Official Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Fairview4Life]

I feel like this pandemic will be with us for a while and isn't going away. Here in BC we got a potential new outbreak because a strip club skirted some rules. First of all why are people going to a strip club during a virus pandemic? FFS man. All the sacrifices we've made so far is washed away because people are still breaking the law and don't give a ****. I'm pissed I have to share the earth with these idiots.

lol brothels should be outta business by now. I'm more concerned about international flights still coming in to the country, which has been the case since the initial "lockdown". If people are still travelling during these times and the governments are allowing it, then its just multi layered idiocy. It shouldve been a total border shutdown from day 1.

It will be interesting to see how soon they open up the US Canada border.

Westjet is starting up flights to LA, Vegas, NY, Atlanta and Orlando on Saturday I think

[NinjaBro]

I feel like this pandemic will be with us for a while and isn't going away. Here in BC we got a potential new outbreak because a strip club skirted some rules. First of all why are people going to a strip club during a virus pandemic? FFS man. All the sacrifices we've made so far is washed away because people are still breaking the law and don't give a ****. I'm pissed I have to share the earth with these idiots.

lol brothels should be outta business by now. I'm more concerned about international flights still coming in to the country, which has been the case since the initial "lockdown". If people are still travelling during these times and the governments are allowing it, then its just multi layered idiocy. It shouldve been a total border shutdown from day 1.

It will be interesting to see how soon they open up the US Canada border.

Westjet is starting up flights to LA, Vegas, NY, Atlanta and Orlando on Saturday I think

American's have been making their way up to Banff Alberta without adhering to quarantine rules. 7 Americans slapped with a $1200 fine last week.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/rcmp-issued-7-tickets-to-americans-found-in-banff-alta-over-the-past-week-1.4993704

[Johnny Bball]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Kevin Willis]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Also Brazil, India and Russia. For Brazil, and possibly Russia, it's leadership. Leadership is the US and Brazil problem completely but unsure about Russia. For India it's a few factors. Lack of medical ability / beds compared to population. Population not listening to orders. Restarting too early. Spread starting in the urban at first and then the rural.

[Johnny Bball]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Also Brazil, India and Russia. For Brazil, and possibly Russia, it's leadership. Leadership is the US and Brazil problem completely but unsure about Russia. For India it's a few factors. Lack of medical ability / beds compared to population. Population not listening to orders. Restarting too early. Spread starting in the urban at first and then the rural.

That on it's own wouldn't describe Canada and Europe though and that divergence.

I was going elsewhere with this. Are they now purposely fudging the numbers in the opposite direction.

[JN]

There is probably a good reason why this tax policy not make sense... but waiting for one.

Why hasn't the Ontario Liquor Store and Beer Store (and other beer sales at convenience or grocery stores) charge a temporary 5-10% pandemic tax? After all many drinkers may be saving money since they are not consuming any alcohol at establishments. This money could then be used to help bars and liquor licensed restaurants, who are amongst the most hurt right now.

Although I suspect the "does not make sense" is due the same people who voted based on "a buck a beer".

[Fairview4Life]

There is probably a good reason why this tax policy not make sense... but waiting for one.

Why hasn't the Ontario Liquor Store and Beer Store (and other beer sales at convenience or grocery stores) charge a temporary 5-10% pandemic tax? After all many drinkers may be saving money since they are not consuming any alcohol at establishments. This money could then be used to help bars and liquor licensed restaurants, who are amongst the most hurt right now.

Although I suspect the "does not make sense" is due the same people who voted based on "a buck a beer".

Just keep printing money and hand it out to people. Taxing people isn't going to help anything at the moment.

[JN]

There is probably a good reason why this tax policy not make sense... but waiting for one.

Why hasn't the Ontario Liquor Store and Beer Store (and other beer sales at convenience or grocery stores) charge a temporary 5-10% pandemic tax? After all many drinkers may be saving money since they are not consuming any alcohol at establishments. This money could then be used to help bars and liquor licensed restaurants, who are amongst the most hurt right now.

Although I suspect the "does not make sense" is due the same people who voted based on "a buck a beer".

Just keep printing money and hand it out to people. Taxing people isn't going to help anything at the moment.

I would have to disagree - there are multiple ways to address this. The provinces can't "print" money like the feds, and the feds aren't going to support everything. This is a separate stand alone measure that a province can take to support a high covid risk bar and restaurant industry.

[Fairview4Life]

There is probably a good reason why this tax policy not make sense... but waiting for one.

