Corona Virus

[Sour Masher]

I really struggle with what is reasonable. Most of the places that were not in full outbreak mode either didn't shut down or opened up -- and now they are in full outbreak. if there is a way to open as cautiously as possible i think that is good. What really worries me is people that cant work remote who have kids in school. I wish our policy prioritized helping them instead of bailing out corporations and propping up the stock market.

Yes, the inequality of education gap is going continue to be massive with covid. Working class parents of kids too young to watch themselves are going to continue to be hit brutally hard by this. It is one reason I think it is worth trying to get young kids in school some--for the kids and the parents. I just don't see how you open up anything else in a society without schools. I have had people tell me schools are not daycares and these parents are being selfish, but I know people living paycheck to paycheck that have no idea what they will do with the young kids at home and them expected at work.

[frae]

Would you feel comfortable with 10, if they did every other day live? Is there any other space that can be used for that class? That is part of the problem. Our society is throwing 100s of billions at this, but not going all out to make schools work better. It would be a relative small thing to try to make a bigger space work for you, I would think.

Another huge factor is where are the numbers at any given time in your area. I expect plans for in-person will be disrupted at the local level if/when numbers go up. It is frustrating, I know, because you are being told to plan for everything. Much more prep and uncertainty abounds. I do think some in-person is worth trying for, especially for younger kids, but definitely not in areas in full blown outbreak mode, like Florida, Texas, and Cali right now, or what NY was when we shut down in the Spring. But my county, at the moment, has maintained between 75-150 active cases (reported cases, anyway) with a total population of 200k since the beginning of this thing. If numbers can be maintained in an area in that range--under 1/10th of 1%, let's say, I think it is worth the risk, at least until numbers climb.

This is all selfish talk for me, because I see how much my young boys benefit from in-person education and how much they lose not having it. But that aside, I do think all online is more viable for older kids and less viable for the younger ones.

The challenge will be in how to create a system at the HS level where that works. At Elementary you can just divide the class in half and have them come two days a week and you can get down to 10-14 in most cases. Middle schools can do something that works because classes are divided by grade for academics and electives in most places. So many 9th-12th graders are in mixed classes at my school besides English which is divided by grade so finding a way to balance the attendance in each class will be hard. My guess is that we do some sort of hybrid system, but there are a lot of questions and not a lot of good answers as far as I am concerned.

Some Colleges are teaching online, some college sports are being pushed back, RNC/DNC conventions are being canceled, sports are being played in empty stadiums, restaurants are only doing severely limited seating or outdoor dining, bars are closed here, but we are going to do school inside. I won't trust that my students are going to social distance on their own time and there just won't be any way I am going to feel truly safe there right now. All that said, yes I will show up because I do need my job. If we do go back 5 days a week full time I will pretty disappointed.

[Sour Masher]

So, once a real medical study was done on hydroxychlorquine, the results are significantly different, with major benefits to treatment with hydroxychloroquine:

https://www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study

Fully peer reviewed and in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

And even more importantly, 56% of the African-American.

Here is another real medical study from the New England Journal of Medicine that says it doesn't do squat for mild and moderate cases, and in fact leads to heart and liver abnormalities: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2019014

The previous study did show positive results with early intervention and combined with other treatment protocols for very severe cases, but this is why we need more time and more data, to sort of what works for who and what doesn't work, and assessing the risks involved before recommending everyone start taking a drug willy-nilly.

My original point about Trump remains, regardless of what the consensus eventually tells us--that Donald J Trump is not a doctor and not even fit to play one on tv and it is incredibly irresponsible for him to try. His ego is so massive he frequently claims, and probably believes, that he knows more about the military than generals, and about almost every other subject better than experts in that field. All well in good for a delusional egomaniac, but incredibly dangerous when he plays doctor. Most people, including those that defend him, would be more careful and measured than he is on this, and on most things.

[revo]

Here is another real medical study from the New England Journal of Medicine that says it doesn't do squat for mild and moderate cases, and in fact leads to heart and liver abnormalities: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2019014

The previous study did show positive results with early intervention and combined with other treatment protocols for very severe cases, but this is why we need more time and more data, to sort of what works for who and what doesn't work, and assessing the risks involved before recommending everyone start taking a drug willy-nilly.

My original point about Trump remains, regardless of what the consensus eventually tells us--that Donald J Trump is not a doctor and not even fit to play one on tv and it is incredibly irresponsible for him to try. His ego is so massive he frequently claims, and probably believes, that he knows more about the military than generals, and about almost every other subject better than experts in that field. All well in good for a delusional egomaniac, but incredibly dangerous when he plays doctor. Most people, including those that defend him, would be more careful and measured than he is on this, and on most things.

Especially when you consider that this hydroxychloroquine nonsense was brought to him by, you guessed it, a segment he watched on Fox & Friends. Dr. Oz brought up an informal French study of UNDER 30 PATIENTS who reacted well to it back in February, and Fox took the bait and ran with it. Then Laura Ingraham discussed it personally with Trump, in the hopes this would make him a modern-day Jonas Salk. So this entire nonsensical debate has been a Fox News ploy to boost his ego.

Is there really any wonder why we have double the cases and deaths of any other nation? We're a complete laughingstock under the Orange Clown.

[rhd]

This video says that a study in the journal "Nature-21" says there are 21 existing drugs that are have been found to be effective against CV-19:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTP7L1qUuTM

It says the most effective are Clofazimine, Hanfangchin-A, Apilimod and another whose name I couldnt understand. I'd never heard of any of them before, but Clofazimine has been approved already by the FDA. It supposedly is an anti-leprosy drug. The article evidently says that these used along with Remdesivir could be very effective against CV-19.

