Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[Wilfried]

This is a lie. The mortality ratings in the United States are not that bad considering how hardly hit NY was. Here are the countries that are worse than the United States in terms of deaths per million:

-Spain
-Italy
-France
-UK
-Netherlands
-Belgium
-Switzerland
-Ireland
-Sweden

People like you want to believe this is being handled like a 3rd world country in America---it is not. We did a really good job stopping the spread of the virus from Asia, as our extremely low numbers in California and Washington show. NY got crushed by the spread from Italy which we couldn't have known was coming before it was too late. Then the virus was let loose in a very dense city with a ton of public transportation.

I was talking about your president and his consultancy of yesterday.
And I did compare him to Germany (Merkel). They are not in your list apparently.

I'm from Belgium, I know what I'm talking about. Belgium was hit very hard by the spread because of a lot of people went skiing in Italy.
Our numbers though, are inflated because we are taking every death in the elderly homes into account, even when they aren't related to COVID-19.
The question is: are the numbers of the USA correct? How many people have died because they can't afford going to the hospitals? How many deaths have not (yet) been counted?

Hell, your president does the same like I do now, when he claims China's numbers aren't correct (they aren't btw).

The question is not which country has handled it the best or the worst. USA clearly hasn't, just like so many other countries (Belgium included). But that doesn't mean you have to come on television and start talking nonsense (I'm not calling it lies because I really think he believes what he says, which is maybe even more dangerous).

If you really want to talk about this in a serious way, the only real numbers you can rely on are the numbers of extra deaths that are counted (into comparison with the years before).

NY Times had your answer for you.
For instance:
Spain: +66%
Netherlands + 33%
Belgium + 25%
New York City + 300%

No numbers for the USA in total, but because of a lot of states not being that dense, it's probably a lot lower?
But I wouldn't start that this is handled well, when we are just at the start of this (who knows what delay there is on California fi) and we don't have the real numbers.

But I wouldn't tell a New Yorker (and for sure not a medic) it was handled well. Belgium has never had those issues and war scenarios, although according to your stats we are impacted much worse

[MotownMadness]

This is a lie. The mortality ratings in the United States are not that bad considering how hardly hit NY was. Here are the countries that are worse than the United States in terms of deaths per million:

-Spain
-Italy
-France
-UK
-Netherlands
-Belgium
-Switzerland
-Ireland
-Sweden

People like you want to believe this is being handled like a 3rd world country in America---it is not. We did a really good job stopping the spread of the virus from Asia, as our extremely low numbers in California and Washington show. NY got crushed by the spread from Italy which we couldn't have known was coming before it was too late. Then the virus was let loose in a very dense city with a ton of public transportation.

I was talking about your president and his consultancy of yesterday.
And I did compare him to Germany (Merkel). They are not in your list apparently.

I'm from Belgium, I know what I'm talking about. Belgium was hit very hard by the spread because of a lot of people went skiing in Italy.
Our numbers though, are inflated because we are taking every death in the elderly homes into account, even when they aren't related to COVID-19.
The question is: are the numbers of the USA correct? How many people have died because they can't afford going to the hospitals? How many deaths have not (yet) been counted?

Hell, your president does the same like I do now, when he claims China's numbers aren't correct (they aren't btw).

The question is not which country has handled it the best or the worst. USA clearly hasn't, just like so many other countries (Belgium included). But that doesn't mean you have to come on television and start talking nonsense (I'm not calling it lies because I really think he believes what he says, which is maybe even more dangerous).

If you really want to talk about this in a serious way, the only real numbers you can really on it the numbers of extra deaths that are counted (into comparison with the years before).

NY Times had your answer for you.
For instance:
Spain: +66%
Netherlands + 33%
Belgium + 25%
New York City + 300%

No numbers for the USA in total, but because of a lot of states not being that dense, it's probably a lot lower?
But I wouldn't start that this is handled well, when we are just at the start of this (who knows what delay there is on California fi) and we don't have the real numbers.

