Not asking for everyone to be geniuses, or even be smart for that matter. But we could do with a less willfully stupid at the moment. I guess it was always this way going back to the Scopes Monkey Trial, but there is a severe anti-intellectual bent in this country that just seems to enjoy dismissing experts on certain things out of hand. My only answer for why that is would be that people understand they aren't very intelligent, and they just sort of lash out this way.
It's perfectly ok to not be up to speed on everything. The list of shit I know nothing about is long. Cars, woodworking, snowmobiles, hunting, fishing etc etc etc. But the key is to KNOW what you don't know. I don't talk about those things, I certainly don't contradict people who DO know about them if they ever come up. On the other hand, I know alot about politics, music, movies, games. On those subjects, I will just let it ride, because I'm confident enough in what I'm saying.
But when people are saying "well, health officials are saying one thing, Trump is saying another" is when we get into trouble. Because people are just substituting Trump for themselves in this scenario. They desperately want to believe they are part of a group with some kind of secret knowledge that run-of-the-mill experts and the mainstream media isn't telling them. And pretty soon, you're believing some real crazy shit.
Believe it or not I occasionally read books and magazines. A couple of weeks ago I bought what is now the previous months issue of New Scientist magazine. In it a couple of statistics stood out for me -
There are currently (at the time it was written) 114 different trials of a vaccine for cov-19 of which 10 have progressed to human trials.
Should you be unlucky enough to need hospital treatment and you are put on a ventilator, there is a 50% chance (this may be a UK only thing) that you will not survive.
I see from their website that there are a number of articles on CV but you only get to look at so much of the article then a paywall kicks in. Fair enough, it is a commercial magazine after all.
One issue with covid-19 is that the problem is hypoxia, not something that ventilators can help much with. One weird thing about the hypoxia is that you have people with like 70% blood oxygen still conscious, or "happy hypoxia."
Medicine as a whole needs to keep up with what we currently know about covid-19, which is in large part that it is entirely not the disease we thought it was in March.
One issue with covid-19 is that the problem is hypoxia, not something that ventilators can help much with. One weird thing about the hypoxia is that you have people with like 70% blood oxygen still conscious, or "happy hypoxia."
Medicine as a whole needs to keep up with what we currently know about covid-19, which is in large part that it is entirely not the disease we thought it was in March.
There are now concerns being raised that Covid-19 can do more neurological damage than previously thought. You've referred to one mystery where someone could have very low blood oxygen levels, but not be attempting to get more (for instance through gasping). Initially it was suggested that was a result of the disease interfering with the body's signalling mechanisms, but more recent studies are suggesting this could be the result of direct brain damage - that could also explain the surprisingly poor survival rates for Covid-19 sufferers who require ventilation.
One issue with covid-19 is that the problem is hypoxia, not something that ventilators can help much with. One weird thing about the hypoxia is that you have people with like 70% blood oxygen still conscious, or "happy hypoxia."
Medicine as a whole needs to keep up with what we currently know about covid-19, which is in large part that it is entirely not the disease we thought it was in March.
There are now concerns being raised that Covid-19 can do more neurological damage than previously thought. You've referred to one mystery where someone could have very low blood oxygen levels, but not be attempting to get more (for instance through gasping). Initially it was suggested that was a result of the disease interfering with the body's signalling mechanisms, but more recent studies are suggesting this could be the result of direct brain damage - that could also explain the surprisingly poor survival rates for Covid-19 sufferers who require ventilation.
What are the survival rates of people who require ventilation that don't have Covid-19? Just wondering what the difference in survival rates are...
One issue with covid-19 is that the problem is hypoxia, not something that ventilators can help much with. One weird thing about the hypoxia is that you have people with like 70% blood oxygen still conscious, or "happy hypoxia."
Medicine as a whole needs to keep up with what we currently know about covid-19, which is in large part that it is entirely not the disease we thought it was in March.
There are now concerns being raised that Covid-19 can do more neurological damage than previously thought. You've referred to one mystery where someone could have very low blood oxygen levels, but not be attempting to get more (for instance through gasping). Initially it was suggested that was a result of the disease interfering with the body's signalling mechanisms, but more recent studies are suggesting this could be the result of direct brain damage - that could also explain the surprisingly poor survival rates for Covid-19 sufferers who require ventilation.
Yes, true! The weird thing about the happy hypoxia is that people are showing up with 70% blood oxygenation and typically people fall unconscious at 86%.
@Balrog99, this study appears to indicate the survival rate in this particular study was around 81%.
One issue with covid-19 is that the problem is hypoxia, not something that ventilators can help much with. One weird thing about the hypoxia is that you have people with like 70% blood oxygen still conscious, or "happy hypoxia."
Medicine as a whole needs to keep up with what we currently know about covid-19, which is in large part that it is entirely not the disease we thought it was in March.
There are now concerns being raised that Covid-19 can do more neurological damage than previously thought. You've referred to one mystery where someone could have very low blood oxygen levels, but not be attempting to get more (for instance through gasping). Initially it was suggested that was a result of the disease interfering with the body's signalling mechanisms, but more recent studies are suggesting this could be the result of direct brain damage - that could also explain the surprisingly poor survival rates for Covid-19 sufferers who require ventilation.
What are the survival rates of people who require ventilation that don't have Covid-19? Just wondering what the difference in survival rates are...
As with most things Covid-19 it's difficult to get a good handle on the data. Looking at a few sources I would suggest survival rates of 70-80% for mechanical ventilation generally, with more like 50-70% for Covid-19. Complicating factors in this comparison, apart from possible neurological impacts, include:
- data being released for Covid-19 on incomplete samples. Early figures on death rates were extremely high, but that's partly because they were calculated based on the numbers of deaths compared to the numbers of full recoveries (not counting those still in hospital - many of whom eventually recovered).
- lack of clarity about the comparability of groups studied. Overall Covid-19 death rates have come down over the last few months. That may partly reflect better understanding and treatment, but it's also likely to reflect that a disproportionate number of people with severe underlying conditions died in the early stages of the epidemic.
