COVID-19 Thread

[Machu Peach]

I'd assume so. Most hospitals are reducing or eliminating the surge capacity they set up because it's not needed.

[homer]

Also, % positive tests have risen in AZ every week for the last three weeks.

 

So to my original point...they are experiencing a spike.

[Machu Peach]

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm disagreeing with you when I am not. I posted the stats I posted to point out that the two claims in the tweets (ICU capacity near max and COVID patients on ventilators quadrupling) are unique to that hospital system. In fact, the only COVID-specific stat I posted shows a ~20% increase.

[superfly]

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm disagreeing with you when I am not. I posted the stats I posted to point out that the two claims in the tweets (ICU capacity near max and COVID patients on ventilators quadrupling) are unique to that hospital system. In fact, the only COVID-specific stat I posted shows a ~20% increase.

 

I have the impression from the media that OMG TEXAS ARIZONA GEORGIA etc are about to go into covid crisis. From the numbers you posted it doesn’t appear the case (big surprise)...although yes we’re having an uptick. To be expected with people going about their business and thousands of angry protestors completely ignoring the very social distancing guidelines they forced the country to obey.

[homer]

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm disagreeing with you when I am not. I posted the stats I posted to point out that the two claims in the tweets (ICU capacity near max and COVID patients on ventilators quadrupling) are unique to that hospital system. In fact, the only COVID-specific stat I posted shows a ~20% increase.

 

I have the impression from the media that OMG TEXAS ARIZONA GEORGIA etc are about to go into covid crisis. From the numbers you posted it doesn’t appear the case (big surprise)...although yes we’re having an uptick. To be expected with people going about their business and thousands of angry protestors completely ignoring the very social distancing guidelines they forced the country to obey.

 

Uptick started prior to protests but you do you.

[Machu Peach]

Yea, there certainly is a lot of that. There are many examples of terrible media predictions, but this one sticks out in my mind as particularly egregious. It's probably because I thought The Atlantic was better than this sort of nonsense.

 

Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georgia-reopening-coronavirus-pandemic/610882/)

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The WHO has come out and said asymptomatic spread is basically not a thing. That was a huge factor in the public health campaign early on. This would only reinforce the idea that isolation should be focused on at-risk populations and obviously sick people within those populations. Even the article above states most of AZ's issue stemmed from nursing homes.

 

An uptick in the cases isn't all that surprising with lockdowns lifted. I'm not sure what people's alternative would be, other than continued lockdown into the summer which achieves exactly what?

 

Healthy people getting this really isn't a big deal. The big deal initially was that they could be asymptomatic and spreading this to the vulnerable, but that appears to have been wrong and it is exceedingly rare. What bugs me about that is how it was stated so authoritatively early on as something they knew for sure.

 

...and of course now, they're walking back those comments after some people got upset and towing the old "there's a lot we don't know" stuff. Maybe they'd have some credibility if they didn't change their mind every other day.

[RobertR]

I'd be hesitant to say anything one way or the other about Texas. The raw numbers and percentage testing positive are both on an uptick. And it's probably too soon to blame the protests.

 

I will say that Wisconsin does seem to be handling things fairly well recently. It's not going away, but the positive percentage tests and overall cases are at manageable levels and don't seem to be at risk of a spike. We'll see if the protests affect things. But, it does appear that social distancing works. For now, at least.

[PeaveyFury]

The WHO has come out and said asymptomatic spread is basically not a thing.

 

It's worth a note of caution here, though: Though the above is believed to be true for cases that stay completely asymptomatic, there is still significant concern regarding cases where the person has been infected and later develops symptoms, as it is believed that they're still super contagious (pre-symptomatic vs. truly asymptomatic). About 40% of transmissions are happening during this time:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/health/who-coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-bn/index.html

 

I think everyone hoped that like the flu the summer weather would put a halt to the virus for a while. That it's still a major problem in Arizona suggests that isn't going to be the case.

[tmwiese55]

The WHO has come out and said asymptomatic spread is basically not a thing. That was a huge factor in the public health campaign early on. This would only reinforce the idea that isolation should be focused on at-risk populations and obviously sick people within those populations. Even the article above states most of AZ's issue stemmed from nursing homes.

 

An uptick in the cases isn't all that surprising with lockdowns lifted. I'm not sure what people's alternative would be, other than continued lockdown into the summer which achieves exactly what?