But I wouldn't tell a New Yorker (and for sure not a medic) it was handled well. Belgium has never had those issues and war scenarios, although according to your stats we are impacted much worse

Why would that happen? Its not like you would be denied healthcare completely over insurance. I dont think people would choose to die over paying back a medical bill whatever they can a month.

Hell if your that broke you probably dont care about your credit score over a virus if its hitting you that hard.

[foreigngrammar]

And what policies are we talking about? Isolationism? Racism? Tax cuts for the rich?

go vote for Biden then and spend your time figuring out what a AR14 is then. Get used to it cause your party failed and now your stuck with Trump again.

There is no way a man who doesnt even know hes running for president at this point is winning the election so i do feel bad for some of you.

The debates are gonna be must watch tv having Biden with no prompter and trying to figure out if hes running for the Senate

All of this is just utterly sad

[MotownMadness]

And what policies are we talking about? Isolationism? Racism? Tax cuts for the rich?

go vote for Biden then and spend your time figuring out what a AR14 is then. Get used to it cause your party failed and now your stuck with Trump again.

There is no way a man who doesnt even know hes running for president at this point is winning the election so i do feel bad for some of you.

The debates are gonna be must watch tv having Biden with no prompter and trying to figure out if hes running for the Senate

All of this is just utterly sad

Cause its true? It is actually pretty sad

[Pointgod]

And what policies are we talking about? Isolationism? Racism? Tax cuts for the rich?

go vote for Biden then and spend your time figuring out what a AR14 is then. Get used to it cause your party failed and now your stuck with Trump again.

There is no way a man who doesnt even know hes running for president at this point is winning the election so i do feel bad for some of you.

The debates are gonna be must watch tv having Biden with no prompter and trying to figure out if hes running for the Senate

All of this is just utterly sad

Don’t listen to him. Biden did fine in the debates against Bernie. And Trump is either going to avoid the debates entirely or it will be in a completely different format from other Presidential elections. Anyways this is veering into politics so no point detailing further.

[MotownMadness]

go vote for Biden then and spend your time figuring out what a AR14 is then. Get used to it cause your party failed and now your stuck with Trump again.

There is no way a man who doesnt even know hes running for president at this point is winning the election so i do feel bad for some of you.

The debates are gonna be must watch tv having Biden with no prompter and trying to figure out if hes running for the Senate

All of this is just utterly sad

Don’t listen to him. Biden did fine in the debates against Bernie. And Trump is either going to avoid the debates entirely or it will be in a completely different format from other Presidential elections. Anyways this is veering into politics so no point detailing further.

Best of luck, the guy shouldnt even be left home alone unattended at this pointl. But yeah its veering into politics for a while now in here and im just commenting back.

[foreigngrammar]

go vote for Biden then and spend your time figuring out what a AR14 is then. Get used to it cause your party failed and now your stuck with Trump again.

There is no way a man who doesnt even know hes running for president at this point is winning the election so i do feel bad for some of you.

The debates are gonna be must watch tv having Biden with no prompter and trying to figure out if hes running for the Senate

All of this is just utterly sad

Cause its true? It is actually pretty sad

What is sad? The fact that the great nation of the US of A has a two party political system that is a joke and purely depends and money and stupidity and fear (as conveyed through FOX for example)
Or the fact that you find it cool, positive, funny what ever that your president is joke and that he's either plain stupid or evil. The last would be even worse. And that you rather take that and make fun of a lukewarm rival than comprehend to understand that there were so much better choices for you and your whole bubble you call a world.
But let's keep it up! Bring the world down and MAGA

Enough of OT. Sorry. But it's just horriyfing how stupid and plain people are. There will be no clues from this crisis for sure. Narrowminded and dimwitted we'll continue like it ever was and will be.

[xdrta+]

The lead story in tonight's paper: "U.S. officials scramble to warn against bogus cure floated by Trump." "The federal government scrambled Friday to stave off a potential wave of public health emergencies sparked by President Trump’s dangerous suggestion that injecting bleach or other household disinfectants into the body might cure people of the novel coronavirus."