- lack of treatment options. We're still in the early stages of assessing treatments for Covid-19, while some other conditions have well-established treatments available. One promising treatment was posted about here and that was found to cut death rates from 40% to 28% for ventilated patients. That suggests that this drug may eliminate most of the current disparity seen once it's widely used.
One of the possible reasons for poorer survival rates for ventilated patients of cov-19 that was suggested in New Scientist, is that the air pressures needed were possibly damaging the lungs due to their fragile nature caused by this particular virus.
On the matter of neurological damage, this is worrying on a number of fronts. My main one is that it reminds me of the outbreak of Encephalitis lethargica that ran in tandem with the spanish flu pandemic of 1918, but some cases continued to emerge into the 1920s. While it is suspected that the novel strain of influenza was the cause, other experts think it was a streptococcal infection that got out of hand due to a weakened immune system due to the flu. Yet others suggest that it was the result of an autoimmune response. So at this stage we are unlikely to know for sure.
Small update on what I posted earlier regarding facts from New Scientist magazine. There are now 13 vaccines being trialled around the world (including 2 in the UK and 5 in China - can't remember which other countries - sorry). Just seen a story on tonight's early evening BBC news about the latest one to go on trial. This is the text version of that story. A novel approach for a novel virus.
With the rising of cases in certain states, one has to wonder if it's not a matter of opening things as much as it is how those things open.
The states that implemented what I'll describe as "phases within phases" (Tri-State area), for the sake of brevity, seem to be doing much better than states that used mostly blanket (AZ, CA, FL) openings. The states within the tri-state area have mostly taken on the strategy of entering different phases, but restricting different businesses and activities regardless of the new phase, opting to open them later when they feel the time is right. The collection of states that are currently leading the way in the rising cases opted for an approach where, once entering a new phase, just about everything was available.
One also has to wonder if we're finally seeing the increase from the number of social demonstrations that have been occurring in the country. It would make logical sense, especially considering there are a large number still occurring. Personally, I think it's time to face the uncomfortable reality that these demonstrations, regardless of how good a cause they are for, are almost-certainly driving the spread.
My worry is that, as far as I know, several states refuse to ask individuals if they have attended a demonstration when contact tracing. That does nothing but muddy the data, because at this point, the situation in a place such as California seems to have come out of absolutely nowhere. There had been steady increases in the state, but it was reportedly under control ('Controlled Disease Growth' per CovidActNow). This type of spike is almost obscene and there seems to be no real answer for it.
I would imagine, I don't have any hard data on this, that the full open stores that don't enforce masks are contributing more than the recent protests. There are assuredly extra cases coming out of those, but every protester seems to be wearing a mask and being outside would also reduce spread.
Minneapolis was ground-zero for the protests (obviously). It should have seen a serious spike by now if one was going to happen. Minnesota is not currently a state with rising cases (because they have a robust testing system). What this suggests so far is that dispersion of the particles outside is entirely different than having particles being recycled thorough indoor air systems, and that when the vast majority of people wear masks (as most protesters did), the disease is, if not stopped in it's tracks, certainly mitigated to the largest degree we have seen yet. This is why all the anti-mask BS is infuriating. This is the most solid indication yet that they work:
The story is the same across a slew of cities that played host to an outpouring of fury and disgust after Floyd’s killing and, more generally, the impunity police have enjoyed after killing Black Americans for decades.
In Minneapolis, the cradle of the current movement, there have been testing sites stood up specifically for those who attended the protests.
Four sites run in partnership with the Mayo Clinic reported late last week that only 62 positive cases came out of 4,487 people tested, for a positivity rate of 1.4 percent, said Dave Verhasselt, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Health. And on Tuesday, another Minnesota system called Health Partners reported a .99 percent positivity rate from the 8,500 it protesters tested.
Those figures are actually below the current statewide positivity rate which, per Verhasselt, is currently hovering around 3.6 to 3.7 percent. Hospitalizations have also continued their steady decline in the state.
New York City, which sometimes saw thousands of protesters demonstrating in multiple boroughs at once, is “not seeing an increase in cases associated with the demonstrations (as of yet),” Michael Lanza, NYC Health Department spokesperson, told TPM.
In particular, New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said that her department has been closely tracking hospitalizations and emergency room visits, and has seen no spike since the protests began.
The public health department in Seattle is telling the same story.
“We don’t have evidence that the rallies or protests are being associated with large numbers of cases currently,” Colette Cosner, department spokesperson, told TPM. “There is no one source of exposure that is jumping out at us from the data as a driver of cases.”
And in Washington D.C., which has been undulating with daily protests for weeks — memorialized most famously in pictures from the aggressive clearing of Lafayette Square for the President’s photo-op — the positivity rates are getting better, not worse.
“D.C. Health is still analyzing data to assess the impact of first amendment events in D.C., however we are continuing to see a downward trend in cases overall for the District,” D.C. Health spokeswoman Alison Reeves told TPM.
The same seems to be true in cities across the country.
The National Bureau of Economic Research produced a working paper on Monday after analyzing data from 315 cities that had protests.
“We find no evidence that net COVID-19 case growth differentially rose following the onset of Black Lives Matter protests, and even modest evidence of a small longer-run case growth decline,” the researchers concluded.
They even found that net stay-at-home behavior actually increased while the protests roiled urban centers, hypothesizing that the demonstrations compelled non-protesters to more diligently stay home and avoid public spaces.
..............................
“My first reaction is that we’re lucky,” laughed Dr. Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
She pointed to two features of the protests in her home city of New Orleans that appear to be shared with demonstrations in other cities: they are taking place outside, and the majority of participants are wearing masks.
When it comes to COVID-19, she said, being outside is simply less risky than being inside.
“It doesn’t have to do with UV light, it has to do with dilution,” she told TPM, a subtle poke at President Trump. “What it appears with this virus is that though it’s highly contagious, to get a good infectious process going, you need to start with a substantive amount. Dilution disperses viral particles present in the physical area.”
That level of dispersion just doesn’t happen inside, she said, especially during the summer when air conditioners are recirculating the same air.
