Originally Posted by Bwana:
Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.
Originally Posted by Dartgod:
People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.
We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.
Thanks!
Click here for the original OP:
Spoiler!
Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.
California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.
“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”
The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.
The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”
Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.
The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.
The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.
A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.
Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.
“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”
It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.
“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”
On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.
“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”
According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.
More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.
“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”
CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.
Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.
“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”
As of early May 2020, approximately 65 000 people in the US had died of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),1 the disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This number appears to be similar to the estimated number of seasonal influenza deaths reported annually by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The root of such incorrect comparisons may be a knowledge gap regarding how seasonal influenza and COVID-19 data are publicly reported. The CDC, like many similar disease control agencies around the world, presents seasonal influenza morbidity and mortality not as raw counts but as calculated estimates based on submitted International Classification of Diseases codes.2 Between 2013-2014 and 2018-2019, the reported yearly estimated influenza deaths ranged from 23 000 to 61 000.3 Over that same time period, however, the number of counted influenza deaths was between 3448 and 15 620 yearly.4 On average, the CDC estimates of deaths attributed to influenza were nearly 6 times greater than its reported counted numbers. Conversely, COVID-19 fatalities are at present being counted and reported directly, not estimated. As a result, the more valid comparison would be to compare weekly counts of COVID-19 deaths to weekly counts of seasonal influenza deaths.
During the week ending April 21, 2020, 15 455 COVID-19 counted deaths were reported in the US.5 The reported number of counted deaths from the previous week, ending April 14, was 14 478. By contrast, according to the CDC, counted deaths during the peak week of the influenza seasons from 2013-2014 to 2019-2020 ranged from 351 (2015-2016, week 11 of 2016) to 1626 (2017-2018, week 3 of 2018).6 The mean number of counted deaths during the peak week of influenza seasons from 2013-2020 was 752.4 (95% CI, 558.8-946.1).7 These statistics on counted deaths suggest that the number of COVID-19 deaths for the week ending April 21 was 9.5-fold to 44.1-fold greater than the peak week of counted influenza deaths during the past 7 influenza seasons in the US, with a 20.5-fold mean increase (95% CI, 16.3-27.7).5,6
The ratios we present are more clinically consistent with frontline conditions than ratios that compare COVID-19 fatality counts and estimated seasonal influenza deaths. Based on the figure of approximately 60 000 COVID-19 deaths in the US as of the end of April 2020, this ratio suggests only a 1.0-fold to 2.6-fold change from the CDC-estimated seasonal influenza deaths calculated during the previous 7 full seasons.3 From our analysis, we infer that either the CDC’s annual estimates substantially overstate the actual number of deaths caused by influenza or that the current number of COVID-19 counted deaths substantially understates the actual number of deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2, or both.
Just offering a counter argument that seemed to be ironically timed with your post...
Originally Posted by :
CORONAVIRUSPublished 8 hours ago
As US coronavirus death toll mounts, so does the belief by some that it is exaggerated
There’s a reason why some people believe government officials are exaggerating the number of COVID-19 fatalities.
One problem is the hodgepodge way states tally those numbers, Fox News has found.
Some states count presumed coronavirus deaths along with confirmed cases under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance issued last month. Other states don’t count those deaths.
Deaths have been classified as a COVID-19 death even after a physician or loved ones reported otherwise. And those who died “with" COVID-19 have been included in the count with those who died “of" COVID-19.
“I think a lot of clinicians are putting that condition (COVID-19) on death certificates when it might not be accurate because they died with coronavirus and not of coronavirus,” Macomb County, Mich., Chief Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz in an interview with the Ann Arbor News last month.
“Are they entirely accurate? No,” Spitz said. “Are people dying of it? Absolutely. Are people dying of other things and coronavirus is maybe getting credit? Yeah, probably.”
The doctor also said he believes there are people who died of COVID-19, but weren't counted. Determining a COVID-19 death is based on each doctor's best clinical impression and that varies, he said.
“There’s no uniformity,” he said.
The debate over whether the COVID-19 death count has been exaggerated has intensified as deaths from the virus continue to rise at a steady and alarming rate.
As of Friday, there were 85,974 deaths due to COVID-19 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting 83,947 COVID-19 deaths on Friday.
