***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

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.”

[Donger]

Originally Posted by MahomesMagic

It was removed out of embarrassment. Unfortunately not every death gets featured in the news. NY Times had a 100,000 dead special. They needed someone young and ended up putting a picture of a guy shot in the head as one of the 100,000.

So, we are up to two. Two out of 250,000.

[DanT]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

As a random story, I helped to move an elderly relative into an assisted living center a few years ago. He was hospitalized so we had to move him without his involvement. We were at the assisted living center getting his furnishings set up and one of the nurse/orderly people came in and started talking to my wife.

She said, "He looks really good", which confused me because the relative hadn't been to the place yet. He was still in the hospital. But I thought maybe there was a photo involved or something. The woman chatted with my wife more and once again said, "He looks good". And my wife said, "That's not him. That's my husband."

WTF? I'm in my 50s and in pretty good shape. I was wearing a half-marathon shirt that I'd just run. And she thought I was moving in?

But the key lesson here is that maybe I can just show up at an assisted living facility and get a shot when the elderly residents start getting them.

[TLO]

I remember when the NY Times did a big story on the first 1000 that died... Goodness.

[stumppy]

JFC!

[TLO]

Is it December 10th yet?

[BigRedChief]

(CNN) The motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, in August has been linked to a Covid-19 outbreak in Minnesota, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, highlighting how one state's lax rules during the pandemic affect others with stricter measures in place.

The 10-day event is a long-standing tradition that usually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the country. Despite opposition from local residents this year, the rally took place, complete with crowded bars and nearby concerts.

This year, about 460,000 people attended, according to the report, published Friday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In neighboring Minnesota, the state's health department investigated a Covid-19 outbreak tied to the rally and found at least 51 residents had attended the rally and became sick, and an additional 35 people were infected after coming into contact with a person who went to the rally, the report said. Those 35 people were household, social and workplace contacts, it said.

Of those 86 cases, four people were hospitalized, and one died.

In early September, CNN reported Minnesota's health department identified a Covid-19 death stemming from the rally. A spokesman for the department previously said the person was in their 60s, had been hospitalized in the ICU and had underlying health conditions.

About one third of all Minnesota's counties had at least one case associated with the rally, the report says.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

(CNN) The motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, in August has been linked to a Covid-19 outbreak in Minnesota, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, highlighting how one state's lax rules during the pandemic affect others with stricter measures in place.

The 10-day event is a long-standing tradition that usually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the country. Despite opposition from local residents this year, the rally took place, complete with crowded bars and nearby concerts.

This year, about 460,000 people attended, according to the report, published Friday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In neighboring Minnesota, the state's health department investigated a Covid-19 outbreak tied to the rally and found at least 51 residents had attended the rally and became sick, and an additional 35 people were infected after coming into contact with a person who went to the rally, the report said. Those 35 people were household, social and workplace contacts, it said.

Of those 86 cases, four people were hospitalized, and one died.

In early September, CNN reported Minnesota's health department identified a Covid-19 death stemming from the rally. A spokesman for the department previously said the person was in their 60s, had been hospitalized in the ICU and had underlying health conditions.

About one third of all Minnesota's counties had at least one case associated with the rally, the report says.

That's big news. .012% of the people from Sturgis went back to Min with Covid.

51 people out of 460,000.

It's not good they spread it as they probably had no idea they had it but nonetheless what rules were or were not followed back in Minnesota at the workplace, etc?

[petegz28]

KDHE, media collaborate on more mask mandate deception

Once again, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and media are collaborating to deceive Kansans about the effectiveness of mask mandates. To be clear, this isn’t about whether masks are beneficial; it is strictly about whether government mandates work. After two previous efforts were debunked, KDHE and their media friends tried it a third time today, with a Kansas City Star headline falsely proclaiming “CDC report: COVID-19 cases dropped in Kansas counties with mask orders, rose in others.”



KDHE data shows there were 411 cases per 100,000 of population on July 3 in the 24 counties that CDC researchers say adopted the governor’s order. By August 24 those counties experienced a 207% increase to 1,262 cases per 100,000. (The CDC report ends on August 23 but KDHE hasn’t published data for that day.) The other 81 counties went from 825 cases per 100,000 to 1,271 cases, for an increase of just 54%.

So how do KDHE and media justify their false claim that “cases dropped” in the counties that followed the governor’s order?

Dr. Russ McCullough, founder and director of the Gwartney Institute at Ottawa University, explains the deception.

