Official Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[shmoosicle]

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!

Unfortunately it's not that simple. As much as I would like to be optimistic, the trends in the southern US are worrying and not just a media fabrication. For one thing an increasing proportion of people being tested are testing positive, which means the virus is spreading a lot. For another, hospitalizations are on the rise again, which means we can expect deaths to rise again in the future. There have been recent studies out of Yale and other institutes that suggest that deaths are up about 20% this year in the US during the outbreak of Covid19 and that deaths due to Covid19 are being under-reported.

Most government officials there are acknowledging there is a problem and that's why you're seeing states like California now start to close things down again. Hopefully Covid19 is as harmless as some people are suggesting though.

[Courtside]

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

Did the protests put people at risk of transmission? Of course, but the *current spikes* are primarily in states where they opened up more aggressively. Even the Republican Governor of Texas is stating regret about how the bars and restaurants were handled and has taken focused action to limit spread in those areas. He's NOT doing that if he thinks the protests were the cause of the spikes.

If we want proof that the protests did or didn't lead to an increase in cases, we have to wait a little longer as it takes 4-8 weeks for the delayed signals to show the measurable patterns needed to make any such case.

As for celebrating 4th of July or Trump rallies, if they want to do this all outside and with high % mask wearin, then sure, go ahead. But it's utterly stupid to make a direct line comparison between outdoor+masked (protests) and indoors+no masks (Trump rally, churches, bars and clubs).

We know that indoor interactions are far more risky, especially as group sizes increase and when masks are not being used. Anyone who wants to "open up" needs to realize that mask use is the way to make that vastly safer.

[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/

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.

1. Agree. Initial testing was the most vulnerable and now it's more uniform across the total population so the percentage will go down.
2. What's going on in California Hank? How did they drop the ball so badly?

[RoLo]

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!

no, not well said. not quite. situation is not getting better per say, but still being played out.

[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.

1. Agree. Initial testing was the most vulnerable and now it's more uniform across the total population so the percentage will go down.
2. What's going on in California Hank? How did they drop the ball so badly?

Mostly, the Governor was pressured by several counties to re-open faster. And with other states doing likewise, he was in a tough spot. The thing is that, while California is broadly liberal, there are huge sections of the state that are strongly conservative. So while LA County was fine to follow the Governor, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino, Kern, and other counties were not. So we moved too fast and the results were predictable. LA County is seeing increasing numbers, but our situation is much better than what is happening in those counties now.

Fortunately, Governor Newsom acted aggressively and shut down the most high-risk activities for three weeks. And he made sure to do it before the holiday weekend to reinforce how serious the situation is. I'm somewhat optimistic it will help, but I'm sure we will still have plenty of horror stories.

[gei]

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!

no, not well said. not quite. situation is not getting better per say, but still being played out.

Umm.. really? You think the fact that the number of both the number of total deaths AND hospitalizations are trending down across the US means the situation is "not getting better per se"?

I think you may be watching too many media headlines. Try watching less CNN and looking more at the numbers yourself. Again you'll realize that things are not as bad as the sensationalism.

[Fairview4Life]

Well said!

no, not well said. not quite. situation is not getting better per say, but still being played out.

Umm.. really? You think the fact that the number of both the number of total deaths AND hospitalizations are trending down across the US means the situation is "not getting better per se"?

I think you may be watching too many media headlines. Try watching less CNN and looking more at the numbers yourself. Again you'll realize that things are not as bad as the sensationalism.

"Across the US" is an essentially meaningless metric when different states are implementing different rules. If, for example, the governor of Texas decided not to start closing everything down again because the numbers "across the US" were going down, that would be bad for his state, where the numbers are rising.

Should Florida continue to flock to mass indoor gatherings because the number of daily hospitalizations and deaths across the US are going down? https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/06/30/two-charts-show-positive-trends-for-florida-in-coronavirus-battle/

What about Arizona, where hospitals are starting to implement rationing?

[gei]

no, not well said. not quite. situation is not getting better per say, but still being played out.

Umm.. really? You think the fact that the number of both the number of total deaths AND hospitalizations are trending down across the US means the situation is "not getting better per se"?

I think you may be watching too many media headlines. Try watching less CNN and looking more at the numbers yourself. Again you'll realize that things are not as bad as the sensationalism.

"Across the US" is an essentially meaningless metric when different states are implementing different rules. If, for example, the governor of Texas decided not to start closing everything down again because the numbers "across the US" were going down, that would be bad for his state, where the numbers are rising.

Should Florida continue to flock to mass indoor gatherings because the number of daily hospitalizations and deaths across the US are going down? https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/06/30/two-charts-show-positive-trends-for-florida-in-coronavirus-battle/

What about Arizona, where hospitals are starting to implement rationing?