Why hasn't the Ontario Liquor Store and Beer Store (and other beer sales at convenience or grocery stores) charge a temporary 5-10% pandemic tax? After all many drinkers may be saving money since they are not consuming any alcohol at establishments. This money could then be used to help bars and liquor licensed restaurants, who are amongst the most hurt right now.

Although I suspect the "does not make sense" is due the same people who voted based on "a buck a beer".

Just keep printing money and hand it out to people. Taxing people isn't going to help anything at the moment.

I would have to disagree - there are multiple ways to address this. The provinces can't "print" money like the feds, and the feds aren't going to support everything. This is a separate stand alone measure that a province can take to support a high covid risk bar and restaurant industry.

The feds can support everything! They are at least trying to anyway. CESB, CERB, CEWS, and like 20 other acronyms. Should probably have been simplified, but there are tons of programs out there for people and business to try and stay afloat. Indoor drinking and dining is going to be F'd for a long time, but there is federal money to be had to try and keep everything from collapsing.

[JN]

Just keep printing money and hand it out to people. Taxing people isn't going to help anything at the moment.

I would have to disagree - there are multiple ways to address this. The provinces can't "print" money like the feds, and the feds aren't going to support everything. This is a separate stand alone measure that a province can take to support a high covid risk bar and restaurant industry.

The feds can support everything! They are at least trying to anyway. CESB, CERB, CEWS, and like 20 other acronyms. Should probably have been simplified, but there are tons of programs out there for people and business to try and stay afloat. Indoor drinking and dining is going to be F'd for a long time, but there is federal money to be had to try and keep everything from collapsing.

I suppose. I just saw this as an easy way to quickly implement targeted taxing that would generally not hurt the most vulnerable (the quickness due to the LCBO and Beer Store being the centralized locations for sales and there systems are probably set up to implement tax change quickly). Not many other things do I see where there is a tax that makes sense, or more importantly is fair at this time, nor that it could be quickly implemented.

[hankscorpioLA]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Testing.

Early on, we were only testing those who met very restrictive criteria. Most people who showed symptoms were told to assume they had the virus, isolate, and only seek medical care if you feel you need emergency treatment. If you are only testing the worst of the worst cases, then more of those cases are going to end up dying. A second factor is improved treatment protocols, but this likely has had a much smaller impact.

[hankscorpioLA]

On the subject of case counts, all the evidence points to a fairly significant UNDERcount of COVID deaths in the US, and likely elsewhere, especially early in the pandemic.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2767980

[gei]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The line is not diverting from where it "should be" at all - the trend for both total deaths and hospitalizations in the USA are at their lowest point since this pandemic started, and are continuing to trend downwards. Meaning fewer and fewer people are dying, and fewer and fewer are being hospitalized.

The rise in cases can primarily be attributed to higher testing. The US is testing about 2x the volume of people today vs 2 months ago, so it's just rational they would find 2x as many cases. Don't forget that the vast (VAST) majority of people who get COVID will either have very few symptoms, or no symptoms at all. Previously the US wasn't bothering to test these people because it wasn't really necessary, but since they now have so much excess testing capacity, they are testing a higher volume of people for whom the virus poses no risk.

I realize if you watch the news it's all about "OMG CASES RISING IN XYZ STATE!!!", but the media has switched to "cases" as the new fear metric (instead of deaths) since the number of people actually getting sick or dying has been steadily decreasing. If you ignore the headlines and actually look at the numbers - like you did here - you'll see that the situation is actually getting better and not worse.

[VicG]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The line is not diverting from where it "should be" at all - the trend for both total deaths and hospitalizations in the USA are at their lowest point since this pandemic started, and are continuing to trend downwards. Meaning fewer and fewer people are dying, and fewer and fewer are being hospitalized.

The rise in cases can primarily be attributed to higher testing. The US is testing about 2x the volume of people today vs 2 months ago, so it's just rational they would find 2x as many cases. Don't forget that the vast (VAST) majority of people who get COVID will either have very few symptoms, or no symptoms at all. Previously the US wasn't bothering to test these people because it wasn't really necessary, but since they now have so much excess testing capacity, they are testing a higher volume of people for whom the virus poses no risk.

I realize if you watch the news it's all about "OMG CASES RISING IN XYZ STATE!!!", but the media has switched to "cases" as the new fear metric (instead of deaths) since the number of people actually getting sick or dying has been steadily decreasing. If you ignore the headlines and actually look at the numbers - like you did here - you'll see that the situation is actually getting better and not worse.