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore Health Commissioner, warned that we may not yet have the full picture from the protests, since there could be a delay in protesters experiencing symptoms and getting medical care. If the data holds, though, she pointed out how this knowledge could play into how people live their lives while the pandemic still lingers.
“This should help to inform people even more about big decisions they can make in their own lives, to be doing as much as they can outdoors vs. indoors,” she told TPM.
The nationwide lack of spikes also speaks to the uniformity with which protesters donned masks at the demonstrations, per Hassig.
“It takes engagement with mask-wearing somewhere above 70 percent, at least 60, to really dampen down transmission,” she said.
Wen added that mask-wearing can reduce the risk of transmission “five-fold.”
The problem with masks, Hassig said, is the psychological element.
She called it a “normative behavior” much like littering. It’s hard to be the first person to drop a wrapper on the ground; it’s much less hard to do so if the pavement is already dotted with trash. That dynamic, she said, can go both ways — people are apt to feel uncomfortable if they’re the odd one out in a group either mostly wearing masks or mostly not.
She singled out political messaging, much of which is coming from the White House, as influencing some of this behavior.
“The sheeple comments, the conspiracy theories about ‘if we get them to wear masks then we can get them to do something else,’” Hassig said. “It’s a serious respiratory virus! It doesn’t care if you’re Republican or libertarian or what.”
Wear a mask. If you're going to engage in social activity, do it outside. Bars, restaurants, and offices where everyone is breathing particles into the air every few seconds and it is being recirculated by air conditioning systems are the problem. We've actually known this from information we got out of Wuhan and South Korea, where single patrons to restaurants basically infected everyone there. It wasn't because they personally interacted with all the patrons.
Minneapolis was ground-zero for the protests (obviously). It should have seen a serious spike by now if one was going to happen. Minnesota is not currently a state with rising cases (because they have a robust testing system). What this suggests so far is that dispersion of the particles outside is entirely different than having particles being recycled thorough indoor air systems, and that when the vast majority of people wear masks (as most protesters did), the disease is, if not stopped in it's tracks, certainly mitigated to the largest degree we have seen yet. This is why all the anti-mask BS is infuriating. This is the most solid indication yet that they work:
The story is the same across a slew of cities that played host to an outpouring of fury and disgust after Floyd’s killing and, more generally, the impunity police have enjoyed after killing Black Americans for decades.
In Minneapolis, the cradle of the current movement, there have been testing sites stood up specifically for those who attended the protests.
Four sites run in partnership with the Mayo Clinic reported late last week that only 62 positive cases came out of 4,487 people tested, for a positivity rate of 1.4 percent, said Dave Verhasselt, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Health. And on Tuesday, another Minnesota system called Health Partners reported a .99 percent positivity rate from the 8,500 it protesters tested.
Those figures are actually below the current statewide positivity rate which, per Verhasselt, is currently hovering around 3.6 to 3.7 percent. Hospitalizations have also continued their steady decline in the state.
New York City, which sometimes saw thousands of protesters demonstrating in multiple boroughs at once, is “not seeing an increase in cases associated with the demonstrations (as of yet),” Michael Lanza, NYC Health Department spokesperson, told TPM.
In particular, New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said that her department has been closely tracking hospitalizations and emergency room visits, and has seen no spike since the protests began.
The public health department in Seattle is telling the same story.
“We don’t have evidence that the rallies or protests are being associated with large numbers of cases currently,” Colette Cosner, department spokesperson, told TPM. “There is no one source of exposure that is jumping out at us from the data as a driver of cases.”
And in Washington D.C., which has been undulating with daily protests for weeks — memorialized most famously in pictures from the aggressive clearing of Lafayette Square for the President’s photo-op — the positivity rates are getting better, not worse.
“D.C. Health is still analyzing data to assess the impact of first amendment events in D.C., however we are continuing to see a downward trend in cases overall for the District,” D.C. Health spokeswoman Alison Reeves told TPM.
The same seems to be true in cities across the country.
The National Bureau of Economic Research produced a working paper on Monday after analyzing data from 315 cities that had protests.
“We find no evidence that net COVID-19 case growth differentially rose following the onset of Black Lives Matter protests, and even modest evidence of a small longer-run case growth decline,” the researchers concluded.
They even found that net stay-at-home behavior actually increased while the protests roiled urban centers, hypothesizing that the demonstrations compelled non-protesters to more diligently stay home and avoid public spaces.
..............................
“My first reaction is that we’re lucky,” laughed Dr. Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
She pointed to two features of the protests in her home city of New Orleans that appear to be shared with demonstrations in other cities: they are taking place outside, and the majority of participants are wearing masks.
When it comes to COVID-19, she said, being outside is simply less risky than being inside.
“It doesn’t have to do with UV light, it has to do with dilution,” she told TPM, a subtle poke at President Trump. “What it appears with this virus is that though it’s highly contagious, to get a good infectious process going, you need to start with a substantive amount. Dilution disperses viral particles present in the physical area.”
That level of dispersion just doesn’t happen inside, she said, especially during the summer when air conditioners are recirculating the same air.
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore Health Commissioner, warned that we may not yet have the full picture from the protests, since there could be a delay in protesters experiencing symptoms and getting medical care. If the data holds, though, she pointed out how this knowledge could play into how people live their lives while the pandemic still lingers.
“This should help to inform people even more about big decisions they can make in their own lives, to be doing as much as they can outdoors vs. indoors,” she told TPM.
The nationwide lack of spikes also speaks to the uniformity with which protesters donned masks at the demonstrations, per Hassig.
“It takes engagement with mask-wearing somewhere above 70 percent, at least 60, to really dampen down transmission,” she said.
Wen added that mask-wearing can reduce the risk of transmission “five-fold.”
The problem with masks, Hassig said, is the psychological element.
She called it a “normative behavior” much like littering. It’s hard to be the first person to drop a wrapper on the ground; it’s much less hard to do so if the pavement is already dotted with trash. That dynamic, she said, can go both ways — people are apt to feel uncomfortable if they’re the odd one out in a group either mostly wearing masks or mostly not.
