I heard on the radio today things in Austin are pretty bad, wonder how that affects UT Football.

ICE has come down with rules stating that if students aren't taking in-person classes, they will not be given permission to enter the country.

Quite a few of the players have already tested positive

Revenue-conscious administrators will be up in arms, from what i gather about the financial impact they'd have propably allowed them to do whatever the fuck they wanted as long as they brought that full tuition with them. Not that many will be that crazy about going of course, unless they really are crazy or really, really, really need to get away from where they are.

EDIT: Actually even worse, even the ones still there would have to leave

https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/...07487573069827

Bay Area hospitals receiving Imperial County COVID patients


Something to keep in mind when hearing about capacity being available, not every hospital is actually equipped to handle severe Covid Cases. Not that others are not having a hellish time of keeping things running themselves while workload is high ...

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/hos...oo-11594046342

Mayor Bottoms just announced she tested positive. Stupid virus better leave Mayor Momma alone.

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yeah, the sports bubble is getting pierced big time. FC Dallas has pulled out of the MLS is Back tournament and the entire team is on a mandatory quarantine after 10 positive tests came back.

Not as much as their players' refusal to play unless their list of demands for campus changes is met.

The ESE wing of the school my wife teaches at is now down 11 paraprofessionals 24 days before teachers are supposed to go back to work and 31 days before the start of school. They were down four on the last day of school.

Bolso confirmed positive for COVID.

Coronavirus: Brazil's President Bolsonaro tests positive - BBC News

No State Fair of Texas this year

2020 State Fair of Texas Canceled Due to Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Sincy Hydrochloroquine will not die* here's a look at how that story started and especially who it started with (older article butbi had not seen it before):

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/m...loroquine.html



* The new study out of Detroit is obviously interesting, but also seems obviously flawed. Done after the fact and thus you also get discrepancies like the 'controll' actually not getting as much ICU care or especially People getting Hydrochloroquine also getting steroids and those not getting Hydrochloroquine also not getting steroids.

Which is doubly significant because apparently the steroid used was Dexamethason, which coincidentily vers recently been shown as very effective in a double blind study in the UK. So this might well be the factor making the difference, not Hydrochloroquine.

On what I feel is a related note, the superintendent of schools has decided that face coverings will be required when school reopens.

Speaking of schools:

The administrations attempts to bully schools into reopening without doing their part is very transparent. I'll post it here, because the issue really fits better here. Just consider me unpolitically bitching about it ;)
First the student visa thing, and wow, that Azar fella is a piece of work ... Saying Healthcare Workers don't get infected and there being no reason why teachers can take the same precautions is just unbecoming.


Really, no reason why a school can't be the same as a hospital ? None ?
Even if they could, it is another incredible lie. Part of why HC workers are so on edge is that unlike anything else they deal with this virus is spreading like mad in hospitals despite best efforts far beyond the usual. Somewhere between 500 and 1000 have died. Did they all contract it at work ? Unlikely. But a majority seems pretty likely.

To have the health secretary say that, just wow.

I mean, i am all for trying everything to open schools, but for the love of god realize and communicate that part of this is getting the level of infections to a more manageable level and stay on top of it. Not blow smoke up peoples ass, hoping they don't notice or bully them .

My daughter tested positive. Symptoms mild. Sore throat, cough, stuffy nose.

She said she is feeling well today and symptoms almost gone. This is day 8 and the health dept. said if it worsens, it worsens days 5-9.

Basically, she has a cold. She will be out of quarantine the 12th.

One of the many cases we will see in colleges soon.

This Florida attorney isn't taking any chances.

'I Don't Blame You, Man': South Florida Lawyer Turns Heads by Wearing Full Hazmat Suit to Federal Court

The whole open the schools thing is insane to me. My wife teaches high school at a very small high school, but she is still expecting to be there in close contact with kids daily. The school is staggering the days that the kids are in school to reduce class sizes, there will be masks and not masks. The low number of kids will give them a better chance than the larger schools. Speaking of larger schools. My son attends a larger high school. They haven't gone public with their plan yet it doesn't seem likely that it is much more than wishful thinking. With cases running rampant pretty much everywhere, kids will get sick, teachers will get sick. There is no chance this is sustainable.

I feel the same way with my daughter going back to college. She'll be a Junior, and she is a bio chem major, so hands on lab classes are regular her. Those are pretty tough to handle through remote education. All of the students living on campus will have their own rooms, but bathrooms and common areas will still be common. Again no chance that this plan makes it the whole semester. I've already told her and my wife that there is No way she is coming home for visits. I don't think colleges will fare any better than cruise ships did.