On Wednesday, a report said President Trump and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force are pushing the CDC to revise the way it counts coronavirus deaths. That change could lead to far fewer deaths being counted.
Trump has privately questioned the number of COVID-19 deaths as the death toll surpassed the 80,000 mark this week, suggesting it may be incorrect or inflated by the current methodology, the Daily Beast reported.
Three administration officials said Deborah Birx, the task force response coordinator, has urged the CDC to exclude from the death count some who were presumed infected, but did not have a confirmed lab result and those who had the virus but might not have died as a direct result of it, according to the news outlet.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that at a recent discussion on COVID-19 data, Birx told CDC Director Robert Redfield that “there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust.”
According to the paper, Birx and others feared the CDC was inflating coronavirus statistics, like mortality rates and case numbers, by up to 25 percent.
But not everyone shares the view that COVID-19 deaths are being overcounted.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said during testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday that he believes the coronavirus death toll is “almost certainly higher.”
He pointed to the situation in New York City at the peak of the outbreak. New York now has more than 27,000 COVID-19 deaths.....
There is a lot more in the linked article but I am not posting it all. Very long read. [Reply]
We are still figuring out what all the symptoms are to this thing. It's extremely hard to believe the cases are undercounted (which they are) and that yet somehow the deaths are being overcounted.
It's almost guaranteed they're going to go back and find people with some of the stroke, blood clot and digestive type symptoms who had COVID but they didn't realize it at the time. It's common sense. You are going to miss things when you don't know what you're looking for yet. [Reply]
Feels like the gym thing must have some data behind it if so many are including it. If we’re trusting our data driven decision making leaders and all. [Reply]
Originally Posted by tk13:
We are still figuring out what all the symptoms are to this thing. It's extremely hard to believe the cases are undercounted (which they are) and that yet somehow the deaths are being overcounted.
It's almost guaranteed they're going to go back and find people with some of the stroke, blood clot and digestive type symptoms who had COVID but they didn't realize it at the time. It's common sense. You are going to miss things when you don't know what you're looking for yet.
You just sort of made the point though. Just because you had Covid doesn't mean you died from it. Like the guy in CO who clearly died from alcohol poisoning but the Coroner was overruled by the State and it was listed as a Covid death.
And the converse of your argument is if you see Covid you automatically say it is Covid caused even though it may not have been. [Reply]
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
I thought the results from the Science study I linked llate last night showed some really positive things, namely that the lockdowns were able to reduce R0 well below 1. That proves that even in the absence of therapy we can use the hammer and the dance to stop the spread of the disease and that initiating shelter in place orders was not a waste of time. They saved thousands and thousands of lives.
Originally Posted by petegz28:
Just offering a counter argument that seemed to be ironically timed with your post...
There is a lot more in the linked article but I am not posting it all. Very long read.
Even if you attribute all of the presumed COVID cases to the increase in baseline mortality it still leaves a substantial uptick unaccounted for--in late April it was over 1700 in NYC and 3000 in New Jersey. Some is due to patients not seeking treatment for other ailments, but a lot is also unreported COVID deaths. [Reply]
Originally Posted by petegz28:
Part of the deal with the ones here is locker rooms are for going tinkle only. No sitting on benches soaked with butt sweat.
How do you work out on a machine that someone just drenched in a gallon of CovAIDS? [Reply]
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
Even if you attribute all of the presumed COVID cases to the increase in baseline mortality it still leaves a substantial uptick unaccounted for--in late April it was over 1700 in NYC and 3000 in New Jersey. Some is due to patients not seeking treatment for other ailment, but a lot is also unreported COVID deaths.
To me that's an argument that tries to have it both ways. "We may by overstating the reason some people died but we are pretty sure we aren't counting others so ...."
Sorry man, I am not saying who is right or wrong but that's a heads I win, tales you lose argument. [Reply]
Originally Posted by notorious:
How do you work out on a machine that someone just drenched in a gallon of CovAIDS?
Well if you follow the rules you are to wipe shit down after you're done. And if you're like me you wipe shit down before and after because some lazy fuck probably didn't follow the rules. [Reply]
Just for a little local flavor here in KCMO.....heard on local talk radio that reported COVID deaths remain at 16 (KC on the Missouri side) while homicides since the lockdown began are now at 20. That's....crazy. [Reply]