I am surprised we haven't yet heard where exactly Trump parroted that stuff from. It's almost certainly Rush or Alex Jones or equivalent, if not a Fox News infomercial.
Governor Wolfâs plan for Pennsylvania is out. He is taking the state by regions.its a take no prisoner plan. He doesnât care that itâs very restrictive. As for my corner of the state, ten counties from Lehigh and Northampton to the New York border are called the Northeastern region. The whole region has to reach a new case count for fourteen days before we can open up. North central and Western regions appear ready to begin opening up phase by May 8th. Northeastern looking like maybe by June 1st we reach phase one of opening up. Thatâs still pretty restrictive still with takeout only, some retail businesses with safety rrestrictions. May first construction and on-line auto allowed. Other businesses being evaluated by Carnegie Mellon model to see what phase they can be opened up in.
I though it would be around 0.6% a month or so ago, since then the CMR has risen, but so has the proportion of uncounted infections, so a IMR 0.5-1.0% seems about right - which is why the lockdowns continue, because that would still mean 800K to 1.6M dead if half the country got infected, not to mention millions in the ICU for a week or two which would swamp the health system - the whole country would be NYC.
This link addresses a nagging concern I have had about this particular coronavirus, and the testing surrounding it. In my veterinary career I have dealt with coronavirus infections in both dogs and cats and have faced questions about the various tests and vaccines available. In cats, the presence of feline coronavirus antibodies is nearly ubiquitous, and the testing is not helpful, because in cats the fatal form of the disease is due to a post exposure mutation of the virus which only occurs in a small percentage of cats. The vaccines available are a bit controversial and generally are not considered part of the core vaccination program. There is also a bit of a controversy about what protective antibody titers actually are in other companion animal viral diseases such as distemper, parvovirus, etc., and what the optimum frequency of vaccination should be.
There has been a general assumption that those who have antibodies against Covid-19 are immune from re-infection. This scientific brief released yesterday from the WHO urges caution in that assumption:
This throws another wrinkle into the assumptions we can make in âopeningâ the economy. We of course will need to start loosening things up in coming weeks and months, but there is still so much we donât know about the behavior of the virus, and the interpretation of the testing. The assumption that those who have an antibody titer are well protected may or may not be true.
That is unfair for teams that will not be allowed to practice, if there is any continuation of the current season, because those teams that can practice will be more ready that teams that can't.
I don't think they are allowed to practice (or even play basketball with another person, which would count as a "group workout"). But sure, there's still a bit of an imbalance if one team has an NBA-level gym and another can't even go to Gold's. Though it sounds like that is exactly why teams have been pushing for this - they don't want their players going to public facilities in cities that are opening.
I imagine "camp" will only be in three or four cities, if not just one, because there aren't going to be games in most NBA markets. But we're still a ways away from that.
It's sad to watch Dr. Deborah Birx's realtime descent from highly-regarded epidemiologist to sycofantic Trump apologist. She has drunk the bleach.
By the time Trump leaves office or spits her out after no longer finding her useful, her once illustrious career will be reduced to promoting junk science like faith healing on Fox News.
Birx is not an epidemiologist. That's not to say she has't been well-respected in her field but most of these people were already in power for the wrong reasons (and that reason is Pence more than Trump).
The author, Jamie Metzl, is a World Health Organization expert advisor, served on US National Security Council, State Dept, Senate Foreign Relations Cttee & as UN Human Rights Officer in Cambodia. Has a Ph.D. in Asian history from Oxford and a JD from Harvard Law School.
The worldwide numbers are definitely scary. Hard to believe Ecuador is the paragon of transparency here, but given what we know sporadically one has to think the South American and African numbers being reported are only a small fraction of what is going on.
This is a problem in the United States too where individual states clearly have incentive to game their numbers to open up more quickly. While even the reported statistics in the states partially reopening do not show the 14-day decline that has been recommended, I just don't trust that they are reporting anything close to the true number of infections and deaths. It is ironic to hope that Georgia needs to be more like Ecuador in its transparency.
I honestly think that the reasons are less deceptive than this.
It is not always clear what someone died from if they didnt get a test. The simple fact is 8,000 - 30,000 people die from the flu most years in the US, and we have had appx. 50,000 die from Covid-19. Well, what if some of the people that are thought to have died from the flu died from Covid-19, what if the other way around. It is very hard to really get these numbers clearly unless there was a test done, and in many cases there wasnt.
If I developed flu symptoms right now I am not sure I would bother with a test. Going out and making myself sicker just to get a result and a category doesnt seem worth it since neither has a treatment. If I was having trouble breathing I would of course go to the Hospital (to say I am high risk is an extreme understatement, I literally have almost everything going against me, reduced immune system due to multiple rounds of Chemo over 25 years, diabetic, overweight, had a heart attack 2 years ago, etc.) So lets say that I do get something and pass away, was it the flu (I had a flu shot of course) or Covid-19? Autopsy might tell I assume, but are we really doing autoposies at this point? The workload would be immense really just to create a number.
I think it is going to be very hard to get clear numbers out of this. The simple fact is that there just isnt enough testing yet, and there probably wont be for awhile. We know it is a crisis that we must find a vaccine / treatment for, but it will probably be very, very unclear how many people have had this for a long time (especially since some people get very minor symptoms)
NY has cancelled the presidential primary election. Sanders' campaign is not happy w/ that decision, figuring the more delegates, the bigger mandate he has to pressure Biden's policy decisions.
I understand why NY is taking this position. I disagree with it.
This is an unfair comparison though. In the 2018-2019 flu season we estimated there were 34,000 deaths. We counted only 7,000 of these in real time. There is also evidence that the 50,000+ we are reporting now might be closer to double that number. This is also for only a couple of months. Not a full year.
The policy prescriptions for a virus causing 60,000 deaths might be very different than for a virus causing 200,000 to 400,000 deaths. We appear to be much closer to the latter than the former. I totally agree it is tough to get great numbers out of this. But it is equally wrong to use numbers that are almost certainly low to base policy on.
New data today on the potential undercount:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true1
The race is unopposed now though. I am guessing plenty of Sanders supporters will get to be delegates too. Not that it matters that much though. The Biden campaign seems to be doing a pretty good job of outreach now compared to 4 years ago.
In general it is dangerous to cancel elections. This is a different time however. If there were multiple candidates on the ballot then of course they should not cancel it. Since there are not, however, it actually seems a pretty prudent decision by a state that has more important things to figure out (like conducting a largely mail election in November).