US Politics: Get Tested or Get Bested

[Jace, Extat]

16 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

.

 And luckily there are about as many new infections in China as there are gays in Iran, so great job Xi.

Now THAT's funny. 

 

[mcbigski]

9 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Now THAT's funny. 

 

Whatever, I know Twyin will always be your #1.

[Jace, Extat]

35 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Whatever, I know Twyin will always be your #1.

That soiboi ain't even on the list, let alone ahead of Rutger Hauer. You silly goose.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

I think you're worried too much.  More testing also means more ability to have Easter gatherings and right now the US is almost on par with Germany as far as deaths per 1000, and not near Italy or Iran.  More testing means faster chance of ending shut downs, at least regionally.  Total positive tests over the full population is a far more meaningful stat that total positives over some symptomatic subgroup. 

I did read something that gorillas are susceptible to Covid19.  Hopefully they start just showing Trump reruns on the gorilla channel or who knows what he'll do.

 And luckily there are about as many new infections in China as there are gays in Iran, so great job Xi.

I shall be blunt.

I have been reading posts on Facebook and attached to articles on this pandemic.  One thing stands out - the vast majority of people who appear to have or had this disease were flat out denied testing.  That tells me that the true number of COVID 19 patients, and corresponding death toll is understated in the US by something on the order of a factor of ten.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@DMC,

How often in random circles do you get called arrogant, pompous, or something similar?

Not asking to be a jerk, but actually would like a bit of a baseline. 

[Jace, Extat]

21 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

I shall be blunt.

I have been reading posts on Facebook and attached to articles on this pandemic.  One thing stands out - the vast majority of people who appear to have or had this disease were flat out denied testing.  That tells me that the true number of COVID 19 patients, and corresponding death toll is understated in the US by something on the order of a factor of ten.  

How do they know they had it?

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

@DMC,

How often in random circles do you get called arrogant, pompous, or something similar?

Not asking to be a jerk, but actually would like a bit of a baseline. 

In real life?  I don't really talk politics with most friends that aren't in academia (which is most of my friends) unless they bring it up, so not so much.  As for my poly sci friends, they're unsurprisingly just as arrogant on the subject, so it's definitely a pot/kettle thing.  That's an odd question though, are there a lot of people calling you arrogant right now or something?

[ThinkerX]

15 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

How do they know they had it?

Usually, it was an over the phone interview with a medical provider, or close comparison of symptoms with confirmed cases.  No tests, though, these remain 'unconfirmed,' hence keeping the count low. And these accounts are all over the web (including on a couple sites I frequent that normally completely avoid such topics).  

[mcbigski]

37 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

I shall be blunt.

I have been reading posts on Facebook and attached to articles on this pandemic.  One thing stands out - the vast majority of people who appear to have or had this disease were flat out denied testing.  That tells me that the true number of COVID 19 patients, and corresponding death toll is understated in the US by something on the order of a factor of ten.  

I don't think those both are likely to be true, if the testing bottleneck meant that only the worst cases got tests.  Some fairly substantial number of infected are asymptomatic or barely affected.  Obviously the true number of infected people in the US is higher than the confirmed cases.  But the larger that number is, the better, both for eventual herd immunity stopping steep growth and for lowering average fatality rate via larger denominator.  I haven't seen anything that would indicate that total mortality from all causes has spiked enough to be consistent with 20000 excess deaths (10x mostly current figure).

[ThinkerX]

18 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

I don't think those both are likely to be true, if the testing bottleneck meant that only the worst cases got tests.  Some fairly substantial number of infected are asymptomatic or barely affected.  Obviously the true number of infected people in the US is higher than the confirmed cases.  But the larger that number is, the better, both for eventual herd immunity stopping steep growth and for lowering average fatality rate via larger denominator.  I haven't seen anything that would indicate that total mortality from all causes has spiked enough to be consistent with 20000 excess deaths (10x mostly current figure).

We shall see.  Team Trump has attempted to suppress info on this mess from the start, seems to me that a far higher than reported death count is also something they'd wish to suppress.  It'll come out...

[Jace, Extat]

10 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Usually, it was an over the phone interview with a medical provider, or close comparison of symptoms with confirmed cases.  No tests, though, these remain 'unconfirmed,' hence keeping the count low. And these accounts are all over the web (including on a couple sites I frequent that normally completely avoid such topics).  

