COVID-19 News

[Tranquility]

As was previously posted, those who shut down the hardest got the highest unemployment numbers. So, lockdowns saved lives, right?

The Virus Doesn’t Care about Your Policies
ased on the data, there seems to be no relationship between lockdowns and lives saved. That’s remarkable, given that we know for sure that lockdowns have destroyed economies the world over.

Every epidemic model being flung around in March built in the assumption that lockdowns would control the virus. In the early days, it was about preserving hospital capacity. Later it became a general principle: slow the spread. The methods were the same in nearly every country. Ban large gatherings. Close schools. Shutter businesses. Enforce stay-home orders. Mandate human separation. Masks. Travel restrictions.

Nothing like this has been tried in the whole history of humanity, certainly not on this scale. You might suppose, then, there was absolute certainty that there would be a causal relationship between lockdowns and the trajectory of the virus. Just as the FDA doesn’t approve a drug unless it is proven to be safe and effective, one might suppose the same would be true for a policy that shattered every routine and trampled human rights in the name of disease mitigation.

Surely! It turns out that this is not the case. It was pure speculation that lockdowns would suppress this virus, and that speculation was based on a hubristic presumption of the awesome power and intelligence of government managers.

For five months, governments all over the world have been freaking out, ordering people around to do this and that, passing mandate after mandate, and yet there is no evidence that any of it matters to the virus...
-----------
[Lots and lots of data and statistics presented in different ways.]
----------
Now, you can take apart this data on grounds that it is too aggregated, that there are too many variables based on demographics (average age of death the world over is 82 with comorbidities, nearly half in nursing homes), and so on.

At some point, we are going to have to throw in the towel. Whether a country locks down or stays open has as much predictive power over deaths per million as whether it rains today is related to the color of my socks. Or whether hurricanes are controlled by literacy rates.

In other words, the claim that lockdowns control viruses is pseudoscience or magical thinking of a deeply dangerous sort; it wrecks economies and lives.

To be sure, there are plenty of studies claiming that lockdowns saved lives but the high-profile ones are model-based extrapolations that presume the existence of a relationship that the facts do not seem to back up. If there is a broad-based research study using real data that demonstrates something life-saving about destroying rights and liberties in the name of virus control, I’ve yet to see it. (A disagreeing reader sends me this paper, which you are free to read and consider.)

Meanwhile, we are overwhelmed with evidence that it was all pointlessly destructive. Liberty means the practice of health and wealth; lockdowns lead to exactly what D.A. Henderson predicted: catastrophe.
-------------


The counter paper linked at the end of the article:
Global Assessment of the Relationship between Government Response Measures and COVID-19 Deaths

Conclusions: A lower degree of government stringency and slower response times were associated with more deaths from COVID-19. These findings highlight the importance of non-pharmaceutical responses to COVID-19 as more robust testing, treatment, and vaccination measures are developed.

 

[macbill]

COVID-19 outbreaks in agricultural communities raise harvest fears
As harvest season approaches in other parts of the country, residents and migrant laborers in agricultural communities are particularly at risk of widespread infection. Across the U.S., rural communities have been largely spared the worst of the pandemic, but the influx of new people who live together in tight quarters where social distancing is difficult is raising fears of viral outbreaks.

 

[zor]

Yes the emergency approval was rescinded. Weid the main study that was the motivator for that removal used datasets so bad they (and other such studies) had to withdraw their papers.
.
.
.
But, hey, why have a fairly safe and similarly effective drug combination be available for cheap when we can get a treatment for about a thousand times more cost? That's right, we have to prove Trump bad for some reason. By the way, it seems ironic to have ad hominem be considered the height of rational argument. My understanding that was fallacious reasoning. Perhaps I'm wrong, I'll have to check.

Using a dubious or unverifiable source of data for any research is terrible practice. There are plenty of examples of scientific fraud, favoritism, influence, etc within published and peer-reviewed articles, but from my personal experience these get outed very quickly. I used to work in neuroscience electrophysiology and gene therapy, my team and I would regularly attempt to verify published protocols for experiments as we sought to devise our own, and in some cases no matter what we did we could not reproduce the published results. This escalated to the point that the original author and team of one article were engaged and a significant flaw was uncovered, the article retracted and/or updated (I don't remember as I had left that job by that point).

Thing is, this kind of science takes time. It takes a LOT of time. Unfortunately we don't have that luxury with the stresses of the pandemic, the demands of the past, present, and future patients, and of course the political landscape. In a perfect world I would hope we'd establish international collaboration and unity, sharing results while equally criticizing them. Similar to what vaccines may emerge, we don't have long-term data on your presented drug combination cocktail to know what other impacts to patient health may be. I think the argument is valid to consider all possible solutions, but you HAVE to be careful when you have dipshit Trimp touting drugs as absolutes, his constituents and others who don't know any better but to gobble up what they are fed without thinking, and a very poorly educated general public in the US.


