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

[newyorkguy]

I attached two Iowa charts below. One from the New York Times on the left, one from Worldometer on the right. Worldometer does show a spike in February that the Times' chart does not show. But other charts I found also do not show a late February spike.

Another factor about the holiday surge. If the numbers remain high until January 5th or 8th that's more than ten days. I would think the Christmas surge wouldn't start exactly on December 25th, but a few days earlier because of the increased amount of gatherings and parties you would expect people to be having.

[Armitage72]

West Virginia state legislature.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
28,974,623
Deaths:
518,363

New Cases:
75,299
New Deaths:
2525

[Aridas]

To poke at something...

Have a case of Covid variant? No one is going to tell you
As experts race to get an approved test for coronavirus variants, officials are severely restricted from sharing information about the cases.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Resume

From Worldometer:

I brought this over from another thread because it was going to be off topic there, fits in here, but I will link this post from there

Originally Posted by acbytesla

A half a million Americans are dead today because of COVID. And multiples of that will face long term health issues. Trump not only failed to respond to the problem, he dismissed it, he downplayed it and people died and will continue to die because of him.

Yep, this is what allowing people (particularly Trump) to blatantly lie about a crisis leads to... I enumerate

Friday, February 7, 2020
The coronavirus will weaken “when we get into April, in the warmer weather—that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus.”
Covid Death Toll = 0

Wednesday, February 19, 2020
The coronavirus will weaken “when we get into April, in the warm weather"
Covid Death Toll = 0

Thursday, February 27
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
Covid Death Toll = 0

Monday, March 23
"You have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death. Probably — and I mean definitely — would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus."
Covid Death Toll = 693

Tuesday March 24
“You’re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.”
Covid Death Toll = 964

Friday, April 3
“Hydroxychloroquine & Azithromycin taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine,” the drugs should be “put in use immediately"
Covid Death toll = 8,980

Thursday, April 23
"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?"
Covid Death Toll = 51,361

Thursday, May 14
“Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere,” and cases are “coming way down.”
Covid Death Toll = 89,942

Wednesday, June 17, 2020
The pandemic is “fading away. It’s going to fade away.”
Covid Death Toll = 123,151

Thursday, July 2
The pandemic is “getting under control.”
Covid Death Toll = 132,198

Saturday, July 4
“99%” of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
Covid Death Toll = 133,107

Monday, July 6
"We now have the lowest Fatality Rate in the World."
(At the time, it had the world’s ninth-worst mortality rate, with 41.33 deaths per 100,000 people)
Covid Death Toll = 133,772

Thursday, August 27
The U.S. has “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world.”
Covid Death Toll = 185,629

This is only a small number of the occasions when Trump dismissed, played down, or just outright blatantly lied about Covid 19.

I have not gone beyond August 2020 because by this time, the Trump administration had totally abrogated their responsibility, and simply didn't talk about it much any more beyond repeating the same old false claims, the same old fake narrative and the same misinformation. They had effectively put it in the "too hard basket".

Meanwhile the death toll continued to climb, reaching over 426,000 by Inauguration Day.

[Solitaire]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

182 million in a country with 330 million?
Someone earlier claimed similar numbers.

Oh, I left something out.

You have to take the current number, 184 million, and divide it by 1.84
to get 100 million. The reason for the division, not everyone exposes
themselves to the virus and you have to remove them from the picture
in order to get the right number. Unfortunately, I will not know the actual
number for today until late May or early June. It takes a while for the CDC
to post the numbers.

Quote:

No, half the population in the US has not had COVID.

I believe it will reach that point. The model Marty Makary offers of the virus,
it stops at 110 million infections.


P. S. I was very quickly in and out of Lowes earlier in the morning and
counted twenty five people without masks and ten people with masks
- mostly employees. Here in Tennessee we've opened up again.

