Well he gots my votes. He also can't demand people to wear masks. That's up to each state. He can kiss my ass.
COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...
- Thread starter Richie O
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Well he gots my votes. He also can't demand people to wear masks. That's up to each state. He can kiss my ass.
Thanks for that. One thing that has to factor in for Hawaii, is like Taiwan and New Zealand, these territories are all relatively small islands. I would guess that island countries in general have a much lower rate of infection and death than non-island countries. Taiwan has a remarkable record so far, but also because they have a society that dutifully follows government orders.Hawaii is certainly seeing a signficant rise in cases, but it's much better to put their performance in broader context. Right now, Hawaii has the lowest per capita death rate (by a wide amount at 28/1MM vs. the country avg of over 500/1MM) and the 2nd lowest per capita case rate (at 3000 cases/1MM, just behind VT, and way below the US avg of 16.4K/1MM).
Also, let's actually look at the slanted, misleading article. First thing they do is show a graphic that appears to show an out of control case increase heading towards infinity - it's almost off the charts! Until one realizes they're using the old trick of setting the y-axis max right at the greatest data point. The other gem in the article is the ridiculous statement that there is zero correlation between human input and the trend of the virus. There are countless examples of state/country differences based on interventions.
Don't get me wrong - they're having a serious spike relative to the fantastic results they've had to date, but if they're able to control the peak close to where they are now (~200 cases/1MM, even with today's big spike), it'll be below California's peak (~250 cases/1MM), per capita, which is less than half of Florida's/Arizona's/NY's peaks per capita. If they've actually lost all control and the peak is much higher, which I do not expect to see, then we'll have to have a different post-mortem. The fact that their Rt has dropped from 1.6 to 1.3 is a good sign that they're starting to take this more seriously.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...entions-and-more.198855/page-120#post-4664682
With regard to what "went wrong" I'd hazard a guess that living in paradise has not meant strong adherence to their mask policy in some quarters and especially by young people, which has been pretty common almost everywhere, plus, they probably were at <3% infected, meaning rapid spread was much more likely than here or now in some of the other states that had large wave 2 peaks.
They've also been more aggressive in what's open than some states, including opening up gyms (many jokes I could make here). I also don't think their mask policy is anything unusual (35 states have mask requirements) and that this indicates that masks don't work - it likely indicates that lax adherence to mask wearing, while opening most things back up and while having a very low case rate to begin with (far more to infect) are ingredients for a spike, especially on the much more densely populated Oahu (more densely populated than NJ, overall), where most of the recent cases are.
And to think it would be possible to test everyone in the USA once a week is nonsense... could NEVER be done . Testing 1/4 or even 1/2 would not be possible. How would it be done and many would say GFY no matter who was in charge.
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In case you didn't see it, IHME (U of Washington modelers) is forecasting 295K deaths by 12/1, which would likely translate to about 320K by the end of the year at about 30K per month. Depressing.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...entions-and-more.198855/page-107#post-4657895
That’s silly, the other guy doesn’t even require masks at large indoor gatherings!
At home tests, local testing centers, in schools, at work, lots of ways to expand sample collection.
Don't tell that to the UK - much bigger factors are how many infected came into the country, seeding outbreaks and how did that country test/detect those outbreaks and then what did they do about them. The US, UK, most of Europe and South/Central America did very little testing/detection, allowing the outbreak to spiral out of control, leaving lockdown as the only way to flatten the curve. New Zealand simply did an extended lockdown/quarantine with no travel, while Taiwan and South Korea generally did very aggressive testing to detect flare-ups (with SK controlling a pretty large early outbreak in textbook fashion), followed by aggressive contact tracing/isolating to localize/extinguish those flare-ups, along with wearing masks to greatly slow transmissions to greatly reduce new flare-ups, all while having largely functioning societies. Other successful countries have done some combination of these approaches, typically. If they can continue like this for a few more months until we have vaccines (hopefully), they'll have saved huge numbers of lives and serious illnesses relative to most of the world.
