Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[PhaelixWW]

Idk, man… but if his wife is going through that shit, ima refrain from judging him atm. Something may have happened, who knows.

That doesn't cut it for a political figure.

Something "may have happened" with his wife, but something definitely happened with his constituents.

And his account tweeted today about bagels, so...

[Breccia]

Idk, man… but if his wife is going through that shit, ima refrain from judging him atm.

That's your right. But I'm not following that example. He runs a state and vanished for ten days. He doesn't get a retroactive pass. Also, he had no problem announcing it now, so I don't believe he would have had a problem announcing it earlier, either. States have Lt. Gov spots for a reason, and if DeSantis was telling the truth by proxy, this would be a very good reason.

I don't have a problem with someone's priority being their family first. I do have a problem when they neglect all other priorities, such as his job, which is an important one affecting many other families and not just his. He could have had much more privacy if he had just put someone else in charge. He didn't. If my brother took ill and I vanished the day before finals, telling nobody, for all of finals week and beyond, I get fired. If I get someone to cover for me, there is no concern. I should not have stronger professional ethics than a governor of a large state.

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he does not, and has never, had an interest in dealing with Covid in any way.

And you'd think this would be the time to start. Omicron isn't nearly as lethal as when he ignored it last year and August.

Shit I need to stop saying "last year" so casually.

[PACOX]

No. People who decided it was a hoax and the people who spread misinformation and propaganda are why COVID is kicking our ass. You really think it mattered what the CDC said? C'mon.

When a local government issues a mandate, a hospital decides how to treat COVID patients, when a business drafts its protocols, the vast majority look to CDC guidelines. Why are paying the CDC if they are so toothless?

I guess someone should have told Delta (airlines) they didn't have to bother lobbying the CDC because the CDC only makes recommendations.

Citing the CDC in court is no longer admissible because the CDC only makes recommendations.

[Lenonis]

ramblings.

Why exactly are you after the CDC instead of the actual people making this pandemic worse? It's almost like you are cheering for the antivaxxers.

[beanman12345]

Idk, man… but if his wife is going through that shit, ima refrain from judging him atm. Something may have happened, who knows.

He can step down from being governor, or he can rightfully get judged for being another bunker bitch.

[PACOX]

Why exactly are you after the CDC instead of the actual people making this pandemic worse? It's almost like you are cheering for the antivaxxers.

Oh come on. Criticizing the CDC equals being anti-vaxxer? Thats ridiculous. You're getting upset that someone dare say the CDC could do some things better.That mindset helps no one.

[Lenonis]

Criticizing the CDC equals being anti-vaxxer?

Yeah that's not what I said. Try again.

[Logwyn]

COVID is so bad in the US right now that the Gov of the 4th largest state has disappeared for 12 days, and no one can find or has heard from him.

All while Florida has just broke its record by leaps and bounds and had 79k cases just yesterday

just shocking the level this particular party and its death cult members will go to, to hide even the fact they caught covid

My thing is we locked down to stop the strain on the health care systems but now we fine just overloading it by leaps and bounds. Almost like we did not kill enough people the first time around or something.

[Jtbrig7390]

My thing is we locked down to stop the strain on the health care systems.

In truth we never truly locked down.

Some states did a half measure but most didn't do it at all. Sadly there is a huge part of this country who chooses to be ignorant even if it kills their own family.

[Forogil]

Do the US even regularly test children?

Because over here it was quite obvious backed by data that the last delta wave back in November was largely carried by schools and children spreading the virus. Children aged 6-14 had the highest incidence rates.

Something may have changed - the most obvious explanation would be that all non-children are vaccinated. I don't know your exact local stats, but in most countries in Europe children were vaccinated last and the rates are way lower.

I cannot see how that split is in the US, but I would assume that children were vaccinated earlier at rates closer to adults.

Our city has a pretty extensive PCR testing program that outdoes every other city on the planet. I am not joking, the city tests as much as all of Germany combined.

Hm... Vienna/Wien? Germany doesn't actually test much for unknown reasons; in the EU Cyprus, Austria, Denmark and recently Greece are each testing ten times more per capita (the US is only a bit ahead of Germany - but clearly varying between the states).