She singled out political messaging, much of which is coming from the White House, as influencing some of this behavior.
“The sheeple comments, the conspiracy theories about ‘if we get them to wear masks then we can get them to do something else,’” Hassig said. “It’s a serious respiratory virus! It doesn’t care if you’re Republican or libertarian or what.”
Wear a mask. If you're going to engage in social activity, do it outside. Bars, restaurants, and offices where everyone is breathing particles into the air every few seconds and it is being recirculated by air conditioning systems are the problem. We've actually known this from information we got out of Wuhan and South Korea, where single patrons to restaurants basically infected everyone there. It wasn't because they personally interacted with all the patrons.
As an aside, Michigan's governer (governess?) is being taken to court to challenge her directive that gyms stay closed. One court decided in her favor, but a higher court has now ruled against her. It's frankly insane. I can't think of a worse place to be, knowing what we know now, than an enclosed space with a bunch of people working out, breathing heavily and very likely not wearing masks (I know I wouldn't wear one if I was Sweatin' to the Oldies).
Minneapolis was ground-zero for the protests (obviously). It should have seen a serious spike by now if one was going to happen. Minnesota is not currently a state with rising cases (because they have a robust testing system). What this suggests so far is that dispersion of the particles outside is entirely different than having particles being recycled thorough indoor air systems, and that when the vast majority of people wear masks (as most protesters did), the disease is, if not stopped in it's tracks, certainly mitigated to the largest degree we have seen yet. This is why all the anti-mask BS is infuriating. This is the most solid indication yet that they work:
The story is the same across a slew of cities that played host to an outpouring of fury and disgust after Floyd’s killing and, more generally, the impunity police have enjoyed after killing Black Americans for decades.
In Minneapolis, the cradle of the current movement, there have been testing sites stood up specifically for those who attended the protests.
Four sites run in partnership with the Mayo Clinic reported late last week that only 62 positive cases came out of 4,487 people tested, for a positivity rate of 1.4 percent, said Dave Verhasselt, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Health. And on Tuesday, another Minnesota system called Health Partners reported a .99 percent positivity rate from the 8,500 it protesters tested.
Those figures are actually below the current statewide positivity rate which, per Verhasselt, is currently hovering around 3.6 to 3.7 percent. Hospitalizations have also continued their steady decline in the state.
New York City, which sometimes saw thousands of protesters demonstrating in multiple boroughs at once, is “not seeing an increase in cases associated with the demonstrations (as of yet),” Michael Lanza, NYC Health Department spokesperson, told TPM.
In particular, New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said that her department has been closely tracking hospitalizations and emergency room visits, and has seen no spike since the protests began.
The public health department in Seattle is telling the same story.
“We don’t have evidence that the rallies or protests are being associated with large numbers of cases currently,” Colette Cosner, department spokesperson, told TPM. “There is no one source of exposure that is jumping out at us from the data as a driver of cases.”
And in Washington D.C., which has been undulating with daily protests for weeks — memorialized most famously in pictures from the aggressive clearing of Lafayette Square for the President’s photo-op — the positivity rates are getting better, not worse.
“D.C. Health is still analyzing data to assess the impact of first amendment events in D.C., however we are continuing to see a downward trend in cases overall for the District,” D.C. Health spokeswoman Alison Reeves told TPM.
The same seems to be true in cities across the country.
The National Bureau of Economic Research produced a working paper on Monday after analyzing data from 315 cities that had protests.
“We find no evidence that net COVID-19 case growth differentially rose following the onset of Black Lives Matter protests, and even modest evidence of a small longer-run case growth decline,” the researchers concluded.
They even found that net stay-at-home behavior actually increased while the protests roiled urban centers, hypothesizing that the demonstrations compelled non-protesters to more diligently stay home and avoid public spaces.
..............................
“My first reaction is that we’re lucky,” laughed Dr. Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
She pointed to two features of the protests in her home city of New Orleans that appear to be shared with demonstrations in other cities: they are taking place outside, and the majority of participants are wearing masks.
When it comes to COVID-19, she said, being outside is simply less risky than being inside.
“It doesn’t have to do with UV light, it has to do with dilution,” she told TPM, a subtle poke at President Trump. “What it appears with this virus is that though it’s highly contagious, to get a good infectious process going, you need to start with a substantive amount. Dilution disperses viral particles present in the physical area.”
That level of dispersion just doesn’t happen inside, she said, especially during the summer when air conditioners are recirculating the same air.
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore Health Commissioner, warned that we may not yet have the full picture from the protests, since there could be a delay in protesters experiencing symptoms and getting medical care. If the data holds, though, she pointed out how this knowledge could play into how people live their lives while the pandemic still lingers.
“This should help to inform people even more about big decisions they can make in their own lives, to be doing as much as they can outdoors vs. indoors,” she told TPM.
The nationwide lack of spikes also speaks to the uniformity with which protesters donned masks at the demonstrations, per Hassig.
“It takes engagement with mask-wearing somewhere above 70 percent, at least 60, to really dampen down transmission,” she said.
Wen added that mask-wearing can reduce the risk of transmission “five-fold.”
The problem with masks, Hassig said, is the psychological element.
She called it a “normative behavior” much like littering. It’s hard to be the first person to drop a wrapper on the ground; it’s much less hard to do so if the pavement is already dotted with trash. That dynamic, she said, can go both ways — people are apt to feel uncomfortable if they’re the odd one out in a group either mostly wearing masks or mostly not.
She singled out political messaging, much of which is coming from the White House, as influencing some of this behavior.
“The sheeple comments, the conspiracy theories about ‘if we get them to wear masks then we can get them to do something else,’” Hassig said. “It’s a serious respiratory virus! It doesn’t care if you’re Republican or libertarian or what.”
Wear a mask. If you're going to engage in social activity, do it outside. Bars, restaurants, and offices where everyone is breathing particles into the air every few seconds and it is being recirculated by air conditioning systems are the problem. We've actually known this from information we got out of Wuhan and South Korea, where single patrons to restaurants basically infected everyone there. It wasn't because they personally interacted with all the patrons.
