Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Omega10]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/us/ba...-19/index.html



Fuck Georgia, they're playing around with the lives of kids and faculty and making things hell for the poor staff that have to deal with this bullshit. If only Brian Kemp, who is a monumental fucking retard that was months late to learning that asymptomatic people can still infect others, gave a shit about his residents and the children that are being sent back to roll the dice with their health.

Georgia is number 5 in number of cases. Kemp has worked hard to maximize the spread of the virus throughout the state. I try to think that it is not intentional. It gets harder and harder as time goes by.

[PACOX]

Just want to point out that the transmittion from asymptomatic and even presymptomatic people is not fully known. There are a bunch of lab run tests that show they do not transmit. There are also tests showing that might transmit in some cases. But it is not a definitive.

Most tests have shown that a cough or sneeze is needed to put enough of the virus in the area to transmit or to put it on a surface.

I am not saying it can't happen, I was just pointing out that it isn't proven one way or the the other yet.

I'm not doing the math but I'm pretty sure a 2 min conversation will release as man droplets as a cough or sneeze.

We can also say that asymptomatic/presymptomatic people spread the virus through contact tracing. We just do not the exact science to predict when and how contagious someone will be.

Its like going outside, seeing a dark cloud, and saying it will even if you aren't a meteorologist.

We know enough to form some solid conjectures.

- - - Updated - - -

There is now also the bubonic plague popping up in china and mongolia, not that much so far though but still.

Last time it killed of 200 million of our 500 million world population but that was back in the days say the 14th Century it did kill some 12 million back in the 1900's too.

These days it can easily be treated by antibiotics.

Spoiler, the plague exists in California. It's pretty controlled and somewhat easy to treat though. Now if it becomes resistant...

Super bacteria is a possibility in the near future.

- - - Updated - - -

Other countries that locked down are seeing a second wave, while here in Sweden we are seeing a decline in both new cases and deaths. I truly believe we did the right thing back in march, not closing down, and this is exactly what I predicted. We would have more cases early on, but countries that shut themselves down would reach a second wave when they opened up.

Meanwhile New Zealand locked down properly and hasn't seen a case in 100 days.

[Slant]

Hmm...
That seems very specific, are you a German visiting Swedish cities for summer holidays and finding them empty?

No, but I know that in the nordic countries pretty much everyone owns a summer house at the lake, because it's cheap.

[Cynep]

Welp, thanks for finally admitting (tacitly, if not explicitly) that you were wrong about the world having peaked.

Wrong. The world has peaked, and you --good job-- explained why: USA, the #1 in cases, is declining substantially. You also made some good points on the "soft cap" front. You're dead wrong about the peak though. Denial doesn't help your credibility.

Or maybe you just need to work on your comprehension? Let's take these quotes and I'll explain your mistakes:

A pandemic like this doesn't just stop overnight (...duh...) so "over already" in this context means fully peaked and declining. It's just plain stupid to assume that someone saying "over already" in this context means literally 100% done, since that's objectively and obviously false.

Wrong. Black Death is over. Spanish Flu is over. Covid pandemic is not even at half its duration, far from over. What other nonsense will you ascribe to me, every adult's life is over already, because it peaked in their 20's or something? >.>

The case counts I'm talking about here are the daily new case counts, not the total cumulative case counts, which should be obvious to anyone with any kind of common sense, as total case counts can't possibly go down. Your repeated assertions, however, suggest that daily case counts will continue to go down, even if the total case counts might someday get up to 4%.

And that assertion is just ridiculous.

... you're replying to this:

It could be just a local peak, hence "it seems". But most likely it will stay that way.

Or maybe you just need to work on your comprehension?

You really should heed your own advice.

Daily cases can rise again. Another peak could come in the winter if the second wave actually happens, which is quite possible. Or maybe India could keep rising and carry the world instead of USA, exceeding current peak after only 2 weeks of decline. I said explicitly that it could happen. I just doubt it will.

You know, it's really telling that despite the, what... 4 or 5 times? that I've explained this to you, you haven't once addressed my explanation, despite repeatedly asking for it, because then you'd have to admit that it's not just the logical explanation, but the obvious one, and that would just destroy your absurd "hypothesis".

