Tracking the COVID-19-Virus in Germany, the USA, Italy and other hot spots in the world

How is interest in the actual Corona virus death count a distraction ???

 

Nobody disagrees with that. It's truly a moot point, though. They'd have to be over-reporting by 50% or so to make this seem like a nothing-burger.

We are at almost 62,000 deaths in 60 days. We're still reporting over 2,000 / day. That's a potential 60,000 more deaths in the next month. Even more if we open everything up too soon.

 

Colorado Data as of 4-28
https://covid19.colorado.gov/data/case-data
The Navajo Reservation has now 1977 cases.
https://navajotimes.com/reznews/senior-shopping-hours-are-back-as-cases-near-2000/

 

At least for those of us who are comfortable enough to be amused.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...rkers-risk-having-their-livelihoods-destroyed

UN Labor Agency Warns 1.6 Billion Workers at Risk of Having Their 'Livelihoods Destroyed' by Pandemic

"As the pandemic and the jobs crisis evolve, the need to protect the most vulnerable becomes even more urgent," says International Labor Organization Director-General Guy Ryder.

The United Nations labor agency warned Wednesday that "1.6 billion workers in the informal economy—that is nearly half of the global workforce—stand in immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed" by the worldwide economic crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic.

Meantime the IMF - yes, that mob of 'austerity' enforcers - has extended a $4 billion loan to Nigeria, to stabilize the economy wrecked by low oil prices and loss of jobs. The usual condition apply: cut government spending, raise taxes, privatise anything that moves etc etc.

 

Sorry if the link didn't work. I can't figure out how to link a pdf I guess.

The key part of the guidance on which cause should be listed is this:

"The immediate cause of death, which is the disease or condition that directly preceded death and is not necessarily the underlying cause of death (UCOD), should be reported on line a. The conditions that led to the immediate cause of death should be reported in a logical sequence in terms of time and etiology below it.
The UCOD, which is “(a) the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death or (b) the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury” (7), should be reported on the lowest line used in Part I.

 

It's going to be tough, here. Most of the hourly jobs in Orlando are tied to the parks. Restaurants, hotels, gift shops, outlet malls, etc. Most of their business comes from the parks being open. The parks could be the worst spot on the planet to be while this is running wild. Kids are nothing but snot factories who touch everything they see.

 

Yes, this is a multivariate situation. The government must act to protect the citizens from both harm from the virus and harm from the loss of income. Holman Jenkins states it well:

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-media-vs-flatten-the-curve-11588113213

 

The link was only half active - if that makes any sense. Not sure why. I had saved the link from posting it previously.

 

It's a bad time to have an economy with heavy revenues/jobs in travel/tourism and in senior citizen revenue from travelling snowbirds at the same time. I sure don't envy the job DeSantis has in front of him.

 

No, the distraction is "Influenza deaths/infections are being under-reported"

 

Completely agree that now the numbers should be pretty accurate. With the new reopening guidelines they better be real accurate because people's lives and livelihood are counting on it and that's my only point. I don't care if flu deaths are down 5,000 and covid deaths are up 5,000 it really didn't matter until now. If the guidelines are based on scientific models of how to reopen fairly safely then our reporting can't nor shouldn't skew it either way. Crazy times having to juggle deaths due to economic closures vs deaths due to a virus but it's where we're at in the land of the free.

 

Yup, that is what we are discussing.

In essence the State of FL is trying to hide deaths by the virus from public knowledge for utterly bogus reasons.

In addition that they are EXCLUDING all deaths of non-residents for equally spurious reasons. On top of that they are misreporting the cause of death if there was any comorbidity condition.

The goal is to give the false impression that it is "safe" to visit FL because tourism is big business for them.

To put this into perspective the population of FL is 22.5 million but in 2018 there were 126 million out of state visitors. If each of them spends $1000 that works out to $126 billion per year. That is a massive INCENTIVE to under count the covid deaths and we have evidence that is what is happening.

This is unacceptable on multiple levels beginning with our right to know and Public Safety concerns.

 

That's what my county lives on, tourism, Mesa Verde Country, Mesa Verde has over 300,000 visitors a year and naturally the great outdoors and the snowbirds.
Going to be a very rough ride

 

Interest in the truth distracts from a narrative ??