Actually it's a very meaningful metric - it is giving a picture of how the US as a whole is doing. Again deaths are going down across the US as a whole, as well as hospitalizations.

Yes you can of course cherry pick specific states where hospitalizations are "rising" (mind you that's simply because hospitals were empty in those states to begin with, so "rising" means almost nothing here) - but that gives you less of an overall picture.

[Kevin Willis]

Umm.. really? You think the fact that the number of both the number of total deaths AND hospitalizations are trending down across the US means the situation is "not getting better per se"?

I think you may be watching too many media headlines. Try watching less CNN and looking more at the numbers yourself. Again you'll realize that things are not as bad as the sensationalism.

"Across the US" is an essentially meaningless metric when different states are implementing different rules. If, for example, the governor of Texas decided not to start closing everything down again because the numbers "across the US" were going down, that would be bad for his state, where the numbers are rising.

Should Florida continue to flock to mass indoor gatherings because the number of daily hospitalizations and deaths across the US are going down? https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/06/30/two-charts-show-positive-trends-for-florida-in-coronavirus-battle/

What about Arizona, where hospitals are starting to implement rationing?

Actually it's a very meaningful metric - it is giving a picture of how the US as a whole is doing. Again deaths are going down across the US as a whole, as well as hospitalizations.

Yes you can of course cherry pick specific states where hospitalizations are "rising" (mind you that's simply because hospitals were empty in those states to begin with, so "rising" means almost nothing here) - but that gives you less of an overall picture.

You are right, the total number of deaths in the US are going down. If you look at the logarithmic scale the total deaths are starting to flatten. One of the primary reasons are that states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois have it under control and they have a large population base. Their cautious approach allowed them to reduce their numbers and in turn bring down the national average. However there are still states that are going up sharply and as a country all states should be trending down, not up. Similar to Canada.

Canada's number of deaths are flattening both linearly, not the case in the US, and as an extension logarithmically. I don't think the US is in a position to pat themselves on the back and say job well done. It's more like looking for a silver lining because if NY, NJ didn't go rogue and was more cautious the US would be a disaster. Hell rogue republican factions in California are preventing those numbers from coming down. The US must get better, their handling of the situation has been a global laughing stock. Party doesn't matter, this was how not to do things as a country. Oh yeah Brazil and Sweden also. Then the next tier is probably Russia, India and the UK. All of them -

[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/

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.

1. Agree. Initial testing was the most vulnerable and now it's more uniform across the total population so the percentage will go down.
2. What's going on in California Hank? How did they drop the ball so badly?

I would want to agree but their testing rate has stayed relatively the same throughout th last little while. the only one that says different is well... you know. and we also have done far more testing lately as have most other nations in order to see anyone in long term care or retirement homes.

[Fairview4Life]

Umm.. really? You think the fact that the number of both the number of total deaths AND hospitalizations are trending down across the US means the situation is "not getting better per se"?

I think you may be watching too many media headlines. Try watching less CNN and looking more at the numbers yourself. Again you'll realize that things are not as bad as the sensationalism.

"Across the US" is an essentially meaningless metric when different states are implementing different rules. If, for example, the governor of Texas decided not to start closing everything down again because the numbers "across the US" were going down, that would be bad for his state, where the numbers are rising.

Should Florida continue to flock to mass indoor gatherings because the number of daily hospitalizations and deaths across the US are going down? https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/06/30/two-charts-show-positive-trends-for-florida-in-coronavirus-battle/

What about Arizona, where hospitals are starting to implement rationing?

Actually it's a very meaningful metric - it is giving a picture of how the US as a whole is doing. Again deaths are going down across the US as a whole, as well as hospitalizations.

Yes you can of course cherry pick specific states where hospitalizations are "rising" (mind you that's simply because hospitals were empty in those states to begin with, so "rising" means almost nothing here) - but that gives you less of an overall picture.

That addresses nothing that I said. There are more than three states that are seeing numbers rise, for example. But that’s also besides the point. If you were the governor of Texas, would you care at all about the national numbers? No, you wouldn’t. Neither would you if you were Ron Desantis or whichever clowns are running Arizona and Tennessee and a bunch of other states that are starting their runs up the mountain. You would care about what was happening on the ground in your state. Because if you opened up and all of a sudden your cases are going up and your icus are filling up then deaths are going to follow. That’s how it works. So, even if you are a Republican nut like Greg Abbott, you suck it up and mandate masks and close bars and restaurants because the national numbers mean dick all.

