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Covid-19 #16: Not Waving, Loop-de-Looping


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5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just watched a piece about Sturgess and the tens of thousands (up to 250,000) rolling in for the annual motorcycle bash. Nobody was wearing a mask (except one old guy they found at the very end, walking with his maskless wife).

I hope all these bastards go home and spread more Covid-19 wherever they live. It seems that 95% of them are Trump supporters, may they all get so sick they can't crawl out of bed to vote.

You may have on occasion observed that I'm not particularly religious. But I can't help noticing your second paragraph has the makings of a wonderful prayer, all it needs is an Amen!

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4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

You may have on occasion observed that I'm not particularly religious. But I can't help noticing your second paragraph has the makings of a wonderful prayer, all it needs is an Amen!

I wanted to be careful not to wish death on them, although I have noticed many people easily wish death on the covidiocracy! I can’t help but see how many people wish death on others, saying these guys are thoughtlessly, stupidly, arrogantly, whatever you want to call it, potentially spreading death to their loved ones. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference between a curse and a prayer, right?

3 hours ago, Leap said:

Besides the fact that this comment is obviously conspiratorial nonsense, I was actually quite interested in the reason for this (and it is true, at least in the technical sense). So if anyone was curious:

The bill was introduced as 

and was passed by the Democratic-led House in July 2019. It obviously had nothing to do with Coronavirus. It sat on Mitch McConnell's desk until spring 2020.

It passed the Senate under the new title

on the 25th of March, 2020. There are 15 amendments to the bill between the 22nd and 25th of March, 2020 - the amendments that actually make it a Coronavirus relief bill. The House agreed to the amendments a few days later, and Trump signed it the same day.

Thanks for that. I had no idea Americans did weird stuff like this. Obviously many Americans don’t know either.

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I heard on a podcast, perhaps the greatest point ever made, given these times. Do we cancel Halloween, or maybe, just maybe, we have it every day, because no one wants to wear a mask, but there's this day when everyone does, and you get treats for doing so?

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2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Thanks for that. I had no idea Americans did weird stuff like this. Obviously many Americans don’t know either.

I tend to think they used it as a template because it - probably - already passed some internal reviews for legality, etc. Many countries have enacted measures based on previously proposed regulation/benefits/etc for - I suspect now - similar reasons or fast-tracked those already in the workings. Thanks to @Leap for the explanations

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44 minutes ago, Mystical said:

I'm talking about this. Introduced January 2019 and going into effect in March 2020.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748

The name it has was not the name it had in January 2019. Through various complex, arcane routes, it was transformed into CARES from the "Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019", as you can see in the original text.

Someone more versed in the arcana of Congress can explain why this happened in more detail, but Wikipedia's article on the CARES Act has this:

Quote

The House initially passed a tax cut bill in mid-2019 and sent it to the Senate, which then used it as a shell bill and added an amendment in the nature of a substitute, fulfilling the constitutional requirement that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House.

 

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

The name it has was not the name it had in January 2019. Through various complex, arcane routes, it was transformed into CARES from the "Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019", as you can see in the original text.

Someone more versed in the arcana of Congress can explain why this happened in more detail, but Wikipedia's article on the CARES Act has this:

 

The reason I called him what I called him (since you deleted the post, I won’t repeat it) is because Leap has given a full explanation in the post above and he still repeated his claim without bothering to either acknowledge Leap’s post or to look up the information on the statute. That to me is classic word-not-to-be-repeated.

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Here are dilemmas and questions NYC teachers are facing, and nobody is providing answers or guidelines:

https://gothamist.com/news/despite-nycs-school-reopening-plan-teachers-say-theyre-in-the-dark-on-details-on-how-to-manage-their-classrooms

What was shocking was that in comments there was shock that teachers expected they'd have to buy the cleaning supplies themselves, as for years they routinely buy toilet paper, paper towels, soap etc., because the schools run out and have no budget -- just as for years they have been buying their own teaching materials and tools.  How do people not know this is going on?  What do they think teachers unions are protesting?

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On 8/7/2020 at 4:55 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

The only justification for schools is that too much time with school closures is bad for kids' education, esp where educational inequality will be exacerbated with the rich kids being able to do all the online education they want / their parents / nannies can force them into, and poor kids won't be doing any. Anyone trying to advance an economic argument for opening schools (so parents can get back to work for example) while community spread is in full swing is an arsehole.

Pretty much agree. That's why I've been adamant that as society we should be able to do our duty to keep infections low so kids can go back to school. If we fail to do that and infection rates are high, simply school cannot re-open and this will show that we suck as society. The best we can do is to leave  our societies to our asian overlords as they seem to be more competent and responsible. 