“Cases per 100,000 is not what is being measured in this study that shows a downward trend. They are showing the rate of change of 7-day average cases, which does not fully reflect the story in Kansas. The evidence provided by this graph does not conclusively show that the mask mandate worked, there are many other factors needing to be considered.”

Only people intent on deceiving readers would claim cases dropped in counties with mandates when cases increased 207%.

Here’s a chart from the CDC report, which makes it appear that cases went down in the mandate counties but increased elsewhere.



KDHE doesn’t publish daily case statistics so we can’t replicate their 7-day rolling average numbers, but we can get close by tracking the change from one week to the next.

The table on the left below shows the total cases per 100,000 of population for both county cohorts. The middle section shows the weekly change in cases; for example, the mandate counties went from 411 cases on July 3 to 526 on July 10, for an increase of 114 cases. An increase of 114 cases for the week ending July 10 represents a 28% increase over the 411 case total in the previous week as shown in the table on the right.



The percentages in the right-hand table are charted below, starting with the 28% increase for the mandate counties, followed by a 27% increase (over the previous week’s total), then 19%, 13%, and so on. KDHE and media only show this type of chart because it gives the appearance that cases declined in the counties with mandates.



Now look what happens when you chart the cumulative number of cases per 100,000 of population. It’s a completely different picture, which makes it crystal clear that the mandate counties had much faster growth.



On July 3, the counties without mandates had more than twice as many cases per 100,000 of population than the counties with mask mandates, but because they only grew by 54% while the mandate counties’ cases jumped 207%, both groups had almost the same number of cases on August 21.

Factors not considered in CDC report

CDC seems to have only considered one variable – whether counties had a mask mandate. But even though cases were adjusted for population differences (roughly 1.96 million in the mandate counties and about 953,000 in the other group), there were other factors at play.

The virus didn’t spread uniformly across counties, but initially hit the more densely populated urban areas and gradually spread to rural counties. On July 3, there were nine counties with no cases among those that didn’t adopt the mandate and six more counties had just one case; but every county that adopted the mandate had at least two cases.

Mask usage is another variable. Just because a county didn’t impose a mandate doesn’t mean that no one in the county wore a mask; by the same token, having a mandate doesn’t mean that everyone wore a mask.

As my colleague Michael Austin notes, “Many national polls revealed Americans like masks, and two independent surveys say over 90% of Kansans, in both mandated and non-mandated counties, wear masks at some frequency.”

Without adjusting for these and other variables, one cannot reasonably conclude that mandates work.

Third time that mandate claims are debunked

This isn’t the first time that media and government officials collaborated to mislead Kansans about the efficacy of mandates. (Remember, this isn’t about whether masks are beneficial; it’s about badgering you to do whatever the hell the governor and other officials order you to do.)

The Wall Street Journal and the Sentinel caught KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman fudging data in August to justify Governor Kelly’s mask mandate.

Then, one day after Governor Kelly announced she wanted another statewide mandate, friendly researchers at the University of Kansas just happened to release a report claiming that mandates work. But the Sentinel also shot that one down; we caught them doing something similar to the CDC report, hiding the much larger cumulative case growth in counties with mandates.

We wrote to management at the Kansas City Star, the Wichita Eagle, Lawrence Journal-World, and the Kansas Reflector to let them know they’d been duped by Norman, Kelly, and the KU researchers. We shared the real data with them and offered to help them inform their readers what really happened but to date, each is allowing the deception to stand.

COVID is a serious situation but that’s no excuse to abandon the truth. The job of media and elected officials is to provide all the information and allow citizens to make their own informed decisions. Media and some elected officials may prefer a socialist society so they can order people what to think, but thank goodness freedom of speech and thought still exist in our constitutional republic.

https://sentinelksmo.org/kdhe-media-...WWJ8w1Lj0VwPxQ

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Donger

So you think that hospitals and doctors are falsely listing Medicare patients as COVID-19 cases in order to get more money from the government. Is that correct?

Loon. You don't get to ask questions and never answer anything.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

Loon. You don't get to ask questions and never answer anything.

Ask me a question. I'll answer it.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Donger

Ask me a question. I'll answer it.

You've never answered one your entire time here

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

You've never answered one your entire time here

His reply will be something similar to "What makes you think that I have never answered a question?"

[petegz28]

FDA grants EUA for Regeneron...

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...tment-given-to

[BigRedChief]

It took just 6 days to go from 11 million to 12 million positive cases in the USA.

[petegz28]

Apparently now loud music and alcohol spread Covid

CDC telling me I can’t get drunk for the holidays is the last straw pic.twitter.com/GBBMK5gOik

— Jon �� (@JonnyMicro) November 21, 2020