covid-19

[Westerly 61]

I have been traveling for work and found that in the past few weeks, most people just dont give a fuck. I got so many weird looks when I was wearing a mask in public and when I requested those preparing my take-out food wear a mask while interacting with me or my food, I basically get told off. I dont get it. I dont understand if people just dont get it, like the science behind wearing a mask is just too complicated for them to understand, or if they just flat-out dont give a fuck. Pretty sure it's both. I had to go to some of the worst-infected states in the nation and when talking to some of the locals they werent even aware that they were living in a state with record-setting infection rates. Like they were amazed when I told them their state has been all over the news for the last two weeks for out of control infection rates.

Either way it makes me wonder if we would be better off just opening everything up and saying fuck it, let dumb people face the music and learn the hard way. Let there be 1m or 2m deaths or however many and then all the idiots can learn they were wrong. Of course the downside is all the collateral damage of the innocents who will die in the process and that is too much to grasp as much as I feel like all these anti-masker clowns should learn this lesson the hard way.

 

Either that or we go the other direction and shut everything down, and I mean freaking everything that is not truly non-essential. Then keep it closed until the tune of the music changes and people wise up. Let people lose their jobs, businesses and homes. The price of being an idiot and not taking it seriously.

I guess I am tired of interacting with idiots who ask me why I am even wearing a mask... like they are totally unaware that we are in the worst pandemic in the last 100 years.

Edited December 23, 2020 by Westerly

[ryoder 1,590]

Just had my annual physical today. My doctor was scheduled to get his vaccination later today, and his nurse already had hers yesterday. It is encouraging to actually know people who are getting the shots.

[billvon 3,064]

6 minutes ago, ryoder said:

Just had my annual physical today. My doctor was scheduled to get his vaccination later today, and his nurse already had hers yesterday. It is encouraging to actually know people who are getting the shots.

My high school best friend has a 91 year old mother.  She's in a nursing home - and she just got the first vaccination.  So they are starting on the high risk people as well.

[kallend 2,106]

Perhaps Trump was right about testing.

The UK has sequenced more Covid-19 samples than the #2 nation by a factor of 3 (and more than 10x the number of the 3rd highest nation) and was where a novel variant was found.  As a consequence travel from the UK was shut down by most other nations including the US.

Now that other nations are looking for it, it has been found all over Europe, and in Canada, Asia, Australia.  The USA hasn't detected any yet, but the USA ranks #43 among nations in the rate of sequencing samples so really hasn't looked for it.

If UK had sequenced as few samples as, say, Italy, chances are the novel variant would have first been found elsewhere.

[gowlerk 2,249]

38 minutes ago, kallend said:

Perhaps Trump was right about testing.

 

[Westerly 61]

so are we going to hit 300k daily cases after new years or what? we got close, but we couldent muster the effort to take it home. maybe 2021 will be the year of setting records. it actually looks like we have been going slightly down in the last few days. i think people are losing focus of the goal here.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Westerly

[gowlerk 2,249]

9 minutes ago, Westerly said:

i think people are losing focus of the goal here.

I'm not sure that making you feel righteous is anyone's goal but yours! 

Edited December 27, 2020 by gowlerk

[lippy 918]

1 hour ago, Westerly said:

it actually looks like we have been going slightly down in the last few days. 

Unfortunately I think the drop in case counts is directly related to a drop in testing.  The percentage of positive tests seems to be going up, but there overall test count is decreasing.  Don't know if that's due to decreased testing capacity due to the holidays, or fewer people seeking tests for fear that a positive result will mess up their holiday plans.

COVID Tracking Project on Twitter

[gowlerk 2,249]

7 minutes ago, lippy said:

Unfortunately I think the drop in case counts is directly related to a drop in testing.

Yes, those numbers are not very meaningful at this level of infection anyway. The important number is how many hospital beds are occupied by covid sufferers. But of course the tRump team has taken away the ability to see that picture on a national scale. 

[Baksteen 84]

13 hours ago, lippy said:

Unfortunately I think the drop in case counts is directly related to a drop in testing.  The percentage of positive tests seems to be going up, but there overall test count is decreasing.  Don't know if that's due to decreased testing capacity due to the holidays, or fewer people seeking tests for fear that a positive result will mess up their holiday plans.

COVID Tracking Project on Twitter

In the Netherlands we're currently in semi-lockdown until at least the 19th of January.

The total number of positive tests as reported in the media is currently at about 10K per day.
Unacceptable for a nation of ~17-18M.

As to reporting I would prefer that the RIVM (Dutch Institute for Public Health and Environment)  did not simply state the "number of positive tests" per day but rather "today out of a total number of X tests, Y tests were positive (Z%)". Present it in a nice, stacked bar graph as a finishing touch.

I mean, the data is reported somewhere, but it's a pain to retrieve it.

[olofscience 489]

One in 1,000 Americans have now died from Covid-19.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-death-toll-coronavirus-b1779173.html

Not even 100% of Americans have caught it yet (actually, only 6% have tested positive), and 0.1% of the population has died. Some flu, huh?

Edited December 28, 2020 by olofscience

[kallend 2,106]

US combat deaths WW2 1941-45, all theaters: 291,557

[wmw999 2,529]

But on the up side, that "good practices" stuff can work.