 

I think a lot of snowbirds from the north will be staying in Florida.

 

My oldest brother and his wife are in Florida since beginning of March. First they were so happy that they had escaped the so restrictive Germany and were free to do what they want. Now they are hunkered down in their house, shiiiiting their pants and can't get back to the safer Germany.
Florida is not fooling anybody with a little brain, they can screw with the numbers as much as they want.

 

And now for some very depressing news. The notion of a Covid-19 vaccine in 18 months is really, really, really difficult. You can read the twitter thread from the author here: https://twitter.com/stuartathompson/status/1255802418811420676

This is how long the most recent vaccines took:



This is how that process usually breaks down over the course of a ~15 year period:



This is what that process would need to resemble in order to make vaccines in 18 months:



The "building factories" phase ordinarily takes 4-5 years, by itself.

How Long Will a Vaccine Really Take?

 

I believe this one is going to surprise you. Fauci said a month ago the goal is to have it developed and if it proves safe without the years of human testing that it could be used next winter in an emergency situation to avoid the mass spread like we're coming out of now. No doubt a lot of red tape has been removed to get it done, we'll see.

 

Home environment is never talked about, and you know most people aren't social distancing at home. I've tried to explain to my boss that he and his daughter are at higher-risk, no matter if he stays 6 ft. from people in the grocery store, because his girlfriend works in a bank lobby, dealing with 100 strangers a day. She's likely to become either asymptomatic or symptomatic. The more people living together under one roof is probably the largest danger for spread, particularly if one person is a front-line "essential" worker dealing with the general public. They talk about nursing homes, but not private homes.

"Shut down" is just a delay in the end number of total cases and deaths which buys some time to beef up health resources where they may be lacking.

The only way a real shut down could happen is if they just put everyone in a coma with an intravenous feed line for a few weeks and everyone wakes up and goes on economically as if it were the next day. That's not going to happen for very obvious reasons.

So, yes, I expect that Sweden will end up with the same case and death rates which will fit in somewhere close to the global average, but they will suffer far less economic harm than other countries because they didn't shut down peoples' jobs to only those millions of people who have "essential" functions. We're realizing that having most of us work is pretty essential when it comes to economic health and well-being.

 

Which is why we cannot shutdown until a vaccine is found, it may never happen. We don't have a vaccine for HIV or SARS.

 

Exactly, someone please explain to me why we shouldn't be doing what Sweden is doing?

 

Sweden will not experience the damage done to human life by the economic shutdown however.

On a side note: This will drive you crazy. We have friends who live in LaQuinta which is in the Palm Springs area which is in Riverside County which has 2.4M people, 3942 cases, and 143 deaths. Both couples live in 55+ gated communities - one couple lives in Trilogy La Quinta. We live in Trilogy Rio Vista in Solano County which has 450K people, 254 cases, and 5 deaths. If you ratio the two counties based on population Solano County is ~ 6X better than Riverside County based on deaths. Riverside County has opened their golf courses, tennis courts, pickle ball courts, and bocce courts. Solano County remains locked down until 5/18.

 

And SARS went away. There was news last night about the possibility of a vaccine this fall and of course medications (remdesivir) and blood plasma treatments.

 

I will keep them in my thoughts for a safe return to their homeland.

 

I disagree that we have to have specific numbers, because we're never going to have specific numbers. We only have a broad range to work with. They still only count flu deaths within an error range of tens of thousands of cases. I do agree that they have to continue to test, count, and monitor as best as they can so we have some dart throw idea of what's happening.

At the end of the day, all we need to know is that the virus is highly contagious and far more deadly than the flu. It is however, still not terribly deadly except for people over 80 (over 60 with other conditions) who are unlikely to be on forced job furloughs right now, which is something people are losing sight of. We need to make sure we protect the elderly and medically vulnerable. That is really more important than any quantitative accuracy. We know flu deaths and coronavirus deaths are very harsh on the elderly even if they get the numbers all mixed up.

This thread has a somewhat alarmist bent. Sometimes it's good to step back and look at the big picture. This article does that by reminding us of survival statistics, not just of sickness and death statistics.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...in-stop-the-panic-and-end-the-total-isolation

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.
Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.
Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections. Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored and people are dying to accommodate “potential” COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease.
Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.