A separate story: "The Food and Drug Administration warned Friday against the use of hydroxychloroquine — the anti-malarial drug that Trump repeatedly has promoted as a “game-changer” miracle cure for covid-19 — because it has been found to cause serious heart rhythm problems."

The man is a serious danger to public health.

a serious danger to a bunch of idiots. Why do we need to worry about idiots who inject them selves with bleach and drink fish bowel cleaner?

Do you guys really live in this CNN world where you know adults who think like 2 year olds and do things like that over a stupid comment?

Like how the hell do some of you make it through the day, lol

It's more what it says about our Dear Leader.

[Mulhollanddrive]

LeBron fans would even if you made a 10 part documentary telling them not to.

[13th Man]

Trump blundered but the media is being dishonest about it as usual. He was exactly what he said,

"And then I see the disinfectant.... where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? ummmm... By injection, or, almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous job on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. "

Notice that he said do something like that....and almost like a cleaning. To me this is interpreted as some type of treatment by injection that could cure the virus, not specifically the disinfectant itself.

[xdrta+]

Trump blundered but the media is being dishonest about it as usual. He was exactly what he said,

"And then I see the disinfectant.... where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? ummmm... By injection, or, almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous job on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. "

Notice that he said do something like that....and almost like a cleaning. To me this is interpreted as some type of treatment by injection that could cure the virus, not specifically the disinfectant itself.

Maybe not everybody can parse his statements as carefully as you. For instance, after the briefing, the Maryland Coronavirus hotline received over 100 calls about using disinfectant as a treatment.

And then, of course, he lied about it the next day, saying it was "a sarcastic question to the reporters," when anyone who watched it could see it was nothing of the sort.

[HotRocks34]

Update from Cuomo press conference.

Watch on YouTube

- 1168 new hospitalizations for Covid-like illness. That is the lowest figure since March 25 or so. Downward trend continues
- 13,524 total hospitalizations (in hospital now). Lowest number since around April 2. Downward trend continues
- "All the numbers are basically saying the same. That we are, in fact, on the downside of the mountain"
- He's doing executive order so independent pharmacists can now start doing diagnostic testing
- They are going to begin antibody testing at 4 main hospitals/health care systems (in NYC, I think). For health care workers.
- NY is going to start, next week, doing antibody testing on NYC transit workers and state, local police


I believe the 1168 new hospitalizations number is a 3-day average. Actual number for today may be different.

[13th Man]

Trump blundered but the media is being dishonest about it as usual. He was exactly what he said,

"And then I see the disinfectant.... where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? ummmm... By injection, or, almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous job on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. "

Notice that he said do something like that....and almost like a cleaning. To me this is interpreted as some type of treatment by injection that could cure the virus, not specifically the disinfectant itself.

Maybe not everybody can parse his statements as carefully as you. For instance, after the briefing, the Maryland Coronavirus hotline received over 100 calls about using disinfectant as a treatment.

And then, of course, he lied about it the next day, saying it was "a sarcastic question to the reporters," when anyone who watched it could see it was nothing of the sort.

Maybe people are reporting it because the media has purposely mislead them?

I agree, I think the sarcasm excuse was lame imo. Trump blundered on this, probably why they are scaling down on briefing Q&As and possibly briefings itself. Daily 1.5 hr briefings is a bit much imo, as he either ends up repeating the same talking points, jar with the reporters or shooting from the hip as he did the other day. I also don't think that the press deserves all the time that they've been getting either with their vicious line of questioning and tone. I like the format they did yesterday, present the facts and get the hell out.

[Warriors Analyst]

This is a lie. The mortality ratings in the United States are not that bad considering how hardly hit NY was. Here are the countries that are worse than the United States in terms of deaths per million:

-Spain
-Italy
-France
-UK
-Netherlands
-Belgium
-Switzerland
-Ireland
-Sweden

People like you want to believe this is being handled like a 3rd world country in America---it is not. We did a really good job stopping the spread of the virus from Asia, as our extremely low numbers in California and Washington show. NY got crushed by the spread from Italy which we couldn't have known was coming before it was too late. Then the virus was let loose in a very dense city with a ton of public transportation.