As an aside, Michigan's governer (governess?) is being taken to court to challenge her directive that gyms stay closed. One court decided in her favor, but a higher court has now ruled against her. It's frankly insane. I can't think of a worse place to be, knowing what we know now, than an enclosed space with a bunch of people working out, breathing heavily and very likely not wearing masks (I know I wouldn't wear one if I was Sweatin' to the Oldies).
We are seeing cases in North Dakota way down, which I why I started going. Even my city (which is the largest by far) now has declining cases. I can say that, at most, I've seen about 3 or 4 people there at any given time. I went once at around 5pm and it was way too crowded for my liking and I left. For the most part, at about 9-10am (or after 11pm, since they have gone back to being 24 hours) there is maybe one other person on the machines and one or two people in the weight areas. Only every third machine is functional to keep distance. On the other hand, there is a massive ceiling fan going all the time. I don't know what to think at this point. But again, ALL of North Dakota doesn't equal the population of just Detroit proper.
I would not be visiting if the gym was in regular operation mode. But I have the option of going at off-beat hours, as well as the fact that half the gym is basically off-limits. And the fact that most people just aren't going. But it definitely isn't like it was. The amount of visitors are down substantially. I use the same machine every time, and no one has been using it anytime I've gone in. That said, I feel much better going at midnight or later, when I'm only dealing with maybe one other person in the building. Most people don't have a schedule where that works for them. The advantage to working til 10pm is that you can have the place to yourself.
The grocery store is another issue entirely. Since they have reduced their hours due to deep cleaning nightly, it is ALWAYS packed. All employees are still wearing masks. At this point I'd say at least half the customers are as well, which is better than alot of places I imagine. There are x marks on the ground in the checkout line 6 feet apart to stand on. So I don't know. Here, things are at least HALF normal. I still haven't set foot in a restaurant, so I couldn't tell you how that is going. I haven't left a certain square mile radius in the northern part of the city for the last 4 months.
I think the question about California still stands, however. There is a state-wide mask order and, yes, I'm sure there are people dumb enough to ignore it. But the idiocy of people should've been factoring in this entire time.
But where did this massive spike come from? Perhaps it's just a massive anomaly, which is what I'm sure everyone is hoping for, but that seems unlikely. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all of the counties are essentially making their own rules and plans? Sure, San Francisco is still closed, but all the counties around it are opening, but, logically, the people from San Francisco are just going elsewhere out of county.
The point of what I'm trying to say is that the state obviously thought they had things under control, well enough to enter what they call stage three, and now they see a massive spike. The state doesn't seem to have an answer for it. It feels like there has to be missing data somewhere, or at least something that the state is overlooking in terms of what is causing this. It should be nearly impossible to go from 'controlled', even with those that decry the masks and whatnot, to suddenly on the verge of an uncontrollable outbreak in the span of 48 hours.
I went and looked it up. 9 California counties have 100 or more new cases PER DAY. Los Angeles County is the only one to break 1,000 new cases per day (almost 2,000, and averaging about 1500 new cases per day).
San Francisco County has only gone up by 486 cases in 14 days, an average of about 35/day,
Like the US as a whole, can't paste an entire state with a broad brush.
Here in Texas, in my county, seeing 100-140 cases per day for the last few weeks, the number of covid positives has exploded from back during quarantine, when it was 5-15 cases per day. Presently about 2500 confirmed positives and about 30 deaths.
Meanwhile, my rural hometown county with my parents has only gotten about 70 cases, total. But 10 deaths. Mostly from a nursing home, of course.
The governor had delegated his responsibility and decisions to the counties but I heard now we're apparently going to be undergoing more restrictions again. Yay.
I think the question about California still stands, however. There is a state-wide mask order and, yes, I'm sure there are people dumb enough to ignore it. But the idiocy of people should've been factoring in this entire time.
But where did this massive spike come from? Perhaps it's just a massive anomaly, which is what I'm sure everyone is hoping for, but that seems unlikely. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all of the counties are essentially making their own rules and plans? Sure, San Francisco is still closed, but all the counties around it are opening, but, logically, the people from San Francisco are just going elsewhere out of county.
The point of what I'm trying to say is that the state obviously thought they had things under control, well enough to enter what they call stage three, and now they see a massive spike. The state doesn't seem to have an answer for it. It feels like there has to be missing data somewhere, or at least something that the state is overlooking in terms of what is causing this. It should be nearly impossible to go from 'controlled', even with those that decry the masks and whatnot, to suddenly on the verge of an uncontrollable outbreak in the span of 48 hours.
Not impossible at all. People don't seem to get it hammered in that that this is a HIGHLY contagious disease. In a way, not a bad thing, it can't hide by doing just +1 or +2 cases, no, it makes itself known with +10 or +100 cases or +1000 cases.
Not impossible at all. People don't seem to get it hammered in that that this is a HIGHLY contagious disease. In a way, not a bad thing, it can't hide by doing just +1 or +2 cases, no, it makes itself known with +10 or +100 cases or +1000 cases.
That's a fair point. I just think with California there wasn't a telegraphing of this like there was in, say, Arizona. Arizona has had pretty exponential growth since the beginning of June. It really shouldn't be a surprise that cases there have exploded in the way they have, in my opinion.
I think what that article has said is mostly a given, but now it's actually (essentially) confirmed. I think an important course of action at this point would try to be to figure out how many people have potentially passed from the virus that went unaccounted for over the months where we weren't testing as much and whatnot. This data could suggest some encouraging numbers, particularly pertaining to death rate, but not with the way it's incomplete due to not having the potential number of deaths.
I think what that article has said is mostly a given, but now it's actually (essentially) confirmed. I think an important course of action at this point would try to be to figure out how many people have potentially passed from the virus that went unaccounted for over the months where we weren't testing as much and whatnot. This data could suggest some encouraging numbers, particularly pertaining to death rate, but not with the way it's incomplete due to not having the potential number of deaths.
I posted last week an international comparison of excess deaths, i.e. looking at:
- the expected number of people to die over a period
- the actual number that died
- the proportion of those that were recognized as dying of Covid-19
This is the graph for the US from that comparison.