Maybe where you are, things are different.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
29,052,262
Deaths:
520,785

New Cases:
77,377
New Deaths:
2414

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Solitaire

Oh, I left something out.

You have to take the current number, 184 million, and divide it by 1.84
to get 100 million. The reason for the division, not everyone exposes
themselves to the virus and you have to remove them from the picture
in order to get the right number. Unfortunately, I will not know the actual
number for today until late May or early June. It takes a while for the CDC
to post the numbers.

I believe it will reach that point. The model Marty Makary offers of the virus,
it stops at 110 million infections.

P. S. I was very quickly in and out of Lowes earlier in the morning and
counted twenty five people without masks and ten people with masks
- mostly employees. Here in Tennessee we've opened up again.

Maybe where you are, things are different.

It's pretty good so far in in Western WA but there are some people chomping at the bit to open the schools.

Are you saying when we get to [X] then [Y] will happen?

Or are you claiming 1/3 to 1/2 of the US population have already had COVID?

[newyorkguy]

Two comments. A new mutated strain of Covid-19 is spreading in New York City and it may not be containable by existing vaccines. There was a news report about it in the New York Times on Wednesday, updated yesterday. This is very troubling because this is what happened in 1918 with the influenza pandemic. The virus mutated and became worse, deadlier. Hope we're not seeing that here.

Quote:

A new form of the coronavirus is spreading rapidly in New York City, and it carries a worrisome mutation that may weaken the effectiveness of vaccines, two teams of researchers have found. The new variant, called B.1.526, first appeared in samples collected in the city in November. By the middle of this month, it accounted for about one in four viral sequences appearing in a database shared by scientists.

Neither study has been vetted by peer review nor published in a scientific journal. But the consistent results suggest that the variant’s spread is real, experts said. New York Times link

The other troubling fact is, as Resume's updates indicate, while new cases have declined precipitously, daily deaths remain stubbornly high. Four weeks ago, on January 29th, total cases in the US stood at 26.5 million. Four weeks later they're at 29.1 million. Four weeks ago the death toll was 447,459; as of yesterday it was 520,785. New cases have increased 10%, while the number of people who have succumbed increased over 15%.

Fasten your seat belts, folks.

[Solitaire]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Are you saying when we get to [X] then [Y] will happen?

Yes.

I'm expecting this decline in cases to end soon and flatten out around 50,000 a day.

Quote:

Or are you claiming 1/3 to 1/2 of the US population have already had COVID?

No.

But I think we're getting awfully close to 1/3 - maybe in a month.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

Two comments. A new mutated strain of Covid-19 is spreading in New York City and it may not be containable by existing vaccines. There was a news report about it in the New York Times on Wednesday, updated yesterday. This is very troubling because this is what happened in 1918 with the influenza pandemic. The virus mutated and became worse, deadlier. Hope we're not seeing that here.


The other troubling fact is, as Resume's updates indicate, while new cases have declined precipitously, daily deaths remain stubbornly high. Four weeks ago, on January 29th, total cases in the US stood at 26.5 million. Four weeks later they're at 29.1 million. Four weeks ago the death toll was 447,459; as of yesterday it was 520,785. New cases have increased 10%, while the number of people who have succumbed increased over 15%.

Fasten your seat belts, folks.

Sure seems like the curve is flattening out to what was normal in the Trump era prior to the holiday surge.

Seems that Biden's response hasn't done much to change the trajectory of the virus.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
29,136,912
Deaths:
523,082

New Cases:
80,625
New Deaths:
2,246

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
29,202,824
Deaths:
524,669

New Cases:
64,320
New Deaths:
1554

[Captain_Swoop]

Ronna McDaniel tweets

@GOPChairwoman
President Trump put Operation Warp Speed in motion, developing a vaccine in record time.

By contrast, Joe Biden spent months sowing doubt about the vaccine during the campaign, and now is trying to rewrite history.

[BobTheCoward]

My wife doesn't want to take the Johnson and johnson caccine. Not because of efficacy, but because they may have given women ovarian cancer and some other things.

