Coronavirus (general - personal, gov't response, etc. - not sports-specific)

andyb 2020-06-26 16:40:33 UTC #21

As I suspected, the deaths did get added properly to the count. I assume they took a few hours to back date the deaths when they occurred so the trend lines made sense. Death count now 126,927 on Worldometer. More disturbingly, the 4 states with the most deaths yesterday are states where the number of cases are also increasing: CA, GA, FL, TX. We are not out of the woods yet by any stretch.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

zambonir 2020-06-26 16:47:31 UTC #22

Well, one of those liberal governors is killing his state's economy again

allentown 2020-06-26 16:52:52 UTC #23

Your discussion of reduction in deaths per day is factual and fine. Where you get into political conspiracy theory is when you say the press coverage will go away after the election. You may not say the name 'Trump', but the political conspiracy message is clear. You then declare recognition of past cases must be political and designed to keep us locked down (and presumably harm Trump's re-election chances). But, this sort of re-examination of cases always occurs. That's why the final count of flue-season deaths typically doesn't happen until months after the season is over. Your double counted knee-surgery patient will likely be reconciled, likely weeks or months down the road. There is nothing negarious in this, a lot (most$, all?) localities/hospitals don't have the means to immediately identify someone as already counted.

The press hasn't hyped this. 120,000 dead Americans from a new, and little-understood new disease is a big deal, and without cure or immunization it is scary, especially for those of us over 70. If there is any political shading of the facts throughout this epidemic, it has been led by President Trump. For a long time, he and his administration (other than the doctors) spoke derisively of the impact of Covid (only 10K at this point, compared to a normal flue season, which is about 30K). Well, we are now at over 120K, which is just about exactly twice the deaths from the worst flu season in the past decade.

You make the same error that President Trump tried to sell us: freezing the number at a point in time. When you are in the period of exponential growth, comparing current #s to an entire flu season (as Trump/Azar/spokespeople) did or ignoring that deaths will follow a sharp increase in cases and hospital emissions, as you are doing.

Any way you slice it, President Trump arguing against masking and social distancing (neither the same as shutting down the economy -- nations which never shut down have used these methods, plus contact tracing to get the job done) has led to a ton of extra cases and tens of thousands of additional deaths.

andyb 2020-06-26 16:53:35 UTC #24

All those accusations of Democrats being political, this might be a real version of a Republican being political for the right reason (public health). Biden and Trump are even in the TX polls. There are a lot of competitive suburban Congressional seats in the state along with similar seats in the State House (redistricting - If Dems won the State House there would be a lot of Democratic gains post-redistricting).

Republicans are probably scared of a national blowout now. If that pushes them to do the right thing that is OK with me.

andyb 2020-06-26 17:01:20 UTC #25

Florida is getting worse. I wonder if the NBA is going to reconsider their plan in the next week.

Lawman 2020-06-26 17:31:17 UTC #26

As long as they can bubble on Orlando, I don't think they will. Whether they should or not is a different story.

Philsmania 2020-06-26 17:45:35 UTC #27

bkox 2020-06-26 18:18:51 UTC #28

#BREAKING : Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr Farley had a stark warning during today's press conference: "The second wave is beginning." He went on to say that the City might not meet their green phase targets by next Friday. "We are not right now ready to go green." pic.twitter.com/9dbMPEqp3h
— FOX 29 ( @FOX29philly ) June 26, 2020

LoneStarPhan 2020-06-26 19:26:36 UTC #29

Things are definitely taking a step back here in Texas.

Fact is, things never were as open as the national press made it seem, at least here in the DFW Metroplex. For example, movie theaters could open but none around us have done so as yet. Some were projecting a July opening date. Restaurants started at 25% and then 50% and only last week could go to 75%. Now it is back to 50% starting Monday. Bars closed again today.

Our church started a half hour meditation/reflection service yesterday and we attended the first. They ran four half hour services on the hour. Reservations and assigned seating. Masks required. About 40 people and all spaced more than ten feet. Really more like twenty feet to the next people in our case. Areas wiped down between each service. Regular Sunday services still on hold. This was the first move to returning to regular services, but with the step back by our governor today, they have cancelled future such Thursday meetings until further notice. We actually elected to not attend services on the last two Sunday they held them before the shutdown after March 15th due to our age and possible underlying health issues. So while some churches are back to normal services, our church has followed a very cautious approach.

Still, as soon as some things opened and restrictions of activities were lifted, we saw (via news reports, not in person) far too many disregarding social distancing guidelines. Far too many would not wear a mask. Now the big population counties are requiring it, but still there are those who will disregard the requirement.

I believe many of the governors and local officials are trying their best to balance health concerns from the COVID and concerns about the economy. As we know, forcing businesses to close and disrupting jobs for a very large segment of the population is in itself a public health concern. My hope is that everyone is learning and adjusting to move forward in the best manor. It has been and is almost certain to continue to be a most difficult year.

Lawman 2020-06-26 20:14:56 UTC #30

This, I think we can all agree on.

Lawman 2020-06-26 20:41:47 UTC #31

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/covid-19-in-florida-governor-desantis-virus-response-is-working

But how dire is the threat to Florida? The answer is that although the increase in positive cases is worrisome, it is far from clear that disaster is right around the corner.