That suggests that there could have been around 25k additional deaths from Covid-19 in the period up to the start of May, i.e. pretty small compared to total deaths. In common with most countries, the recognition of Covid-19 deaths has improved over time, so it seems unlikely that there have been a large number of excess deaths not recognized since then.
No one would have believed at the start of 2020 that after half a year a single South American relative of a camel (an Alpaca to be precise) could potentially hold the key to humanity's salvation -
No one would have believed at the start of 2020 that after half a year a single South American relative of a camel (an Alpaca to be precise) could potentially hold the key to humanity's salvation -
They hold the key to making excellent slippers and socks too! Softest wool around. I'm due for a new pair of slippers but, alas, the local alpaca farm is shut down because of Covid-19. Oh the irony...
Wear a mask. If you're going to engage in social activity, do it outside. Bars, restaurants, and offices where everyone is breathing particles into the air every few seconds and it is being recirculated by air conditioning systems are the problem. We've actually known this from information we got out of Wuhan and South Korea, where single patrons to restaurants basically infected everyone there. It wasn't because they personally interacted with all the patrons.
Don't forget cruise ships were major virus infection points until they shut down. They recycle air and like were having 90% infection rates or something.
The self-fluffing DeSantis and Abbott are engaged in saying that, basically, this has all be part of the plan, nothing to see here, is absolutely nauseating. Restaurants and bars are causing these surges. It's obvious. I've noticed in the last 5 days around my neck of the woods that mask use is WAY down. For the first time, I feel like I'm the only one wearing them in the establishments I actually frequent.
This shit isn't getting through. But I saw a stat today that 9% of white Americans know someone who has died from COVID-19. 30% of African-Americans do. That explains basically everything. The response is directly proportional to how this country values the lives of those dying. In other words, not at all.
No one would have believed at the start of 2020 that after half a year a single South American relative of a camel (an Alpaca to be precise) could potentially hold the key to humanity's salvation -
Taking your example it would be decibodies. A centibody would be one hundredth whereas a decibody would be a tenth. Still I think nanobodies sounds better even if that implies they are a thousand millionth of the size of an antibody.
Taking your example it would be decibodies. A centibody would be one hundredth whereas a decibody would be a tenth. Still I think nanobodies sounds better even if that implies they are a thousand millionth of the size of an antibody.
TR
Ooof, yeah, forgot deci. I do so much inch = cm conversion lately I forgot about deci.
Now listen, I'm not saying this isn't the type of working that one should use in this climate. I'm just saying this isn't the type of wording you should use in this climate.
This is how you create craziness. This is how you make people think their liberty is under attack.
Wearing a mask and following guidelines is important and anyone with half a brain can see that, but this does zero to convince the people that don't want to/aren't that they should.
Comments
Not asking for everyone to be geniuses, or even be smart for that matter. But we could do with a less willfully stupid at the moment. I guess it was always this way going back to the Scopes Monkey Trial, but there is a severe anti-intellectual bent in this country that just seems to enjoy dismissing experts on certain things out of hand. My only answer for why that is would be that people understand they aren't very intelligent, and they just sort of lash out this way.
It's perfectly ok to not be up to speed on everything. The list of shit I know nothing about is long. Cars, woodworking, snowmobiles, hunting, fishing etc etc etc. But the key is to KNOW what you don't know. I don't talk about those things, I certainly don't contradict people who DO know about them if they ever come up. On the other hand, I know alot about politics, music, movies, games. On those subjects, I will just let it ride, because I'm confident enough in what I'm saying.
But when people are saying "well, health officials are saying one thing, Trump is saying another" is when we get into trouble. Because people are just substituting Trump for themselves in this scenario. They desperately want to believe they are part of a group with some kind of secret knowledge that run-of-the-mill experts and the mainstream media isn't telling them. And pretty soon, you're believing some real crazy shit.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/coronavirus-update-covid19-small-businesses-close-kyrgios-lisbon/12381570
I see from their website that there are a number of articles on CV but you only get to look at so much of the article then a paywall kicks in. Fair enough, it is a commercial magazine after all.
TR
Medicine as a whole needs to keep up with what we currently know about covid-19, which is in large part that it is entirely not the disease we thought it was in March.
There are now concerns being raised that Covid-19 can do more neurological damage than previously thought. You've referred to one mystery where someone could have very low blood oxygen levels, but not be attempting to get more (for instance through gasping). Initially it was suggested that was a result of the disease interfering with the body's signalling mechanisms, but more recent studies are suggesting this could be the result of direct brain damage - that could also explain the surprisingly poor survival rates for Covid-19 sufferers who require ventilation.
What are the survival rates of people who require ventilation that don't have Covid-19? Just wondering what the difference in survival rates are...
Yes, true! The weird thing about the happy hypoxia is that people are showing up with 70% blood oxygenation and typically people fall unconscious at 86%.
@Balrog99, this study appears to indicate the survival rate in this particular study was around 81%.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21573034/
As with most things Covid-19 it's difficult to get a good handle on the data. Looking at a few sources I would suggest survival rates of 70-80% for mechanical ventilation generally, with more like 50-70% for Covid-19. Complicating factors in this comparison, apart from possible neurological impacts, include:
- data being released for Covid-19 on incomplete samples. Early figures on death rates were extremely high, but that's partly because they were calculated based on the numbers of deaths compared to the numbers of full recoveries (not counting those still in hospital - many of whom eventually recovered).
- lack of clarity about the comparability of groups studied. Overall Covid-19 death rates have come down over the last few months. That may partly reflect better understanding and treatment, but it's also likely to reflect that a disproportionate number of people with severe underlying conditions died in the early stages of the epidemic.
- lack of treatment options. We're still in the early stages of assessing treatments for Covid-19, while some other conditions have well-established treatments available. One promising treatment was posted about here and that was found to cut death rates from 40% to 28% for ventilated patients. That suggests that this drug may eliminate most of the current disparity seen once it's widely used.