And people who post on the internet would never lie or exaggerate their condition right? 

You know what ease of representation bias is? It means that just because you notice certain similarities between two complex systems does not make them like. Seeing things repeat in secondary circumstances does not necessarily make them conjoined or even relevant to each other.

That's why doctors diagnose people in person and with the aid of lab testing. It is, in fact, extremely irregular for a doctor to give a diagnosis remotely and I've never met one who would do so for fear of being sued.

[Fragile Bird]

After seeing the numbers tonight, I'd say you guys are in Italy territory. Today you had 515 or so deaths, how many will it be tomorrow? 800?

Maybe you won't hit 560,000 next week, but I'd say 200,000 is a shoe-in, maybe 300,000.

I hope I'm wrong.

I think Cuomo was wrong calling Trump's ramblings about quarantining three states civil war. Maybe if the number hits 400,000 sometime soon Trump will declare a country wide lockdown. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

43 minutes ago, DMC said:

In real life?  I don't really talk politics with most friends that aren't in academia (which is most of my friends) unless they bring it up, so not so much.  As for my poly sci friends, they're unsurprisingly just as arrogant on the subject, so it's definitely a pot/kettle thing.  That's an odd question though, are there a lot of people calling you arrogant right now or something?

Not exactly per se, but a lot of people now think they are experts on a number of subjects because they started watching the news.

And those same people really hate that smart people have always been doing so. Or at the very least, those who behave like smart people. 

[ThinkerX]

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

After seeing the numbers tonight, I'd say you guys are in Italy territory. Today you had 515 or so deaths, how many will it be tomorrow? 800?

Maybe you won't hit 560,000 next week, but I'd say 200,000 is a shoe-in, maybe 300,000.

I hope I'm wrong.

I think Cuomo was wrong calling Trump's ramblings about quarantining three states civil war. Maybe if the number hits 400,000 sometime soon Trump will declare a country wide lockdown. 

My (possibly flawed) understanding is that the President might not have the authority to order a full lockdown.  

[ThinkerX]

21 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

And people who post on the internet would never lie or exaggerate their condition right? 

You know what ease of representation bias is? It means that just because you notice certain similarities between two complex systems does not make them like. Seeing things repeat in secondary circumstances does not necessarily make them conjoined or even relevant to each other.

That's why doctors diagnose people in person and with the aid of lab testing. It is, in fact, extremely irregular for a doctor to give a diagnosis remotely and I've never met one who would do so for fear of being sued.

Mere days ago, even you were complaining about the absurdly low numbers of 'confirmed' coronavirus cases in many states, along with the dire shortages of test kits.   Several people linked to various articles dealing with this topic.  Me? I went and read the comments to those and others.  

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not exactly per se, but a lot of people now think they are experts on a number of subjects because they started watching the news.

Yeah, I'm quite familiar with that teaching undergraduates.

 

[Jace, Extat]

I recall complaining of no such thing. I acknowledge the dearth of testing kits and recognize it as a problem, but I've been firmly against this rampage of fearsplaining. 

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

I think Cuomo was wrong calling Trump's ramblings about quarantining three states civil war. Maybe if the number hits 400,000 sometime soon Trump will declare a country wide lockdown. 

Feels a bit closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out, the barn has burned to ther ground, and the earth salted...

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

And people who post on the internet would never lie or exaggerate their condition right? 

You know what ease of representation bias is? It means that just because you notice certain similarities between two complex systems does not make them like. Seeing things repeat in secondary circumstances does not necessarily make them conjoined or even relevant to each other.

That's why doctors diagnose people in person and with the aid of lab testing. It is, in fact, extremely irregular for a doctor to give a diagnosis remotely and I've never met one who would do so for fear of being sued.

Realizing I'm just another random person on the internet, but in Oklahoma, the procedure for testing has been that unless you're needing to be hospitalized, or have come into contact with someone with a positive diagnosis, you cannot get tested, whether you're presenting with symptoms or not. So there are certainly at least hundreds of uncounted cases in a fairly rural state.

That's not to say healthcare providers are diagnosing people over the phone, but there was certainly an active effort by this administration to deliberately not test people, and the only question is how large the pool of untested infected individuals actually is. 

[BigFatCoward]

Has the surge in deaths over the past few days began to make any impression on public opinion of the administration?