3.7%
May 3 (23,641) - 2.9%

 

[Emily's Cat]

We're probably going to get to 120,000 deaths in less time than six months. Below is a chart from Worldometer. It shows the U.S had just over 80,000 deaths since March 31st. That's forty-four days. At the current rate we'll pass 100,000 next week sometime.

It's hard to say though. It's not linear.
Johns Hopkins has a good interactive dashboard:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

If you click on United States on the left-hand panel, it will change the reported metrics to be just the US instead of the world. In the lower right corner is a cumulative case graph - you can select the second tab to view it in logarithmic scale, which shows the change in inflection. So even though it's hard to see on a linear scale, the rate of change has slowed in cases - mostly due to social distancing and lockdowns at the moment. Death rates are largely a function of case rates, but are further complicated by the lag between symptom onset and severity leading to death. This can be exacerbated by stress on the hospital system, which makes it very hard to predict.

This is all a very long way of saying "maybe we'll hit 100K that soon, but I'm not willing to make bets on it".

 

[Emily's Cat]

They showed a documentary here in the UK. It compared the response in South Korea to the UK over the virus. Our populations are pretty close to each other (51 million SK to 63 Million UK). We are at 37,000 deaths in the UK due to Covid. In South Korea they have had 239. Someone somewhere is getting it more right than the USA or the UK but neither pig ignorant administration seem capable of learning from those who are doing a better job.

The largest difference has been that SK used contact tracing and isolation. It's a very effective approach, but it's not something that the US or UK would likely have been able to implement at the start of this. We have expectations of privacy that don't really align well with the government tracking us on our phones

I know there's work in progress for some privacy-focused tracing apps, and I hope we'll get enough adoption for that to be useful relatively soon.

 

[BobTheCoward]

The largest difference has been that SK used contact tracing and isolation. It's a very effective approach, but it's not something that the US or UK would likely have been able to implement at the start of this. We have expectations of privacy that don't really align well with the government tracking us on our phones

I know there's work in progress for some privacy-focused tracing apps, and I hope we'll get enough adoption for that to be useful relatively soon.

As a libertarian I will tell you what I would have done if the government tried contact tracing me....
.... whatever my wife wanted.

 

[bruto]

I heard an interesting tidbit on the news today that antibodies from camelids (llamas and the like as well as camels) are looking promising, as they are smaller than others, and get into places others can't. Camelids have become quite popular among Vermont farmers. It would be a nice bonus if they turn out to be important for viral reasons.

Also, interestingly, one of the outfits that may end up in the forefront of the race for immunization seems to be the outfit just down the road from us, "The Binding Site," which farms numerous sheep for their antibodies.

https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/...cle_ccc13bce-eaac-5a92-9835-e593205da0ba.html

Good luck to them.

 

[newyorkguy]

I don't know how to do a screen capture.
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php

Click on Laboratory Testing.

The percentage of positive PCR tests peaked the week of April 5, has decreased since then:

April 5 - 11%
April 12 - 10%
April 19 - 7%
April 26 - 6%
May 3 - 5%

It's been decreasing for over 5 weeks.

Arizona only had a very few serology tests prior to April 19, so I'll provide the number of tests as well as the percentage.

April 12 (38) - 31.6%
April 19 (217) - 5.1%
April 26 (13,189) - 3.7%
May 3 (23,641) - 2.9%

This is all well and good. Except you seem to be trying to 'prove' the epidemic in Arizona has been on the decline since early/mid-April. I look at the chart you mention and it's the percentage of positives the tests are showing, correct? There's obviously a lot of variables. One of the variables is, when test kits were scarce only people with serious symptoms got tested. Once more kits became available the criteria for who could get tested changed.

Then I look at the number of new cases Arizona is reporting and it doesn't look too good. I don't feel you're being objective, I have the impression you're trying to prove this thing is under control, getting better and you're trying to use what you can find to prove it. I'm not seeing it's under control or necessarily getting better, not with the dips and spikes Arizona is recording, I'm sorry. I feel like I'm on pretty solid ground because I'm mostly basing this on what I hear or read various public health officials saying.

Click to enlarge.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I don't know how to do a screen capture.
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php

Click on Laboratory Testing.

The percentage of positive PCR tests peaked the week of April 5, has decreased since then:

April 5 - 11%
April 12 - 10%
April 19 - 7%
April 26 - 6%
May 3 - 5%

It's been decreasing for over 5 weeks.

You are only giving part of the data.

The real data is the number of Positive Tests, which have always been increasing.

Date|% Positive|Total Tests|# Positive Tests
April 5|10%|10,544|1,054
April 12|11%|10,983|1,208
April 19|10%|12,810|1,281
April 26|7%|23,107|1,617
May 3|6%|36,742|2,205

 

[AnonyMoose]

Very interesting. When interviewed, patrons and the Iron Hog Bar owner all said the same thing: quarantining or wearing a mask should be their "choice." This attitude exists in many places and it usually doesn't work out too well. The scary thing is, surveys show as many as 25% of people infected a) have no symptoms and b) are unaware they're contagious.

The Iron Hog Bar is in Ozaukee County Wisconsin, which has a population of about 90,000. They have recorded 107 cases and 9 deaths. The high death rate, over 8% or double the state average, suggests there have been a lot of unrecorded positives. I got the impression from the people interviewed by the local reporter, they know what they're doing is not too smart but they feel lucky. That they won't be one of the ones to get sick. Ironically, the age group with the second highest number of infections in their area is the 20-29 group. They account for about 20% of confirmed cases. Link

This is a scene from the Iron Hog Bar last evening.

My first thought on this is:

We should get an office pool going here at ISF to see how many of these covidiots get deathly ill and die over the next 4-6 weeks. The person who guesses the closest, wins.

Do thoughts like these make me an evil, uncaring, vengeful, hateful person (read: spawn of Trump)?

 

[Emily's Cat]

You are only giving part of the data.

The real data is the number of Positive Tests, which have always been increasing.

Date|% Positive|Total Tests|# Positive Tests
April 5|10%|10,544|1,054
April 12|11%|10,983|1,208
April 19|10%|12,810|1,281
April 26|7%|23,107|1,617
May 3|6%|36,742|2,205

So? The guidelines set forth by the CDC are either reducing case counts or reducing percentage of positive cases provided the volume of tests is the same or increased.

I think it's reasonable for AZ to begin a gradual reopening with some precautions - which is what they're doing. the rate of positive cases has been declining for over a month, more then the 2 weeks suggested by the CDC. Hospitalizations and deaths are down, and have been reducing for more than two weeks. The state has sufficient IP and ICU beds, and more than sufficient ventilators.

AZ meets the guidelines set forth by the CDC... and Ducey is still strongly recommending that anyone who can continue to work from home should do so, people should continue to maintain at lest 6 feet of separation, and should wear masks in public, and should limit their time in public as much as they reasonably can.

I think that's a reasonable and rational way to go about it.

 

[3point14]

My first thought on this is:

We should get an office pool going here at ISF to see how many of these covidiots get deathly ill and die over the next 4-6 weeks. The person who guesses the closest, wins.

Do thoughts like these make me an evil, uncaring, vengeful, hateful person (read: spawn of Trump)?

I'm wondering about the legal status of any gatherings in the US and the impact that might have on people's health insurance.