I was talking about your president and his consultancy of yesterday.
And I did compare him to Germany (Merkel). They are not in your list apparently.

I'm from Belgium, I know what I'm talking about. Belgium was hit very hard by the spread because of a lot of people went skiing in Italy.
Our numbers though, are inflated because we are taking every death in the elderly homes into account, even when they aren't related to COVID-19.
The question is: are the numbers of the USA correct? How many people have died because they can't afford going to the hospitals? How many deaths have not (yet) been counted?

Hell, your president does the same like I do now, when he claims China's numbers aren't correct (they aren't btw).

The question is not which country has handled it the best or the worst. USA clearly hasn't, just like so many other countries (Belgium included). But that doesn't mean you have to come on television and start talking nonsense (I'm not calling it lies because I really think he believes what he says, which is maybe even more dangerous).

If you really want to talk about this in a serious way, the only real numbers you can really on it the numbers of extra deaths that are counted (into comparison with the years before).

NY Times had your answer for you.
For instance:
Spain: +66%
Netherlands + 33%
Belgium + 25%
New York City + 300%

No numbers for the USA in total, but because of a lot of states not being that dense, it's probably a lot lower?
But I wouldn't start that this is handled well, when we are just at the start of this (who knows what delay there is on California fi) and we don't have the real numbers.

But I wouldn't tell a New Yorker (and for sure not a medic) it was handled well. Belgium has never had those issues and war scenarios, although according to your stats we are impacted much worse

Why would that happen? Its not like you would be denied healthcare completely over insurance. I dont think people would choose to die over paying back a medical bill whatever they can a month.

Hell if your that broke you probably dont care about your credit score over a virus if its hitting you that hard.

I don’t think you know what you are talking about. In Miami, someone with insurance was hit with a bill of over $3,000 for taking a corona test.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article240476806.html

There’s more than enough disincentive baked into the American healthcare system to discourage people from seeking care and that’s been the case long before this pandemic. Numerous articles about the virus have detailed that some patients can have almost fatally low levels of oxygen and act completely normal and then die soon after seeming normal. The Washington Post publishes a long article yesterday about how unexpected strokes may account for a somewhat significant number of heart failures in covid patients who are 10-15 years younger than your typical stroke victim.

All of this is to say, there are myriad scenarios in which someone could die of corona at home with what was assumed to be a mild case of it. It’s somewhat sensible and deeply tragic that many Americans who live paycheck to paycheck are reluctant to get medical care until things get really bad and coronavirus won’t change that. Only an overhaul our healthcare system will.

To my point, Gothamist reported in the first week of April that New York City had seen an insane increase of at-home deaths in the two weeks prior. The EMS teams used to deal with 15-20 per day and that number skyrocketed to 200 a day over the aforementioned period of time, which is a clear indicator that people were not seeking medical care for coronavirus and prohibitive healthcare costs absolutely pushed a huge role in that.

[xdrta+]

Trump blundered but the media is being dishonest about it as usual. He was exactly what he said,

"And then I see the disinfectant.... where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? ummmm... By injection, or, almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous job on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. "

Notice that he said do something like that....and almost like a cleaning. To me this is interpreted as some type of treatment by injection that could cure the virus, not specifically the disinfectant itself.

Maybe not everybody can parse his statements as carefully as you. For instance, after the briefing, the Maryland Coronavirus hotline received over 100 calls about using disinfectant as a treatment.

And then, of course, he lied about it the next day, saying it was "a sarcastic question to the reporters," when anyone who watched it could see it was nothing of the sort.

Maybe people are reporting it because the media has purposely mislead them?

People aren't "reporting" it, they want to do it! And it's the media's fault? They are purposely misleading them? You have really drunk the kool-aid, by the gallon. Good luck, you will need it.

[yosemiteben]

Maybe people are reporting it because the media has purposely mislead them?

