2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (Vaccination 2021 Edition)

[lil devils x]

In New York specifically, it absolutely hit the vulnerable like a truck on the first wave, because the state panicked about running out of space and told the hospitals they had to send recovering covid patients back to nursing homes, and the patently obvious played out exactly as you'd suspect.

The numbers lately have gotten a tad questionable. Twice now my state has added in big spikes of deaths and said "oh, we had recorded things incorrectly in the past, here's an update", and on one occasion my county had negative 5 deaths recorded. They keep broadening what they are counting, and plopping the additions onto the end, and it screws up the trends. Even if the numbers they end up at are correct in total, it implies dumb things. If, for example, you had 5 days where the numbers go 3,2,3,2,1, it looks rather consistent. Then they go "oh, we missed 4", and correct the record to go 3,2,3,2,5, now it looks like flat to increasing. When the actual real numbers would have been 5,4,3,2,1. Like, multiple waves in different geographies over a slow spread is part of it, but even within small communities, the reporting is all sorts of screwed up.

And I'm afraid they're walking into a stupid trap. The US has like 7500 deaths a day by default. The majority of those happen in hospitals or nursing homes. Hospitals and nursing homes are all infected with coronavirus right now. Most places are counting everyone who dies with a positive test + any unknown with possible covid symptoms. That's never gonna stop. Meanwhile, we're testing more and more, the number of positives goes up proportionally, and some places are determining reopening based on a number without controlling for testing rate. The decision should be based off of healthcare availability. And I'm pretty confident history will look back at these current death counts as slightly exaggerated compared to the reporting methods of other nations.

The numbers are going to be changing for a very long time. It takes time for them to review files and test samples, many places are overwhelmed and we will not get their numbers for quite some time. Even if they take samples from everyone who died ( which they have not been) they still take time to review the files. Even worse, we have states such as Florida, who have been withholding the information all together. Most areas do not have access to testing, and like I showed earlier, we have cases where they are withholding testing locations from the public all together, and other counties refusing to release their COVID information because they don't want to " alarm people". It is a mess because we do not have a national standard. In addition, some places are counting at home deaths, some are not. SOme are requiring an actual test, the problem with that however, is that due to lack of testing available, many areas are not being able to test at all, let alone people who are already deceased.

You have this backwards, History will look back and show this to be severely under reported.

For some reason the forum errored in the middle of my post and it is continued below:

 

[lil devils x]

"Provisional counts are weighted to account for potential underreporting in the most recent weeks. However, data for the most recent week(s) are still likely to be incomplete. Only about 60% of deaths are reported within 10 days of the date of death, and there is considerable variation by jurisdiction. More detail about the methods, weighting, data, and limitations can be found in the Technical Notes. "

Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19

Figures present excess deaths associated with COVID-19 at the national and state levels.

www.cdc.gov

"Under-counting deaths in this particular epidemic is happening all over," said Dr. Daniel Lopez-Acuna, an epidemiologist and former top World Health Organization official, who spent 30 years at the organization. "It’s almost inevitable."

How accurate is the US coronavirus death count? Some experts say it's off by 'tens of thousands'

Experts say the official death toll for the coronavirus is far lower than the true number that could be revealed as deaths are investigated.

abcnews.go.com

A better way to to gauge this before we get all the numbers in is to look at deaths by month from previous years compared to this year:

The Pandemic’s Hidden Toll: Half a Million Deaths (Published 2020)

Far more people died in 2020 during the pandemic than have been officially reported, a review of mortality data in 35 countries shows.

www.nytimes.com

 

[tstorm823]

You have this backwards, History will look back and show this to be severely under reported.

I disagree.

And taking total extra deaths as a count is great as a historical perspective of the impact of the virus, but crap for right now because it counts increases in suicides and overdoses, in people who didn't want to go to the hospital in these conditions. Excess deaths is a bad metric for judging when to break quarantine. And that's ultimately what I care about here. The numbers dead are what they are, counting one way or another won't change the truth. But screwing with the methods mid-way through the crisis obscures the actual trends on which one would base a plan to recover.

 

[lil devils x]

I disagree.

And taking total extra deaths as a count is great as a historical perspective of the impact of the virus, but crap for right now because it counts increases in suicides and overdoses, in people who didn't want to go to the hospital in these conditions. Excess deaths is a bad metric for judging when to break quarantine. And that's ultimately what I care about here. The numbers dead are what they are, counting one way or another won't change the truth. But screwing with the methods mid-way through the crisis obscures the actual trends on which one would base a plan to recover.