More like 3 times including this post. I acknowledged it (tacitly ) last time, and again earlier in this post. Change in behavior of individual people when personally facing disease is definitely a factor; it actually happened to me and my family, even though we have it easy in Donetsk and no one among the few hundred people I'm closely acquainted with has been infected yet.

I don't have a hypothesis though, just an empirical observation without any underlying theory; I'm just stating the facts.

As to your numbered points,

1. Yes, human action can and does help slow it down; but no, people aren't really dying in large numbers outside of bad hotspots. It just seems that way to a "very online person" due to how social media works.
2. No, 3% is not a "fucking huge number". 97% is a huge number. 97% of the US is 320,000,000 people. These 320 millions won't die, they won't even get sick. But they're suffering from lockdowns and poverty caused by anti-pandemic measures. That's why some more impatient and myopic ones among them rioted back then: 320 million Americans suffer for nothing from their POV.
3. Either you're arguing that, since a significant part of timeline has already passed, Covid won't get to truly big numbers, or you're arguing that Covid will stay with us for a long long time. In both situations, correct course of action will be to stop panic and treat Covid as "not the biggest problem" (although differently). Rather ironic that that's your argument.
4. But they do correlate! All of them are below 3%, which is in turn far below herd immunity threshold! Yes, they vary greatly inside the sub-3% range, and I wanted to discuss what factors contribute to this phenomenon (both variation and why the limit is so low even in hotspots and denier countries). Stop being contrarian.

And yet it doesn't, because what you're trying so desperately to convince people is a fact is not actually a fact. Which means that the person looking repetitively foolish here... is you.

Why are you wishing for bad things to happen so badly that you refuse to see positive facts in front of you? What's wrong with you?

[For_The_Horde]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/250000...torcycle-rally

At least they're outdoors for the rally, bikers from all over the country, including coronavirus hot spots, are converging in South Dakota for a motorcycle rally. And apparently nobody is masking.

Yeah, hundreds of thousands of fat/old bikers drinking, fighting, f*cking, and not one of them wearing a mask, what could go wrong? On the upside, plenty of motorcycles on sale in the next few months, will be a good time to buy. On the downside, this is gonna spread corona around at least as much as spring break did...

[Slant]

lol... cheap to own a summer house at a lake? just checking briefly what they cost where i live... 2 that are by a lake...

first one 95 sqm costs 2.9 million sek, that's 281214€... second one 90 sqm costs 1.5 million sek, that's 145455€...

cheap? a normal worker won't be able to afford either of them...

there is nobody in my social circle that has a summer house by a lake because they are too expensive...

I'm sorry that you're poor. You are clearly not representative then. Congratulations, you are the exception. Now go and be outraged and dismiss the entire argument! That's what you ought to do when the discussion doesn't revolve around your personal life, right?

[Deathknightish]

I'm sorry that you're poor. You are clearly not representative then. Congratulations, you are the exception. Now go and be outraged and dismiss the entire argument! That's what you ought to do when the discussion doesn't revolve around your personal life, right?

The absolute majority don't own a summer house, far from it. Hell, most Swedes don't even "own" their primary home (there are very few apartments you downright own in Sweden, you buy the right to it instead). Most people rent their apartment. Source: https://omvarldsbevakning.byggtjanst...-vi-i-sverige/

Last numbers I saw was from 2013 and then only 16-17% owned a summer home. I doubt the number is higher because house and apartment prices keep going up while our salaries don't follow the curve.

It's not like in, say, Norway where almost everyone own their home, like 80-82%.

[Dacien]

From MarksDataHaus, a very small Twitter account, so verification of this chart is advisable, but it seems to check out.



He asks the question for why states that delayed their spikes in cases fared better in deaths. Maybe too early to tell? I don't know, but delaying the spread with aggressive measures early seems to have been the ticket.

[Elegiac]

He asks the question for why states that delayed their spikes in cases fared better in deaths. Maybe too early to tell? I don't know, but delaying the spread with aggressive measures early seems to have been the ticket.