When all of these plans to open schools back up were made, people were largely optimistic. Economies were spinning up. We were predicting lower cases over the summer. I've got to hope that we really see where those predictions and that optimism have led us, and the people making the decisions start to realistically consider the risks vs the reward of in person education.

A lot of weird decisions being made right now in regards to the pandemic. For instance in my state the Health Department requires nursing homes to open back up for in person inside facility family visitors starting today. I hope this doesn’t start another round of wildfires in nursing homes.

Man that must be scary tarcone. I'm glad she is not seriously ill from it. Hope she recovers quickly.

Like Schools, this is an impossibly difficult choice to have to make. Because the flip side is, that them not being able to receive visitors is destroying mental health for inhabitants (but also family and friends).

All these things would have been reason to make a much more concerted effort to get the level of infections down and get systems in place to keep it that way. Now that that particular avenue is likely closed for good, you get these impossible choices.

There’s like a 99% chance my wife will get it teaching this fall. Her school is so backwards that it required them to show up in person to work remotely for the last month + of the school year. And they insisted on in person, indoors graduation. Hopefully she finds a lateral move elsewhere for the fall.

COVID Update July 7: I spent the last 24 hours with 3 scientists, all of whom have seen vaccine data, 2 of whom are former regulators, all of whom have opinion.

Will �� soon if interested.

— Andy Slavitt @ �� (@ASlavitt) July 6, 2020

A pretty optimistic but realistic thread overall. We aren't gonna flip a switch on vaccine day and get things back like nothing ever happened. But the news on vaccines and antibody therapy is pretty much all good at this point, and it seems very likely that we will end up in a place where we can manage novel coronavirus like the flu.

Our local school system still has not made a decision on how this year is going to work, but they have finalized the school schedule. It looks like they will have 2 options - regular in-person school and online. If you choose in-person, you can switch to online at any time. If you choose online, you can't switch until the end of the semester. And of course, the school may shut it down and go online at any point. Decision supposed to come in the next 10 days.

What I'm trying to understand is the school calendar. They contemplate a full year of in-person instruction. We are starting this year 2 weeks later than usual (August 26th versus 12th), They are still getting fall break, Thanksgiving, the regular Christmas break, spring break, and all of the teacher in-service days and holidays. We are ending as normal (right around Memorial Day).

So... where did those 2 weeks go? We aren't making them up at any point. Have we been going to school 2 weeks too long every year? Why do we lop off 2-3 weeks of summer break every year and go back to school in early August if we can now start a week before Labor Day and continue with the same schedule until Memorial Day?

I think this brings up a great point, what do you do here?

While many college courses can be taught remotely, what do you do for college labs? Those courses which are important to the major, require significant investment in equipment, this is not something a student should be expected to provide themselves. So how do you get this level of teaching in a safe manner?

My daughter is an education major in her 2nd semester junior year. She's supposed to be doing observations and in-class teaching in the local school system. She has no clue how or if that can happen. I suppose they have to figure out some way for her to meet her requirements, or else she's literally going to school this year for no reason. But she doesn't know how and no one in the education department has explained how any of this will or can work so she can meet requirements and, you know, learn things.

It's not just education. What do schools do about clinical placements? Required internships? Performance requirements for musicians and artists?

Meanwhile, Trump is tweeting that the CDC guidelines are too burdensome. I'm trying to make plans with the assumption that I or my H.S. daughter will catch the virus.

So how we been doin these past couple weeks?

Thread by @ashishkjha: Some folks arguing that rising cases of COVID no big deal because people aren’t getting sick And death rates still falling so its all harmle…

5 states with the highest number of new cases / population (7-day rolling avg).

Again, comparing today to 14 days ago.

In alphabetical order:

1. Arizona:
Testing up 12%
Cases up 36%
Current Hospitalizations up 66%
Dally deaths up 79%

2. Florida:
Testing up 80%
Cases up 162%
Current Hosps not available
Daily deaths up 37%

3. Louisiana:
Testing up 15%
Cases up 162%
Current Hosps up 50%
Daily deaths up 7%

4. South Carolina:
Testing up 56%
Cases up 65%
Current Hosps up 76%
Daily deaths up 62%

5. Texas:
Testing up 41%
Cases up 86%
Current Hosps: up 140%
Daily deaths up 52%

And what about next 5 states?

Georgia, Nevada, Mississippi, Alabama, and California.