Screwing with the methods? When the goal is obtaining accurate numbers, you have to alter what you are doing if you are not doing it right in the first place. Accuracy should be the ultimate goal here regardless in terms of the deceased. It will take time for them to review the cases either way. BTW they are not counting suicides, accidents and deaths from other causes currently as COVID 19 deaths, they are actually underreporting in many areas because they do not have access to testing. We are actually worried that it was in the US as early as last year and the "worse flu season" we were having was actually earlier COVID 19 cases, since they believe it likely started in China in September in Guangdong rather than in Wuhan and also found cases in the US and Australia that have mutated versions of the Type A found in Guangdong before it mutated to type B prevelant in Wuhan. Scientists in the US and China are now looking through past blood samples to see if they can find more earleir cases at this point due to the new data.

It isn't the death toll that determines when we reduce quarantine here, it is the new case reports. Until we have a vaccine, the biggest factor to reduce the number of new cases AND be able to safely operate more businesses is to provide ample, adequate PPE at the federal level, as I mentioned earlier. China had their first responders and public workers in hazmat for good reason, so they could get more done even while they did not have the virus contained to reduce the spread. If China can do so, the US should be able to do so as well.

Operating with Curb side pick up, sidewalk services with access to sunlight, combined with PPE, would allow for much more to be able to operate. I saw a hair stylist operating with a chair on the sidewalk in the sunlight while she wears masks, gloves gown and goggles to be able to cut hair and sweeping it up afterwards( though they would have to work with cities to allow that), having people change the way they do things to help reduce the spread makes a huge difference, especially when used in combination with ample PPE. Until the federal government addresses the PPE shortage, this is going to be difficult to do though.

 

[tstorm823]

Screwing with the methods? When the goal is obtaining accurate numbers, you have to alter what you are doing if you are not doing it right in the first place. Accuracy should be the ultimate goal here regardless in terms of the deceased.

Strong disagree. Having an accurate total is almost useless. Counting well doesn't help anyone. Altering methodology halfway through is a problem if you're trying to establish a trend. If halfway through the crisis, you start testing twice as many people and counting twice as many sorts of deaths, it changes the shape of the trends and leads to false conclusions. An accurate count of the dead does nothing at all to help us now. Being able to objectively analyze the trends does help us now.

BTW they are not counting suicides, accidents and deaths from other causes currently as COVID 19 deaths, they are actually underreporting in many areas because they do not have access to testing.

I was referring specifically to the use of excess deaths year over year to analyze increased death counts. If you try to assess covid deaths by looking just at death rates compared to last year, you're comparing every death to every death. That only shows you covid-19 deaths accurately if all other deaths remain roughly consistent, and we know that at least overdoses have gone up during quarantine. If you're analyzing total death counts, of course it includes suicides, etc. It includes everything.

 

[Agema]

In New York specifically, it absolutely hit the vulnerable like a truck on the first wave, because the state panicked about running out of space and told the hospitals they had to send recovering covid patients back to nursing homes, and the patently obvious played out exactly as you'd suspect.

The numbers lately have gotten a tad questionable. Twice now my state has added in big spikes of deaths and said "oh, we had recorded things incorrectly in the past, here's an update", and on one occasion my county had negative 5 deaths recorded. They keep broadening what they are counting, and plopping the additions onto the end, and it screws up the trends. Even if the numbers they end up at are correct in total, it implies dumb things. If, for example, you had 5 days where the numbers go 3,2,3,2,1, it looks rather consistent. Then they go "oh, we missed 4", and correct the record to go 3,2,3,2,5, now it looks like flat to increasing. When the actual real numbers would have been 5,4,3,2,1. Like, multiple waves in different geographies over a slow spread is part of it, but even within small communities, the reporting is all sorts of screwed up.

And I'm afraid they're walking into a stupid trap. The US has like 7500 deaths a day by default. The majority of those happen in hospitals or nursing homes. Hospitals and nursing homes are all infected with coronavirus right now. Most places are counting everyone who dies with a positive test + any unknown with possible covid symptoms. That's never gonna stop. Meanwhile, we're testing more and more, the number of positives goes up proportionally, and some places are determining reopening based on a number without controlling for testing rate. The decision should be based off of healthcare availability. And I'm pretty confident history will look back at these current death counts as slightly exaggerated compared to the reporting methods of other nations.