The president speculated that injecting bleach into the lungs would help with COVID. That is a fact. You can say, "Well, he just meant SOMETHING LIKE injecting bleach into lungs," but that doesn't materially change the absurdity of the statement.

The president is in the middle of a pandemic, speaking to the nation as a whole, and chose to speculate about at best non-sensical and at worst obviously dangerous medical techniques. There is simply no excuse, it's irresponsible and indicative of his complete inability to lead during this crisis.

The irony is that even this is a step up from him either denying that there is a problem at all (which he did for weeks) or him blaming everyone else for the lack of preparation for a crisis (which he is currently doing). He just got done campaigning for a drug that doesn't work. He needs to shut his mouth and let the experts lead, because he's incapable of doing so responsibly.

[Wilfried]

The question is: are the numbers of the USA correct? How many people have died because they can't afford going to the hospitals? How many deaths have not (yet) been counted?

Hell, your president does the same like I do now, when he claims China's numbers aren't correct (they aren't btw).

The question is not which country has handled it the best or the worst. USA clearly hasn't, just like so many other countries (Belgium included). But that doesn't mean you have to come on television and start talking nonsense (I'm not calling it lies because I really think he believes what he says, which is maybe even more dangerous).

If you really want to talk about this in a serious way, the only real numbers you can really on it the numbers of extra deaths that are counted (into comparison with the years before).

NY Times had your answer for you.
For instance:
Spain: +66%
Netherlands + 33%
Belgium + 25%
New York City + 300%

No numbers for the USA in total, but because of a lot of states not being that dense, it's probably a lot lower?
But I wouldn't start that this is handled well, when we are just at the start of this (who knows what delay there is on California fi) and we don't have the real numbers.

But I wouldn't tell a New Yorker (and for sure not a medic) it was handled well. Belgium has never had those issues and war scenarios, although according to your stats we are impacted much worse

Why would that happen? Its not like you would be denied healthcare completely over insurance. I dont think people would choose to die over paying back a medical bill whatever they can a month.

You do know that a 'normal' 2 weeks in hospital for Corona treatment will probably cost you (no insurrance because that's too expensive) 8000 dollars?

You do know that?

And if you do know, than tell me how many people don't even have to money to pay the rent for next month.

[Fairview4Life]

Trump blundered but the media is being dishonest about it as usual. He was exactly what he said,

"And then I see the disinfectant.... where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? ummmm... By injection, or, almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous job on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. "

Notice that he said do something like that....and almost like a cleaning. To me this is interpreted as some type of treatment by injection that could cure the virus, not specifically the disinfectant itself.

Maybe not everybody can parse his statements as carefully as you. For instance, after the briefing, the Maryland Coronavirus hotline received over 100 calls about using disinfectant as a treatment.

And then, of course, he lied about it the next day, saying it was "a sarcastic question to the reporters," when anyone who watched it could see it was nothing of the sort.

Maybe people are reporting it because the media has purposely mislead them?

I agree, I think the sarcasm excuse was lame imo. Trump blundered on this, probably why they are scaling down on briefing Q&As and possibly briefings itself. Daily 1.5 hr briefings is a bit much imo, as he either ends up repeating the same talking points, jar with the reporters or shooting from the hip as he did the other day. I also don't think that the press deserves all the time that they've been getting either with their vicious line of questioning and tone. I like the format they did yesterday, present the facts and get the hell out.

He said this when asked about his idiocy the next day: "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen." He followed up with saying it was "a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside."

So you don’t need to try and pretend the man meant something else. He came out and ended your bad argument. He says he said what he said on purpose and meant it. But he says he said it sarcastically to see what would happen when the media reported his words. Obviously that is a very stupid lie, but it was helpful to make your silly “what he really meant was...” argument moot.

[HotRocks34]

Also for New York, they seem to be significantly increasing their testing ability. Information here:
https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-DailyTracker?%3Aembed=yes&%3Atoolbar=no&%3Atabs=n

If you click on the "time period" bar and choose "earlier data", you will see that before this last week, the most tests NY had done in a day was around 27,000. In the last two days, they have done about 34,000 and nearly 47,000, respectively.