They all have big increases in hospitalizations

And 4 out of 5 have increased deaths...all but Georgia

It's almost as if something that has an incubation period of 1-2 weeks kills after the numbers start going up. SHOCKING!

SI

I'm struggling with what to do right now.

Travel softball has been going for about a month. Due to play in Youngstown, OH this weekend. Then we travel to Chattanooga for a week starting 7/20.

Every where is seeing a rise is cases. Do I have the brains to say we're not going? Not bragging, but this team won't beat good teams without my daughter pitching.

Then school. It seems like a risk not worth taking, to send her back to school. I think I am going to make her stay home.

I wish state governments would make the right call and cancel these things.

The shutdown in March/April/May almost feels like it was for nothing given where we are now.

I am so glad my travel softball days are over. Couldn't imagine dealing with that right now. Caitlin is participating in a local 8-on-8 scrimmage twice a week to keep sharp. I do not envy you having to decide whether to travel.

Disease/Illness/Virus all has a certain level of inevitability to it. We are humans, and I as guilty as anyone, of wanting full control over my situations, sometimes have to bow to the inevitable. That doesn't mean we give up, that we stop trying, that we don't research, or put protections in place where it makes sense to do so. It does mean that we address the seriousness of it, recognize that leadership has failed us to this point, and recognize that there will be consequences to those choices that were made. Life goes on. We go on. We're going to adapt, and do the best we can, however, we cannot put life on freeze. It just doesn't work like that. There will be deaths. There have already been many deaths, but accepting that we are at this point in time, in this place in history, and marking it with the reverence as such in the future is beyond a given now. Advancements will come and we will go on. We always do, we're just going to pay the price for it. The sooner that we can accept this mindset the sooner we'll all be able to function better with a sort of reverent humility of life.

Youngstown is turning into a virus shit show. They finally are requiring masks at least.

This is the non-political thread, so I will just note in passing that every other country did the hard work required for a few months, and now they are unfreezing.

The position we are in is not inevitable, and we don't need to treat it as such.

So the virus is catching up to the rest of the city? :lol:

It’s no Warren

I specifically didn't mean to imply that the position was. I was pretty clear about that. The reality that we are living in a time where a virus that is difficult to manage because of many things is inevitable. We can't go back and stop it from happening. It's a new reality and I think there are many people who would rather choose to imply that we can return to a period of life prior to it without recognizing the state we are truly in. The same is said for people who refuse to do anything unless we are safe to return to the period of life prior to it. It doesn't feel political. We should be doing everything that we are doing, but a mindset does need to change. People will get sick, and death is happening, and blaming one thing or another does nothing to mitigate it any of it.

Touche! :lol:

Kids will ask why my wife moved to Memphis, we'll drive them down Albert St. and they'll say "Oh, I see..."

It is not difficult to manage and none of this was inevitable.

Yesterday’s new coronavirus cases:

🇩🇰 10
🇳🇴 11
🇸🇪 57
🇩🇪 298
🇺🇸 55,442 https://t.co/txJrYwnRIr

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 8, 2020

I'm not arguing the failings of leadership, in fact, that's exactly what I said. None of those are apples to apples comparisons though either. The demo's of the US are far more diverse and far more expansive.

This is exactly what I said: It does mean that we address the seriousness of it, recognize that leadership has failed us to this point, and recognize that there will be consequences to those choices that were made.

We cannot put the genie back in the bottle right now though either. The mindset of the country is based on individualism, on capitalism, and neither of those things suggest that success in this situation is imminent. These are the limitations of working with the system that we have. There will be an answer somewhere along the way, but only one where working for the better of mankind succeeded, not because of individualism or because of capitalism.

We can't change yesterday to make today better.

But we can change today to make tomorrow better.

And I am getting the sense from a lot of people (not you) that the new message from our leadership and its enablers is some version of "we can't stop it or even reduce it, so we have to live with it."

And that is just flat out wrong. We can stop it. We can reduce it. We are, every single day, choosing not to.

And maybe that's what we will continue to do. Hell, I expect that is what we will continue to do. So my very small ask is simply that we keep admitting to ourselves that it is a choice. That we are choosing to make tomorrow harder because we want today to be easier. And that today is harder than it had to be because we chose to make yesterday easier.

We need to stop pretending we are some special nation that the rules are different for. Many other countries have capitalism and people who are independent. Many are diverse too.

I have a friend who works for the CDC. They had a presentation today that indicated there is no evidence that Covid is transmitted through surfaces - and it would be extraordinarily rare for anyone to get infected that way.