We might note Fauci in April dismissed right-wing theories about the US covid-19 toll being overstated as having no adequate basis. In fact, he called them conspiracy theories. However, we might note a large number of experts suggesting that current recording methods are likely to provide an underestimate, with suggestions of covid-19 deaths being as much as 50% higher.

Last thing I heard covid-19 testing had plateaued throughout most of April in the USA. It might have changed radically in the last two weeks, and your state may have increased where the USA as a whole remained static, but I would not make the assumption there's been a great deal more testing going on since early April in your state without specific figures to show so.

Your state really needs to go through its figures and properly adjust the dates of death to get an accurate picture. If it can add or substract people, then it knows who they are, and their death certificates will have a date. It shouldn't take that much time to correct. One way or another, accurate information of this sort is kind of important to have when you think about wanting to reopen your state.

 

[Fieldy409]

You are incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds
The US may be lackluster on total hospital beds, but has at or nearly the highest per capita ICU capacity on the planet.

Looks like I am indeed.

Also Australia's ICU beds look to be disturbingly low. I guess we're very lucky we could shut the borders so easily and seem to have it mostly under control.

Aside from that, in regard to the more recent conversation: I think we all need to take a minute and ask ourselves why we are so obsessed with raw statistics to argue how bad this is. I sort of asked this before but I think it's worth saying again. Why doesn't anybody stop to think that the raw numbers probably aren't the best metric but what's really important is the actual properties and abilities of the virus?

Imagine an alternative world where China realised right away and stopped the virus from spreading by shutting down it's travel from Wuhan and they isolated it there alone and treated it well. The numbers would be much lower but the virus would be the same virus, it was just effected by context just like a million different factors raise and lower it now in this messy complicated world.

 

[lil devils x]

Looks like I am indeed.

Also Australia's ICU beds look to be disturbingly low. I guess we're very lucky we could shut the borders so easily and seem to have it mostly under control.

Aside from that, in regard to the more recent conversation: I think we all need to take a minute and ask ourselves why we are so obsessed with raw statistics to argue how bad this is. I sort of asked this before but I think it's worth saying again. Why doesn't anybody stop to think that the raw numbers probably aren't the best metric but what's really important is the actual properties and abilities of the virus?

Imagine an alternative world where China realised right away and stopped the virus from spreading by shutting down it's travel from Wuhan and they isolated it there alone and treated it well. The numbers would be much lower but the virus would be the same virus, it was just effected by context just like a million different factors raise and lower it now in this messy complicated world.

The thing is, they do not believe it started in Wuhan, they believe is started in Guangdong, so regardless of if they shut down Wuhan earlier, it would have still spread regardless. It was spreading through asymptomatic carriers before they even knew it existed. Mutated versions of the original type A strain of the virus from Guangdong have been found in both the US and Australia, the later type B strain is what is found primarily in Wuhan. which makes it more likely to have mutated by the time it reached Wuhan, rather than actually originating there.

Coronavirus Outbreak May Have Started as Early as September, Scientists Say

The outbreak also may not have started in Wuhan, geneticist Peter Forster said.

www.newsweek.com

 

[tstorm823]

We might note Fauci in April dismissed right-wing theories about the US covid-19 toll being overstated as having no adequate basis. In fact, he called them conspiracy theories. However, we might note a large number of experts suggesting that current recording methods are likely to provide an underestimate, with suggestions of covid-19 deaths being as much as 50% higher.

Yeah, it's not an issue of accuracy, it's just an issue of interpretation. Making the reporting standards increasing aggressive makes it more and more difficult to compare to other places, and more and more difficult to see trends form.

And also there totally are unrelated deaths being counted at this point. I won't suggest they amount to more than the number of uncounted genuine covid deaths, it's not a matter of the total being too high or too low. But when it's "any death that tested positive plus any untested death with covid symptoms", there's ways in both directions to be counting people who died of different causes. Respiratory issues is like 6% of deaths in the US, that's around 500 per day as a baseline. If you count none of those on day one, and then start counting those halfway through, you're gonna put a plateau under the back half at some point. Whether or not the count is too high or too low overall isn't super important. Sloppy changes in reporting inspired by a reasonable fear of undercounting are still sloppy changes in reporting.

 

[Agema]

If you want to see trends, you merely need consistency of criteria over time; ideally to compare trends over two different places they'd use the same criteria, but often it wouldn't be a much of a problem if they weren't, as long as the relationship between the criteria was consistent.

If you want to compare two places in all sorts of other ways, identical or near identical criteria would be far more important. Or having a reliable conversion system between the two, I guess.