You say New Jersey by 12/01 to reach 16 k ... New York to reach 34k are we not at 15 k now in New Jersey and NewYork has close to the 34k death total...not disputing but where is this 120k death total going to be coming from by 12/01/2020
says the clown that said masks don't work and that deaths were way down and would stay there. We just had the deadliest day since May yesterday Once again you are wrong.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-reports-highest-single-day-covid-death-toll-mid-may-2020-8
In fairness, however, the US and the UK are not quite like Taiwan and South Korea culturally. Not familiar with New Zealand --isn't that where @SkilletHead2 is located? Perhaps he could add a bit to the mindset/culture of New Zealand. As far as the rest of Europe, Greece and many of the Eastern block countries have done well (Iceland too!), while the countries more toward the west (and the US) have done much worse, with Belgium, the UK, Spain and Italy lading the way. Sweden is up there too, and I don't know why some hold up Sweden as some paragon of covid virtue.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/
UK removes everyone from their death count who died more than 28 days after testing positive (over 5,000 deaths removed) including deaths where the death certificate says Covid. Herman Cain wouldn't have been counted as a Covid death in the UK, neither would one of the doctors who someone who posted about yesterday who was in the ICU with covid for 5 weeks. The coverup is on. PS UK has 51,000 excess deaths this year, 49,000 deaths say covid of the death certificate yet they claim to only have 36,000.
With respect to the scientific discussion on what all this recent T-cell cross-reactivity means with regard to whether that confers a little, some or a lot of immunity (or more precisely, possibly reduces severity of an infection, since T-cells are very unlikely to prevent infection completely, like a vaccine can), I found this Twitter thread by Dr. Crotty (one of the authors of the La Jolla group's paper in Science) particularly interesting. Thought @wisr01 and @UMRU might be interested (UM - where have you been - need some immunology input - thoughts on all of this?).
He essentially said many people (he called out James Todaro, specifically, as he's been very aggressively promoting the idea that herd immunity has been reached - he's also part of the HCQ Army) are misinterpreting the results from the study and making dangerous claims about herd immunity. I think he took it kind of personally and said, "Since many of those claims refer to our scientific papers, we will reiterate the facts." He didn't dismiss the idea of this impacting pandemic evolution, but really wanted to caution people not to jump to inappropriate conclusions.
"We SPECULATE that it is conceivable that these T cells may potentially reduce COVID-19 disease severity, based on things we know about flu and T cells. These are only speculations (no data) and because of their potential importance it is key for scientists to test these ideas, as quickly as possible. While scientists are racing as fast as possible, sophisticated research like this usually takes a lot of time and resources."
wrong
"From now on the official government death toll will only include people who died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, a change that brings England into line with other parts of the UK."
...
"The government’s analysis of the data found 96% of deaths occurred within 60 days or had Covid-19 on the death certificate, while 88% of deaths occurred within 28 days of a positive test."
....
"The new PHE figures, which cover the period to 12 August, report the death toll as 36,695 for England, while the ONS reported 49,183 that occurred by 31 July 2020 but were registered by 8 August.
However, due to differences in how deaths are counted, experts have cautioned against relying solely on Covid-19 death statistics. Excess deaths, which compares the number of deaths in a given week with the five-year average, are widely understood to be the “gold standard” in measuring the impact of coronavirus.
The UK has one of the highest excess death tolls in Europe. The total number of excess deaths exceeded 65,000 across the UK between the first coronavirus deaths being recorded in mid-March and late June."
On Worldmeters it says, "England has removed 5,377 deaths from its time series." on the 8/12 notes, so it went from about 46.6K to 41.3K - that's one way to reduce the death toll. I don't quite see why someone being on a ventilator for 30 days and then dying wouldn't still be counted as a COVID death. Maybe I'm missing something. I also wouldn't have thought there would be 5377 of those deaths, unless that number includes others removed.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Completely agree. Individualism vs. collectivism, where collectivism works way better when trying to deal with a pandemic. Leadership is also really important and I think if we had had aligned leadership, executing against the pandemic plan we had on the books, we could've done far better despite having a more individualistic culture. This country has aligned pretty well in the past, at times when the case was crystal clear (WWII, 911), but not on some other things (Vietnam, Iraq).