[Captain_Swoop]

Originally Posted by BobTheCoward

but because they may have given women ovarian cancer and some other things.

Evidence for this?

Conspiracy thread is over there >>

[BobTheCoward]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Evidence for this?

Conspiracy thread is over there >>

Are you calling the talcum powder lawsuits a conspiracy, or that you haven't heard of it? They had verdicts against them.

[Minoosh]

Originally Posted by BobTheCoward

Are you calling the talcum powder lawsuits a conspiracy, or that you haven't heard of it? They had verdicts against them.

I would be surprised if there was talc in the vaccine.

[Lithrael]

I guess he means they have a bad opinion of J&J in general because of the baby powder thing.

[BobTheCoward]

Originally Posted by Lithrael

I guess he means they have a bad opinion of J&J in general because of the baby powder thing.

"She" has a bad opinion. I didn't give my opinion.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
29,255,344
Deaths:
525,776

New Cases:
49,412
New Deaths:
1283

[Ladewig]

Originally Posted by Solitaire

P. S. I was very quickly in and out of Lowes earlier in the morning and
counted twenty five people without masks and ten people with masks
- mostly employees. Here in Tennessee we've opened up again.

Maybe where you are, things are different.

Has this line of thinking been discussed already.

The maskers and antimaskers both want the economy to improve. When maskers hear that more than half the people in a Lowe’s are not wearing masks, many of them choose to stay home. So, the solution is to get the antimaskers to understand that if they wear masks, more maskers will go to stores and spend money and everyone will be better off for it. The antimaskers don’t have to change their attitudes: they can still believe that masks are useless. But if they are willing to wear the useless masks, spending will improve.

Of course, the additional benefit is that the US transmission rates would most likely drop.

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Solitaire

P. S. I was very quickly in and out of Lowes earlier in the morning and
counted twenty five people without masks and ten people with masks
- mostly employees. Here in Tennessee we've opened up again.

Maybe where you are, things are different.

Here in Michigan, things are different.

Mask wearing is almost universal. I almost never see anyone without a mask.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Massachusetts is lifting all indoor dining capacity restrictions as of today. Restaurant workers, like grocery store workers, are not included in priority groups for vaccination and bear the most risk for packing people into restaurants.

Daily new covid cases in the state are about where they were in the Spring 2020 spike that had originally prompted shutdown orders.

We've just given up. Mass vaccination is close, just let the virus kill in the meantime.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

Massachusetts is lifting all indoor dining capacity restrictions as of today. Restaurant workers, like grocery store workers, are not included in priority groups for vaccination and bear the most risk for packing people into restaurants.

Daily new covid cases in the state are about where they were in the Spring 2020 spike that had originally prompted shutdown orders.

We've just given up. Mass vaccination is close, just let the virus kill in the meantime.

....and if mass vaccination turns out not to be the panacea that people are hoping for, then this could be even worse.

[BobTheCoward]

My brother in law (32M) has been in the hospital with Covid for almost a month and been on an ecmo machine a couple weeks. I was researching deaths among the age group when the situation was way worse.

When we take the highest 365 covid death span, COVID is probably going to come in as the fourth leading cause of death for people in their late 20s/early 30s. But also, not a lot of people in that age die....only about 1 in 775 people.

It is a strange thing to conceptualize for me.

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by SuburbanTurkey

Massachusetts is lifting all indoor dining capacity restrictions as of today. Restaurant workers, like grocery store workers, are not included in priority groups for vaccination and bear the most risk for packing people into restaurants.

All food service workers are included in the group that will be next to open in Massachusetts (Phase 2, Group 3) when the 65+ group (Phase 2 group 2) is done.

