# Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2020 Breaking News **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [February 11, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758 "2020-02-11T01:16:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 312
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6247 "2020-12-24T23:27:35Z")
let’s just agree to disagree, then. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6248 "2020-12-24T23:28:45Z")
Well I’m not going to concede that this is matter of opinion, no. There really is no other sensible way to interpret what they are _trying_ to show with that terribly designed survey. They are trying to say something about whether the population as a whole, prior to infection, is underestimating how dangerous the virus is. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6249 "2020-12-24T23:41:44Z")
I got to agree. It’s messed up enough to not accept “but still…”. ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6250 "2020-12-25T00:44:48Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > In a hypothetical world where everyone was already taking it sufficiently seriously prior to infection, there would be nobody in the “I now take it _more_ seriously” category. Exactly. I’m not a stats person but there should be a full survey that asks questions on how sick people were (Lickert scale), how seriously did they take the virus before getting ill, how serious after, and did they take precautions. Then you can disaggregate the data to ask, “Do people take the virus more seriously if they were very ill?” “How many people didn’t take it seriously in the first place?” These are all self-reporting so it’s probably crap if there’s no correlation. Maybe something like self-reflection if there’s a change in views?? I’m not an expert though. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6251 "2020-12-25T05:27:09Z")
79,743,029 total cases 1,749,606 dead 56,131,561 recovered In the US: 19,111,326 total cases 337,066 dead 11,219,123 recovered Yesterday’s numbers for comparison: > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > 79,057,616 total cases > 1,737,751 dead > 55,648,937 recovered > > In the US: > > 18,917,152 total cases > 334,218 dead > 11,101,866 recovered ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6252 "2020-12-25T15:51:43Z")
"Reporting a record number of coronavirus deaths Thursday for a second day in a row, Los Angeles County’s health director made an alarming announcement: “A person now dies every 10 minutes in L.A. County from COVID-19.” > **[1 person dies of COVID-19 every 10 minutes in L.A. County: Health director](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/1-person-dies-of-covid-19-every-10-minutes-in-l-a-county-health-director/)** > > Reporting a record number of coronavirus deaths Thursday for a second day in a row, Los Angeles County’s health director made an alarming announcement: “A person now dies every 10 minut… ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6253 "2020-12-25T16:06:39Z")
> [@Tfletch1](#): > > that asks questions on how sick people were (Lickert scale), how seriously did they take the virus before getting ill, how serious after, and did they take precautions What you might naively expect is that people who had a mild case take it less seriously and people with a bad case take it more seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6254 "2020-12-25T16:40:44Z")
The US is up to about 1M vaccines administered so far and expects another 4.67M to be distributed next week. > [@](#): > > The **[U.S.](https://elintransigente.com/tag/estados-unidos/)** plans to ship 4.67 million **[Covid-19](https://elintransigente.com/tag/covid-19/)** vaccine doses next week, putting the government on track to send out 20 million shots by year-end, according to the federal official in charge of the distribution effort > . . . > Already, 15.5 million doses have been allocated to states, territories and a handful of cities, said Perna. About 1 million doses have been administered since the U.S. vaccination campaign started last week, according to data from the **Centers for Disease Control and Prevention** , reported **Bloomberg**. I’m not entirely understanding what these numbers mean. There are 15.5M doses allocated, 4.67M doses distributed next week and 1M doses administered. Since the 4.67M doses puts them on track to have 20M doses distributed by year end and next week is year end, it sounds like the 15.5M doses that were allocated were also distributed, but that’s not clear from [the article](https://elintransigente.com/2020/12/u-s-to-distribute-4-67-million-covid-19-shots-next-week/). If 15.5M doses are already distributed, the 1M administered rate seems really low. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6255 "2020-12-25T16:50:55Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > What you might naively expect is that people who had a mild case take it less seriously and people with a bad case take it more seriously. Of course. So if you want to ask whether people were typically assessing the risk from the disease too low or too high prior to infection, you have to design a survey to obtain an unbiased sample of _all_ post-infection outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6256 "2020-12-25T17:57:05Z")
I don’t see any obvious reason why people who have personally had the disease will be better judges of the risks after getting it than they were before. I would expect someone who lived in a community that has experienced it, and who knows lots of people who got it, to have a more informed view than someone whose community has not yet been exposed. But personal reactions to personally getting sick are interesting, but don’t seem likely to be more reliable. I’d have guessed less reliable, really, since people tend to over-weight their own personal experience. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6257 "2020-12-25T18:47:42Z")
^^^ @puzzlegal I agree with all of this. I think in order to have _any_ value that survey should at a minimum have avoided the obvious ascertainment bias. But even if it had been statistically well designed, I don’t think the question it’s asking gives us the most useful insight. I like exactly what you describe. If you’re going to do some kind of before/after analysis, look at the attitudes of people who lived in a community that has been hit hard, before and after their _community_ was hammered, not just themselves. This would explicitly be designed as a biased sample, of course, looking at the worst areas - the idea being to give people in areas that have not _yet_ been hit hard pause for thought that maybe they don’t realize what could so easily happen to their own community. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6258 "2020-12-25T19:00:56Z")