It is unlikely to be as bad as you think. I doubt for instance any death involving covid-19 symptoms means all respiratory deaths: respiratory failure from a severe asthma attack or end phase COPD are unlikely to be recorded as covid-19.

 

[tstorm823]

It is unlikely to be as bad as you think. I doubt for instance any death involving covid-19 symptoms means all respiratory deaths: respiratory failure from a severe asthma attack or end phase COPD are unlikely to be recorded as covid-19.

If it happened in their home and there was nobody there to witness, particularly at the peak of things a couple weeks ago, there's a good chance they counted it. New York and surrounding areas didn't have enough tests or coroners to sort it out, so they marked things remotely similar as "suspected" and moved along.

 

[lil devils x]

If it happened in their home and there was nobody there to witness, particularly at the peak of things a couple weeks ago, there's a good chance they counted it. New York and surrounding areas didn't have enough tests or coroners to sort it out, so they marked things remotely similar as "suspected" and moved along.

Everything we know on this right now is telling us that the deaths are being underreported, not over reported. Many regions are not even counting deaths that occur outside of the hospital, and in some regions they are not even counting people who tested positive for COVID-19 as a COVID death. This is why we really should set a national standard:

"In comparison, other states have unique counting strategies that can sometimes exclude even laboratory-confirmed cases of Covid-19 from their death tallies, the Post reports.

For example, in Alabama, a physician reviews the medical records of people who died and tested positive for Covid-19 to determine whether the death should be attributed to Covid-19 or to another underlying health condition. According to Karen Landers, a spokesperson for the state's Department of Public Health, Alabama's death count often excludes people who tested positive for Covid-19 but had no respiratory symptoms as well as people who experienced another health event, like a heart attack, when they had the disease.

As a result, out of the 110 people in Alabama who had tested positive for Covid-19 and died as of Thursday, 73 were included in the statewide death tally sent to CDC, the Post reports. Another 12 deaths were excluded, and 25 other deaths are still under review, according to the Post.

"Still, Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas-Austin, said the discrepancies likely mean America's current official Covid-19 death count represents "just the tip of the iceberg" of how deadly the disease has been in country. "[T]he undercount is going to be really high" at the start of the epidemic, he said.

Why America is probably undercounting coronavirus deaths

CDC relies on state-by-state tallies of death certificates to calculate the number of U.S. deaths from the new coronavirus, but state officials warn that the process is riddled with inaccuracies—and experts say the number of Americans who've died from the virus is likely higher than CDC's...

www.advisory.com

The problem with this of course is that we have already found that COVID-19 can cause heart attacks and strokes, even in otherwise healthy individuals at younger ages, this why they are now treating COVID-19 patients with blood thinners as well:

Doctors believe COVID-19 can cause heart attack and strokes in young patients

As we're continuing to discover more about COVID-19, some doctors say it can cause heart attacks and strokes in young people.

abc13.com

COVID-19 linked to cardiac injury, worse outcomes for patients with heart conditions

COVID-19 can have fatal consequences for people with underlying cardiovascular disease and cause cardiac injury even in patients without underlying heart conditions, according to a new review.

www.sciencedaily.com

Mysterious Heart Damage, Not Just Lung Troubles, Befalling COVID-19 Patients - KFF Health News

Most of the attention in the COVID-19 pandemic has been on how the virus affects the lungs. But evidence shows that up to 1 in 5 hospitalized patients have signs of heart damage and many are dying due to heart problems.

khn.org

Blood thinners may improve survival among hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients with anticoagulants -- blood thinners that slow down clotting -- may improve their chances of survival, researchers report. The study could provide new insight on how to treat and manage coronavirus patients once they are admitted to the hospital.

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[Breakdown]

So Boris Johnson's big announcement - he just wants everybody to go back to work tomorrow, but don't use public transport because it's not safe, and Be Alert!

I thought the government might have come up with some kind of plan or something, but apparently not.

 

[SupahEwok]

So Boris Johnson's big announcement - he just wants everybody to go back to work tomorrow, but don't use public transport because it's not safe, and Be Alert!

I thought the government might have come up with some kind of plan or something, but apparently not.

The plan is to let the invisible hand of the free market sort it out. Much easier than working.

 

[Agema]

So Boris Johnson's big announcement - he just wants everybody to go back to work tomorrow, but don't use public transport because it's not safe, and Be Alert!

I thought the government might have come up with some kind of plan or something, but apparently not.

