The all-new "US Politics and coronavirus" thread pt. 3

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
22,456,902
Deaths:
378,149

New Cases:
301,655
New Deaths:
3,914

Good thing that we have a president who even as a lame duck, is laser focused on the worsening heath crisis in the U.S.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
22,699,938
Deaths:
381,480

New Cases:
249,519
New Deaths:
3,235

[newyorkguy]

We passed 21 million cases last Sunday. On Wednesday we passed 22 million. By lunchtime tomorrow we'll be over 23 million. And the number of deaths per day continues to rise to beyond anything we've seen previously. As Fauci warned, it's January and we are in a "world of hurt." In New York we're hitting 20,000 new cases per day. Worse than April. I keep hoping the state will "pause" non-essential businesses again. If I have to keep going to work every day, I got to get the vaccine.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
22,917,334
Deaths:
383,275

New Cases:
213,453
New Deaths;
1,792

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
23,143,197
Deaths:
385,249

New Cases:
214,683
New Deaths:
1,964

[EHocking]

Breaking news is that the Congress attack may become a superspreader event.

Not with the crowd, but among the members that were locked together during the attempted coup. Many Republican Congress members refused to wear masks during their time being locked in a room for protection.

One member has now tested positive.
By this article, she was not one of the CovIdiot Rep. congressmen who refused to wear a mask.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...r-capitol-riot

[thaiboxerken]

Originally Posted by EHocking

Breaking news is that the Congress attack may become a superspreader event.

Not with the crowd, but among the members that were locked together during the attempted coup. Many Republican Congress members refused to wear masks during their time being locked in a room for protection.

One member has now tested positive.
By this article, she was not one of the CovIdiot Rep. congressmen who refused to wear a mask.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...r-capitol-riot

Sad. In fiction, Republicans are the ones that refuse to let others know they've been bitten by a zombie.

[slyjoe]

Originally Posted by EHocking

Breaking news is that the Congress attack may become a superspreader event.

Not with the crowd, but among the members that were locked together during the attempted coup. Many Republican Congress members refused to wear masks during their time being locked in a room for protection.

One member has now tested positive.
By this article, she was not one of the CovIdiot Rep. congressmen who refused to wear a mask.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...r-capitol-riot

There were 9 republicans who refused the masks. Now 3 reps that were in that room have tested positive for COVID.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
23,368,225
Deaths:
389,599

New Cases:
222,121
New Deaths:
4,259

[The Don]

Is this the first time that the US has had 4,000 daily deaths ?

[newyorkguy]

No this is not the first time the US passed 4,000+ deaths in one day but they've all happened in the past seven days. See the chart below from Worldometer We passed 4k deaths in a single day for the first time on January 6th, 7th and 8th. Then deaths declined for several days until the 12th. On the 10th (Sunday) we 'only' recorded 1,862.

The current US administration lost interest in all this some time ago.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

No this is not the first time the US passed 4,000+ deaths in one day but they've all happened in the past seven days. See the chart below from Worldometer We passed 4k deaths in a single day for the first time on January 6th, 7th and 8th. Then deaths declined for several days until the 12th. On the 10th (Sunday) we 'only' recorded 1,862.

The current US administration lost interest in all this some time ago.

Well they've had to deal with putting down an armed insurrection.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by The Don

Is this the first time that the US has had 4,000 daily deaths ?

Bets on when we will break 5,000?

[Mader Levap]

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

Bets on when we will break 5,000?

And resident rethuglicans will say it is Biden's fault.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Mader Levap

And resident rethuglicans will say it is Biden's fault.

Hell they are already blaming him for the current totals and he isn't even in office yet. They are not big fans of linear time.

[Skeptic Ginger]

What number are we up to now, 1 in every 950 citizens in the US have died from COVID?

As for the mutations, several rapidly spreading strains have turned up de novo. It's because with all the millions of cases, the virus has more opportunity to mutate. And spreading faster is going to be naturally selected at the moment.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

What number are we up to now, 1 in every 950 citizens in the US have died from COVID?

As for the mutations, several rapidly spreading strains have turned up de novo. It's because with all the millions of cases, the virus has more opportunity to mutate. And spreading faster is going to be naturally selected at the moment.

That would imply evolution which is outlawed for another week.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
23,616,345
Deaths:
393,928

New Cases:
236,462
New Deaths:
4,098

[Minoosh]

My brother (the left-wing one) is supposed to start driving down from the Pacific NW Friday and cases are exploding here. I keep wondering if the campus will close again, but if they were going to do that, they should have already done it. There seems to be a sort of barn door/horse issue going on. Fatalistic. Take basic precautions, pounce on vaccine availability and hope for the best. My mom would be a priority, but I wouldn't.