[Sour Masher]

No real surprise with this study, but a good reminder that there is great variation in mask effectiveness. All the anti-maskers are a big problem, but I have seen many more people with clearly ineffective masks and ones worn the wrong way, I wish there was more public guidance and what type of masks to wear and how to wear them. This study says that single layer cloth masks are basically worthless: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wel...xoU?li=BBorjTa

[rhd]

No real surprise with this study, but a good reminder that there is great variation in mask effectiveness. All the anti-maskers are a big problem, but I have seen many more people with clearly ineffective masks and ones worn the wrong way, I wish there was more public guidance and what type of masks to wear and how to wear them. This study says that single layer cloth masks are basically worthless: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wel...xoU?li=BBorjTa

I just tried the Bill Nye "candle test" w each of the two types of mask I have. Fortunately, they both passed.

[rhd]

Another stats update as of 7:46 AM today. Last stats were from 7/20 at 7:46 AM, exactly 7 days ago. Mortality rate is figured using the current death total divided by the total cases from the update 3 weeks ago (7/6):

- 4,371,992 cases in the US, up from 3,898,694, an increase of 12.14% which is a much smaller increase than last time (14.19%). At this rate of increase, the US projects to have 5 mil. cases by about 8/5. The new cases for this period were 473,298. A comparison w last period's new cases (484,589) gives a new cases increase rate of 0.977, which is much lower than that of the last update (1.124). Encouraging.
- 149,852 deaths in the US, up from 143,289, an increase of 4.58% which is higher than last time (3.99%). At this rate of increase, the US projects to have 200,000 deaths by about 9/10. The mortality rate is 5.02% (149,852/2,983,155), much lower than last time (5.43% (143,289/2,637,180)). The rate for the week's new deaths is 1.90% (6,563/345,975), about the same as last time (1.96% (5,502/280,465)).
- 16,395,861 cases worldwide, up from 14,663,785, an increase of 11.81% which is a smaller increase than last time (12.71%). At this rate of increase, the world projects to have 20 mil. cases by about 8/9. The new cases for this period were 1,732,076. A comparison w last period's new cases (1,653,795) gives a new cases increase rate of 1.047, which is lower than last time (1.120).
- 652,841 deaths worldwide, up from 609,676, an increase of 7.08% which is a larger increase than last time (6.56%). At this rate of increase, the world projects to have 1,000,000 deaths by about 9/12. The mortality rate is 5.66% (652,841/11,533,374), lower than last time (5.97% (609,676/10,220,387)). The rate for the week's new deaths is 3.29% (43,165/1,312,987), slightly higher than last for the previous period (3.13% (37,518/1,200,432)).

Case rates of increase were smaller than last time for both the world and the US but death rates of increase were larger for both. New case rates dropped sharply for both the world and the US and overall mortality rates continue to decrease for both the world and the US. Cases continue to surge in Russia, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa.

[Ken]

- 4,371,992 cases in the US, up from 3,898,694, an increase of 12.14% which is a much smaller increase than last time (14.19%). At this rate of increase, the US projects to have 5 mil. cases by about 8/5. The new cases for this period were 473,298. A comparison w last period's new cases (484,589) gives a new cases increase rate of 0.977, which is much lower than that of the last update (1.124). Encouraging.

I'm not clear on what these % are indicating. I think early on the % increase in total cases historically was very relevant, but at this point your numerator is new cases in the last 3 weeks, and your denominator includes cases from March. Right? If so I'm not sure how those numbers are related such that a % gain in total cases historically even matters.

The 7 day moving average for case count has plateaued over the last ~week at around 68K. That seems to be encouraging as long as we can now see it start to go down.

[swampdragon]

but how many people should be testing but tehya aren't getting tested

At the high point in New Jersey many many people didnt
A - have access to testing
B - leave the house for testing because they very likely had covid and didn't want to expose others and because the treatment is very very limited
C - were diagnosed through telemedicine - does that even get reported?

During one week the local place during the winter the county opened up a testing facility
they tested 750 people
turned away 5000 with prescriptions from doctors
and who knows how many didn't even bother to try

Is this a problem now in places like Florid, Texas etc?

How are cases counted?

[Kevin Seitzer]

Is this a problem now in places like Florid, Texas etc?

Yes .

[Kevin Seitzer]

When the positive test percentage exceeds about 15% or so, it starts to become hard to find a place to get a test here, in my experience, and if your symptoms don't require hospitalization, doctors are likely to encourage you just to quarantine.

[Ken]

When the positive test percentage exceeds about 15% or so, it starts to become hard to find a place to get a test here, in my experience, and if your symptoms don't require hospitalization, doctors are likely to encourage you just to quarantine.

Why is it the positive % and not the count that makes it harder to find a place?

[Kevin Seitzer]

Why is it the positive % and not the count that makes it harder to find a place?

I probably wasn't clear that I think it's an indicator of the problem, not a cause. As it gets harder to find a test without having severe symptoms, the positive percent spikes. There's only so much testing volume to go around.

[TranaGreg]

I probably wasn't clear that I think it's an indicator of the problem, not a cause. As it gets harder to find a test without having severe symptoms, the positive percent spikes. There's only so much testing volume to go around.

is that still the case down there? It was like that here in the very early days but by early April most communities had drive-thru testing sites set up.