BTW. Since you are down-under, what's going on with Australia? I just checked the worldmeters stats and their second wave is already showing in the reported covid-19 deaths. This suggest to me that their outbreak is much worse than reported due to the delay of ~18 days between onset of symptoms and death. With an IFR of ~1% this means they had >1000 infected 15-20 days ago as they are reporting 10 and 15 deaths. I guess that prompted the Melbourne lockdown as they realized that things were much worse than it seemed at first.

 

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A great big reason the USA is in the c19 catastrophe that has destroyed millions of lives economically at best, and death at worst: the insurance companies' GREAT BIG CONCERTED LIES.

Quote

"The health care scare
I sold Americans a lie about Canadian medicine. Now we’re paying the price. By Wendell Potter
n my prior life as an insurance executive, it was my job to deceive Americans about their health care. I misled people to protect profits."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/06/health-insurance-canada-lie/?  (paywall)

Quote

 

[....]Nevertheless, I spent much of that year as an industry spokesman, my last after 20 years in the business, spreading AHIP’s “information” to journalists and lawmakers to create the impression that our health-care system was far superior to Canada’s, which we wanted people to believe was on the verge of collapse. The campaign worked. Stories began to appear in the press that cast the Canadian system in a negative light. And when Democrats began writing what would become the Affordable Care Act in early 2009, they gave no serious consideration to a publicly financed system like Canada’s. We succeeded so wildly at defining that idea as radical that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), then chair of the Senate Finance Committee, had single-payer supporters ejected from a hearing.

Today, the respective responses of Canada and the United States to the coronavirus pandemic prove just how false the ideas I helped spread were. There are more than three times as many coronavirus infections per capita in the United States, and the mortality rate is twice the rate in Canada. And although we now test more people per capita, our northern neighbor had much earlier successes with testing, which helped make a difference throughout the pandemic.

The most effective myth we perpetuated — the industry trots it out whenever major reform is proposed — is that Canadians and people in other single-payer countries have to endure long waits for needed care. Just last year, in a statement submitted to a congressional committee for a hearing on the Medicare for All Act of 2019, AHIP maintained that “patients would pay more to wait longer for worse care” under a single-payer system.

While it’s true that Canadians sometimes have to wait weeks or months for elective procedures (knee replacements are often cited), the truth is that they do not have to wait at all for the vast majority of medical services. And, contrary to another myth I used to peddle — that Canadian doctors are flocking to the United States — there are more doctors per 1,000 people in Canada than here. Canadians see their doctors an average of 6.8 times a year, compared with just four times a year in this country.[MORE]

 

 

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Well, on that note, it seems appropriate to post this article ranking US states and Canadian provinces in accordance with cases per million. The Canadian provinces are at the very bottom, in case you were searching. 48 states and DC all rank higher, Maine and Vermont drop into Canadian ranks.

The positivity rate in Toronto (pop. about 3 M) is 0.3%, I heard yesterday the positivity rate in Houston (pop. 2.3 M) is 19.9%.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-in-the-u-s-how-do-canada-s-provinces-rank-against-american-states-1.5051033

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Just came after visiting my dad, but it's not about him or nursing home visits in general. This is a rant about face masks, or how people are (not) wearing them properly.

I mean, I get it folks, we're all kinda tired of that shit. While there's an undeniable upside in face masks, with folks who are blessed with the face of Ted Cruz being forced to cover it, I generally speaking do not enjoy wearing them, esp. when it's sunny and hot, and my mask is black. But seriously seeing so many un(der)covered faces in a subway car is annoying, and impolite. It's not just the chosen few idiots that don'T wear won, which I have seen, but I am also thinking of those morons that are just covering their mouth, but not their nose, or have it lowered even further so they can speak on their phone in the subway. The thing is not a freaking t-string for your face, with the idea of less cover beign sexy. Let me tell you, that isn't necessarily true for the majority of people (esp. for males imo). Facemasks are supposed to be more like boring tidy whities for your face. If I can see your holes you are wearing them wrong, in most cases I am not particulary eager to see your holes, and if you display them so proudly in public, you are very like the sorta person that transmits diseases [fill in Tywin joke of your choice here].

I'd never thought I'd say that, but at this rate, I think implementing sharia law and forcing everyone to wear a fucking Burka doesn't sound like as bad an idea, as it used to.

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Wisconsin is trending horribly, we just had our largest one day caseload yesterday and I'm seeing an increased laziness with regards to public mask usage so I'm not expecting things to improve much as we head towards fall. 