You need an account to access vaccine info online. It's annoying. Off to create account. ETA: Trying to create an account - website doesn't like my address and/or phone number.

ETA2: In keeping with political theme: My right-wing bro is finally taking the pandemic seriously but his son - my nephew - is ripe for alt-right radicalization if it hasn't happened already. Anti-mask, anti-lockdown, giant American flag tattoo. No girlfriend.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
23,848,410
Deaths:
397,994

New Cases:
230,457
New Deaths:
4,069

[slyjoe]

Looks like the reserve doses Biden wanted to release were all smoke and mirrors:

Quote:

Hopes of a surge in Covid-19 vaccine shipments under a new policy to release second doses held in reserve appear to be evaporating -- with the revelation that those doses have already been distributed, contrary to recent indications by the Trump administration.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/polit...ose/index.html

[Shalamar]

Originally Posted by slyjoe

Looks like the reserve doses Biden wanted to release were all smoke and mirrors:



https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/polit...ose/index.html

It's all the fault of the Democrats and Sleepy joe!

[newyorkguy]

Regarding the so-called reserve vaccines, trump administration officials are trying to convince the states they 'simply misunderstood.' From the CNN report:

Quote:

Oregon Health Director Patrick Allen, in a letter to Azar in which he recounted a call with Brown and Operation Warp Speed CEO Gen. Gustave Perna on Thursday, demanded that the HHS chief reconcile his statement about "releasing the entire supply" with this revelation. "During that call, he informed us there is no reserve of doses, and we are already receiving the full allocation of vaccines," Allen wrote. "If true, this is extremely disturbing, and puts our plans to expand eligibility at grave risk. Those plans were made on the basis of reliance on your statement about 'releasing the entire supply' you have in reserve. CNN report

In other words, one trump official tells you 'we're going to release our entire reserve to you,' and then another trump official tells you, 'Yes, right. But we already released it.' Is that going to be a problem?

From a Guardian article yesterday:

Quote:

Federal authorities did not release all available doses of the vaccine to states, keeping about 50% in reserve so people could get their second jabs. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses. Guardian link

The highlighted parts are what turned out not to be true. Besides being a liar, a grifter and a dirtbag, trump is also incompetent. Someone who has a pretty good idea how to get things done wouldn't have lost the kind of money trump has lost over the years.

In other news, the U.S. passed 24 million cases today (we're running at close to 1.5 million cases per week now) and deaths topped 400,000 (we're seeing 20,000+ people pass away per week). From the same Guardian article:

Quote:

As coronavirus continues to tear across the US without any sign of slowing down, officials have warned there is a “full resurgence” in most major population centers – and that the country could see an additional 92,000 deaths in less than a month. Officials worried that there was “significant, continued deterioration from California across the sun belt and up into the south-east, mid-Atlantic and north-east.” These regions effectively comprise all of the continental US.

The reports were quoted as stating that there was a “clear continuation of the pre-holiday high rate of spread as measured by rising test positivity, increased cases, increased hospitalization rates and rising fatalities." Additional data compiled by the New York Times indicate that a record number of deaths almost daily in the US largely stems from soaring cases in California and Arizona. In Los Angeles county, there is a Covid-19 death every eight minutes. Health officials in Arizona said hospitals are poised to become overwhelmed unless authorities acted fast to combat coronavirus. The Republican governor has pushed back against a statewide mask mandate, the Times noted. Guardian link

[Trebuchet]

According to Worldometer, the US total passed 400,000 today. But don't worry, it's their new hoax. Just a flu. One guy coming in from China. Soon it'll be zero.

[slyjoe]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

Regarding the so-called reserve vaccines, trump administration officials are trying to convince the states they 'simply misunderstood.' From the CNN report:


In other words, one trump official tells you 'we're going to release our entire reserve to you,' and then another trump official tells you, 'Yes, right. But we already released it.' Is that going to be a problem?

From a Guardian article yesterday:


The highlighted parts are what turned out not to be true. Besides being a liar, a grifter and a dirtbag, trump is also incompetent. Someone who has a pretty good idea how to get things done wouldn't have lost the kind of money trump has lost over the years.

How is this not criminal? These guys should be in jail for this. I would bet they told Biden's transition team they had them - why else would they be arguing to release them? Now we see why the Trump administration DIDN'T want to release them early - they didn't have them.

[thaiboxerken]

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

According to Worldometer, the US total passed 400,000 today. But don't worry, it's their new hoax. Just a flu. One guy coming in from China. Soon it'll be zero.