On the matter of neurological damage, this is worrying on a number of fronts. My main one is that it reminds me of the outbreak of Encephalitis lethargica that ran in tandem with the spanish flu pandemic of 1918, but some cases continued to emerge into the 1920s. While it is suspected that the novel strain of influenza was the cause, other experts think it was a streptococcal infection that got out of hand due to a weakened immune system due to the flu. Yet others suggest that it was the result of an autoimmune response. So at this stage we are unlikely to know for sure.
TR
TR
The states that implemented what I'll describe as "phases within phases" (Tri-State area), for the sake of brevity, seem to be doing much better than states that used mostly blanket (AZ, CA, FL) openings. The states within the tri-state area have mostly taken on the strategy of entering different phases, but restricting different businesses and activities regardless of the new phase, opting to open them later when they feel the time is right. The collection of states that are currently leading the way in the rising cases opted for an approach where, once entering a new phase, just about everything was available.
One also has to wonder if we're finally seeing the increase from the number of social demonstrations that have been occurring in the country. It would make logical sense, especially considering there are a large number still occurring. Personally, I think it's time to face the uncomfortable reality that these demonstrations, regardless of how good a cause they are for, are almost-certainly driving the spread.
My worry is that, as far as I know, several states refuse to ask individuals if they have attended a demonstration when contact tracing. That does nothing but muddy the data, because at this point, the situation in a place such as California seems to have come out of absolutely nowhere. There had been steady increases in the state, but it was reportedly under control ('Controlled Disease Growth' per CovidActNow). This type of spike is almost obscene and there seems to be no real answer for it.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/covid-spike-protest-testing-spread
Minneapolis was ground-zero for the protests (obviously). It should have seen a serious spike by now if one was going to happen. Minnesota is not currently a state with rising cases (because they have a robust testing system). What this suggests so far is that dispersion of the particles outside is entirely different than having particles being recycled thorough indoor air systems, and that when the vast majority of people wear masks (as most protesters did), the disease is, if not stopped in it's tracks, certainly mitigated to the largest degree we have seen yet. This is why all the anti-mask BS is infuriating. This is the most solid indication yet that they work:
The story is the same across a slew of cities that played host to an outpouring of fury and disgust after Floyd’s killing and, more generally, the impunity police have enjoyed after killing Black Americans for decades.
In Minneapolis, the cradle of the current movement, there have been testing sites stood up specifically for those who attended the protests.
Four sites run in partnership with the Mayo Clinic reported late last week that only 62 positive cases came out of 4,487 people tested, for a positivity rate of 1.4 percent, said Dave Verhasselt, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Health. And on Tuesday, another Minnesota system called Health Partners reported a .99 percent positivity rate from the 8,500 it protesters tested.
Those figures are actually below the current statewide positivity rate which, per Verhasselt, is currently hovering around 3.6 to 3.7 percent. Hospitalizations have also continued their steady decline in the state.
New York City, which sometimes saw thousands of protesters demonstrating in multiple boroughs at once, is “not seeing an increase in cases associated with the demonstrations (as of yet),” Michael Lanza, NYC Health Department spokesperson, told TPM.
In particular, New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said that her department has been closely tracking hospitalizations and emergency room visits, and has seen no spike since the protests began.
The public health department in Seattle is telling the same story.
“We don’t have evidence that the rallies or protests are being associated with large numbers of cases currently,” Colette Cosner, department spokesperson, told TPM. “There is no one source of exposure that is jumping out at us from the data as a driver of cases.”
And in Washington D.C., which has been undulating with daily protests for weeks — memorialized most famously in pictures from the aggressive clearing of Lafayette Square for the President’s photo-op — the positivity rates are getting better, not worse.
“D.C. Health is still analyzing data to assess the impact of first amendment events in D.C., however we are continuing to see a downward trend in cases overall for the District,” D.C. Health spokeswoman Alison Reeves told TPM.
The same seems to be true in cities across the country.
The National Bureau of Economic Research produced a working paper on Monday after analyzing data from 315 cities that had protests.
“We find no evidence that net COVID-19 case growth differentially rose following the onset of Black Lives Matter protests, and even modest evidence of a small longer-run case growth decline,” the researchers concluded.
They even found that net stay-at-home behavior actually increased while the protests roiled urban centers, hypothesizing that the demonstrations compelled non-protesters to more diligently stay home and avoid public spaces.
..............................
“My first reaction is that we’re lucky,” laughed Dr. Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
She pointed to two features of the protests in her home city of New Orleans that appear to be shared with demonstrations in other cities: they are taking place outside, and the majority of participants are wearing masks.
When it comes to COVID-19, she said, being outside is simply less risky than being inside.
“It doesn’t have to do with UV light, it has to do with dilution,” she told TPM, a subtle poke at President Trump. “What it appears with this virus is that though it’s highly contagious, to get a good infectious process going, you need to start with a substantive amount. Dilution disperses viral particles present in the physical area.”
That level of dispersion just doesn’t happen inside, she said, especially during the summer when air conditioners are recirculating the same air.
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore Health Commissioner, warned that we may not yet have the full picture from the protests, since there could be a delay in protesters experiencing symptoms and getting medical care. If the data holds, though, she pointed out how this knowledge could play into how people live their lives while the pandemic still lingers.
“This should help to inform people even more about big decisions they can make in their own lives, to be doing as much as they can outdoors vs. indoors,” she told TPM.
The nationwide lack of spikes also speaks to the uniformity with which protesters donned masks at the demonstrations, per Hassig.
“It takes engagement with mask-wearing somewhere above 70 percent, at least 60, to really dampen down transmission,” she said.
Wen added that mask-wearing can reduce the risk of transmission “five-fold.”
The problem with masks, Hassig said, is the psychological element.
She called it a “normative behavior” much like littering. It’s hard to be the first person to drop a wrapper on the ground; it’s much less hard to do so if the pavement is already dotted with trash. That dynamic, she said, can go both ways — people are apt to feel uncomfortable if they’re the odd one out in a group either mostly wearing masks or mostly not.
She singled out political messaging, much of which is coming from the White House, as influencing some of this behavior.