 

Healthy people getting this really isn't a big deal. The big deal initially was that they could be asymptomatic and spreading this to the vulnerable, but that appears to have been wrong and it is exceedingly rare. What bugs me about that is how it was stated so authoritatively early on as something they knew for sure.

 

...and of course now, they're walking back those comments after some people got upset and towing the old "there's a lot we don't know" stuff. Maybe they'd have some credibility if they didn't change their mind every other day.

 

See my post on this last night in the other thread. They're not walking back anything. It was all in there once you read past the headline. It's just people latched onto what seemed like good news, like I did. And then another faction such as yourself want to point out "See you were wrong" whenever they can. WHO communication department sure seems like it needs an overhaul, that's for sure. Their phrasing on this was brutal.

 

But I know conspiracies are fun.

[tmwiese55]

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm disagreeing with you when I am not. I posted the stats I posted to point out that the two claims in the tweets (ICU capacity near max and COVID patients on ventilators quadrupling) are unique to that hospital system. In fact, the only COVID-specific stat I posted shows a ~20% increase.

 

I have the impression from the media that OMG TEXAS ARIZONA GEORGIA etc are about to go into covid crisis. From the numbers you posted it doesn’t appear the case (big surprise)...although yes we’re having an uptick. To be expected with people going about their business and thousands of angry protestors completely ignoring the very social distancing guidelines they forced the country to obey.

 

Everything doesn't have to be so extreme. Putting data out there is not saying crisis is happening. When things started opening saying "this is a risk that could lead to an increase". Is not saying "there will be a spike" so then it's a 'gotcha' if there isn't. This is all exactly how it should be being covered. We have to watch these things and see what happens. Get data, report it. There has also been plenty of reports saying how there hasn't been a noticeable uptick in many other states. It would help everyone if folks didn't rush to their corners and scream at each other (don't mean here, in general though)

[FVBrewerFan]

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm disagreeing with you when I am not. I posted the stats I posted to point out that the two claims in the tweets (ICU capacity near max and COVID patients on ventilators quadrupling) are unique to that hospital system. In fact, the only COVID-specific stat I posted shows a ~20% increase.

 

I have the impression from the media that OMG TEXAS ARIZONA GEORGIA etc are about to go into covid crisis. From the numbers you posted it doesn’t appear the case (big surprise)...although yes we’re having an uptick. To be expected with people going about their business and thousands of angry protestors completely ignoring the very social distancing guidelines they forced the country to obey.

 

Everything doesn't have to be so extreme. Putting data out there is not saying crisis is happening. When things started opening saying "this is a risk that could lead to an increase". Is not saying "there will be a spike" so then it's a 'gotcha' if there isn't. This is all exactly how it should be being covered. We have to watch these things and see what happens. Get data, report it. There has also been plenty of reports saying how there hasn't been a noticeable uptick in many other states. It would help everyone if folks didn't rush to their corners and scream at each other.

 

I get what you're saying, but I don't notice any screaming going on. In fact, been meaning to say this. This entire thread has flirted with political conversation, and probably has gone past flirting with it at times. Yet, I think everyone has conducted themselves appropriately, unless posts have been removed I guess. Kudos to the Mods for allowing this dialogue, as long as it stays civil.

[nate82]

The WHO has come out and said asymptomatic spread is basically not a thing.

 

It's worth a note of caution here, though: Though the above is believed to be true for cases that stay completely asymptomatic, there is still significant concern regarding cases where the person has been infected and later develops symptoms, as it is believed that they're still super contagious (pre-symptomatic vs. truly asymptomatic). About 40% of transmissions are happening during this time:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/health/who-coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-bn/index.html

 

I think everyone hoped that like the flu the summer weather would put a halt to the virus for a while. That it's still a major problem in Arizona suggests that isn't going to be the case.

 

One of the bigger reasons for the drop in the flu in Arizona during June is that people tend to hibernate during the high temperatures. It has been rather cool lately for June and we will be entering monsoon season next month.

 

Annedoctal information but the flu, strep, and other sicknesses usually last in the office until about the end of June here. We don't get humid days until about July or August when the rainy season starts. We have had people out with the flu in July or August here.