Oh, and the presentation also said even cloth masks help quite significantly when everyone wears one (but that's obvious).

Yeah that would scare me. Hotels, restaurants, gas stations, so many touch points where you could get it. Never mind just the actual field where the kids are interacting and the parents are all sitting together.

Our city has not had any organized sports at all yet. They are planning on hockey in September, but they haven't announced the rules. Rumor is there won't be parents allowed, and instead of 5 on 5, they may play 3 on 3 with smaller teams so that there is more room in the dressing rooms.

Hearing reports that there are no spare hospital beds, ICU or otherwise, in Houston. Patients are being shipped to Austin and San Antonio.

I have to disagree with this. And this is no defense of Trump who has definitely made things worse especially politicizing it the way he has. But we are a diverse country. Washington state, Texas, New York, and Missouri are like 4 entirely different countries. So (IMO) what we are seeing is outbreaks in other states now that weren't hit before. Not sure how this would be different than Italy getting hit first (New York and the eastern states), Spain/France next (Illinois etc), and then the Scandinavian countries. (Texas, Arizona etc) I mean is any state's death toll really that out of whack with the rest of the world except New York/New Jersey?

I thought I remembered reading somewhere earlier on (back in April probably) that coronaviruses historically operate by latitude. Seems to fit was is happening here sort of. Louisiana maybe got hit earlier due to Mardi Gras and Georgia is for sure an outlier.

It just seems to me politics aside if the virus moves from Italy to Norway that is no longer Italy's problem but if it moves from New York to Texas to wherever next that is still the United States' problem.

Nobody thinks this theory is plausible? It is that political that we can't look at things like this as a possibility?

I think that theory breaks down when you look at those individual states outbreak graphs. If you theoretically treated them as individual countries, some states (like Massachusetts) have graphs similar to many countries in Europe. The states that are having huge outbreaks right now are experiencing resurges so this isn’t their first wave. Other than Brazil, I can not find many countries that have a similar path.




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But if you look at Europe, it's gone down in essentially every country. France and the UK are at the high end seeing about 600-700 cases a day (we had 60,000 today). Even countries like Sweden who botched things early on have gotten it under control.

At this point, it is us, Brazil, and India standing out. Brazil did absolutely nothing and has a President who called it a hoax and shamed people for wearing mask. India has an enormous population and does not have the infrastructure to handle it.

I just don't see any way to look at the statistics and say this is natural. We are the outlier in the developed world when it comes to this.

Yeah. I’ll do amazon delivery a few days a week and any time I’m over in the East Side it pisses me off. Gotta shut off the vehicle far too much because only an idiot would leave it running there.

This might make sense if we had really low death tolls but were just now starting to approach the levels that other countries have. That isn't the case. Population-adjusted we are 9th-worst in the world, and two of the other eight are San Marino and Andorra who obviously aren't comparable. Sizable countries like Germany, Romania, and Austria have a quarter of our deaths overall, and the numbers aren't getting closer together but further apart.

If current trends don't change, we're on a path to be #1 in the industrialized world despite all the horrid things that happened in Spain, Italy, etc. early on. That doesn't scream 'normal'.

True but unless the deaths soar (and everyone is saying they will but they haven't yet) than maybe 60,000 is the true number and back in April we just were that far off. I mean the United States has 60K cases and 900 deaths while the UK has 700 cases and approx 120 deaths. So either the death rate is about 10 times higher in the UK or they just aren't testing the same right? It's pretty clear it has to be the latter?

What about state by state though? That was kind of my point. Is Hawaii 9th worst in the world? Wyoming? Tennessee? Seems like it's New York and the Eastern states. And personally my gut is telling me the New York case numbers from March/April were off by magnitudes of 10-20x. There is just no reconciling the total cases and deaths that are occurring now with the supposed 10% death rate in the official numbers. People keep saying just wait deaths are coming, but I'm not so sure.

Houston starting to look a lot like NYC with deaths before ambulance arrival starting to spike.

The UK has tested more per capita than the United States. Our death toll is likely lower because we didn't have testing early on and some states are doing their best to fudge the numbers.

Deaths are on the rise right now so it seems like that wave is coming.

You can also argue that different demographics are being infected now. We know that half the deaths have come from nursing homes. So perhaps we've done a much better job of keeping the virus out of those homes resulting in much less death. Essentially the high risk people are being protected more.

We are also getting better at treating it as we learn more.

Can you explain that to me? I genuinely don't understand what you're referencing as 10%.