Sadly, there are people in the USA that believe it's a hoax. They believe it, even when their family, spouses, loved ones die of it. They believe it even when Covid put them in their death beds. It's freaking weird.

[newyorkguy]

Originally Posted by thaiboxerken

Sadly, there are people in the USA that believe it's a hoax. They believe it, even when their family, spouses, loved ones die of it. They believe it even when Covid put them in their death beds. It's freaking weird.

It is weird. Many nurses and doctors have had patients become enraged, even threatening, when informed they tested positive for Covid-19. THERE'S NO SUCH THING!!!

Quote:

Karina Molina loves being a nurse, but ever since the third wave of COVID-19 hit — bringing a record number of cases to her state of Kentucky — the idea of going to work fills her with dread...One of the more troubling things she has witnessed is that some individuals, even while battling the virus, still believe it’s a hoax. “We can only tell people it’s real so many times. We’ll have patients come up positive and they’ll say, ‘You're just trying to take our money’ or ‘You didn't do it correctly,” she says. “People have said, ‘No, I’m not going up to the COVID unit. I don't have it.’ How do you argue that? How much more real can it get?” Yahoo Lifestyles link

A friend and former co-worker -- he now is relocated to Texas -- is battling Covid-19. He told me (via email) he and his family always wear masks but may have caught it from someone who was asymptomatic at a family gathering over the holidays. Although his doctor has told him his case is "mild," he told me it is hellish. He has no trouble breathing -- it has not gotten into his lungs -- so he hasn't had to be hospitalized. His fever has never passed about 100°.

He told me he started out with a headache, runny nose, chills, muscle pain. After the first four or five days it got more serious. He lost taste and smell. He had the worst cramps he's ever had in his lower back and legs -and they lasted 20-30 minutes. He had bouts of nausea and could not keep food down. Occasional fever and chills. General malaise. Trouble sleeping more than an hour or two. His temperature would suddenly spike to 99° or 100°, like "I was sitting under a sun lamp." Today is day eleven and he's starting to come out of it. All the symptoms have become much less severe. He's very weak though due to loss of appetite and inability to keep food down.

His oldest son (about 16) is the only other family member to have contracted it. He had a mild case -- very bad headaches -- but he is largely symptom free now. The rest of the family is fine and has tested negative.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
24,102,429
Deaths:
401,856

New Cases:
248,080
New Deaths:
3805

[Aridas]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

Regarding the so-called reserve vaccines, trump administration officials are trying to convince the states they 'simply misunderstood.' From the CNN report:


In other words, one trump official tells you 'we're going to release our entire reserve to you,' and then another trump official tells you, 'Yes, right. But we already released it.' Is that going to be a problem?

From a Guardian article yesterday:


The highlighted parts are what turned out not to be true. Besides being a liar, a grifter and a dirtbag, trump is also incompetent. Someone who has a pretty good idea how to get things done wouldn't have lost the kind of money trump has lost over the years.

In other news, the U.S. passed 24 million cases today (we're running at close to 1.5 million cases per week now) and deaths topped 400,000 (we're seeing 20,000+ people pass away per week). From the same Guardian article:

Given the people involved... there fairly certainly needs to be a full investigation about what, exactly, happened surrounding that. Criminal charges also may well be warranted in *most* scenarios of what might have happened.

[newyorkguy]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

...the U.S. passed 24 million cases today (we're running at close to 1.5 million cases per week now) and deaths topped 400,000 (we're seeing 20,000+ people pass away per week)...

In October-
Fauci: “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

trump: “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.”

The Plague Year New Yorker magazine

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

In October-
Fauci: “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

trump: “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.”

The Plague Year New Yorker magazine

Ooo, that reads like a novel. I've only begun reading it but already there is more there than I knew. Love(hate) this excerpt:

Quote:

Redfield told me recently. “You’re going to be missing fifty per cent of the cases. We didn’t appreciate that until late February.” The first mistake had been made, and the second was soon to happen.

It also pisses me off because it's clear evidence that Fauci knew damn well it was spread by asymptomatic cases as early as Feb. He later lied and said he changed his position because of new evidence.

[varwoche]

According to CNN just now, CA has been delivered 8,500 doses. And WV, with approx 1/25th population, has been delivered 11,000 doses. These are doses received by the state, not doses administered.

(It was reported incidentally. They were showing that WV has injected a higher percentage than CA.)

How can this be?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by varwoche

According to CNN just now, CA has been delivered 8,500 doses. And WV, with approx 1/25th population, has been delivered 11,000 doses. These are doses received by the state, not doses administered.