There is no denying that the increase in new positive cases has been setting daily records. ..................
What hasn’t risen is the number of daily deaths; in fact, that number is going down — from 41 on June 2 to seven on June 23. (The numbers for the past two weeks could be revised higher because of delays in reporting.) And while hospitalizations have risen, they haven’t gone up nearly as fast as positive cases; the state’s hospitals still seem to have more than enough capacity. Yes, deaths are a lagging indicator, but one would have expected the trend line to start climbing by now. It hasn’t.
What appears to be happening is that while the older, more vulnerable population is taking precautions — and Florida nursing homes are still in lockdown — many younger Floridians have viewed Phase 2 as their signal to throw caution to the wind.
But if you can ignore what DeSantis says, and focus instead on what Florida has done, it’s hard not to be impressed. Florida’s population is the third largest in the U.S. One out of every five residents is elderly. Yet it ranks in the bottom half of the U.S. in terms of deaths per 100,000 citizens. That may not be what DeSantis’s critics want to hear, but it’s true.

schillingfan 2020-06-26 20:51:42 UTC #32

Younger people who aren’t news followers were given a message that it would fade in the summer and things were reopening, so I think they truly believed they didn’t need to wear masks because they weren’t at risk. Certainly in the southern states, the state authorities weren’t putting out a message that they still needed to be careful. People in the Northeast and Midwest had experienced The spread.

Others are simply followers of Trump’s grievance politics. They don’t trust science, they hate liberal elites and we’re told by Fox News that it was like flu. They are people suspicious of government and authority, particularly Washington, D.C. The scientists are the swamp.

julio 2020-06-26 20:54:01 UTC #33

Lawman - the trouble is, it's Florida, and there are reports that DeSantis has directed his Health people to cook the books. They sacked the scientist who established their state reporting portal for refusing to "manipulate the data" - see this USA Today article.

Subsequently, this person, Rebekah Jones, indicated in a tweet, that:

...multiple health department sources have told her staff is being asked to “change the numbers and begin slowly deleting deaths and cases so it looks like Florida is improving next week in the leadup to July 4, like they’ve ‘made it over the hump.’ "

“I’ve independently verified they’ve deleted at least 1200 cases in the last week.”

Now, this last is hearsay. The USA Today report is, IMHO, not. But taken together, I would suggest that any "official" data coming out of Florida needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt.

schillingfan 2020-06-26 20:56:05 UTC #34

I’ve tuned you out on this issue. I despise conspiracy theories and the fact you believe this will disappear on November 3, shows that is what you are believing and spinning. That doesn’t otherwise affect our long friendship. Some long time friends real life friends have put me on restricted list On Facebook due to politics. I wish they had just tuned me out on those issues, but trusted our long friendships on everything else.

Lawman 2020-06-26 21:44:31 UTC #35

I know. Still interesting to say the least. I don't trust the numbers - either b/c the gov't is accused of cooking the books or b/c the gov't itself is over/under counting. Some states worse then others.

allentown 2020-06-26 23:50:17 UTC #36

Currently declining death rates or not, the extreme rise of cases in FL, TX, and AR are alarming. Hospitalizations also appear to be up. This is genuinely scary and those resisting masks and social distancing under these circumstances are insanely irresponsible. The cases currently centered on the young adults, who are more resistant to severe outcomes, but they inevitably will spread the virus to their older relatives, co-workers, and just folks they encounter in businesses, if they don't mask and frequently hand wash. We Americans are not alone in our cavalier approach to this deadly pandemic. A friend in Britain thinks the first hot days of summer have brought out the irrational animal spirits of his fellow Brits who have absolutely mobbed beaches and other cooler holiday venues. He expects a huge case rebound and I firmly believe he is correct.

andyb 2020-06-27 00:09:59 UTC #37

The FL daily death rates have NOT declined though. They have been flat since April with no real decline at all. CD picked a weekend day with little reporting to make a point that was basically not true. Look at the Florida chart here. Scroll down to the daily death chart and click the 7 day moving average. We are in the high 30s now. NOT 7 like CD implied. It was in the 40s for a few weeks in late April/early May, but in the last month it has been in the mid to upper 30s consistently.

With the increase in positive tests we are likely to see this increase as well in July. While nationally the number of deaths has decreased, they have stayed flat in Florida which is the exact opposite of the point CD was making. And now we have no idea what happens a couple of weeks after the number of positive tests explode.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/

julio 2020-06-27 17:59:37 UTC #38

Good questions.

I think a part of the answer is that "normal" isn't necessarily going to be the same going forward as it was in the past.

It's likely that the virulence of this virus will diminish with time. Or not, but that seems to be a typical thing. But regardless, if we don't develop an effective vaccine or treatments that aren't 'as bad as the disease,' then we'll have to adapt our habits to a world with a dangerous disease vector that we cannot control. Kind of like the world that existed prior to about 1950, with regard to polio, or 1940 or so, with regard to various bacterial diseases, or prior to 1800, with regard to smallpox. We'll have to get used to higher mortality rates among the elderly (and possibly the very young, as well). I don't like that - but that describes most of human history (and pre-history), and we have perhaps deluded ourselves in believing that we have forever banished such a world.

schillingfan 2020-06-27 21:37:41 UTC #39

Well that’s depressing. I’d like to think that we can use technology to develop a new and better normal. Hopefully one that is greener. If we had any kind of leadership from the federal government and politics weren’t so toxic, there’s no reason we can’t put together a task force from science, medicine, engineering, community, etc., etc. with a think tank under it and lots of funding for manufacturing and construction jobs to implement the ideas. Be proactive, not reactive. Honestly Ronald Reagan’s “Government is the problem not the solution” put us decades behind places with active governments.

allentown 2020-06-27 23:46:56 UTC #40

We are going to need a large infrastructure bill as part of the stimulus. This is a great opportunity to kick greening movement up a notch. I don't see it as a big boost to public transit infrastructure, since I think the pandemic will make people less comfortable with public transit for years. Renewable energy, increased energy efficiency, retrofitting homes and buildings to use less energy and to be safer -- converting away from oil heat, greening agriculture.