Quote of the Day for me. Agreed.

So the latest offical count in New York state was 30K deaths out of about 400K confirmed cases. 7.5%, I was just going from memory and knew it was around 10%. Nobody honestly believes only 400K people have had COVID in New York State do they? I mean I think 4 million is probably a low estimate.

My daughter's organic chemistry lab was closed down a couple of times one semester for decontamination after 'explosions'. So yeah can't really get that experience remotely.

Definitely way more people had it in New York. But when the outbreak hit them it was near impossible to get a test unless you were in the hospital.

I think estimates have been around 0.4% to 0.6% on mortality rate. Obviously differs greatly by age and pre-existing conditions.

Which brings me full circle to comparing the United States as a whole with the European numbers. If they are saying 120 deaths a day and we agree on a death rate of about 0.5% they have approx 25000 cases a day not 700. They have contained nothing they just have inaccurate testing numbers.

Deaths are a lagging indicator. So those 120 deaths were likely people who contracted it in April, May or June. They likely had 25,000 cases a day back then. The UK is seeing their deaths drop (which is a sign cases tapered off weeks ago) while the US is seeing them rise back up again. Countries are going in different directions.

Our death rate is also likely much higher. Whether it be unable to get a test, refusing to get treatment, or just playing with the numbers.

Deaths at home suggest coronavirus is hitting Houston harder than reported | The Texas Tribune

I think you'll see in the next few weeks death tolls either plateau or rise in this country as others see theirs continue to go down.

Worth pointing out that the UK did a horrible job in regards to the pandemic too. Their leader is a bumbling bafooon who didn't take this seriously either. Lot of blood on his hands.

Umm ... No ?

First off "they" i presume is the UK. Which indeed is a shitshow in it's own (terribly at shielding Home settings, Tests done by private firms and home-made by patients, many who fail or don't bother, data not being shared with local officials etc). Not to mention the criminal negligence in March, relying on myrical numbers to convince them they knew more than everybody else only to then find out that shockingly their numbers were indeed too good to be true.

Also, there is science based informstion on this question of missed cases and deaths in the early going available, no need to go to ones gut ;) (Seroprevalence/Antibody testing, excess deaths)

March/April most countries likely missed vast numbers of cases and also deaths btw, nowadays less so.

That is where positivity rate is telling: First know that 1) everybody tests people with symptoms, these are only missed when they don't raise their hand (which unfortunately for a variety of reasons is quite likely in the US). And 2 tests is not "people tested". A large portion will actually be people tested regularly because you know they have high exposure likelihood and lots of people they expose (like HC workers, First responders, people in retirement facilities or heck, politicians. In Germany also f.e. workers in meatpacking plants).
Now you have areas testing a lot and getting 1 case for maybe every 50 tests (germany or italy about 100), which means a lot of tests are done with a wide net: In addition to the one mentioned these are then contacts of known cases with a widely cast net.
Now if you get like 1 case for 7 or 8 tests, this means your net is cast less wide and comprehensive for contacts and the ratio of case/infection is worse than those that get 1 for 50 or a 100. That's just how testing/tracing works. And that matters more than just for some statistic, at least when done right (meaning fast turnaround of tests, comprehensive contact tracing and strict quarantine, even before test results. In the US it is apparently, from numerous reports, barely possible to get cases to stay home, much less contacts).

Right now the US is testing equal or more than European nations but it is still less comprehensive and adequate for the size of the outbreaks. As much as cases follow tests, tests also follow cases because those are the starting point to test known contacts. Germany or Italy right now test way more contacts (tier 2 group in terms of likely positive after those already showing symptoms), likely test more HC workers etc and still find less cases per test.

I could also say the same in a different way about Texas btw re "missed stuff" which even 3 weeks ago (data imcomplete after) had already about 700-900 Excess Death (over 5 year high or average) acording to CDC data and registered 136 Covid deaths for that week.

All of which is beside the point: The US response has been largely bad. If some numbers are less bad than expected, that does not make the response good. The US DID have advantages, like more warning and the huge distances. Same reason why Sweden producing less deaths than Italy is less telling than them producing vastly more than say Norway or Denmark which had similar playing field. Or why the UK should be seen in contrast to Germany as both had similar buffer time to bunker down.

