Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Ghostpanther]

The tests aren't 100% reliable.

Apparently. lol! I wonder about the number of positive tests it says we have in this country, are reliable. I do know they sometimes will count as someone dying from it, when they actually where dying from some other reason and because they tested positive at the same time, they are labeled as a death from the virus. I am not saying this represents a large percentage of the number of deaths from the virus. But it does raise some questions on these tests.

[Dezerte]

Apparently. lol! I wonder about the number of positive tests it says we have in this country, are reliable. I do know they sometimes will count as someone dying from it, when they actually where dying from some other reason and because they tested positive at the same time, they are labeled as a death from the virus. I am not saying this represents a large percentage of the number of deaths from the virus. But it does raise some questions on these tests.

Most likely very few false-positives, but many more false-negatives. There aren't many ways to produce a false-positive test while there are more ways of missing it producing a false-negative test.

[eschatological]

Apparently. lol! I wonder about the number of positive tests it says we have in this country, are reliable. I do know they sometimes will count as someone dying from it, when they actually where dying from some other reason and because they tested positive at the same time, they are labeled as a death from the virus. I am not saying this represents a large percentage of the number of deaths from the virus. But it does raise some questions on these tests.

The ones that have hour turnarounds can have high false-positive rates. You see this a lot in sports, the Detroit Lions QB Matt Stafford had a false positive test last week.


The longer ones tend to be the PCR tests, and those tend to be pretty accurate.

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Anyways, I came here to post:

Cuomo is opening up NY schools across the whole state. Our infection rate is under 1% (well under the 5% benchmark) so in theory it should be safe, but once again NY will be the test case to see if we can do shit properly in this country.

1) NY DoH has to approve all plans.
2) NY DoH can shut down a district whenever a spike occurs.
3) Schools must have a remote learning plan and that option.
4) Schools have to have transparent measures put in place on a website (unclear if this is a state website or each individual district's website) so parents can see what measures are taking place.
5) There needs to be at least 3 meetings pre-start of school with parents to go over and outline these plans.
6) There needs to be at least 1 meeting pre-start of school with teachers only.
7) Social distancing and masks will be required in each plan.

[PhaelixWW]

Apparently. lol! I wonder about the number of positive tests it says we have in this country, are reliable. I do know they sometimes will count as someone dying from it, when they actually where dying from some other reason and because they tested positive at the same time, they are labeled as a death from the virus. I am not saying this represents a large percentage of the number of deaths from the virus. But it does raise some questions on these tests.

Correction: The first part of my response here was backwards.

What remains true, however, is that the number of false positives from testing is extremely unlikely to come anywhere close to offsetting the number of missing positives due to a lack of comprehensive testing.

[Edge-]

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-pol...for-reopening/

Flanked by coaches, athletes and politicians, Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday used sports to emphasize his support of school reopenings.

DeSantis called the extracurricular activities “critical” for maintaining discipline and achieving college scholarships. Without them, he said, students will face “huge effects.”

At a press conference at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, DeSantis drew on his experience as a competitive baseball player and eventual college athlete at Yale University, recalling the sense of self-purpose learned as a student athlete.

“These are moments they are not going to get back,” he said. “I am standing with our coaches and our athletes. This is something critical.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is continuing his campaign to be the leading cause of death in Florida for the year 2020.

[bmjclark]

It's been around 3 weeks since Ontario, Canada reopened bars in most of the province and about 2 weeks since it reopened in Toronto. There hasn't been any uptick in cases, in fact, the daily cases have continued going down and the province recently recorded under 100 new cases for the first time since March. New daily cases have been under 100 for the past 5 days. The country as a whole has recouped roughly 55% of the jobs lost because of covid already. There might be an uptick because of school but who knows. I think it just goes to show that it was never a choice between economy and lives like certain people made it out to be. The choice was always kill people and watch the economy burn or save people and watch the economy recover.

Not to say that cases couldn't spike again, but there are health measures in place to hopefully be able to keep it under control.

[Deja Thoris]

Looking at reported cases it may actually have peaked this time.

However, there might be more peaks later, and in part the peak in reported cases is because a large part of the spread is now in S. America (in particular Brazil), India and all over Africa with less testing - which makes the reported case numbers less meaningful. Additionally peaks for epidemics are rarely symmetrical - you often see that it decreases more slowly than it increases, and thus even if there are no additional peaks we are likely not half-way through it yet.

But it hasn't, literally the first graph on worldometers shows active cases are trending upwards still.