 

Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi should tell us if this will be killed in the summer or not. Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and parts of Texas shouldn't be included in determining if this gets killed because of the high heat.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The WHO has come out and said asymptomatic spread is basically not a thing. That was a huge factor in the public health campaign early on. This would only reinforce the idea that isolation should be focused on at-risk populations and obviously sick people within those populations. Even the article above states most of AZ's issue stemmed from nursing homes.

 

An uptick in the cases isn't all that surprising with lockdowns lifted. I'm not sure what people's alternative would be, other than continued lockdown into the summer which achieves exactly what?

 

Healthy people getting this really isn't a big deal. The big deal initially was that they could be asymptomatic and spreading this to the vulnerable, but that appears to have been wrong and it is exceedingly rare. What bugs me about that is how it was stated so authoritatively early on as something they knew for sure.

 

...and of course now, they're walking back those comments after some people got upset and towing the old "there's a lot we don't know" stuff. Maybe they'd have some credibility if they didn't change their mind every other day.

 

See my post on this last night in the other thread. They're not walking back anything. It was all in there once you read past the headline. It's just people latched onto what seemed like good news, like I did. And then another faction such as yourself want to point out "See you were wrong" whenever they can. WHO communication department sure seems like it needs an overhaul, that's for sure. Their phrasing on this was brutal.

 

But I know conspiracies are fun.

 

Still towing that straw man I see. Who said ANYTHING about a "conspiracy"? Can you please, respectfully, stop doing this? You are taking this way too personally for some reason as if people are personally attacking you for the WHO's laughable handling of this. You are engaging in the exact tactic that I was referring to pages earlier, where you brand anyone who disagrees with you a nutcase conspiracy theorist. And it doesn't come off any other way besides ad hominem and being unable to defend your position

 

And yes, there is walking back. The bulk of the article was that asymptomatic spread was nowhere near what the initial briefings suggested, with one sentence that we "still needed to be cautious." I read the full article.

 

Here are some choice excerpts:

 

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.”

 

"More research and data are needed to “truly answer” the question of whether the coronavirus can spread widely through asymptomatic carriers, Van Kerkhove added.

 

“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”"

 

Then concludes with this:

 

“These findings also suggest that to control the pandemic, it might not be enough for only persons with symptoms to limit their contact with others because persons without symptoms might transmit infection,” the CDC study said.

 

That is a far cry from the initial response.

 

Of course after this cycled for 24 hours, they came out today and "clarified" the statements because some thought they were presumptuous and sloppy which is of course possible.

 

Being wrong isn't a conspiracy. It's amazing to me though that you accuse others of digging in their heels when you do exactly that.

[superfly]

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm disagreeing with you when I am not. I posted the stats I posted to point out that the two claims in the tweets (ICU capacity near max and COVID patients on ventilators quadrupling) are unique to that hospital system. In fact, the only COVID-specific stat I posted shows a ~20% increase.

 

I have the impression from the media that OMG TEXAS ARIZONA GEORGIA etc are about to go into covid crisis. From the numbers you posted it doesn’t appear the case (big surprise)...although yes we’re having an uptick. To be expected with people going about their business and thousands of angry protestors completely ignoring the very social distancing guidelines they forced the country to obey.

 

Uptick started prior to protests but you do you.

 

If you reread my post it says “people going about their business, to be expected.” We both know it will uptick further once the protesting population becomes sick, but feel free to infer the political side. “You do you”

[LouisEly]

In light of some of the discussion over the last few pages, I thought you might be interested in this. The UW Alumni Association hosts a weekly livestream session on COVID-19, and this week (tomorrow, Tuesday, 7pm) it is on COVID-19 misinformation:

 

https://www.allwaysforward.org/uwnow/confronting-misinformation/

If you weren't able to join, some of it is in this article:

 

https://madison.com/ct/news/local/q-a-ajay-sethi-dispels-covid-19-conspiracies/article_51c3e67e-4646-5531-86fc-0f13c6d57ea7.html

 

Some of the interesting slides from the presentation:

[superfly]

It appears Wuhan may have had coronavirus in...wait for it... August 2019, per Harvard. Satellite imagery showing the hospitals experienced a surge.

 

If true, the world is going to have to unite and figure out how to put china on its knees...starting this whole thing by yelling fire in a crowded theatre is next level war games type stuff.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

It appears Wuhan may have had coronavirus in...wait for it... August 2019, per Harvard. Satellite imagery showing the hospitals experienced a surge.