I agree restaurants shouldn't have had capacity restrictions lifted until that group is not only eligible but mostly completed (since it's a big group, and being eligible is no comfort when one can't actually get the vaccine or even an appointment for months). Grocery store workers have been working all along, though, with only the loosest limits on store occupancy. It makes me wonder if the state wants a surge among younger people to "get it over with" now that more of the highest risk people are protected so embarrassing high death rates and maxed out ICUs are less likely.

I certainly won't be doing any indoor restaurant dining until I've had my own jab, maybe in July (being myself in the "everybody else, plus space aliens and talking animals" priority group).

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
29,314,254
Deaths:
527,226

New Cases:
53,147
New Deaths:
1,439

[mgidm86]

Originally Posted by Myriad

All food service workers are included in the group that will be next to open in Massachusetts (Phase 2, Group 3) when the 65+ group (Phase 2 group 2) is done.

I agree restaurants shouldn't have had capacity restrictions lifted until that group is not only eligible but mostly completed (since it's a big group, and being eligible is no comfort when one can't actually get the vaccine or even an appointment for months). Grocery store workers have been working all along, though, with only the loosest limits on store occupancy. It makes me wonder if the state wants a surge among younger people to "get it over with" now that more of the highest risk people are protected so embarrassing high death rates and maxed out ICUs are less likely.

I certainly won't be doing any indoor restaurant dining until I've had my own jab, maybe in July (being myself in the "everybody else, plus space aliens and talking animals" priority group).

I had my first shot last week and I will not change my behavior one bit after the second one. No restaurants, no hanging out anywhere like that. The vaccine isn't 100% and I don't care if every person in the restaurant can verify that they've had it. I'm not going.

Oh I work for a pot dispensary so we are considered health care or some such due to medical patients. Made an appointment and got the shot within a week. They gave me a choice so I took the Pfizer one.

It was very surreal walking into a large exhibit hall at the fairgrounds and seeing scores of people getting injections at little tables. I felt like I walked into a horror movie. It was a trip.

[newyorkguy]

Massachusetts Governor Governor Charlie Baker is under fire from state public health officials for loosening restrictions. From Sunday's Boston Globe:

Quote:

The governor said he would allow further measures, including permitting stadiums to hold small crowds starting March 22, “as long as the public health data continues to get better." People will have to continue wearing masks and follow other public health rules, however, the governor said. "I'd say, 'Charlie, you're making a big mistake,' " said Dr. Robert Horsburgh, a Boston University professor of epidemiology. “Opening up these restaurants is going to prolong the epidemic and increase the number of Massachusetts residents that die." Boston Globe link

A spokesman for the governor defended the move:

Quote:

“Massachusetts is a national leader in vaccination rates, and COVID transmission is declining significantly — allowing the Commonwealth to continue the responsible, incremental process to lift economic restrictions," said Baker spokesman Terry MacCormack in a statement Sunday.

Not everyone is critical:

Quote:

The move to expand reopening in the state was hailed by restaurant owners Sunday, who said the changes are vital to keeping their businesses alive as the pandemic endures. “When I heard the news and read the details [on] the Mass.gov website, I was jumping for joy," said Hamilton Rodrigues, owner of George's restaurant in Brockton.

See the part I highlighted? The proponents of 'Get us back to normal!' always seem to take for granted, we might as well open back up, since this thing can't get any worse. But of course, it can get worse. Imagine, if we had never shutdown at all -- as some were urging last Spring -- imagine what the overall number of cases and and death toll would look like today. The past year would have been infinitely worse. Some people refuse to see that.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Trump and Melanie were secretly vaccinated in January

[Segnosaur]

(Wasn't sure if this should go under the Trump thread, since it was about his administration's actions, or here since it was about Covid-19)

from: Statnews

Quote:

The Trump administration quietly took around $10 billion from a fund meant to help hospitals and health care providers affected by Covid-19 and used the money to bankroll Operation Warp Speed contracts

So rather than going through the proper channels (and getting congress to sign off on more funds) they decide to go the sneaky route and just move funds around in a giant shell game. (I recognize that developing a vaccine for Covid-19 was a top priority, but this is an issue of transparency.)