“The sheeple comments, the conspiracy theories about ‘if we get them to wear masks then we can get them to do something else,’” Hassig said. “It’s a serious respiratory virus! It doesn’t care if you’re Republican or libertarian or what.”
Wear a mask. If you're going to engage in social activity, do it outside. Bars, restaurants, and offices where everyone is breathing particles into the air every few seconds and it is being recirculated by air conditioning systems are the problem. We've actually known this from information we got out of Wuhan and South Korea, where single patrons to restaurants basically infected everyone there. It wasn't because they personally interacted with all the patrons.
As an aside, Michigan's governer (governess?) is being taken to court to challenge her directive that gyms stay closed. One court decided in her favor, but a higher court has now ruled against her. It's frankly insane. I can't think of a worse place to be, knowing what we know now, than an enclosed space with a bunch of people working out, breathing heavily and very likely not wearing masks (I know I wouldn't wear one if I was Sweatin' to the Oldies).
We are seeing cases in North Dakota way down, which I why I started going. Even my city (which is the largest by far) now has declining cases. I can say that, at most, I've seen about 3 or 4 people there at any given time. I went once at around 5pm and it was way too crowded for my liking and I left. For the most part, at about 9-10am (or after 11pm, since they have gone back to being 24 hours) there is maybe one other person on the machines and one or two people in the weight areas. Only every third machine is functional to keep distance. On the other hand, there is a massive ceiling fan going all the time. I don't know what to think at this point. But again, ALL of North Dakota doesn't equal the population of just Detroit proper.
I would not be visiting if the gym was in regular operation mode. But I have the option of going at off-beat hours, as well as the fact that half the gym is basically off-limits. And the fact that most people just aren't going. But it definitely isn't like it was. The amount of visitors are down substantially. I use the same machine every time, and no one has been using it anytime I've gone in. That said, I feel much better going at midnight or later, when I'm only dealing with maybe one other person in the building. Most people don't have a schedule where that works for them. The advantage to working til 10pm is that you can have the place to yourself.
The grocery store is another issue entirely. Since they have reduced their hours due to deep cleaning nightly, it is ALWAYS packed. All employees are still wearing masks. At this point I'd say at least half the customers are as well, which is better than alot of places I imagine. There are x marks on the ground in the checkout line 6 feet apart to stand on. So I don't know. Here, things are at least HALF normal. I still haven't set foot in a restaurant, so I couldn't tell you how that is going. I haven't left a certain square mile radius in the northern part of the city for the last 4 months.
But where did this massive spike come from? Perhaps it's just a massive anomaly, which is what I'm sure everyone is hoping for, but that seems unlikely. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all of the counties are essentially making their own rules and plans? Sure, San Francisco is still closed, but all the counties around it are opening, but, logically, the people from San Francisco are just going elsewhere out of county.
The point of what I'm trying to say is that the state obviously thought they had things under control, well enough to enter what they call stage three, and now they see a massive spike. The state doesn't seem to have an answer for it. It feels like there has to be missing data somewhere, or at least something that the state is overlooking in terms of what is causing this. It should be nearly impossible to go from 'controlled', even with those that decry the masks and whatnot, to suddenly on the verge of an uncontrollable outbreak in the span of 48 hours.
San Francisco County has only gone up by 486 cases in 14 days, an average of about 35/day,
Like the US as a whole, can't paste an entire state with a broad brush.
Here in Texas, in my county, seeing 100-140 cases per day for the last few weeks, the number of covid positives has exploded from back during quarantine, when it was 5-15 cases per day. Presently about 2500 confirmed positives and about 30 deaths.
Meanwhile, my rural hometown county with my parents has only gotten about 70 cases, total. But 10 deaths. Mostly from a nursing home, of course.
The governor had delegated his responsibility and decisions to the counties but I heard now we're apparently going to be undergoing more restrictions again. Yay.
Not impossible at all. People don't seem to get it hammered in that that this is a HIGHLY contagious disease. In a way, not a bad thing, it can't hide by doing just +1 or +2 cases, no, it makes itself known with +10 or +100 cases or +1000 cases.
That's a fair point. I just think with California there wasn't a telegraphing of this like there was in, say, Arizona. Arizona has had pretty exponential growth since the beginning of June. It really shouldn't be a surprise that cases there have exploded in the way they have, in my opinion.
Speaking of highly contagious...
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-says-covid-19-cases-u-s-may-be-10-n1232134
I think what that article has said is mostly a given, but now it's actually (essentially) confirmed. I think an important course of action at this point would try to be to figure out how many people have potentially passed from the virus that went unaccounted for over the months where we weren't testing as much and whatnot. This data could suggest some encouraging numbers, particularly pertaining to death rate, but not with the way it's incomplete due to not having the potential number of deaths.
I posted last week an international comparison of excess deaths, i.e. looking at:
- the expected number of people to die over a period
- the actual number that died
- the proportion of those that were recognized as dying of Covid-19
This is the graph for the US from that comparison.
Alpacas could hold the key to neutralising coronavirus, scientists say
TR
They hold the key to making excellent slippers and socks too! Softest wool around. I'm due for a new pair of slippers but, alas, the local alpaca farm is shut down because of Covid-19. Oh the irony...
Don't forget cruise ships were major virus infection points until they shut down. They recycle air and like were having 90% infection rates or something.
This shit isn't getting through. But I saw a stat today that 9% of white Americans know someone who has died from COVID-19. 30% of African-Americans do. That explains basically everything. The response is directly proportional to how this country values the lives of those dying. In other words, not at all.
If the "nanobodies" are 1/10th the size of regular antibodies, then shouldn't they be called centibodies?
TR
Ooof, yeah, forgot deci. I do so much inch = cm conversion lately I forgot about deci.
Now listen, I'm not saying this isn't the type of working that one should use in this climate. I'm just saying this isn't the type of wording you should use in this climate.
This is how you create craziness. This is how you make people think their liberty is under attack.
Wearing a mask and following guidelines is important and anyone with half a brain can see that, but this does zero to convince the people that don't want to/aren't that they should.