Well, you can’t poll the people who died, nor the ones who have such bad “long covid” that they can’t deal with extra crap like surveys, nor the ones with severe neurological damage. And on the flip side, you can’t realistically poll the people who had no symptoms and therefore weren’t even tested. Although, i suppose you could assume such people’s opinions were not changed by an event they didn’t notice. But still… So i really think the survey you want this to be is totally impossible. Which is why I took it to be a “human interest” survey, of how people react to being ill with covid, and not an investigation into “whether people are taking it seriously enough”. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6259 "2020-12-25T20:18:44Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Which is why I took it to be a “human interest” survey, of how people react to being ill with covid, and not an investigation into “whether people are taking it seriously enough”.- This. Not scientifical. Just an illustration that even getting sick from COVID isn’t enough to convince some people that it’s not a hoax. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6260 "2020-12-26T05:09:30Z")
80,209,560 total cases 1,757,703 dead 56,473,802 recovered In the US: 19,210,166 total cases 338,263 dead 11,257,711 recovered Yesterday’s numbers for comparison: > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > 79,743,029 total cases > 1,749,606 dead > 56,131,561 recovered > > In the US: > > 19,111,326 total cases > 337,066 dead > 11,219,123 recovered ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6261 "2020-12-26T20:21:58Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > About 3.2 million Americans will die from all causes this year, an increase of about 400,000 over 2019, the increase mostly due to COVID. We know that people who are both sick and elderly make up the preponderance of the deaths. I’ve been wondering for some time whether the total number of deaths in 2021 (at least the last half of the year) will be **fewer** than statistically expected. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6262 "2020-12-26T20:51:58Z")
Merry Christmas States that reached new record highs on December 24-25 (seven day average) Maine New York Virginia West Virginia Arkansas Alabama Georgia ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6263 "2020-12-26T20:52:09Z")
My guess for the figure for deaths in 2021 will probably consist of: [1] Additional high level covid deaths until well into, and probably past mid-year until vaccine roll-out reaches everyone, and then still hitting anti-vaxxers until herd immunity takes effect. Its hitting record levels in the US for New Year, so may even match the ?400K deaths to date. [high +] [2] Unknown - fatality increase from long Covid effects - the jury is still out, and you may be lucky enough to only get chronic debilitating life-long damage instead rather than a spate of deaths. [?low +] [3] This is the one I think you were getting at - People who were going to die from one reason or another, because they were pretty old or had high risk factors. Probably some were taken early from the 2021 pool, but those risk factors also keep working and there is a constant supply of people getting old or having bad diets and lives that will make them susceptible. [?Even] [4] Reduced deaths from influenza as collateral benefit from mask-wearing and social distancing. [Low to Medium +] [5] The usual stupid and sad things. Despite hospitals clearing the wards of elective and non-urgent surgery, the non-covid proportion of hospital and ICU bed occupancy remains high. People still have car accidents, birth complications, get old etc. That remains high, and some doctors are saying may even spike because the lack of checking in, treatment and monitoring may mean some conditions will be missed and end up being fatal. [Even or Low +] ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6264 "2020-12-26T22:45:52Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > . I’ve been wondering for some time whether the total number of deaths in 2021 (at least the last half of the year) will be **fewer** than statistically expected. In Australia, the total number of deaths in 2020 is fewer than expected. Because of the shutdown and precautions. So deaths in 2021 will be up. (Haven’t seen recent numbers/predictions). There is a worst-case scenario for the USA, where deaths in 2021 will continue to be high, because of untreated cancer and heart conditions because of health system failures in 20/21. I’m sure someone is examining this, but I don’t expect anyone will really know until later. ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6265 "2020-12-26T23:37:25Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > What you might naively expect is that people who had a mild case take it less seriously and people with a bad case take it more seriously. Only for people who may tend to believe the misinformation in the first place. People who are properly informed already know that most people have mild cases, but the disease is unpredictable in healthy people and usually serious in people with co-morbidities. That’s why I think more data and disaggregation of data would tell a better story. However, I don’t do this kind of research. I’m sure someone on this board knows much more about this. ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/6266 "2020-12-26T23:48:26Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > We know that people who are both sick and elderly make up the preponderance of the deaths. I’ve been wondering for some time whether the total number of deaths in 2021 (at least the last half of the year) will be **fewer** than statistically expected. 2020 has been more deadly than recent years and that is probably due to Covid-19. Since Covid is expected to be worse at the beginning of 2021 at the rate we’re going, 2021 will probably be more deadly than 2020. > **[US deaths in 2020 top 3 million, by far most ever counted](https://apnews.com/article/us-coronavirus-deaths-top-3-million-e2bc856b6ec45563b84ee2e87ae8d5e7)** > > NEW YORK (AP) — This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic. By the way, the surge of “pneumonia” cases early in 2020 were probably Covid. Now that we have evidence that it was circulating in the US as early as December 2019, what we were calling pneumonia or even flu (some people could have been co-infected) was likely Covid. That almost certainly was the case in China and Italy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758.md?page=311) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758.md?page=313)