However, even if health-experts say that testing is important - I see no clear connection between testing more to find cases and deaths; both Germany, Austria and Greece had somewhat similar death-numbers graphs around November last year; it's just that Germany had it later and smaller. (Obviously demographics and some missed deaths mean that they are not fully comparable.) We will see what happens with Omicron.

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I stumbled across this OP ED. I don't necessarily agree with it, not entirely at least, but it draws an interesting parallel, as the author calls it "Abstinence only" COVID education.

I can understand what the author is saying and that a more risk-based approach is good.

However, the three examples were very different - I don't know if that was the intention to show that we should take a risk-based approach instead or I missed the point:

Chastising joggers without masks

Exercising is important, and assuming you are doing it outdoors and it's not too crowded the added risk should be fairly low.

That is also the most obvious case where people might instead go indoors in crowded gyms (or worse make-shift gyms with bad ventilation) to avoid that; which will just make the problem worse.

lamenting high passenger volumes on airplanes

That very much depends on why people are travelling. It might be safer if there were reduced seating on the airplanes; but who would pay for that?

[Mayhem]

Something may have changed - the most obvious explanation would be that all non-children are vaccinated. I don't know your exact local stats, but in most countries in Europe children were vaccinated last and the rates are way lower.

I cannot see how that split is in the US, but I would assume that children were vaccinated earlier at rates closer to adults.


Hm... Vienna/Wien? Germany doesn't actually test much for unknown reasons; in the EU Cyprus, Austria, Denmark and recently Greece are each testing ten times more per capita (the US is only a bit ahead of Germany - but clearly varying between the states).

However, even if health-experts say that testing is important - I see no clear connection between testing more to find cases and deaths; both Germany, Austria and Greece had somewhat similar death-numbers graphs around November last year; it's just that Germany had it later and smaller. (Obviously demographics and some missed deaths mean that they are not fully comparable.) We will see what happens with Omicron.

Germany had no November wave unlike Austria.

The point of my post was, that testing highlights what parts of society actually drive a wave and it is quite obvious that children play a huge factor. Also, the vaccination rate is somewhat identical between Austria and the US so I don't see how the US vaccinated children in significant enough numbers to have an impact.

[Forogil]

Germany had no November wave unlike Austria.

It was smaller in size and peaked a week later, but Germany did have a wave in November 2021 (with deaths in December for countries); both countries are now also seeing a tentative new wave. In cases the German wave was half the Austrian, but in terms of deaths it was perhaps 70%; indicating that they were more similar in size than the case-numbers would suggest.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers...ountry=DEU~AUT

I'm not saying that testing more is bad, it's just that it doesn't have a major clear impact in terms of deaths at this stage. It could be that the importance is more who you test, and not the total numbers.

The point of my post was, that testing highlights what parts of society actually drive a wave and it is quite obvious that children play a huge factor. Also, the vaccination rate is somewhat identical between Austria and the US so I don't see how the US vaccinated children in significant enough numbers to have an impact.

The point was that children vaccination in Austria are slowly going up now, with 24% at start of November and 41% now for 10-14 year olds;
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/c...e?country=~AUT - which is a lot lower than the country-average.

The US splits the age-groups differently - https://usafacts.org/visualizations/...racker-states/ but there seems to be a lesser age-gap; and more a gap between the states (usually red-states having lower rates - whereas it's the former East German (also somewhat red) states that seem to be lower).

[Mayhem]

It was smaller in size and peaked a week later, but Germany did have a wave in November 2021 (with deaths in December for countries); both countries are now also seeing a tentative new wave. In cases the German wave was half the Austrian, but in terms of deaths it was perhaps 70%; indicating that they were more similar in size than the case-numbers would suggest.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers...ountry=DEU~AUT

I'm not saying that testing more is bad, it's just that it doesn't have a major clear impact in terms of deaths at this stage. It could be that the importance is more who you test, and not the total numbers.


The point was that children vaccination in Austria are slowly going up now, with 24% at start of November and 41% now for 10-14 year olds;
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/c...e?country=~AUT - which is a lot lower than the country-average.

The US splits the age-groups differently - https://usafacts.org/visualizations/...racker-states/ but there seems to be a lesser age-gap; and more a gap between the states (usually red-states having lower rates - whereas it's the former East German (also somewhat red) states that seem to be lower).