If you did care about the national numbers, you’d also probably want to care about the fact that cases going up is a leading indicator for hospitalization and deaths, and just continuing on your merry way without doing anything to slow cases is a terrible **** idea.

[hankscorpioLA]

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.

1. Agree. Initial testing was the most vulnerable and now it's more uniform across the total population so the percentage will go down.
2. What's going on in California Hank? How did they drop the ball so badly?

I would want to agree but their testing rate has stayed relatively the same throughout th last little while. the only one that says different is well... you know. and we also have done far more testing lately as have most other nations in order to see anyone in long term care or retirement homes.

Testing in California has been continuously increasing testing capacity.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/california

A lot of other states only started doing so more recently.

[Johnny Bball]

1. Agree. Initial testing was the most vulnerable and now it's more uniform across the total population so the percentage will go down.
2. What's going on in California Hank? How did they drop the ball so badly?

I would want to agree but their testing rate has stayed relatively the same throughout th last little while. the only one that says different is well... you know. and we also have done far more testing lately as have most other nations in order to see anyone in long term care or retirement homes.

Testing in California has been continuously increasing testing capacity.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/california

A lot of other states only started doing so more recently.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-covid-19-tests-per-day?country=IND~IDN~ZAF~KOR~GBR~NZL~USA

You might have to add USA to the graph with the blue button. But if tests are a 45 degree line, cases are an upward line now about 45 degrees... why are deaths specifically a downward trend sloping line? last two on worldometer. Because they are treating them more often? That doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not trying to be difficult here... I can't find another answer for the slope changing.

even that link you posted shows a divergence

[hankscorpioLA]

I would want to agree but their testing rate has stayed relatively the same throughout th last little while. the only one that says different is well... you know. and we also have done far more testing lately as have most other nations in order to see anyone in long term care or retirement homes.

Testing in California has been continuously increasing testing capacity.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/california

A lot of other states only started doing so more recently.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-covid-19-tests-per-day?country=IND~IDN~ZAF~KOR~GBR~NZL~USA

You might have to add USA to the graph with the blue button. But if tests are a 45 degree line, cases are an upward line now about 45 degrees... why are deaths specifically a downward trend sloping line? last two on worldometer. Because they are treating them more often? That doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not trying to be difficult here... I can't find another answer for the slope changing.

even that link you posted shows a divergence

OK...I think I understand. And I'm pretty sure mostly is because deaths are a lagging indicator.

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

Deaths are currently on a downward slope. Cases are currently spiking. But before the spike, cases were also trending down, just at a slower rate than deaths. That can be mostly explained by more testing. During that period, we were actually reducing infection rates resulting in fewer deaths. The spike in cases began around June 14. So we should expect to see deaths spike in the next week or so.

However, deaths will probably not spike quite as badly due to the fact that a certain percentage of the new cases are people less likely to die than those who were able to get tested earlier. Plus better treatment protocols will make an impact on mortality.

Part of the problem is that none of these metrics is perfect. Probably the best number to track is hospitalizations. In LA County, while deaths are currently flat, hospitalizations are up 35% over last week. We can assume that deaths will rise by a similar amount.

[Childs]

Watch on YouTube

I want to be home.

[Brinbe]

Florida up to 11k a day now.

[Johnny Bball]

Watch on YouTube

I want to be home.

Put this on social media this morning and immediately was in a fight. Apparently some people believe CNN is completely fake and I should get my news from the Epoch Times. That this was just made up. Seriously... that's what some people believe. It's exhausting.

[YelloC]

Watch on YouTube

I want to be home.

Put this on social media this morning and immediately was in a fight. Apparently some people believe CNN is completely fake and I should get my news from the Epoch Times. That this was just made up. Seriously... that's what some people believe. It's exhausting.

The Idiocracy is upon us.

[Pointgod]

Watch on YouTube

I want to be home.

Put this on social media this morning and immediately was in a fight. Apparently some people believe CNN is completely fake and I should get my news from the Epoch Times. That this was just made up. Seriously... that's what some people believe. It's exhausting.

It’s interesting that all the people that listened to experts and “fake media” like CNN turned out to be absolutely right. I wouldn’t even waste your time arguing with these people. Just keep posting the truth because more people need to hear it.

[ItsDanger]

Key part of the CNN video is that the different parties are capable of working amicably together in Canada as opposed to the US. Down South, everything is politicized, so much so its disgusting. For them, the governors and other state politicians need to set aside party BS.

IMO, another key difference is we limited inter-provincial travel while the US did little on this end (I wished they mentioned this in the video).

TO be fair though, handling a pandemic in the US is never going to be easy. I find it difficult to compare them accurately to any other nation on many levels with regards to this type of issue.