My favourite was the equation they put up:

Coronavirus alert level = R x number of infections

Right. So R is a technical value that will be between ~ 0.5 - 3, depending on social distancing. The number of infections are currently over 150,000. Therefore, the coronavirus alert level is basically the same as the number of infections and R is effectively irrelevant.

So this isn't actually a real equation. It's a figurative representation of some other calculation, expressed in a bogus science-y way to make it seem like the government is following science. Hell, they might even be following science, but at this point, I don't know how much I trust them to. I certainly don't think the politicians understand science.

 

[tstorm823]

Everything we know on this right now is telling us that the deaths are being underreported, not over reported.

Please, save the effort. If you go up two posts from what you quoted, I've already said it's not a matter of whether the number is too high or two low.

Regions do vary in reporting. I understand. The state I'm in at the beginning had a standard that was likely to miss many deaths. Twice now they've decided to change the standard. It is likely at this point they are counting deaths they shouldn't. Which is not the same as counting too many deaths, they may still miss more than they misattribute. That's not the point. The point is by changing their reporting standards and testing levels constantly in ways that increase the count, it's impossible for a lay person like me with limited information to assess the trends. That have on multiple occasions dumped a bunch of data in retroactively without properly attributing when those deaths and tests actually occurred, and it's freaking annoying. I know enough people in health care to be certain at this point that the crisis here is on a serious down-slope with regards to hospitalizations (you know, just like the rest of the world), but that isn't being reflected in the case and death data that are almost flat still, and those are the only things being published, and neither are being published with a consistent standard.

I don't care if the total count is too high or too low. I want an honest assessment of where we're headed, and the governor's office is dodging that.

 

[Agema]

The plan is to let the invisible hand of the free market sort it out. Much easier than working.

I think it may be more insidious than that.

I think it's at least partly about a shift in tone to load the responsibility - and blame - onto us. Much of the advice is vague or bizarre: if you can't work from home, go to work, and don't use public transport. How do they think millions of Britons get to their workplaces? Are buses and trains just for shopping trips? "Stay alert" - for what, exactly? Foreign spies? Fire hazards? 5G masts?

The message is really to spin an idea of "You Britons choose what you do, and if it goes wrong, that's because you weren't careful enough" where we police each other, blame each other, and turn on each other. The government recedes to a more passive organisation that merely provides a backstop, and "tells us off" if we screw up. By fostering this attitude, the government plans media and citizens spend a lot less time questioning their policies, whether they made good decisions over covid-19, that they ran down the NHS for ten years, etc. Because at the current moment, they know they're liable to lose those lines of debate quite badly.

 

[Breakdown]

I think it may be more insidious than that.

I think it's at least partly about a shift in tone to load the responsibility - and blame - onto us. Much of the advice is vague or bizarre: if you can't work from home, go to work, and don't use public transport. How do they think millions of Britons get to their workplaces? Are buses and trains just for shopping trips? "Stay alert" - for what, exactly? Foreign spies? Fire hazards? 5G masts?

The message is really to spin an idea of "You Britons choose what you do, and if it goes wrong, that's because you weren't careful enough" where we police each other, blame each other, and turn on each other. The government recedes to a more passive organisation that merely provides a backstop, and "tells us off" if we screw up. By fostering this attitude, the government plans media and citizens spend a lot less time questioning their policies, whether they made good decisions over covid-19, that they ran down the NHS for ten years, etc. Because at the current moment, they know they're liable to lose those lines of debate quite badly.

What makes the whole situation worse is that many public transport networks are still running reduced services, so trains are going to be even more packed than usual this morning. You'd think the government would instruct networks to provide their regular service before giving a blanket back to work order.

 

[tstorm823]

The message is really to spin an idea of "You Britons choose what you do, and if it goes wrong, that's because you weren't careful enough" where we police each other, blame each other, and turn on each other.

Well, it does project poor leadership, but it's also sort of an acceptance of reality. People are choosing what to do, and if it goes wrong depends on that. The quarantine measures in developed countries were never really enforceable, they worked because people agreed they were a good idea, and now that agreement is falling apart ragardless of what governments say.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Some really stupid Australians are copying, word for word, stupid Americans and it annoys me:

Why Are Australians Chanting “Arrest Bill Gates” At Protests? This Wild Facebook Group Has The Answers.

A Facebook group started by a former family cooking show contestant was the driving force behind the dramatic anti-lockdown protests on the weekend.

www.buzzfeed.com

Stupid Australians should be drinking themselves to death or kissing brown snakes or swimming in crocodile infested waters after midnight. Aping the US is unAustralian.