Obviously it’s possible to prevent people from getting covid-19. Otherwise we pissed away a lot of money and jobs for nothing. The intent of all this chaos was and is to prevent a runaway collapse of our medical system. This is a universal goal and it’s on-going.
A great many people have had their personal, financial, and social lives ruined over this as well as a significant number of people who have had major medical services delayed because of backlogs.
It’s not a function of complacency. People aren’t basing their social responses on ICU capacity. Their basing it on the toll this has taken on every aspect of their lives. That doesn’t mean we’ve given up on preventive measures. The major cities in my state are all going to mandatory masks to avoid or at least even out the expected increases of a second wave. It was always the plan to make adjustments as needed to keep things in check.
You (Magiver) seem to believe that somehow the upheaval in people’s personal, financial, and social lives is proof-positive of our wonderful mitigation efforts. What you don’t understand is that this is not a zero-sum game. The U.S. is going to end up having among the worst death rates and also probably among the most economic hardship exactly because the mitigation efforts in many parts of the country are so shitty and ineffective. You have to base this stuff on science, not on wishful thinking. If you listen to Rachel Maddow, for example, you would have known about the stupid things that Arizona was doing (like ignoring inconvenient projections from University of Arizona scientists and opening up early just because the President was coming to visit) many, many weeks ago, long before their case numbers started to explode.
In many cases, we are not making adjustments to keep things in check. We are closing the barn door well after the horse is gone.
You (jshore) are making vague claims without any cites. And yes, the tremendous sacrifices people have been forced to make have made a tremendous difference. We were told this would run into the millions if we hadn’t instituted the mitigation process.
I’ve been following this daily since mid-March and the trend has consistently gone down. Consistently. It wasn’t wishful thinking. It was because the Federal, State, and Local jurisdictions have put in place mitigation protocols. Based on science.
Today’s total for the nation is the lowest it’s been since March as is the 10 day rolling average.
Do you think that the increasing case numbers (7 day average on June 19 = 25,700, vs 7 day average on July 3 of 48,300) might translate into a higher number of deaths in the next few weeks? Or will the medical system be able to keep the number of deaths low,even as cases have risen?
If you think the average number of deaths per day will remain low, even when cases have basically doubled in a short time period, what leads you to that conclusion? I know that hospitals have been getting better at treating, and the folks who have been infected more recently have trended younger… this has helped keep the death rate low.
No, it is not true that the increase in cases is due to more testing. The positivity rate in those states that are having huge surges proves that this is incorrect. Completely wrong. Not the case. This is simply what Trump hopes is true. Medical experts disagree.
I brought up the “younger people are getting it” already. What happens when they take it home to mom, dad and grandma?
I really hope that Florida does not screw the pooch on nursing homes. A big problem that they need to avoid is to prevent part-time workers who need 2 or 3 nursing home jobs because the private companies only hire part time to avoid paying benefits. These folks then take the virus with them and spread it to multiple homes. My government has now forbid this practice. Not sure what Florida and Texas will do.
Yes, I mentioned medical treatment improvements. This is good.
Not sure what “adjusting protocols” means. Mask wearing? This only works in countries that have populations that have not politicized mask wearing. Trumpers think masks are “a hoax” (direct quote from lady in DC attending today’s events)
You left out the word “part” and it’s a statistical guarantee that more testing will generate more positive results.
stay away from people at risk. If you can’t do that then wear a mask around them and
wash your hands and have them do the same…
Adjusting protocols means exactly what is says. And thanks for your direct quote from a lady in DC. I’m just going out on a limb and suggest she represents herself and not the Republicans I know. We’re following our protocols.
As we have noted before, Trump is wrong to say that testing is the only reason why cases are increasing in the U.S. On the contrary, data from some of the places being hardest hit shows that the case numbers are outpacing any increases in testing, since the percentage of positive tests is climbing — sometimes dramatically so.
In Arizona, for example, the seven-day average for the test positivity rate, as analyzed by Johns Hopkins University, is now 23%, up from around 7% in mid-May. Texas is also seeing anincrease, from a rolling average of around 5% at the end of May to more than 11% on June 24.
And in Florida, where the number of tests performed daily has of late been flat or falling, 14% of tests are coming back positive — well above the recommended target of 5%, which the state had been hitting for nearly all of May.
Even the national daily test positivity rate, which was below 5% in early June, has started to tick up, reaching 7.5% on June 24, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Katherine Ellingson, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona, told us that the differential between case counts and tests “suggests that community transmission is increasing, and that increasing case counts are not simply an artifact of testing.”
But focusing on the death figures when thinking about the current uptick in COVID-19 cases is potentially misleading, experts said, because it could be that the deaths will simply come later.
“Deaths always lag considerably behind cases,” Fauci said in his June 23 testimony, in response to a question about the disconnect between the rising case counts and declining deaths. “You might remember that at the time that New York was in their worst situation where the deaths were going up and yet the cases were starting to go down, the deaths only came down multiple weeks later.”
“So you’re seeing more cases now while the deaths are going down,” Fauci continued. “The concern is if those cases then infect people who wind up getting sick and go to the hospital, it is conceivable you may see the deaths going up. So I think it’s too early to say because the deaths are going down.”
I can rightly say that if I throw a bucket of water into a lake during a downpour that I am “Partly responsible” for the rise in the lake level. And I’d be correct.
And you’re going to continue to wait for it. As has been pointed out previously when this complaint (?) has been made, the second wave is anticipated to strike sometime between October and December.
That expectation is based on how historical pandemics have worked out, however. Here in the US we’ve kept the numbers up so high we may never see a second wave, because the first wave can only end when the number of cases bottoms out for a period of time…
Yes, obviously without any mitigation whatsoever, it would have been much worse. But that part is not unique to the U.S. That is true worldwide. What is unique to the U.S. is the subsequent re-openings not being based on science but wishful thinking in many states across the South and West and that is why our curve now looks so different from Europe’s: One graphic explains why Americans are facing an EU travel ban | CNN
Which is it? Are we spinning out of control now or it’s “going” to happen in October-December.
Your expectations based on historic pandemics need to include present day medicine and technology. Even if the predicted vaccine doesn’t occur this fall we will still have treatment of blood transfusions from all the young people getting it now.
This is especially critical. My sister and her husband who are professionals in patient care involving many elderly in FL have seen this effect with the caregivers who out of necessity cannot simply stay put in one single controlled environment.
One thing that optimists about treatment don’t understand is that treatment requires time and resources. If the virus is spreading like a raging wildfire, treatment advances won’t matter a bit.
Yes. And by its very nature, must follow an initial wave. There are lots of places in this country today that can not show and end to the initial wave. Illinois (Chicago-ish Illinois, that is. I realize that it has impacted rural areas less so…) is doing OK in a relative sense, but I wouldn’t yet declare the first wave over. At best, we have levelled off to late March/Early April levels of new cases and deaths.
Time and resources. Almost sounds like you’re talking about something paid for with taxes.
Raging wildfire is not a good analogy because the vast majority of people survive it without complications. So what you’re talking about is something that requires a healthy economy to fund research and allocations toward the few who are vulnerable.