Yeah which is why it's mystifying that even now y'all continue to oppose *any* measures with this "reopen everything" nonsense.

Well, not really mystifying - we get that the actual reason is because there is apparently more concern that people might get unemployment payments than they might die of a lethal infection, so we need to get their kids back into schools so they can go back to their wage slavery and make the economy number good again. Because if the economy number is good again then people won't start asking questions about exactly whose wealth they are working to build, and figuring out that it isn't theirs.

Assuming this data is even verifiable (it isn't, since it's known a lot of red states are faking numbers), your point is...what? That it's okay to reopen now because cases are still actively spiking but haven't exceeded a former peak?

Or is this just one of those "interesting observations" that just happens to come from some tweet reply to McCarthy or Ian Miles-Cheong?

[Nellise]

From MarksDataHaus, a very small Twitter account, so verification of this chart is advisable, but it seems to check out.

He asks the question for why states that delayed their spikes in cases fared better in deaths. Maybe too early to tell? I don't know, but delaying the spread with aggressive measures early seems to have been the ticket.

The problem with comparing any current numbers to that initial northeast outbreak is that the number of cases in the northeast are severely under counted as there were a very limited number of tests. New York was doing about 20k tests a day with over 40% positivity rates during its April peak. Florida is doing 50-60k tests a day with positivities around 20%.

There are also a few treatments being used now that weren't in those early days that help extremely ill patients: remdesivir and dexamethasone.

[Puupi]

https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/...1132#gs.cfh8ba

Demonstration Finnish style:

150 guys in a forest so drunk the police couldn't even figure out what they were protesting about. It was something about "muh rights", but further than that, motives remained unclear due to the impaired speech capabilities the protesters had.

Everything went peacefully and the protesters left the forest the next morning.

[Santti]

https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/...1132#gs.cfh8ba

Demonstration Finnish style:

150 guys in a forest so drunk the police couldn't even figure out what they were protesting about. It was something about "muh rights", but further than that, motives remained unclear due to the impaired speech capabilities the protesters had.

Everything went peacefully and the protesters left the forest the next morning.

Maybe they were just raking the forest?

[wunksta]

Motorcycle Rally In Sturgis Draws Thousands Of Largely Unmasked Attendees

As COVID-19 cases surpass five million in the U.S. — and deaths exceed 162K, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine — tens of thousands of motorcyclists rode into South Dakota for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally — most of which were unmasked and not following social distancing guidelines.

“No, we didn’t take any precautions,” Rally attendee Jim Busch told the New York Times, adding that he thinks the coronavirus pandemic, which he refers to as a “situation,” is “manufactured. “There’s ulterior motives behind this, so we’re not concerned.”

https://news.yahoo.com/motorcycle-ra...154316660.html

[zealo]

Yeah, hard to do that in Sweden a country with a density population shitons of times lower than France, Spain, Italy, etc.. The reality is that you failed hard, and you are only luck that Sweden has the population of a single region of the countries listed above.

Don't stare yourself blind at overall population density alone when it comes to pandemics and infectious diseases otherwise.

Sweden is highly urbanised to around about 87% of the population, the size of the country isn't all that relevant when it comes to a pandemic, not to mention that about 90% of the population lives in around half the country's geographical area.

[MCMLXXXII]

Stockholm 4160 people/km2.
Paris 21437 people/km2.
I'd say that's a significant difference.

[PhaelixWW]

Wrong. The world has peaked, and you --good job-- explained why: USA, the #1 in cases, is declining substantially. You also made some good points on the "soft cap" front. You're dead wrong about the peak though. Denial doesn't help your credibility.

And this is exactly my point. Despite the fact that 4% of the world is decreasing (for now) and 96% is increasing, you're convinced the world has peaked. Despite the fact that the daily case counts have been steadily rising for half a year, you're convinced that after a week of minor decrease (immediately following a 10 day surge) means that those numbers can't possibly go any higher. You believe this despite the obvious explanations, and despite the consensus of doctors around the world.

