Jump to content

Covid-19 #14 - Are We Done Yet?


Fragile Bird

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

California reported 2,081 new cases today? What happened? People at the beach last week?

There is only one number that by itself is particularly useful - death rate. And even that is pretty garbage.

Reporting cases could be bad or good depending on how many tests were done. As testing goes up we should see overall cases increase.

That said, I think this is pretty alarming for Cali - testing has gone down quite a bit, but the rate is higher. And they also recorded the single most deaths in a day. Hospitalizations are down about 15%, but that's not a great sign.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think one of the reasons for the stock market insanity are low interest rates. There simply is nowhere to park your money to get any decent rate of return, so people are continually piling into stocks, in the expectation that (1) the Fed will never let the stock market really crash, and (2) the federal government is going to keep the stimulus tap going and (3) a vaccine will eventually be found or the virus will die a natural death. There's also a big "FOMO" sentiment because if a vaccine is found and stocks rocket back up, people don't want to be the ones that miss out on that. So that's providing a floor for stock prices as well.

Given that well-heeled Republicans are sensitive to gyrations in the stock market, I can imagine that as reality dawns they will band together with leftist Democrats to ensure the money party continues. So it's probably a not unrealistic scenario to imagine that stocks won't suffer a huge crash again, because the Fed and the government just won't allow them to. Mind you, I think a large portion of that money and effort is misdirected because it isn't the real economy.

It will take another very big event - e.g. stimulus being voted down, or a big second wave of closures, or a failure of  - for stocks to shudder again. Otherwise I expect they will meander along as they have been doing the last few weeks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

California reported 2,081 new cases today? What happened? People at the beach last week?

I heard you and a few others shared bird baths. 

Rumors, of course, but you should know what people are whispering. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last week (I think, time has no meaning), The Atlantic published an article about how Virginia was mixing their antibody and infection tests together to make their testing numbers look better. Now, they have confirmed that Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and the CDC itself are doing the same. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

Quote

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.

This is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.

Several states—including Pennsylvania, the site of one of the country’s largest outbreaks, as well as Texas, Georgia, and Vermont—are blending the data in the same way. Virginia likewise mixed viral and antibody test results until last week, but it reversed course and the governor apologized for the practice after it was covered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Atlantic. Maine similarly separated its data on Wednesday; Vermont authorities claimed they didn’t even know they were doing this.  

The widespread use of the practice means that it remains difficult to know exactly how much the country’s ability to test people who are actively sick with COVID-19 has improved.

 

Bottom line, we can't trust positive test rates in the US at all. Which means we have very little idea of how widespread the virus is. The raw number of infections and deaths are helpful metrics, but they aren't enough at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Last week (I think, time has no meaning), The Atlantic published an article about how Virginia was mixing their antibody and infection tests together to make their testing numbers look better. Now, they have confirmed that Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and the CDC itself are doing the same. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

Bottom line, we can't trust positive test rates in the US at all. Which means we have very little idea of how widespread the virus is. The raw number of infections and deaths are helpful metrics, but they aren't enough at all.

I've been saying for a while now that the US is actually getting worse than China in terms of dishonesty, all for an audience of 1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I've been saying for a while now that the US is actually getting worse than China in terms of dishonesty, all for an audience of 1.

Haven't you heard, Trump just grew to be 6'5, his weight is down to 215, and his penis is now 5 inches long. 

Because magic. Oh, and he beat Jordan 1 on 1 in a pick up game.

ETA: Didn't his best friend, who he fell in love with, once golf a perfect game, or was it his father?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was an outbreak in the hospital I retired from last year, and it was in my old department. I just talked to some one whom I used to work with and he was one of the infected. His story is rather interesting. 6 people who work together all came down with symptoms on the same day. Naturally they all go and get tested. 3 test positive and are sent home to self isolate and the other 3 tested negative.  All  3 decide to stay off , just in case.  On the next weekend being short of people, one of the 3 who tested negative is asked to come into work as they are very shorthanded now and he should wear a mask and try to avoid people as much as he can. He does not think this is a good idea so he gets tested again and comes up positive as do the others who originally tested negative.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Accidentally posted this in the personal life Covid thread.

Have you been tested for COVID-19? What was the result?

Normal people: Yes, I was tested. It came back negative.

Trump: 

Is this like negative calories? :P Trump has a negative form of the coronavirus.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never really understood all the press over the Lori Loughlin affair. A good looking rich lady catching her due, I guess. Well, she gets to go to jail now, but they will probably let her out quickly, if she does any time at all.

Does anyone think the idiot above ever got into arguably the best business school in the country on his own merit, or once in ever did his own homework? I'd be impressed if the totality of what he read was as long as the book my friend sent me as a gift (11/22/63). 

I wonder why he called for Obama's grades while refusing to show his own.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Don't steal my jokes! 

It would seem Oklahoma needs as much freedom as Toronto!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Trust me, we got all the freedumb we can handle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Could be worse. You're not Arkansas. 

Perish the thought! I almost got the vapors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I never really understood all the press over the Lori Loughlin affair. A good looking rich lady catching her due, I guess. Well, she gets to go to jail now, but they will probably let her out quickly, if she does any time at all.

Does anyone think the idiot above ever got into arguably the best business school in the country on his own merit, or once in ever did his own homework? I'd be impressed if the totality of what he read was as long as the book my friend sent me as a gift (11/22/63). 

I wonder why he called for Obama's grades while refusing to show his own.....

Like Martha Stewart, every few years you need to beat up a politically inconsequential rich white woman sometimes just to pretend the meritocracy is a real thing.

The real sin of the Lori Loughlin types is wanting to secure privileged seats for their worthless kids at a discount. You normally need to donate over a million bucks to get that treatment, so the deans and Senior Vice Presidents of Groveling for Cash can polish their resumes. Paying tens of thousands to low level minions like athletic coaches is so gauche and Not to Be Countenanced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So this image started showing up on the local NextDoor and Facebook channels this week.

https://d3926qxcw0e1bh.cloudfront.net/post_photos/1a/cc/1accd9763f67812e3d1390026c61e1b0.jpeg.max800.jpeg

I am not sure if the posters who use it are serious or not, since I can't imagine a reputable doctor actually prescribing or recommending this cocktail to the general populace.  But the comments sections of threads about Sky Harbor requiring travelers to wear masks, the CDC's guidelines for opening schools, and the governor cautioning the citizens to be cautious are full of it.

Sometimes it seems like the internet has permitted us to travel backwards in time to a pre-literate society where hex marks like the images above possess the power to protect people from ideas they don't like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...