[Zan15]

I do know they sometimes will count as someone dying from it, when they actually where dying from some other reason and because they tested positive at the same time, they are labeled as a death from the virus. I am not saying this represents a large percentage of the number of deaths from the virus. But it does raise some questions on these tests.

You do know that?

How so, got some proof?

Sure sounds like you are just spouting off nonsense because it might be listed on the death certificate but if it was not the cause of death it won't be listed as the cause of death unless an clerical error happened.

[Forogil]

But it hasn't, literally the first graph on worldometers shows active cases are trending upwards still.

I meant that the daily cases seemed to have peaked almost a week ago (whether that is due to lack of testing and whether there will be additional peaks is another issue).

Looking at the active cases number isn't that useful, as in addition to the problem of lack of testing for finding cases we also have that several countries don't report outcomes at all and others seem to use different criteria - and in the US it seems it differs even on the state level. Consider Texas and Florida - they seem to have had similar number of new cases the last couple of weeks, adding up to about the same number, but Texas has about 30% active and Florida 90%; and I find that difference unlikely.

[Hilhen7]

I don't understand why they are risking exposing kids to this, can't they just hold the classes via Zoom?

[Forogil]

You do know that?

How so, got some proof?

Sure sounds like you are just spouting off nonsense because it might be listed on the death certificate but if it was not the cause of death it won't be listed as the cause of death unless an clerical error happened.

In some countries he may be technically correct that such cases could occur.

However, almost all countries report excess deaths that are larger than the number of covid-deaths (sometimes a lot more; and I mean a lot not merely 200% more), so it's a matter of straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.

[Zantos]

I don't understand why they are risking exposing kids to this, can't they just hold the classes via Zoom?

Lazy parents whining about not wanting to watch their own kids. Governors not understanding how a pandemic works and thinking, for some reason, that kids are immune. Take your pick. There is a whole lot of reasons they are being idiots. So far, every school that has attempted to re-open has shut down within its first day.

[Milchshake]

Today I Learned, that lobsters can contract Covid 19.


Controversial professor Jordan Peterson ‘suffering with coronavirus and “got worse” after taking treatment drug’.


I'm hoping he didnt take treatment advice from Trump. Bleach and whatnot.

Thoughts and prayers.

[PACOX]

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.

That all goes down the drain if people actually decide to visit Sweden.

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Lazy parents whining about not wanting to watch their own kids. Governors not understanding how a pandemic works and thinking, for some reason, that kids are immune. Take your pick. There is a whole lot of reasons they are being idiots. So far, every school that has attempted to re-open has shut down within its first day.

Well some people can't watch or necessarily feed their kids becausetthey have to go to work and their essential job doesn't pay enough. Those are systemic issues though that the virus has only exposed. Putting the kid in harms way also isn't the solution to that problem.

There a post on reddit of a woman who brought here kid to work obviously because she had no one to watch her. That woman is probably going to be fired. Sad.

[PhaelixWW]

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-pol...for-reopening/

Flanked by coaches, athletes and politicians, Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday used sports to emphasize his support of school reopenings.

DeSantis called the extracurricular activities “critical” for maintaining discipline and achieving college scholarships. Without them, he said, students will face “huge effects.”

At a press conference at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, DeSantis drew on his experience as a competitive baseball player and eventual college athlete at Yale University, recalling the sense of self-purpose learned as a student athlete.

“These are moments they are not going to get back,” he said. “I am standing with our coaches and our athletes. This is something critical.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is continuing his campaign to be the leading cause of death in Florida for the year 2020.

My first thought was:

You know who's not standing with Fuck Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis? The at least 7700 Floridians (and quite probably a lot more due to Fuck Florida's lack of ethical statistic reporting) who have died from COVID-19. You know what moments they're not going to get back? All of them.

[Edge-]

I don't understand why they are risking exposing kids to this, can't they just hold the classes via Zoom?

There are important developmental reasons for in-person education, especially for children, but the risks don't justify those right now IMO.

As for why they can't, because the US education system is a mess, schools are already struggling to come up with funding and plans when many are already strapped for cash, and there's been no national leadership on this.

This has been a known quantity, and schools absolutely need significant support to be able to transition to full-time remote learning or a mixture of remote/in-person learning with reduced numbers of students at the school. The problem is that there are conflicting state/county/federal guidelines (I'll let the teachers/staff who work in schools go into more detail on that mess) that are often difficult if not impossible to abide by given real world logistics and finances. And there's been no real national plan on this, nor any push from the federal government and DoEdu to create flexible plans with financial and logistical support for schools so that they can continue remote learning by providing internet access and computers to students who can't access it, as well as things like school meals for students who need them.