Other countries also were not hit uniformly btw. This is Italy and France for example:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...es_map.svg.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...hs_map.svg.png

I don't think anybody will argue the Virus doesn't 'wander' (though it has zero to do with latitude but with how people move and travel and then how timely/effective the response).
But other countries managed to avoid far away regions (from the initial outbreaks, which were hardest to prevent by circumstance) being hit after reopening and resumal of travel, because they put infrastructure in place to manage it and pushed cases their down from few to nearly none. And that extra high distance (the virus had to travel) in the US ought to have helped and arguably did help. I mean, that isn't just a disadvantage.

Are the problems with the US purely a federal issue ? Of course not. Did they do their part as called for ? Not really.

Only can speak for Germany, but we also have federal system where the main responsibility in the field is on local agencies and politicians but the federal government mediates and sets an overarching strategy and our version of the CDC organises the response. And when shit hit the fan mid march.

As has been discussed many times, case numbers are almost completely irrelevant because of widespread differerences in testing. As mentioned by others, other nations have variances in how hard the virus has hit different regions of those countries. It's not as if the US is unique in this.

New York and New Jersey on their own wouldn't qualify to be 9th worst. They'd qualify to be 1st and 2nd worst, about 3x as bad as Italy. If you want to give other states credit for being better, then you have to also blame us for having a lot of areas worse than the worst of other nations in the world, and not by a small margin. We still look really bad in that comparison. A few states further down, Louisiana would be near the top. Michigan and Illinois also have a worse death rate than the national average. 70% of the states in the country are worse than the other nations I mentioned (Germany, etc.) And that's right now. The trend is going in the wrong direction.

Ivy League cancelling all fall sports. That's the first domino; I expect others will fall as well.

Not really sure why I am getting a "um, no". The arguement I responded to was this...


I replied with this...


He brought up the UK. He brought up the number of new cases a day. I simply responded with math.

As I replied to whomario... if the argument is going to involve case numbers than there is nothing wrong with replying with case numbers.

I just feel like this is a local disease. For me living on the edge of St. Louis County... St Louis City is the worst spot in the state, North St. Louis County is also really bad, the rest of St. Louis County isn't good but much better, my area in far west St. Louis County is better than that, people living in other parts of Missouri are experiencing something completely different than St. Louis entirely.

What's the point? All I see is United States this or even Texas and Florida this but it seems like it is Houston, Texas or Miami, Florida and probably even more localized than that. (I am admittedly not that familiar with either area) You need a strong federal and state response (neither of which have seemed to happen) but then it also needs to be local. My guess is Northwest Florida and North Central Texas are not hotspots. It sounds good to blame "red states" etc but it seems to be a fairly equal mix of idiots. I'm guessing Houston and Miami don't carry the GOP vote in presidential elections. I could be totally wrong just a hunch?

On case numbers; I think RainMaker is just as wrong to use them as you are. That's why I've been talking about the death rate.

Even if it is local, that has nothing to do with the original question which was about how we're doing compared to the rest of the world. If you aggregate the European population, more than twice that of the US, and use that because of the regional/local argument, their total death rate is far better than ours. So I'm just saying no matter how you look at the data, it still points in the same direction; our response overall sucks compared to the global average, tens of thousands have already died because of it and hundreds of thousands more almost certainly will, and we largely wasted the shutdown period because we didn't set up more effective testing & contact tracing during that period. Has nothing to do with red state/blue state and everything to do with nonsensical overall policy.

I can tell you that if the virus ever exploded in the smoker belt, KY/WV/TN/NC, that you'd have crazy high mortality rates. The incidence of lung damage from the high number of smokers would simply compound the problem.

I would counter (and I can move to another thread if this violates the non-political part) that both the non-mask wearers and the protesters were components of both politics and right and left leaning mass media encouragement. These are by far our two biggest problems leading to the huge number of cases.

No, the Protests being a big problem is conjecture i would argue.
For starters, I don't think people realize how many damn more people generate how many more 'contacts' going to places almost certainly much more conducive to transmission every day than all the protests combined: bars, restaurants, gyms, offices/workspace (also hospitals, care homes etc).

For what it's worth: Beaches are also massively overblown as an issue i'd argue. Sporting events are more iffy due to a few factors even in stadiums rather than indoor (like the inclined seating, lack of movement, generally less air flow, congestions to/from seat/stadium and simply the cheer mass of different events)


I did write a whole litany as to why exactly i thought that was "no" with regards to how testing is structured :) That may be Math, but this isn't a math problem. The UK isn't somehow missing 25k cases a day. Probably missing more than they should as their testing and tracing efforts are disorganised as hell as well, but the still relatively high death toll (7 day average down to 85 though) has other reasons that were mentioned and even more possible ones that weren't (like this still being more widespread in the older population/home settings). Everybody is missing cases and if anything, the US is missing more than most. Again, i tried to lay out why.
More likely is that 3-4 weeks ago they were missing 5-6k and their IFR really is higher due to proportionately more at-risk patients being infected.
There's a reason a lot of people try not to boil it down to 1 number but look at other numbers as well to judged a situation.