An employee at the food bank I volunteer at got sick (from his wife, who works with a somewhat non-compliant group of American Legion folks). He's someone who's in among the volunteers all day, and meets with the staff (we don't go into the staff area). They notified people, etc, and a lot of folks were worried. But He later realized he'd probably been contagious at work for at least a couple of days without knowing (he said it came in like a lamb and out like a lion). No one else, either staff or volunteer, got sick.

But, ya know -- they'd long ago set up well-separated stations with dividers for individual volunteers so that people didn't come in contact with each other for extended periods. Everyone is required to wear a mask all the time, and there is hand sanitizer all over the place. Shelves are stocked for people to make food bags from when no one is there, so that there isn't any "move over so I can load these cans" going on.

Wendy P.

 

[Westerly 61]

8 hours ago, olofscience said:

One in 1,000 Americans have now died from Covid-19.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-death-toll-coronavirus-b1779173.html

Not even 100% of Americans have caught it yet (actually, only 6% have tested positive), and 0.1% of the population has died. Some flu, huh?

Yes but without question the number of those who have caught it is higher than those tested positive. For a number of reasons, not everyone who is actually infected gets tested. So in reality it's a lot more than 6%, but still I would bet that fewer than 1 in 3 have been infected.

[kallend 2,106]

Congressman elect Letlow (R) of Louisiana died of Covid-19 at age 41.

[kallend 2,106]

AstraZeneca vaccine approved in UK:

Quote

The Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine has the potential swiftly to protect millions more people around the world as and when other nations' regulators grant approval.

AstraZeneca has promised to supply hundreds of millions of doses to low and middle-income countries, and to deliver the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis to those nations in perpetuity.

The vaccine is significantly cheaper than others which have been approved and, crucially, it would be far easier to transport and distribute in developing countries than its rivals since it does not need to be stored at freezing temperatures.

"I think it's the only vaccine that can be used in those settings at the current time," Azra Ghani, chair in infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, told CNN. "Pfizer and Moderna require freezer storage, and that just isn't in place in many settings."

 

[BIGUN 1,402]

3 hours ago, kallend said:

AstraZeneca has promised to supply hundreds of millions of doses to low and middle-income countries, and to deliver the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis to those nations in perpetuity.

The vaccine is significantly cheaper than others which have been approved and, crucially, it would be far easier to transport and distribute in developing countries than its rivals since it does not need to be stored at freezing temperatures.

That which has divided the world; is the same uniting in humanity. 

[JoeWeber 2,811]

2 hours ago, BIGUN said:

That which has divided the world; is the same uniting in humanity. 

Thus spake the God Big Pharma.

[ryoder 1,590]

As if we needed more proof that this administration lives in fantasyland:

White House Lists 'Ending' Covid-19 Pandemic As Trump Accomplishment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/27/white-house-lists-ending-covid-19-pandemic-as-trump-accomplishment/?sh=2a62d24d1034

[Phil1111 1,149]

11 minutes ago, ryoder said:

As if we needed more proof that this administration lives in fantasyland:

White House Lists 'Ending' Covid-19 Pandemic As Trump Accomplishment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/27/white-house-lists-ending-covid-19-pandemic-as-trump-accomplishment/?sh=2a62d24d1034

All the more reason for his base not to vaccinate, to social distance themselves, or avoid crowds.

"Other elected officials to die from Covid-19 include several state legislators: a Republican state senator from Minnesota, New Hampshire’s new Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, and in North Dakota, David Dean Andahl, a Republican known as Dakota Dave, who was elected posthumously to the State House of Representatives after dying from the virus." Are other republicans also deceased from ignorance and regular exposure to this "fake news".

[kallend 2,106]

24 minutes ago, ryoder said:

As if we needed more proof that this administration lives in fantasyland:

White House Lists 'Ending' Covid-19 Pandemic As Trump Accomplishment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/27/white-house-lists-ending-covid-19-pandemic-as-trump-accomplishment/?sh=2a62d24d1034

The WH announcement was in October.

So what has caused all the deaths since then?

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

6 minutes ago, kallend said:

The WH announcement was in October.

So what has caused all the deaths since then?

Car crashes. Heart disease. Cancer.

The idiots have been posting videos purporting to show various officials admitting that the Covid numbers are false.

There was a fire, a terrible flood, locusts.

It wasn't his fault!!!!!
 

 

[Westerly 61]

trump is still all on about this bullshit that the election was stolen and he is about to right rights. at this point it's just getting annoying.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Westerly

[Phil1111 1,149]

2 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

...I know he looks like a gangster,...

 

Covid-19 can just go to hell. As quickly as possible.

FIFY, I think you would fail one of those psych exams that shows you pictures and asks you what the first thing that comes to mind is. Sorry to hear that story. Story tells it all about his character.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

Dawn Wells (MaryAnn from Gilligan's Island) died on Wed from it.

Daily deaths (nationwide) are above 3500.

California is seeing higher numbers (both new cases & deaths) for just the state than we were seeing for the entire nation back in September.

It's getting worse and worse, with no sign of easing off.