Went to a local store yesterday to purchase a chainsaw, was in store a good 20 minutes as the guy prepped the product and went over the warranty etc. As I was getting back into my truck with the saw, I realized during my whole prolonged store visit, I was the only masked person anywhere on the premises, not a single other customer nor employee could be bothered to mask up I guess?

These same bastards will likely be whining in the local news about how their dear little grandchildren are suffering so from catching covid in the schools or maybe their poor nephew innocently got sick at the motorcycle rally. Who could have possibly known these things could've ever happened to them they've been faithfully praying to Trump every night and he told em it was going to go away?

Most essential workers I've noticed are masking up though thankfully. I know it's ingrained and trained into us daily at many places. This is a great advantage to us in public as there's no thought about the mask, if the truck door opens, on goes the mask habitually for me. Where I've seen the worst noncompliance (like yesterday) has usually been the mom n pop operations unfortunately. Which is doubly unfortunate because I always feel best patronizing family/local businesses over the freakn monopolistic corporate chains. May have to adjust such choices during the pandemic, again unfortunately.

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12 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Pretty much agree. That's why I've been adamant that as society we should be able to do our duty to keep infections low so kids can go back to school. If we fail to do that and infection rates are high, simply school cannot re-open and this will show that we suck as society. The best we can do is to leave  our societies to our asian overlords as they seem to be more competent and responsible. 

BTW. Since you are down-under, what's going on with Australia? I just checked the worldmeters stats and their second wave is already showing in the reported covid-19 deaths. This suggest to me that their outbreak is much worse than reported due to the delay of ~18 days between onset of symptoms and death. With an IFR of ~1% this means they had >1000 infected 15-20 days ago as they are reporting 10 and 15 deaths. I guess that prompted the Melbourne lockdown as they realized that things were much worse than it seemed at first.

 

That's like asking a Canadian what's going on in the USA...if Canada and the USA were separated by 1,600 km of ocean.

As I understand it, the death rates are on the high side because the virus found its way into some aged care facilities in Melbourne, and the IFR among the over 70s is a bit higher than 1%. 

Meanwhile, we celebrated 100 days free from community transmission. Famous last words, since as soon as you celebrate freedom from a disease that is a raging pandemic it will raise its nasty head. Dumb electioneering by the govt I reckon. Funny, because since about day 95 of freedom the govt has been ramping up COVID-19 protection advice: use the tracer app, buy a supply of masks for your emergency kit etc talking about when, not if, the virus comes back into the community (it's only in the quarantine hotels right now). Makes me wonder if the mathematical modelers have calculated that there is a 80%+ probability that the virus has already leaked out of the quarantine hotels into the community so the govt is priming the country for its first surprise positives in the community, and probably a handful of positives at that. At the risk of spreading panic, because most people are dumb when it comes to science and maths and probability, I think the govt should be releasing the modeling figures they are getting. But there is an election in 1 month so I think the govt is keeping its fingers crossed and hoping the first community case will be after election day.

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12 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

 BTW. Since you are down-under, what's going on with Australia? I just checked the worldmeters stats and their second wave is already showing in the reported covid-19 deaths. This suggest to me that their outbreak is much worse than reported due to the delay of ~18 days between onset of symptoms and death. With an IFR of ~1% this means they had >1000 infected 15-20 days ago as they are reporting 10 and 15 deaths. I guess that prompted the Melbourne lockdown as they realized that things were much worse than it seemed at first.

 

Melbourne has been had hundreds of cases per day for near a month now. Has near 8k known active cases. It had at mostly stabilised after an initial pretty light lock down, but was stubbornly ticking along at around 400-500 new cases per day. They've now gone into a much harsher lockdown which seems to be starting to bring the numbers per day (and positive test rate) down.

As @The Anti-Targ says most of the deaths are in aged care facilities where the CFR is far far higher.

However it's limited to Victoria at the moment. All other Australian states have closed their borders to them and seem under control, though NSW looks occasionally dicey.

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Makes me wonder if the mathematical modelers have calculated that there is a 80%+ probability that the virus has already leaked out of the quarantine hotels into the community so the govt is priming the country for its first surprise positives in the community, and probably a handful of positives at that.

That one infected person might make it through the quarantine, that the virus might once a year slip through the security measures is possible, of course. But still, as long as the quarantine is done more seriously than the 1st NZ version (letting people through before their time and without testing, for reasons, whatever good they might be) or than Melbourne (contract low-skilled barely paid people to guard the hotels so that they won't give a damn about the job, will let quarantined people go wherever they are, and even occasionally be dumb as shit and actually sleep with them), then NZ should be fine. Basic hand-washing should be done as long as there's a pandemic somewhere, and people should have some reserve of masks and hand sanitizer, and probably ban gatherings of more than 1K people - including concerts and sport events - should be enough until we have truly effective drugs (as protection or as cure) or vaccine (the former should come first, most probably).