My best guess based on available data and information i have would be those casting a really wide net on top of symptomatic diagnosis are getting between 1/2 and 1/3 of all cases. There's a few "groups" you never get, like asymptomatic cases not infecting anybody you notice and also quite simply those with mild symptoms just staying at home.
Which is still a tolerable amount when you have other measures, an overall low level and are good at containing those you do find. Heck, in Germany a lot of the time you will have people in quarantine without testing them (say a spouse or kid who had no close/long contacts outside the household) and those you do test, all go into quarantine until the results are back.
All these things are stuff the US doesn't really do well, both due to a lack of a legal framework, data availability, speed (labs are swamped) or lack of ressources. That is why the positivity rate is high, not because they are more efficient at testing/finding cases.
And a lot of this is not sth that can be fixed at a truly local level i think.

Even if you assume they are directly connected with no variation (which simply isn't the case, Fatality Rate is dependent on a mio factors) all you could actually calculate really is that sometimes in the past X weeks 25k infections were missed.


And as for the "local" part in general: I mean, of course local circumstances and 'behavior' of that population matter. Of course it is less likely to cause outbreaks/spikes in Nowhereville than Houston. And likely less so in the Northeast than areas for which it stayed more abstract in the first wave (nothing shapes behavious like personal experience/connection).
For one, it only stays local if people stay local. The more movement of people you get, the more it spreads. The Summer holiday period may very well contribute massively. And the big citie's hospitals take in a lot of sick people from the surrounding areas as well, not just with Covid but this is definitely in the upper category as far as need to transfer goes.

Bay Area hospitals receiving Imperial County COVID patients


And that's not an outlier or even a US specific thing. Treating Covid19 patients is complicated and ressource intensive.
And there's a reason why normally hospitals operate way below capacity, to be able to accomodate all sorts of patients (for all sorts of wards) on short notice.

From the other thread. Just to illustrate what i mean by testing following cases, aside from again reminding that Tests is NOT People tested. Lots of people get tested regularly and more than once (which the president ought to know, since he is one of them). Unfortunately no country i know of makes those data sets available seperately, but at the very least there will be tests of plenty of people done every time a HC worker gets sick and returns positive.

Anyway:

1) From early May to June 11th, Tests went up 80% but cases went down 25%.

2) Since June 11th, Tests have gone up roughly a further 45%, but cases have gone up roughly 180% nationally.

You can find similar trends to one degree or other locally.

And along with this you have frequent reports of rising turnaround time of test results and a lack of available preventive tests on site for health care workers (which definitely needs to be a thing). This isn't a designed and strategic increase of testing to use as a containment tool anymore as was the case till June, but an increase of actually sick people and those assumed to be exposed presenting for testing. Which then drives up positivity rate because those are the most likely group to actually test positive.

In Germany, about 1 in 100 tests comes back positive and a lot of them can be preventive due to low actual case load. Heck, we actually put in place a national test strategy for meatpacking plants (every worker 1-2 times a week, depending on density of workers in the plant) on top of testing HC workers and people in homes, which is why tests went up considerably in recent weeks.

On the other end of the spectrum you have Mexico, where in recent days 65 % of tests come back positive, which means that they really only test people showing symptoms (with the odd person just having the sniffles or a cold) in the hospital and maybe the odd doctor.

So the mayor of Toledo just ordered that masks are mandatory in public places, but the order "does not carry the force of law"

So it's mandatory to wear masks but not really?

Really? Most of the Trumpers I've had the misfortune to discuss this with uniformly argue that both cases and deaths are being artificially pumped up by local/state officials to get more money and to make Trump look bad. I've seen the "X had Covid and got shot in a drive-by so +1 for the 'died by Covid' list" memes all over FB.

We had 370 and 400 positives in KY the past 2 days and Beshear is making an announcement of new mandatory requirements today at 4. I expect masks to be one of them, but the question - as is the case everywhere - is how do you enforce? Put the onus on businesses to enforce or risk being shut down? Fine individuals?

These people who are for freedom and choice forgot the responsibility part, so now Big Brother is being forced to tell you to eat your spinach because you wouldn't do it on your own.