Well said!

[Dr Positivity]

Why not just have the bubble in Canada?

[Fairview4Life]

The media hasn't switched to anything. They have consistently reported on cases as a metric, along with deaths and hospitalizations. Pretending the media is just fear mongering to make things look worse is silly ass covering for your preferred political team. More cases is a leading indicator of problems that will appear in 14-21 days, usually. Case #'s are a warning sign.

Looking at Texas, for example, their deaths are rising again:
https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83

Here's "the media" reporting on their hospitalizations, which are also rising:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/coronavirus-hospitalizations-rates-rise/index.html
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/01/coronavirus-texas-houston-hospitals-cases-surge/
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/article243938747.html

Here's "the media" talking about Arizona hospital rationing:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2020/06/29/arizona-leaders-doctors-crisis-care-standards-coronavirus/3280852001/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/leaving-hospital-tears-arizona-doctors-worry-icus-fill/story?id=71519097

[Dr Positivity]

This is a semi-rhetorical question I guess...maybe not...

Near every country seemingly has the same type of graph for covid where the slope of the lines for cases and deaths is pretty much the same. there is one divergence. The USA. The total cases start rising while the total deaths mysteriously turned downward about June 1 or late May. By this I mean.... the slop is not anywhere consistent with other nations on the death graph. This isn't a matter of lag, it's past the point these should have made a difference in numbers.

So for those that think the deaths are overstated and is some plot... why is that line diverging from where it should be and most other nations with a decent sample size? Or even on a consistent slope and not trending downward so much?

USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Click other top ten countries to see the graphs

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

- Governors like Cuomo and Whitmer that lost their minds and send COVID patients to nursing homes originally. So a return to sanity helped lower the death rate.

- Young people protesting leading to the virus spreading but among less at risk group.

- Because the media is turned up to 1000/100, the testing has gone up as the deaths have gone down, while in other countries as the death numbers fell they may have stopped tracking it as much.

[Fairview4Life]

- Young people protesting leading to the virus spreading but largely in a non deadly way.

The increase in cases is far more correlated with which states decided to "reopen" on memorial day, and not where protests were. In particular, where protests did occur, there were on average less people in the streets because non protestors stayed home and curfews also kept them inside at night. The protests haven't been a big vector for spread.

[Dr Positivity]

- Young people protesting leading to the virus spreading but largely in a non deadly way.

The increase in cases is far more correlated with which states decided to "reopen" on memorial day, and not where protests were. In particular, where protests did occur, there were on average less people in the streets because non protestors stayed home and curfews also kept them inside at night. The protests haven't been a big vector for spread.

First off several blue states cases did go up. Secondly the only argument you could have against the protests spreading it is that it doesn't travel well outside. At which point we should be opening up more things like beaches etc. People going out in massive crowds like sporting events and concerts shoulder to shoulder is exactly what we were supposed to most scared of.

If you think the virus somehow spreads less in crowds protesting or having PRIDE parades than it would be at July 4th celebrations or outdoor Trump rallies, I have a bridge in mordor to sell you. People going in crowds for July 4th would be the exact inverse of rioting and tearing down statues, it's just celebrating America instead of denigrating it. That the media is saying one is spreading coronavirus and the other isn't says a lot about what's going on right now.

[Fairview4Life]

- Young people protesting leading to the virus spreading but largely in a non deadly way.

The increase in cases is far more correlated with which states decided to "reopen" on memorial day, and not where protests were. In particular, where protests did occur, there were on average less people in the streets because non protestors stayed home and curfews also kept them inside at night. The protests haven't been a big vector for spread.

First off several blue states cases did go up. Secondly the only argument you could have against the protests spreading it is that it doesn't travel well outside. At which point we should be opening up more things like beaches etc. People going out in massive crowds like sporting events and concerts shoulder to shoulder is exactly what we were supposed to most scared of.

If you think the virus somehow spreads less in crowds protesting or having PRIDE parades than it would be at July 4th celebrations or outdoor Trump rallies, I have a bridge in mordor to sell you. People going in crowds for July 4th would be the exact inverse of rioting and tearing down statues, it's just celebrating America instead of denigrating it. That the media is saying one is spreading coronavirus and the other isn't says a lot about what's going on right now.

The first people that studied the effects of protesting on covid case numbers said that, on average, they didn't cause a jump in numbers because non protestors altered their behaviour and offset the protestors, and curfews also helped.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408.pdf