 

If true, the world is going to have to unite and figure out how to put china on its knees...starting this whole thing by yelling fire in a crowded theatre is next level war games type stuff.

 

If that ends up being true, lmao. People tried telling me it showed up at ATL in March because that was GA's first documented case. Yeah, sure it did.

 

By the end of this, and I mean the real end of it, closing school will be remembered as downright embarrassing.

[MrTPlush]

Traffic patterns? That’s far from reliable.

 

Like any other theory of COVID-19 existing well before mid-December it is going to struggle holding water when the spike didn’t happen until mid-January. That’s just too much time between start and when the numbers started exploding. In a place like Wuhan that is just not very likely at all.

 

The data collected is incredibly weak. They only focused on Wuhan, when they could have added other cities farther away in China for comparison. They only compared between 2018 and 2019. Anyone who has taken a basic statistics class knows drawing a conclusion from that is pretty questionable. I also saw an article that mentioned one of the hospitals included (that saw one of these spikes) was a children’s hospital. Children hospitalizations originally, and still are, really uncommon. A children’s hospital should not have seen a comparable spike in traffic when compared to a normal hospital. In the same article (The Guardian I believe) they mentioned how they were entering flu season there so a spike wouldn’t be that unheard of. In December some Wuhan school were shutdown over the flu.

 

I’m not saying it is impossible, but it seems pretty far fetched. If the spike in traffic was that noticeable I’m thinking COVID-19 would have been a huge problem way sooner.

[FVBrewerFan]

We just don't know yet, but it's not far fetched. You don't think if the hospitals were that busy, they wouldn't have used the children's hospital for overflow? Chinese govt may have contained it well back then, but eventually couldn't contain it. That's plausible.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Traffic patterns? That’s far from reliable.

 

 

The data collected is incredibly weak.

 

This is my issue with the entire COVID19 saga. Everything is weak. The samples are selective and the means they are collected has been so sloppy. There are so many reports of people not being tested early on, deaths questionably counted as COVID19. It was hard to even get tests for a while. Then there are conflicts over when and where it started in different areas of the world, the largest country on Earth clearly lying about its cases.

 

That's to be expected with something that's just constantly fluid, but the way people continue to lean on it like this is reliable info gets frustrating. It's probably going to be YEARS before we sift through it all and make declarations about right/wrong policy.

[tmwiese55]

The WHO has come out and said asymptomatic spread is basically not a thing. That was a huge factor in the public health campaign early on. This would only reinforce the idea that isolation should be focused on at-risk populations and obviously sick people within those populations. Even the article above states most of AZ's issue stemmed from nursing homes.

 

An uptick in the cases isn't all that surprising with lockdowns lifted. I'm not sure what people's alternative would be, other than continued lockdown into the summer which achieves exactly what?

 

Healthy people getting this really isn't a big deal. The big deal initially was that they could be asymptomatic and spreading this to the vulnerable, but that appears to have been wrong and it is exceedingly rare. What bugs me about that is how it was stated so authoritatively early on as something they knew for sure.

 

...and of course now, they're walking back those comments after some people got upset and towing the old "there's a lot we don't know" stuff. Maybe they'd have some credibility if they didn't change their mind every other day.

 

See my post on this last night in the other thread. They're not walking back anything. It was all in there once you read past the headline. It's just people latched onto what seemed like good news, like I did. And then another faction such as yourself want to point out "See you were wrong" whenever they can. WHO communication department sure seems like it needs an overhaul, that's for sure. Their phrasing on this was brutal.

 

But I know conspiracies are fun.

 

Still towing that straw man I see. Who said ANYTHING about a "conspiracy"? Can you please, respectfully, stop doing this? You are taking this way too personally for some reason as if people are personally attacking you for the WHO's laughable handling of this. You are engaging in the exact tactic that I was referring to pages earlier, where you brand anyone who disagrees with you a nutcase conspiracy theorist. And it doesn't come off any other way besides ad hominem and being unable to defend your position

 

And yes, there is walking back. The bulk of the article was that asymptomatic spread was nowhere near what the initial briefings suggested, with one sentence that we "still needed to be cautious." I read the full article.

 

Here are some choice excerpts:

 

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.”

 

"More research and data are needed to “truly answer” the question of whether the coronavirus can spread widely through asymptomatic carriers, Van Kerkhove added.