Some districts with the resources were doing this last year - rolling out buses to neighborhoods to provide wifi for students to close out the school year, delivering or having to-go backs parents could pick up with school meals etc. The unfortunate reality is that schools where this is more needed, schools serving lower income students, don't even have the funding to address mold and rot in their school buildings, much less be able to find funds to provide internet access to students remotely.

Today I Learned, that lobsters can contract Covid 19.


Controversial professor Jordan Peterson ‘suffering with coronavirus and “got worse” after taking treatment drug’.


I'm hoping he didnt take treatment advice from Trump. Bleach and whatnot.

Thoughts and prayers.

Thoughts and prayers.

Though I will say that I find it interesting that given the content of his rhetoric and lessons, that he ended up abusing prescription drugs for anxiety. I mean, addiction is absolutely a disease and I hope he got the treatment needed to beat it this time, but I can't say there isn't a bit of schadenfreude there. I wonder if it created a sub-personality for him, because I thought he said his meat diet his daughter created cured him of depression and anxiety.

[PACOX]

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-pol...for-reopening/



Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is continuing his campaign to be the leading cause of death in Florida for the year 2020.

Ugh that argument makes not sense even for the people who want traditional school back tomorrow.

His argument is that schools should open because a tiny fraction of the student body plays sports. I played a lot of sports school. Classrooms being open have zero impact on the sports.

[Edge-]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/f...masks-are-good

“I think that there is some debate about — even within the scientific community — about whether masks are good or not,” Campos-Duffy said when Fox News’ Harris Faulkner asked her about people refusing to wear masks amid scientific evidence that indicates wearing masks can protect against spread.

Fox News co-host Dagen McDowell quickly dismissed Campos-Duffy’s remarks point-blank, repeating twice over that “there’s no debate.”

In which, again, Fox News or their contributors ignore mountains of data and evidence and make unsupported assertions like there being "debate" over the effectiveness of masks. Thankfully the host corrected this dunce.

But again, this is more evidence that America is culturally incapable of responding to a pandemic. Because a good chunk of the country can't even get on board with well established facts and prefers political lies over scientific reality.

[Cynep]

Stop talking shit dude. You come here every couple of weeks with these wishy washy nonsensical statements. The briefest look at any statistics will tell you its far from peaked. Are you trying to fool yourself or others with this bullshit?

The world as a whole has not peaked.

World's 7-day average has peaked at 260083 daily cases on July 30th and is trending down. Single-day record is 2 weeks old. It could be just a local peak, hence "it seems". But most likely it will stay that way.

There is no 3% "soft cap".

I'll tell you how science works. You take measurements, and then try to come up with explanations why the measurements are how they are. If your explanation is correct, you will be able to predict other measurements that will be taken in the future.

Now, my explanation is not a full-fledged theory, just a quick empirical rule of thumb. But still I could successfully predict more than a month ago what is true today, so my explanation is correct. What's your explanation, why only Qatar could exceed 3% cases and still no other country can, even after all this time?

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<..> Additionally peaks for epidemics are rarely symmetrical - you often see that it decreases more slowly than it increases, and thus even if there are no additional peaks we are likely not half-way through it yet.

Yes certainly there will be a long fat tail with more cases in it than we had already. But if it stopped growing and went flat, we can at least say things like "within next year we can expect no more than 260k*365=95 million cases, that's the hard cap for this pandemic", with certainty.

[Forogil]

Yes certainly there will be a long fat tail with more cases in it than we had already. But if it stopped growing and went flat, we can at least say things like "within next year we can expect no more than 260k*365=95 million cases, that's the hard cap for this pandemic", with certainty.

Number of reported cases will be low in a lot of countries due to lack of testing - that's actually not a good sign.

The reason is that countries that lack the capability to test more are also likely to be countries that will not be able to control it. Or simply put I don't trust that Mexico with one million tests done only has a almost half a million cases, and I don't trust them to contain the spread either. (I don't trust that the US has only 5 million either; but at least I think it's closer to reality.)

However, you have a point about cases peaking at a low number. Looking at Egypt I clearly don't think that they only had 95k cases based on 135k tests, but on the other hand something is causing the numbers to go down - and same in Belarus; and in neither country it seems to be due to severe restrictions. (And I don't think it's the government faking it completely.)

Either the virus spread is limited in some way we don't understand, or the primary reduction isn't due to government restrictions but due to voluntary changes in behaviour. We will see if it changes.