I just saw your lockdown post, and there are some huuuuge generalizations here. I'd argue that many of the "lockdowns" being addressed were not long enough, not thorough enough, and not properly controlled. Oh hey, right from the introduction of the lancet article:

Although containment measures implemented in countries like China, South Korea, and Taiwan have reduced new cases by more than 90%, this has not been the case in many other countries such as Italy, Spain, and the United States. Despite appropriate public health guidance, less than optimal population compliance in western democracies may be an important contributing factor to variation in outcomes among the various countries

Additionally, emphasis mine

There were a series of predictors with significant associations with the outcome variables that require careful interpretation. An increased scale of national testing was not associated with the number of critical cases, or deaths per million. The government policy of full lockdowns (vs. partial or curfews only) was strongly associated with recovery rates (RR=2.47; 95%CI: 1.08–5.64). Similarly, the number of days to any border closure was associated with the number of cases per million (RR=1.04; 95%CI: 1.01–1.08). This suggests that full lockdowns and early border closures may lessen the peak of transmission, and thus prevent health system overcapacity, which would facilitate increased recovery rates.

I think I'm done with this thread for a while, at least until some more dipshit trimpists bite the dust and give me cause to celebrate.

 

[florduh]

As was previously posted, those who shut down the hardest got the highest unemployment numbers. So, lockdowns saved lives, right?

The Virus Doesn’t Care about Your Policies
ased on the data, there seems to be no relationship between lockdowns and lives saved. That’s remarkable, given that we know for sure that lockdowns have destroyed economies the world over.

Every epidemic model being flung around in March built in the assumption that lockdowns would control the virus. In the early days, it was about preserving hospital capacity. Later it became a general principle: slow the spread. The methods were the same in nearly every country. Ban large gatherings. Close schools. Shutter businesses. Enforce stay-home orders. Mandate human separation. Masks. Travel restrictions.

Nothing like this has been tried in the whole history of humanity, certainly not on this scale. You might suppose, then, there was absolute certainty that there would be a causal relationship between lockdowns and the trajectory of the virus. Just as the FDA doesn’t approve a drug unless it is proven to be safe and effective, one might suppose the same would be true for a policy that shattered every routine and trampled human rights in the name of disease mitigation.

Surely! It turns out that this is not the case. It was pure speculation that lockdowns would suppress this virus, and that speculation was based on a hubristic presumption of the awesome power and intelligence of government managers.

For five months, governments all over the world have been freaking out, ordering people around to do this and that, passing mandate after mandate, and yet there is no evidence that any of it matters to the virus...
-----------
[Lots and lots of data and statistics presented in different ways.]
----------
Now, you can take apart this data on grounds that it is too aggregated, that there are too many variables based on demographics (average age of death the world over is 82 with comorbidities, nearly half in nursing homes), and so on.

At some point, we are going to have to throw in the towel. Whether a country locks down or stays open has as much predictive power over deaths per million as whether it rains today is related to the color of my socks. Or whether hurricanes are controlled by literacy rates.

In other words, the claim that lockdowns control viruses is pseudoscience or magical thinking of a deeply dangerous sort; it wrecks economies and lives.

To be sure, there are plenty of studies claiming that lockdowns saved lives but the high-profile ones are model-based extrapolations that presume the existence of a relationship that the facts do not seem to back up. If there is a broad-based research study using real data that demonstrates something life-saving about destroying rights and liberties in the name of virus control, I’ve yet to see it. (A disagreeing reader sends me this paper, which you are free to read and consider.)

Meanwhile, we are overwhelmed with evidence that it was all pointlessly destructive. Liberty means the practice of health and wealth; lockdowns lead to exactly what D.A. Henderson predicted: catastrophe.
-------------


The counter paper linked at the end of the article:
Global Assessment of the Relationship between Government Response Measures and COVID-19 Deaths

Conclusions: A lower degree of government stringency and slower response times were associated with more deaths from COVID-19. These findings highlight the importance of non-pharmaceutical responses to COVID-19 as more robust testing, treatment, and vaccination measures are developed.

The two articles you just posted aren't remotely equivalent. One is from a medical journal. The other is from a Right Wing think tank.

So, lockdowns saved lives, right?

According to Donald Trump in that wacky Axios interview, the lockdowns he supported saved millions of lives.

the claim that lockdowns control viruses is pseudoscience or magical thinking

What an insane thing to say. Does this guy know how viruses work? If viruses have no ability to jump to another host, they eventually die out. This libertarian ideologue is accidentally making an argument for more stringent lockdowns. Like every other part of America's pandemic response, we half assed it. There were so many exceptions to the lockdowns that the virus was still able to spread.

 

[Gunky]

-snip-

What an insane thing to say. Does this guy know how viruses work? If viruses have no ability to jump to another host, they eventually die out. This libertarian ideologue is accidentally making an argument for more stringent lockdowns. Like every other part of America's pandemic response, we half assed it. There were so many exceptions to the lockdowns that the virus was still able to spread.