 

“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”"

 

Then concludes with this:

 

“These findings also suggest that to control the pandemic, it might not be enough for only persons with symptoms to limit their contact with others because persons without symptoms might transmit infection,” the CDC study said.

 

That is a far cry from the initial response.

 

Of course after this cycled for 24 hours, they came out today and "clarified" the statements because some thought they were presumptuous and sloppy which is of course possible.

 

Being wrong isn't a conspiracy. It's amazing to me though that you accuse others of digging in their heels when you do exactly that.

 

You are implying a conspiracy (there's probably a lighter sounding word that is more accurate but I can't think of) by saying they're walking back on it due to the public pressure as if it's some plot to keep this myth going.

 

As I said, everything was in the initial data that came out the night of my original post. Therefore it is not a walkback due to the pushback they got the next day as you're accusing. The only thing they had to clarify was their horrible phrasing, the points they were making were the exact same as the original output, if you actually read it.

 

You are jumping to conclusions based on horribly phrased quotes taken out of context. And then accusing them of a walkback or change of tune due to pressure from politics/media or whatever (conspiracy). The original info that caused the confusion and you're falling for the confusion is the distinction between Assymptomatic and PRe-symptomatic. Like you, I assumed they're one in the same. Turns out the WHO with their horrible comms said the Asymptomatic lines you're talking about and ignored that everyone would assume it covers all. When in reality they meant only people who never shows symptoms. And then concluded that people that truly never show symptoms is very rare, therefore assymptomatic is very rare. Horrible way of phrasing. But instead of reading the info, you're accusing them of a walkback and deception.

 

I don't think they could've come out with a worse way to say "It's very rare for someone to truly never show symptoms, but if someone never shows symptoms they are very low risk to spread".

[OldSchoolSnapper]

]You are implying a conspiracy (there's probably a lighter sounding word that is more accurate but I can't think of) by saying they're walking back on it due to the public pressure as if it's some plot to keep this myth going.

 

It's becoming clear to me that you aren't doing this maliciously, but it is really a poor debate tactic that I encourage to self-examine. You've done this multiple times in this thread, placing words in my (and others') mouths and then responding to them with "you implied..." No, I did not. Conspiracy is an awfully strong word. That is your (imo flawed) interpretation of what I said.

 

At no point did I intend to "imply" some conspiracy regarding COVID19. There's nothing mysterious about it. The doctor said something with massive policy implications and once it ran through the news cycle other people weighed in and they did walk it back. When you issue another briefing to "clarify" something, that is PR for walking back.

 

Also, two of the "horribly phrased" statements I pulled "out of context" were supporting the claim that data is still needed so I'm wondering if you even read my post. The doctor who said asymptomatic transmission was rare is the same one who said more data is needed.

 

Last thing - anything coming out at this juncture will have the caveat that more data is needed. Anything. That's what science is, nobody is taking any COVID result at this point as stone, all of it will be analyzed to death and re-analyzed until extremely solid trends are very obvious. That will take months or years. However, I'll hold my breath for breaking news that asymptomatic transmission was ever a serious thing. My opinion, but that's never going to happen because it wasn't the case, and it's going to make the case for closing schools past May look really poor.

[tmwiese55]

Another poor debate tactic is to attach the person's debate tactics instead of hte points. It's very similar to may politicians tactic of attacking the media instead of dealign with the real issues. It simply is not Walkback if it was in the initial report. You've latched into one person making a horrible quote that did not at all reflect the info in the report, and them clarifying the info is some 'gotcha' on them. You're more focused on proving someone was wrong or deceiving you than to just focus on the info.

 

Your quotes are about asymptomatic spread, so not sure what you're saying there. Of course more data is needed.

 

As I said, I agree the word conspiracy probably is too strong as it implies too much pre planned coordination. But is it not accurate that you're accusing multiple parties of doing something harmful here? I thought of something probably a bit better though "intentionally misleading/deceiving".

 

Again, all this info was in the initial report, they are not deceiving anyone. They are not contradicting themselves, lying, changing their tune, etc. The mistakes were a horrible quote and for newsites to run with the horrible quote as headline even though it didn't accurately reflect that report. And for people not being able to read fully data past the headlines.

[PeaveyFury]

it's going to make the case for closing schools past May look really poor.

 

I would bet a large sum of money that there will be another complete school closing again this coming fall/winter.