(It was reported incidentally. They were showing that WV has injected a higher percentage than CA.)

How can this be?

Yeah..No.

SF Gate

Quote:

California has received more than 3.5 million doses of the vaccine and has administered over 1 million doses, while anticipating hundreds of thousands more.

Still not nearly enough.

Quote:

Without a steady and predictable supply, long-range planning for vaccine distribution is challenging, said Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

The county— the nation's most populous with 10 million residents — is struggling to vaccinate its 800,000 health workers and doesn't anticipate being able to provide large-scale inoculations of its 1.3 million people 65 and older until February, Simon said.

CNN must have been talking about something else.

I'm quite annoyed at how slowly WA State is giving the doses they have received, so far only about 1/3 have been administered. And it looks like CA has a similar record.

To heck with the news griping about Trump thinking there were more doses held by whomever he thought was holding them. The states are not moving fast enough. That's where reporters need to start looking.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
24,306,043
Deaths:
405,261

New Cases:
202,767
New Deaths:
3,377

[newyorkguy]

When and how did Dr. Anthony Fauci revise his thinking on asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19?

In a February 7, 2020 podcast sponsored by the Journal of the American Medical Association Fauci told host Howard Bauchner (editor of the Journal):

Quote:

"Right now, speaking to our Chinese colleagues...the question is...can an asymptomatic person transmit infection?...So, we were hearing reports, Howard, from Chinese colleagues that there is clearly asymptomatic infection and they are seeing clear evidence of some asymptomatic transmission, it's not the driver of the outbreak, but they feel confident that it's happened, these are only anecdotal reports...I made a call to a person who I know very well who is a highly respected scientist and public health official in China, and I said, it's important for us to get the answer to two important questions, A is this asymptomatic infection? Absolutely, yes. B, can an asymptomatic person transmit it? Absolutely, we've seen it, it's not the predominant road by any means, it's not driving the outbreak, but it occurs. So, we're left with a situation where we don't know what the impact of this is, it's likely minimal impact on the kinetics of the outbreak." JAMA podcast with transcript

Remember, the above podcast was held on February 7th, very early in the outbreak in the US. Two months later, at a White House press briefing held on April 5th, Fauci's understanding of Covid-19 and the danger of asymptomatic transmission had obviously evolved.

Quote:

At Sunday’s White House briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, suggested that hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of “silent carriers” may be unwittingly spreading the coronavirus across the United States because they don’t realize they’re infected. The idea that at least some coronavirus carriers don’t feel sick isn’t new. But the scale of Fauci’s estimate was. “It’s somewhere between 25 and 50 percent” of the total, Fauci said. But “right now,” he went on, “we’re just guessing.” Yahoo news link

Reading the transcript of the February 7th podcast, the conversation between Journal of the AMA's Howard Bauchner and Fauci, it is obvious that there were a lot of unknowns with Covid-19. At one point Fauci mentions that some of the evidence being looked at is based on anecdote. Another fact which seems to emerge is, trump's hyperbole notwithstanding, the Chinese government did make combating the disease much tougher by their decision to withhold critical information in the early stages.

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by varwoche

According to CNN just now, CA has been delivered 8,500 doses. And WV, with approx 1/25th population, has been delivered 11,000 doses. These are doses received by the state, not doses administered.

(It was reported incidentally. They were showing that WV has injected a higher percentage than CA.)

How can this be?

Trump openly said that red states would be favored for vaccine distribution.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

Trump openly said that red states would be favored for vaccine distribution.

That's not what actually happened. Vaccine was distributed based on state population after it was determined trying to base it on things like number of people at high risk wasn't feasible.

Re Varwoche's post, see my answer to him. He just misheard something.

[Blue Mountain]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

(respectful snip)

Another fact which seems to emerge is, trump's hyperbole notwithstanding, the Chinese government did make combating the disease much tougher by their decision to withhold critical information in the early stages.

One wonders how different things might have been for the rest of the world if the Trump administration hadn't shut down the program that had US people working in China, directly with the Chinese medical system.

[Jim_MDP]

Originally Posted by Mader Levap

And resident rethuglicans will say it is Biden's fault.

Just like many blame Obama for the 2007/2008 crash.
And yeah, I've seen several Repub quotes blaming Biden for not doing this or that already. Its lunacy.

[Delphic Oracle]

MO House convenes.

MO House votes against masks and social distancing.

MO House cancels upcoming week's schedule because too many members have COVID.

https://www.kmov.com/news/2-days-aft...e374a4f10.html