COVID-19 aka 2019 (and 2020) Novel Coronavirus

LeftieBiker said:

I don't understand why it isn't more widely reported that the Dakotas are the nation's biggest Hot Spot. I don't remember if this animation was posted here or not. I'll post it shortly. You may have to right click on the word "Image" to view it.

If you go to the bottom, and watch first North Dakota, then South Dakota race up the chart, you can see just how big a Super-spreader event Sturgis was...

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The color scheme is a great illustration of trump's influence. Its nearly all red. On least cases, its 2/3rds Blue

LeftieBiker said:

I don't understand why it isn't more widely reported that the Dakotas are the nation's biggest Hot Spot. I don't remember if this animation was posted here or not. I'll post it shortly. You may have to right click on the word "Image" to view it.

If you go to the bottom, and watch first North Dakota, then South Dakota race up the chart, you can see just how big a Super-spreader event Sturgis was...

Click to expand...

If the steps don't work, visit https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june instead.

I skimmed https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/17/sturgis-rally-spread/ (How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest) last night. If you get hit by their paywall, these may work:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201019020058if_/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/17/sturgis-rally-spread/
https://archive.is/ApJkL

Collapsing passengers, CDC missteps and "public health malpractice": The story of the COVID flight from hell at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flights-cruise-ships-covid-19-60-minutes-2020-10-18/ was on 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Story is 13.5 minutes long and not behind the CBS All Access paywall yet. The handling of the passengers was unbelievably bad.

Three COVID-19 positive people were let onto the flight after coming off the cruise ship where it seemed like “everyone” was coughing. When they got to Atlanta, nobody was tested for COVID-19 and other than three positive passengers, everyone else was free to go w/no quarantine.

The three positive passengers were taken to a hotel. Everybody else went to a cargo building where they were checked by the CDC for fever and filled out a short questionnaire. Nobody was given a COVID test. And some passengers told us they saw people with symptoms get through.

Kelly Edge: There were people, get this, their temperature was too high, so the CDC had them sit in chairs and wait and see if it got lower.
…
Some passengers removed their masks. Others hit the food court. Within hours more than 200 of them, exposed to COVID or already sick with it, boarded commercial flights to 17 states and Canada. Including the Andersons.
…
The cruise line would not share the passenger list with us, but we were able to track down 64 of the Americans. And of those 64, 45 of them told us they tested positive for COVID soon after coming home.

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OT: https://youtu.be/i-e6qLb4pwo is under 5 minutes long. Apparently, Wuhan's becoming a tourist destination for Chinese.

Got a push alert from the ABC News app this morning. Other media outlets are carrying the same story.

Trump dismisses pandemic, rips Fauci as 'disaster' in campaign all-staff call
He called the infectious disease expert and other top scientists "idiots."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-dismisses-pandemic-rips-fauci-disaster-campaign-staff/story?id=73697476

More of the unhinged behavior at the top... as usual, blame someone else and ignore the problem.

Last night, I did watch this piece on Dr. Fauci on 60 Minutes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fauci-no-surprised-trump-covid-19-media-appearances-60-minutes/

It's about 13.5 minutes long and not behind the CBS All Access paywall yet. I guess Dump got mad because Dr. Fauci got media attention?

That's the usual pattern, but since Fauci also criticized a Trump indoor campaign event and the Rose Garden "event," he had two reasons to choose from for having a tantrum.

LeftieBiker said:

That's the usual pattern, but since Fauci also criticized a Trump indoor campaign event and the Rose Garden "event," he had two reasons to choose from for having a tantrum.

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Too true but given the timing, it would appear the 60 Minutes interview is what broke the dam.

Always said Biden's best chance of winning in the presidential race was simply handing trump a microphone. :lol:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-diabetes-insight/doctors-probe-whether-covid-19-is-causing-diabetes-idUSKBN2741ET

Does Covid cause diabetes? If so, how often?

In the United States, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles said the percentage of newly diagnosed type 2 patients who arrived in diabetic ketoacidosis, a potentially fatal buildup of acid in the blood, has nearly doubled for March through August compared to the same period in 2018 and 2019.

Dr. Lily Chao, director of the type 2 diabetes clinic there, said the hospital is still investigating whether this increase is driven by exposure to COVID-19.