I am sure republicans will be all over it, criticizing Trump for not respecting the authority of congress to provide oversight.

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by Resume

From Worldometer:

Seven-day running averages are, as I've said, more meaningful.
Seven-day new cases: 67,322
Seven-day new deaths: 1981
Both numbers are substantially better than a few weeks ago.

[zorro99]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

Trump and Melanie were secretly vaccinated in January

Trump told his supporters at CPAC to get vaccinated. I wonder why he and his wife didn’t want to tell anybody they were vaccinated.

[Resume]

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

Seven-day running averages are, as I've said, more meaningful.
Seven-day new cases: 67,322
Seven-day new deaths: 1981
Both numbers are substantially better than a few weeks ago.

Keep doing you; I'll do me. If the daily updates disturb you in some way, please don't read them.

[The Great Zaganza]

Originally Posted by zorro99

Trump told his supporters at CPAC to get vaccinated. I wonder why he and his wife didn’t want to tell anybody they were vaccinated.

after he almost died in Walter Reed, he made a big show of being practically immune from Covd and that his supporters would be too if they were fighters like him.

[Resume]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

after he almost died in Walter Reed, he made a big show of being practically immune from Covd and that his supporters would be too if they were fighters like him.

Yeah, I remember him bragging about his "immunity" at one of his idiotic rallies. He's a blustering know-nothing --and proud of it-- imbecile.

[Resume]

Texas lifts mask mandate.

Quote:

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday he's lifting the mask mandate in Texas, even as health officials warn not to ease safety restrictions.

Abbott made the announcement during a Lubbock Chamber of Commerce event where he issued an executive order rescinding most of his earlier executive orders like the mask mandate.
Also announced Tuesday, Abbott said businesses of any type will be allowed to open 100% beginning March 10.

Pure politics.

[SuburbanTurkey]

Hope this vaccination thing pans out, otherwise this country is accelerating into a brick wall.

Sacrificing lives on the altar of capitalism is one thing, but ending a mask mandate purely to stick it to the libs is simply bloodthirsty.

[newyorkguy]

In the New Yorker article I linked a few days ago, the writer interviewed at length a local alderman in Minot, ND who voted against a mask mandate. The New Yorker writers usually have a long lead time to prepare the article and they can really get to know the people they're interviewing. That was the case with the writer and the alderman.

Within days of voting against the mask mandate the alderman was sick with Covid-19. He's a man in his 50s and, though he was never hospitalized, he said he got very sick and that it was very frightening. He also infected the rest of his family. He spoke with the writer after recovering and the alderman was in a reflective mood. This is the part that really hit me.

The alderman tried to explain why he was against wearing face masks. He emphasized, he wouldn't want anyone to get sick the way he was. He mentioned losing a lifelong friend to Covid-19. Then he got emotional. He explained, all he wanted was things to get back to normal. He wants that so bad. Why can't that happen? Apparently he teared up as he explained this. Then he talked about the mom-and-pop stores, how will they survive this? Get back to normal, he said that several times. That was all he wanted.

This is the problem. There's a pandemic. Pretending everything is fine is not a solution. Imagine where we'd be if none of the public health measures -- shutdowns, face masks, social distancing, capacity limits -- imagine what would have happened if we'd instead followed this insane idea of letting the virus run rampant in order to attain 'herd immunity.'

Some of these places where they have relaxed restrictions, businesses still don't recover because people won't go. Not in anywhere near the normal numbers. Like the trump fan in my neighborhood who erupted in anger when New York State asked people before Thanksgiving to limit holiday gatherings. This guy said they could go eff themselves. "As of right now," he bellowed, "I'm inviting about thirty family members and friends to my house for a freaking Thanksgiving feast!" He said Mayor de Blasio could kiss off.

Nobody showed up.