Speaking of leadership, this video from GMA, which featured input from 5 former CDC Directors is a pretty good watch. All 5 of them noted lack of leadership, including poor communications, as the biggest failing in the US during the pandemic. Not surprising. Yes, this is a bit political, but not completely and hearing what 5 former CDC leaders have to say is important, IMO. And four of the five penned the WaPo editorial back in July, excoriating the Administration for repeatedly ignoring science and undermining the CDC (2nd link).
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/cdc-directors-us-wrong-covid-19-response-72219740
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/14/cdc-directors-trump-politics/
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They're assuming seasonality will be a major factor with 45K deaths in November. They talk about states expected to do badly in the update in the link. It's also sad to see them say that lack of data from CDC is hampering their research efforts: "Lack of data sharing by the US government hampers our research: Our understanding of the drivers of the pandemic beyond mask use, mobility, testing, and seasonality is hampered by the lack of access to data. US CDC has many relevant datasets on the pandemic that they have refused to share with the research community."
http://www.healthdata.org/covid/updates
Hi Guys,
Here in NZ we've just had a small outbreak of cases after 102 days being COVID-free.
When we had a real outbreak a couple of months ago, the Prime Minister just came out and said, "We are going hard and we are going early. We are a team of five million and we are going to beat this. Here is the plan....." We went to what we call Level 4 Alert which meant total lockdown except for getting food and essentials. Social distancing when we did. We didn't use masks as at that time it was thought they weren't helpful. But it was, "Stay in your home." And the vast majority of people did that. And after about six weeks or so, we had no more community transmission. So then we went back to Level 1, which is life as normal except for people coming into the country. They have to quarantine at a hotel for two weeks and then test negative.
So we would get a few cases every day in the new arrivals, but nothing else. That ended about a week ago when four new cases appeared in Auckland basically out of nowhere. We immediately went to Level three in Auckland (basically lockdown) and Level 2 everywhere else (social distancing, now wearing masks, but businesses can operate). We just heard we will be there for 12 more days and then see where we are.
We have two huge advantages down here. First, we have a 250 mile moat around the country. Pretty hard to sneak in here. Second, we have a leader who damn near everybody loves and who is working her rear end off to keep us safe. Also have a great national health director. We are operating on the best available science, and almost everybody is sticking to the rules (wouldn't be "good form" to do otherwise).
We haven't figured out how this new outbreak occurred, but we know it comes from the UK or Australia (ratbag Aussies!). I think someone from one of the planes bringing Kiwis back home had contact with this group somehow, but who knows.
We are temporarily back to online teaching for the most part, but I hope that in two weeks we'll go back to Level 1. But that will be determined by what happens with infections. If it looks at all worse, my guess is that the PM will put us back on Level 4 across the nation. And we'll do it. Because it is so great to be back to Level 1.
Our economy is hurting because it is so dependent on tourism, but Kiwis (God bless 'em) are pitching in by going to the resort areas more than they usually would to help out.
We have our problems in NZ, but it is really a hell of a nice country.
Are you saying people over 50 should not be counted? 50? 50-that is the prime of life for a lot of people.
Many in their 50s, especially these days, still have kids in k-12 (more likely closer to 12 than k)
Back when the paper came out, I posted that I thought the authors were overstating the meaning of their data. I still think that is true. Now Crotty and Sette are acting surprised that people not in the field (or at least people who don't have many years experience doing this type of work) are "misrepresenting" what they showed in the paper. As I said back then, the data will stand the test of time; the conclusions will change. Conclusions are written in a section called "Discussion" - the name of the section should be a strong hint that what is put in there is not definitive; it is fact combined with educated opinions. In fact, the discussion, sometimes, might be entirely rewritten after the review process.
Now to rant a bit - scientific journals (especially Cell and Nature, but also many others) are now for-profit businesses (this changed about 20 years ago when Ben Lewin sold Cell Press).