Hopefully, you'll avoid Vietnam's fate. I'm still wondering how the heck the mess began in mid-July, because they really had it wiped out until then. Were they sloppy or downright stupid and let people in without checks?

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2 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

 

Hopefully, you'll avoid Vietnam's fate. I'm still wondering how the heck the mess began in mid-July, because they really had it wiped out until then. Were they sloppy or downright stupid and let people in without checks?

Can you please explain this comment? Vietnam is #155 on Worldometer’s list, with 812 cases, reported 23 yesterday. New Zealand is #136, with 1,569 cases. Yes, NZ has no cases right now, but Vietnam has steadily had a few. Obviously there was an outbreak at the end of July, and this virus is terribly infectious. That doesn’t mean they won’t isolate it and get it under control. 
 

And Vietnam has 97 M people, not 5 M like NZ. But they’ve only done less than 500 k tests, so I have always wondered about their numbers.

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49 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

Melbourne has been had hundreds of cases per day for near a month now. Has near 8k known active cases. It had at mostly stabilised after an initial pretty light lock down, but was stubbornly ticking along at around 400-500 new cases per day. They've now gone into a much harsher lockdown which seems to be starting to bring the numbers per day (and positive test rate) down.

As @The Anti-Targ says most of the deaths are in aged care facilities where the CFR is far far higher.

However it's limited to Victoria at the moment. All other Australian states have closed their borders to them and seem under control, though NSW looks occasionally dicey.

I think NSW might be sitting on a time bomb. It's getting handfuls of positive cases, and that can blow up any time.

2 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

That one infected person might make it through the quarantine, that the virus might once a year slip through the security measures is possible, of course. But still, as long as the quarantine is done more seriously than the 1st NZ version (letting people through before their time and without testing, for reasons, whatever good they might be) or than Melbourne (contract low-skilled barely paid people to guard the hotels so that they won't give a damn about the job, will let quarantined people go wherever they are, and even occasionally be dumb as shit and actually sleep with them), then NZ should be fine. Basic hand-washing should be done as long as there's a pandemic somewhere, and people should have some reserve of masks and hand sanitizer, and probably ban gatherings of more than 1K people - including concerts and sport events - should be enough until we have truly effective drugs (as protection or as cure) or vaccine (the former should come first, most probably).

Hopefully, you'll avoid Vietnam's fate. I'm still wondering how the heck the mess began in mid-July, because they really had it wiped out until then. Were they sloppy or downright stupid and let people in without checks?

I think the Jurassic Park "rule": life always finds a way, is my operating assumption. That and Murphy's law. I was worried about leakage out of quarantine up to about the start of July, because things did seem to be a bit Keystone cops. And I think everyone involved in hotel security naively assumed people would not be so selfish as to escape. But there has been more than 2 incubation cycles since hotel security practices (and distancing in hotels) were improved, so I am not so worried as before. We did have one small scare where a man travelling from NZ to Korea via Singapore tested positive upon arrival in Korea. The assumption was the man got infected in Singapore, but we were all in a flap for a while until the man's principle contacts in NZ were all tracked and tested. I think he panic is now over with that case, but it got us all jittery for a week or so.

Maybe the modeling is showing 95% confidence there is no virus in the community, in which case there probably is no reason to scare the horses (or in our case sheep).

Viet Nam never went more than 9 days without a +ve case. That isn't even one incubation cycle. It should therefore not come as a surprise that there has been a modest wave of infections recently. What they are doing about it is the important question.

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2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Can you please explain this comment? Vietnam is #155 on Worldometer’s list, with 812 cases, reported 23 yesterday. New Zealand is #136, with 1,569 cases. Yes, NZ has no cases right now, but Vietnam has steadily had a few. Obviously there was an outbreak at the end of July, and this virus is terribly infectious. That doesn’t mean they won’t isolate it and get it under control. 
 

And Vietnam has 97 M people, not 5 M like NZ. But they’ve only done less than 500 k tests, so I have always wondered about their numbers.

The numbers are not terribly relevant. The difference between NZ and Viet Nam is we eliminated the virus from the local population and have had zero positives since then, aside from people coming in from overseas and being kept in quarantine, but it still means we technically have no cases "in" New Zealand. And we are 100 days since VE day. Viet Nam, despite having very low official numbers, has never had a VE day.

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