Wrong. Black Death is over. Spanish Flu is over. Covid pandemic is not even at half its duration, far from over. What other nonsense will you ascribe to me, every adult's life is over already, because it peaked in their 20's or something? >.>

What you're implying that I ascribed to you, I didn't. I explained the meaning in context, and you're ignoring it to chase your alternate meaning down some rabbit hole, instead of actually making a point. I'm forced to conclude that it's because you don't actually have a point to make.

Daily cases can rise again. Another peak could come in the winter if the second wave actually happens, which is quite possible. Or maybe India could keep rising and carry the world instead of USA, exceeding current peak after only 2 weeks of decline. I said explicitly that it could happen. I just doubt it will.

See, but that's not what you initially said, is it? You said "the world has peaked", not "I believe that the world has peaked". And when called on it, you said "most likely it will stay that way", not "I believe that it will stay that way. You're stating this subjective opinion, with no real credible explanation, as fact.

I don't have a hypothesis though, just an empirical observation without any underlying theory; I'm just stating the facts.

No, actually, you definitely hypothesized the existence of a soft-cap. You just lacked follow-through on anything else resembling an explanation, yet obstinately refused any alternate explanation that contradicted that hypothesis.

Yes, human action can and does help slow it down; but no, people aren't really dying in large numbers outside of bad hotspots. It just seems that way to a "very online person" due to how social media works.

I mean... 730,000 people dead sure as hell qualifies as "dying in large numbers". And quite a large percentage of the world has had a chance to be a hotspot so far.

No, 3% is not a "fucking huge number". 97% is a huge number.

The fact that you think those are mutually exclusive is cute.

97% of the US is 320,000,000 people. These 320 millions won't die, they won't even get sick. But they're suffering from lockdowns and poverty caused by anti-pandemic measures.

And now you're grossly exaggerating the "suffering" and "poverty".

NYT: Vast Federal Aid Has Capped Rise in Poverty, Studies Find

An unprecedented expansion of federal aid has prevented the rise in poverty that experts predicted this year when the coronavirus sent unemployment to the highest level since the Great Depression, two new studies suggest. The assistance could even cause official measures of poverty to fall.

None of this isn't to say that there aren't people suffering. But you know who's not suffering anymore? The 165,000 Americans who have died so far from COVID. And that doesn't count the most likely hundreds of thousands more who would have also died already were it not for those anti-pandemic measures.

No, the suffering is minor compared to death, but it's amusing to see your rather hypocritical attempts at fearmongering and doom-and-glooming.

That's why some more impatient and myopic ones among them rioted back then: 320 million Americans suffer for nothing from their POV.

I'm not even sure what you're talking about. There were no riots due to "lockdown suffering". There were a few riots due to systemic racism, though it was mostly peaceful protesting. And there were a few, pathetic lockdown protests, but not because of any "suffering"; some entitled people were protesting because they wanted a haircut. And those people quite demonstrably were in it for their own selfish reasons, not for some perceived suffering of anyone else, let alone 320 million others.

Either you're arguing that, since a significant part of timeline has already passed, Covid won't get to truly big numbers, or you're arguing that Covid will stay with us for a long long time. In both situations, correct course of action will be to stop panic and treat Covid as "not the biggest problem" (although differently). Rather ironic that that's your argument.

You keep pressing this idea that there's "panic", or a "scare" that should be ended.

That's just your imagination.

And no, COVID can quite realistically be "the biggest problem" faced over the course of much more time than has already been spent during this pandemic. Our choices are not limited to only "solve it now" or "accept it and give up any idea of precaution"; that's a false dichotomy strawman if I ever saw one.

But they do correlate! All of them are below 3%, which is in turn far below herd immunity threshold!

You're on point #4, but it's like you completely just forgot about point #3, because I'm having to repeat myself when I remind you that time is a huge fucking factor. All of them are below 3% because it's virtually impossible for the virus to spread fast enough to even get to 3% (let alone the herd immunity threshold) in half a year, if people are actively resisting its spread. Even in Qatar, which by all measures shit the bed on this one, it would take upwards of two and a half years worth of their single-day new case record to reach a 70% herd immunity threshold.