When you do more tests, you will almost certainly get more new positive cases. This is apparently why Mayor De Blasio uses the metric "percentage positive" (rather than new positives) to track the city's improvement or lack of improvement in his daily press briefings. The White House also mentioned this metric in discussing progress being made around the nation in fighting the virus. It was in the briefing yesterday, and the exact line was that New York (think NYC) went from 38% positive to 28% positive in a week.

It works like this. Say you test 10,000 people and you come up with a 38% positive rate. That gives you 3,800 new cases.

Later, say you do 20,000 tests and end up with a 28% positive rate. You net 5,600 cases even though, by percentage, your area looks "less sick" than it did previously. But because you did more tests, you found more positives. Thus, ironically, your area may seem more sick (more positive cases) when the percentages suggest it is less sick.

This is where the antibody testing seems to help fill the gap in understanding. Basically, there apparently are a lot more cases out there than we thought. And so if you ramp up your diagnostic testing, you'll find them.

The metric I follow now to look for progress in an area, rather than New Positive Cases (seem to proportionally ramp up as testing ramps up) or Fatalities (since April 14 or so a number of localities have apparently been adding "probable" and "presumed" fatalities, and backdating them to previous dates sometimes when dropping them, for example, today) is New Hospitalizations. How many new people getting sick from the virus are going into the hospital each day in a given area? And what is the trend in the figure?

In that metric, New York state is down more than half of where it was at during its peak. At the peak, the new hospitalizations was around 3200 in a day. Today, the figure is around 1200 (both figures are 3-day averages). For now, the number continues to decline, seeming to signal that New York is steadily heading down the right side of the curve.

De Blasio (NYC) uses 3 metrics in his daily press briefings:

- New Hospitalizations
- Number of people (total) in the ICU
- Percentage positive in testing for that day

Basically then it's: 1) how many people are getting sick from the virus?; 2) how many people are getting critically sick from the virus versus people who are recovering from being critically sick from the virus?; 3) what is the information on the "sickness level" (by percentage) of the city day to day?

He then compares those numbers with the numbers from the previous day, to get a sense of the trend for the city.

Of course, New Hospitalizations and Total Persons In The ICU will both track with Fatalities. If you get sick with the virus, and really sick with the virus, there's a greater chance you'll die from the virus than if you get the virus and have no or few symptoms.

So then the fewer people you have in the hospital from the virus, and the fewer people who end up in the ICU from the virus, gives you a sense of where your Fatalities are going to be in the near future.

[13th Man]

Maybe not everybody can parse his statements as carefully as you. For instance, after the briefing, the Maryland Coronavirus hotline received over 100 calls about using disinfectant as a treatment.

And then, of course, he lied about it the next day, saying it was "a sarcastic question to the reporters," when anyone who watched it could see it was nothing of the sort.

Maybe people are reporting it because the media has purposely mislead them?

I agree, I think the sarcasm excuse was lame imo. Trump blundered on this, probably why they are scaling down on briefing Q&As and possibly briefings itself. Daily 1.5 hr briefings is a bit much imo, as he either ends up repeating the same talking points, jar with the reporters or shooting from the hip as he did the other day. I also don't think that the press deserves all the time that they've been getting either with their vicious line of questioning and tone. I like the format they did yesterday, present the facts and get the hell out.

He said this when asked about his idiocy the next day: "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen." He followed up with saying it was "a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside."

So you don’t need to try and pretend the man meant something else. He came out and ended your bad argument. He says he said what he said on purpose and meant it. But he says he said it sarcastically to see what would happen when the media reported his words. Obviously that is a very stupid lie, but it was helpful to make your silly “what he really meant was...” argument moot.

Sorry but that's not how logic works. If you don't believe that he was truly being sarcastic, we which both agreed that it wasn't, then this invalidates the original argument. You can't use a falsehood to validate points from on another argument.