I think you may have missed my point.

I'm simply wondering what's the point of a "mandatory" order that has no enforcement mechanism as far as I can tell.

No, I'm asking the same question about any mandates here. Are they going to be toothless, or are they going to add some sort of enforcement mechanism.

Beshear has been sued numerous times here - several involving other state officials against his administration - so I'll be interested to see how they handle this.

It is stupid to mandate something but admit ahead of time that it won't be enforced. Seems like a CYA move.

agreed

I would hate to be the cops that enforce this, especially if it involves a fine against individuals.

At least one person has been shot over being asked to wear a mask. You know that many people aren't going to be compliant, and the cop will have to escalate the situation to enforce compliance.

Our mask order excludes outdoor situations where distancing is possible. So, if you're out on a jog or walking your dog then you don't need a mask. This effectively works to push enforcement on business owners. Cops aren't going to be patrolling the local Kroger but Kroger has people checking to make sure masks are worn.

I suppose there are some that may refuse to wear a mask indoors but it's much easier for police to handle that situation. I think it becomes trespassing if a customer refuses to leave for not wearing a mask. I think there was a lady at a Home Depot that was arrested for that the other day.

That's what I am expecting. There's no reason to require a mask outside unless the circumstances require it. Indoors is another situation.

I wonder if more people will wear them, even if there is no enforcement mechanism, as a desire to 'follow the law'. That may be what they are banking on - more people are likely to mask up than when it was suggested they do so.

The misinformation is stunning on this. One of the common things I'm seeing now is people claiming 1 positive test results in 15-20 or more cases because they just label everyone you've been in contact with as a positive case. People are also dropping bullshit anecdotal stories of knowing someone that's fighting to have a cause of death changed because they just automatically made it Covid.

I guess the mayor wants the city council to make the law enforceable, but a third of the city council recently got slapped with federal bribery charges. And the city council president basically won't conduct any council business with accused present.

Go Toledo!

It all seems to stem from a legitimate question of how you classify cases where someone has an underlying condition that Covid likely exacerbated and resulted in their death. Did they die from Covid for purposes of these counting statistics, or did it just contribute to their death and really shouldn't count in the stats - or should, depending on what you're trying to capture with these numbers. But from there, it's turned into a bunch of politically-driven BS, from what I can see.

I think the difference is the Ivy League loses money on sports and have huge endowments so it is an easier decision. Lot of these other schools rely heavily on football for revenue.

If one P5 conference calls it I think they all fall like dominoes, with the SEC being last.

what will be interesting is if a mid major calls it. That would create holes in the P5 non conference making things interesting. I wonder if that would cause it all to fall down.

Either way I don't think we have a CFB season, and certainly not a traditional one in the fall.

I think the P5 would just play a lengthier or exclusive conference schedule. Most are big enough now that they could fill in the gaps and it might be nice to see.

With there either being no crowds or limited attendance, it doesn't seem like the out of conference games will generate much revenue. So I can see schools not worrying about losing them.

Oooh. Good for the bonus racism, too: "You know how it is with the Blacks, always getting shot in drive bys"

Well, Big 10 is going with a conference-only schedule.

Aren't only about 20 college football teams profitable? And the situation will only be worse this year since stadiums won't be allowed to pack in the fans.

That’s why excess deaths is a key metric - unless people are so deeply deluded you can’t claim that all of a sudden around 100,000 extra people died to normal completely unrelated to Covid... what am I saying? Of course they can!

Exactly.

What are some big Big 10 non-conference games this year? Or is it mostly directional school filler?

EDIT: Here we go:

P5 games that would be affected by a reported conference-only football schedule for the Big Ten:
• Iowa - Iowa State
• Maryland - West Virginia
• Michigan - Washington
• MSU - Miami
• OSU - Oregon
• Penn State - VT
• Purdue - BC
• Rutgers - Syracuse
•Wisconsin - ND

I have to figure all P5 conferences do the same, if for no other reason than to buy some time before the season begins.

Also, keeping everything in conference allows the conferences to have more control over the situation on a week to week basis. You won't have a situation where a team from one conference is playing a team from another conference, and the teams/conferences disagree over what to do.

Now, the teams might not agree, but there is a body over them that can make the call.

Sportscenter now adding that the decision is for "all fall sports."

I'm missing the context of this comment. All fall sports for what?

Also, I like how when push comes to shove, no one is even pretending that the NCAA has (or should have) any power in this situation.

Conference-only schedule for Big 10 schools.