But it's also important to reiterate that there's not a whole lot of correlation between confirmed case counts and actual infection counts. The US is probably closer to 20m infections than 5m infections.

Yes, they vary greatly inside the sub-3% range, and I wanted to discuss what factors contribute to this phenomenon (both variation and why the limit is so low even in hotspots and denier countries).

It's because there is no number limit, merely time and human reaction being factors.

Stop being contrarian.

Stop being objectively wrong. <shrug>

Why are you wishing for bad things to happen so badly that you refuse to see positive facts in front of you? What's wrong with you?

You let your imagination create "positive facts" for you to believe in with no reason or evidence. That's not reality, it's fantasy. And because I'm challenging your fantasy, you falsely (and childishly) characterize my rebuttal as "wishing" for bad things to happen.

[Mayhem]

lol... cheap to own a summer house at a lake? just checking briefly what they cost where i live... 2 that are by a lake...

first one 95 sqm costs 2.9 million sek, that's 281214€... second one 90 sqm costs 1.5 million sek, that's 145455€...

cheap? a normal worker won't be able to afford either of them...

there is nobody in my social circle that has a summer house by a lake because they are too expensive...

That is impressively cheap actually. I am jealous now.

[MCMLXXXII]

That is impressively cheap actually. I am jealous now.

That's the price of an apartment over here........ Average of 200000 euro .

[Omega10]

It took all of one week. Basically, in Georgia quite a few students and staff are starting to test positive, and the Georgia back to school policies are running into difficulties.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/9-...al/ar-BB17MHNb

Title: 9 students, staff test positive for COVID-19 after Georgia school hallway photo goes viral

Excerpts:

6 students and 3 staff members tested positive in the high school where the student was temporarily suspended for posting a picture of a crowded hallway with no one wearing masks. Well that was last week. That high school now is in the national news for the 3rd time since the school year started.

A Georgia high school captured in viral images last week plans to temporarily close all in-person classes — after nine students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus.

This is information about the original photo and comments that that photographer made:

North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia gained national attention soon after students returned to school Aug. 3 when photos posted on social media showed crowded hallways, with many students not wearing masks.

Hannah Watters, 15, who was concerned about her and her classmates' health and safety, shared a photo on Twitter and wrote, "This is not ok. Not to mention the 10% mask rate."

"This isn’t a joke. These are many lives, kids to be precise."

The school will shut down for 2 days, at which time they will review how to proceed.

Now, all students will take online classes Monday and Tuesday, Paulding County Schools Superintendent Brian Otott said in a letter to parents Sunday. He said those two days will be used to clean and disinfect the school, and parents will learn Tuesday evening if in-person classes can resume later in the week.

Other parts of Georgia are also having problems.

And Paulding County isn't the only Georgia school district to see infection. Last week, hundreds of employees in Georgia's largest school district, Gwinnett County Public Schools, either tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to the virus, officials said. About 260 employees were "excluded from work" due to coronavirus exposure.

Cherokee county is also having problems.

Meanwhile, school officials in a metro Atlanta school district reported that 12 students and two staff members across a dozen schools tested positive for the virus during their first week back at school. The Cherokee County school system said more than 250 students with potential exposure had been sent home to quarantine for two weeks.

“We have students and staff reporting presumptive, pending and positive COVID-19 tests every day, and this will continue as we operate schools during a pandemic,” Cherokee County Schools Superintendent Brian Hightower wrote in a letter to parents Friday, adding that the school system was taking “extra steps for transparency.”

Cherokee County also saw maskless photos go viral online last week. Dozens of seniors gathered at two high schools to take traditional first-day-of-school senior photos, with students squeezing together in black outfits. No one in the pictures wore a mask.

In populated areas at least, it seems like the attempts at having schools open as usual will be a fairly short effort. Possibly rural schools will be able to stay open a bit longer.

[Edge-]

It took all of one week. Basically, in Georgia quite a few students and staff are starting to test positive, and the Georgia back to school policies are running into difficulties.

Thing everybody warned about and said would happen, happens.

Fuck you, Georgia. Don't play around with the lives of kids and underpaid teachers.