I said we identified who drives waves, not that our country actually did anything. We have a right-wing government, they don't give a fuck about deaths, Vienna has a left-wing local government and had the lowest incidence rates last wave by a far despite being home to 1/4 of the countries population. And with omicron vaccination rates probably don't mean much anyway.

[Daedius]

Great start to the year, tested positive.

[Breccia]

Great start to the year, tested positive.

Damn, that sucks. Hope you're back to normal soon.

In the meanwhile, here's the CDC transmission rate map:



Yep, pretty much solid red coast to coast.

[Jtbrig7390]

Yep, pretty much solid red coast to coast.

If this ever ends everyone is going to have covid at some point....

[Forogil]

I said we identified who drives waves, not that our country actually did anything. We have a right-wing government, they don't give a fuck about deaths, Vienna has a left-wing local government and had the lowest incidence rates last wave by a far despite being home to 1/4 of the countries population. And with omicron vaccination rates probably don't mean much anyway.

For Omicron that seems somewhat true for cases, but vaccination is still significant for hospitalizations and deaths (and in general it seems that Omicron is a bit less deadly - but vaccinations make a major difference).

[Zan15]

Dude is a complete POS, but maybe he’s trying to distance himself from the public if his wife is currently going through cancer treatments. I imagine her immune system wouldn’t be the best atm, and he might want to quarantine with her, idk.

No one would blame him, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have released the information and actually worked from home or told everyone his delegation of authority was working hard while he wasn't available.

Though if he is so worried then why did he just go to a huge gathering the first day he was "back".


Sure sounds like he was either sick, isolating or under quarantine all of which could and should have been communicated and could have added to the education of his state and republicans across the country of the impact of COVID.


The best part is his followers spent the better part of a year yelling about every time Biden disappeared for a few hours....or god forbid didn't have a press conference for a few days. And the outrage when Pete B. took some time off to be with his newborn because of "supply problems", a problem that was not killing thousands a day BTW.

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My thing is we locked down to stop the strain on the health care systems but now we fine just overloading it by leaps and bounds. Almost like we did not kill enough people the first time around or something.

nah an entire party/followers/cult said, "hold my beer" and wants to keep the "economy open" and wants "freedomz" so basically our leaders just said fuck it, they won't follow anything we try anyway.

besides they just blame the shortage of healthcare/workers/beds/care on the fact they are all quitting because of the vaxx requirements. For as ridiculous as that sounds.

[Rasulis]

First of all, I hope you two end up okay and I appreciate the solitary evening. I hope she recovers quickly.

But um...I'm going to need more info on those pickles on the top right.

Thank you for the concern. We are doing okay. I don't have any issues. My wife was a bit low on energy yesterday. Ended up popping the Martinelli's at 10 pm because she could not keep her eyes open. She seemed okay this morning. Went for a run in the park early this morning, then watched the Rose Parade till 10. Spent the rest of the day breaking down a year's worth of Amazon boxes to take to the recycling place.

As for the tray, a lot of pickled vegetables in it. The card said Han Il Kwan which is a Korean restaurant in the Richmond District. Never been there before though. Time to give it a try. Everything on the tray was delicious.

Back to Omicron. These are the positive test results by vaccination status. Being fully vaccinated barely protect you from being infected.



Daily new cases at this point are 3 to 4 times that of Winter and Summer surges and is still increasing. I have run out of words to describe the insane rate of increase.



Hospitalization is also up. Although it is still only half of summer surge, and one quarter of winter surge.



The encouraging factor is that the number of Covid ICU patients is stable. Very few Omicron patients ended up in ICU. Here is the number from UCSF Hospital.



It went up from 20 (13 acute & 7 ICU) to 33 (27 acute & 6 ICU) in 2 weeks. Noted that given the 1 in 12 asymptomatic test positivity rates (see below), at least a few of these are likely patients admitted for other things ("incidental Covid") rather than who are sick FROM Covid.



What is the conclusion from all these? The vaccines still offer robust protection against serious illness and death.

[Logwyn]

nah an entire party/followers/cult said, "hold my beer" and wants to keep the "economy open" and wants "freedomz" so basically our leaders just said fuck it, they won't follow anything we try anyway.
besides they just blame the shortage of healthcare/workers/beds/care on the fact they are all quitting because of the vaxx requirements. For as ridiculous as that sounds.

Seems we are in a "Don't Look Up" scenario after all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27...Up_(2021_film)