As a result, IMO, journals represent a major weak link in the scientific process. Scientists have to package their data in a way that will help generate sales for the journals. Flashy titles, controversial topics and overstated conclusions are one of the simplest ways to catch the attention of the general press and the public. Same old story - more clicks equals more cash. The consequence is that these journals sometimes publish some really lousy stuff. Or, in this case, excellent data, but the meaning of the data was overstated in the discussion.
A new crop of scientists has shown up since I have been in the business (30+ years now). It always was that we lived in fear that we would publish something that ultimately proved to be wrong; now there are too many who fear not publishing far more than being wrong.
Just to be clear, Crotty and Sette are great scientists with high integrity; the overstating of their data IMO was largely a consequence of the journals being a business.
House Arrest, all for the "greater good" of the State.
While you're bolted in, read the book 1984
The new cutoff for people who don’t matter is 50 now?
Sure sounds great on here but in reality , unless the government supplies all ( LoL ) ... going to be tough testing kids ( no school ) testing centers? Like MVC in NJ ( a total farce) at work? Dream on my friend... What you advocate is totally not possible even in 5 years unless we become China ... are you good with being under that type of government? Asking for a friend.
Oh, it's definitely a pipedream based on where we are now. But the gov't should have gotten involved in the production of testing kits and funding testing expansion. Even if it wasn't once a week for everyone, the point is, much more frequent testing with fast turnaround times for results is such a critical component to being able to cope with the virus until a vaccine or cure can be produced.
Keep hearing “ government” should have all the time . Yet the past 5-6 administrations are all guilty and negligent in this regard. I maintain that unless one is a proponent of an authoritarian regime we better be well aware of what is transpiring . The quote “grass always looks greener “ ( and not the medicinal grass) is over used but in this instance it is worthy of a look. Do we believe all will be treated equally or will we see the same things as we do in many of those “ admired “ totalitarian regimes. Realize those who are in power will never provide what many think is can in their ideal society. But we will see...
He says “a degree of herd immunity” which is very different than achieving true herd immunity.
Reading is fundamental.
There is definitely a huge role for government in public health, especially during a crisis situation - and there are huge expanses of space between a libertarian government and an authoritarian government. Using that kind of hyperbole doesn't acknowledge the myriad of solutions that exist in between. Our elected officials, while they can argue to the end of time about how healthcare, military spending, etc., should be dispensed, there shouldn't be any argument that public health crises are within their purview. That said, the past 5-6 administrations wouldn't been able to develop a testing strategy for a virus that they weren't even aware would exist in 2019.
So , if that be true , why is this administration at fault as has been played up in the MSM. If the previous administration wasn’t prepared and the world as well. How does it fall totally on this current one? Also , who or whom after the November election , if vaccines prove worthy and testing / therapeutics pans out who takes credit for any the success ? Does a new administration say, “ we did this” or does the credit go to the outgoing administration ? In this world maybe more than ever a handle on military spending and strength is tantamount . We would be mistaken to think otherwise and I’m neither a hawk nor dove on that issue. Healthcare has been an issue for many years and the belief that universal healthcare solves all is also very untrue. A combination of both private and government controlled insurance could have been resolved over the past 3 administrations. But what always gets in the way of an answer to this? Politics...Some people like those yearly political donations coming in. And since the vast majority of those deciding other’s ability to get affordable healthcare ( congress /senate have theirs ) there is really no need to solve the issue. Keep it an issue and it’s good for them all... Dick , Jane and the kids will need to just suck it up.
Yes I do thank you. I just turned 51 two weeks ago :)
Kurt Siegelin from News 12 is doing fantastic investigative work on Twitter, for anyone who wants to go beyond the numbers in NJ. He thinks yesterday's large case number might've been related to an assignment of cases of unknown county, which are related to NJ residents tested in other states, whose results get forwarded to our health department from another state's health department in a batch. Would be a bit of "positive test hot potato" between health departments if true.
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