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The virus seems to attack some cell types more than others. Maybe it attacks the isles of...Langerhans...?

The NM governor is running around with her hair on fire acting like the less than 0.03% infection rate is the end of the world as we know it.

Would be interesting to know if the diabetes spike is directly from trumpvirus or because of trumpvirus unintended consequences.

Oilpan4 said:

The NM governor is running around with her hair on fire acting like the less than 0.03% infection rate is the end of the world as we know it.

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I'm not in your state and normally don't follow your state but these might be clues as to why there's concern, it seems to be at least beICU and hospital capacity + the R value. I found this quickly on R: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52473523.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/coronavirus/new-mexico-sees-record-number-of-coronavirus-cases-for-third-day-in-a-row/article_2a801300-0ffa-11eb-a54a-d775e72b7c85.html
https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/new-mexico-hospitals-nearing-tipping-point-as-covid-19-cases-surge/5897547/
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/coronavirus/new-mexico-again-breaks-case-record-governor-warns-health-risks-are-extreme/article_5da52d6a-0ef1-11eb-826b-3b32a4c5d422.html says

The test positivity rate, which measures how many people who are tested for COVID-19 turn out to have the disease, has risen to 5.2 percent. The statistic was 3.4 percent at the beginning of the month and is above the state’s target of 5 percent.

“New Mexico’s been leading the Southwest in low positivity rates, controllable transmission of COVID-19,” the governor said. “And now we’re in those columns where we’re leading the country — if not in the No. 1 position, nearing it — for uncontrollable spread.”

The state’s COVID-19 transmission rate is now 1.25, higher than the target of 1.05. A rate below 1 would mean the virus is in decline rather than spreading.

“We are moving so rapidly in the wrong direction,” Lujan Grisham said.

Meanwhile, the number of occupied intensive care beds in the state increased from 226 on Oct. 4 to 290 on Oct 12, while the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in New Mexico has risen 74 percent so far this month, to 150.

Two of the three major Albuquerque hospitals are above 100 percent of their ICU capacity, Human Services Department Secretary David Scrase said Thursday.

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And, we're heading into a flu season, so people can get sick, hospitalized and die from that too.

DaveinOlyWA said:

Always said Biden's best chance of winning in the presidential race was simply handing trump a microphone. :lol:

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trumpery appeared today on AWordADay - this was not recently coined!

https://wordsmith.org/words/trumpery.html
MEANING:
noun:
1. Something showy but worthless.
2. Nonsense or rubbish.
3. Deceit; fraud; trickery.

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https://www.google.com/search?q=trumpery

10 Signs the Pandemic Is About to Get Much Worse
https://elemental.medium.com/10-signs-the-pandemic-is-about-to-get-much-worse-cf261bf3885d

“We face rapidly accelerating increase in Covid-19 cases across much of Europe, the USA, and many other countries across the world,” according to an October 14 open letter published in The Lancet journal and signed initially by about 80 of the top infectious-disease experts in the United States and around the world, and hundreds more since. “It is critical to act decisively and urgently.”

Most frustrating for infectious-disease experts: It all could have been prevented. “We should have had this virus under control already,” says Michael Mina, MD, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We have spectacularly continued to squander any effort in the time that we’ve had.”

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Open letter at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext.

Kids don’t need to quarantine unless they have COVID symptoms, [Florida] governor says
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-desantis-education-coronavirus-20201020-6iwibgtx4vgxjczsukqnlno7am-story.html

Oh boy! Are they aiming to be #1 in terms of COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population?

cwerdna said:

Stanford Medical Faculty Lambaste Former Colleague and Trump Coronavirus Advisor Dr. Scott Atlas
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/stanford-medical-faculty-lambaste-former-colleague-and-trump-coronavirus-advisor-dr-scott-atlas/2361236/

A group of 78 researchers and doctors from Stanford Medical School are calling out former colleague and White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Scott Atlas for spreading what they characterized as "falsehoods and misrepresentation of science."

Atlas, who has a background in radiology, was tapped last month as an advisor to President Donald Trump on the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already killed more than 191,000 people in the U.S. alone. Atlas joined the administration’s coronavirus taskforce in mid-August.

The radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution has advocated against the use of masks and pushed the White House to adopt a controversial strategy, allowing young people to contract the coronavirus in hopes of achieving "herd immunity." Atlas, who doesn’t have any training or background in infectious diseases, has appeared on Fox News to push for reopening schools and questioned the efficacy of masks.

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points to the letter at https://twitter.com/RoxanaDaneshjou/status/1303904515607855104?s=20.

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This unqualified to advise on a pandemic doctor who seems to be anti-mask and a proponent of herd immunity tweeted this which seems a bit ironic...

https://twitter.com/SWAtlasHoover/status/1318136468544589825?s=20

Scott W. Atlas @SWAtlasHoover Oct 19
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth."

George Orwell, 1984

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Ironic indeed. I guess that is what happens when you stop thinking and are only concerned with scoring 'points' for your side.

First heard this on NPR. Yes national public radio. Pretty sure this is what they were talking about:

https://www.wfdd.org/story/studies-point-big-drop-covid-19-death-rates

I guess you can still hide under your bed if you want to.

Were going to get to herd immunity one way or another. The control way is everyone gets it till trumpvirus till it burns it's self out, the experimental way is tons of people get their shot of trumpjuice until there aren't enough people to infect and spread trumpvirus.

Yes, and the sissies will choose to do it by getting vaccinated, rather than dying. Don't give in!

Oilpan4 said:

I guess you can still hide under your bed if you want to.

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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/20/925441975/studies-point-to-big-drop-in-covid-19-death-rates

You really should read the whole thing.

The death rate "is still higher than many infectious diseases, including the flu," Horwitz says. And those who recover can suffer complications for months or even longer. "It still has the potential to be very harmful in terms of long-term consequences for many people."

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Death rates are down as hospitals are not overloaded, as well as better treatment. Let it spread freely, and hospitals get overloaded again. Like in Idaho.

Death rates are down because of mask wearing. Mask wearing is a triple play. Less chance of spreading it, less change of getting it, and a milder case if you do get infected.

Immunity to the coronavirus that causes the common cold lasts a year or two. That means that it is likely that starting next year the number of people who catch it twice is likely to skyrocket. Unless we have a vaccine and most people get the vaccine yearly.

LEADERSHIP FAILURE

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812

Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering,1 the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.

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WetEV said:

Less chance of spreading it, less change of getting it, and a milder case if you do get infected.

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I definitely agree with the first two statements, but I have doubts about the third.

jlv said:

WetEV said:

Less chance of spreading it, less change of getting it, and a milder case if you do get infected.

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I definitely agree with the first two statements, but I have doubts about the third.

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Dose of virus matters, for every other virus that has been studied in detail. Starting with smallpox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation

A small dose wakes up the immune system and allows the infection to be often be controlled before it becomes severe.

Yes, Covid hasn't had been studied in enough detail to show this beyond a reasonable doubt in humans. There are studies showing it is likely.

If you were a hamster, on the other hand:

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa644/5848814

WetEV said:

jlv said:

WetEV said:

Less chance of spreading it, less change of getting it, and a milder case if you do get infected.

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I definitely agree with the first two statements, but I have doubts about the third.

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Dose of virus matters, for every other virus that has been studied in detail. Starting with smallpox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation

A small dose wakes up the immune system and allows the infection to be often be controlled before it becomes severe.

Yes, Covid hasn't had been studied in enough detail to show this beyond a reasonable doubt in humans. There are studies showing it is likely.

If you were a hamster, on the other hand:

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa644/5848814

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The dose is actually the most important part of the equation. Masks don't eliminate one from getting sick. Masks do restrict the distance we can transmit an effective viral load but they can also help to reduce any viral load you breathe in.

I think its rather comical in a tragic way that the naysayers use complete utter BS logic to prove a point to themselves. Their ability to rationalize is simply amazing. How I envy their ability to entertain themselves w/o any outside interference from the "downers" like Medicine, Epidemiology or Science.

Nearly every vaccine uses the same mechanism. Introduce the virus to the body in very small quantities insufficient "in most cases" to cause it to replicate. Be it either inactivated, dead or simply very small doses. It still serves the purpose of a wake up call to the body. It is simple and VERY effective and yeah, its hit or miss to a point but the odds are good.

FYI; there isn't a single guaranteed medicine, treatment surgery or advice that works 100%. Not one.