Florduh, Florduh, Florduh. You are crippled by trying to work from the old, now passe, style of reasoning where you start from the data and proceed to the conclusion. Make America Great Again is just the opposite, don't you see? We start out when the Dear Leader says something. That provides the conclusion. We then look about for "evidence" to justify that conclusion. This has been working great everywhere from the federal weather services to the Centers for Disease Control! Any suggestion that there could be problems with this is, of course, Fake News and a Gigantic Hoax the like of which has never been seen before.

 

[EmDeemo]

Florduh, Florduh, Florduh. You are crippled by trying to work from the old, now passe, style of reasoning where you start from the data and proceed to the conclusion. Make America Great Again is just the opposite, don't you see? We start out when the Dear Leader says something. That provides the conclusion. We then look about for "evidence" to justify that conclusion. This has been working great everywhere from the federal weather services to the Centers for Disease Control! Any suggestion that there could be problems with this is, of course, Fake News and a Gigantic Hoax the like of which has never been seen before.

The goof ball with the golf balls

 

[cybrguy]

So much of this thread has just become troll food that it is getting impossible to read in here even with an active bozo bin. This is another example of "flooding the zone" and y'all are playing right into it.

 

[florduh]

Despite Mask Wars, Americans Support Aggressive Measures To Stop COVID-19, Poll Finds

With the national death toll from COVID-19 passing the grim 150,000 mark, an NPR/Ipsos poll finds broad support for a single, national strategy to address the pandemic and more aggressive measures to contain it.

Two-thirds of respondents said they believe the U.S. is handling the pandemic worse than other countries, and most want the federal government to take extensive action to slow the spread of the coronavirus, favoring a top-down approach to reopening schools and businesses.

 

[Tranquility]

So much of this thread has just become troll food that it is getting impossible to read in here even with an active bozo bin. This is another example of "flooding the zone" and y'all are playing right into it.

 

[florduh]

 

[Tranquility]

What a trainwreck. I haven't seen the interview yet so am sure to have my opinion rise if past performance predicts current results. But, from the clips selectively presented so far, train wreck.

How to Evaluate COVID-19 News without Freaking Out

Fear and Loathing in Covid America Public panic and media scorn are shutting down important debates about how to tackle the virus.

And, for risk assessment purposes, how about Tuberculosis?
‘The Biggest Monster’ Is Spreading. And It’s Not the Coronavirus.
TB kills 1.5 million a year. Covid-19, as of now, has about 700K deaths. While I think Covid deaths are on the decline, even if they continue as they are, Covid still won't reach the death of TB.

TB will kill another 1.5 million next year.

And, the year after that.

 

[florduh]

I haven't seen the interview yet so am sure to have my opinion rise if past performance predicts current results. But, from the clips selectively presented so far, train wreck.

It definitely made for quality TV.

While I think Covid deaths are on the decline as of now, even if they continue as they are, Covid still won't reach the death of TB.

Right. But TB kills maybe 500 people per year in the US. It's a big, sad, and scary problem in certain countries, but not here. TB doesn't enter my personal risk assessment at all. For the same reason malaria doesn't: I do not live in the developing world. Although...

 

[Tranquility]

It definitely made for quality TV.

Someone with photoshop skills can meme it.

An article on the train wreck:
Here's How Trump Needs to Explain the United States' Coronavirus Response
Axios’ Jonathan Swan interviewed President Donald Trump last week, and social media has been abuzz about it since it aired on Monday. During the interview, Trump referred to a chart showing that America’s case fatality ratio (CFR) is lower compared to many other countries. This is true, but Swan was correct to point out that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is not a great metric to use. I’ve explained this in the past and it is no less true just because that’s what Trump chose to cite. The main reason why is that if you’re crushing it with testing, like the United States is in both raw numbers and per capita, the number of confirmed cases will be disproportionately higher than those of other countries that aren’t conducting tests at the same rate.

Jonathan Swan’s metric of choice (and frankly mine) is deaths per capita. This is a metric the media has generally avoided because when it comes to deaths per capita, the United States is not number one. Nevertheless, according to Swan, deaths per capita is “where the U.S. is really bad,” noting that on this metric, the United States is “much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.”

“You can’t do that,” Trump said. “Go by the cases.”

“Why can’t I do that?” Swan asked.

As I mentioned, Swan was right that deaths per capita is a better metric. But his characterization of America’s deaths per capita was very misleading....

 

[hinglemccringleberry]

Just remember, every gun owner is a *law-abiding* gun owner until they start shooting (at) people...

Since I'm all about rejecting misinformation on the internet, let me correct you:
When prisoners who committed gun crimes were surveyed on how they obtained their guns, a significant amount of them listed illegal sources.
I won't throw out percentages because we know they're not always reliable on this topic, but it's a fact that a big chunk of gun crime is conducted by those with a criminal record who obtained their guns illegally. Now back to your regularly scheduled coronavirus topics.

 

[EmDeemo]

It definitely made for quality TV.



Right. But TB kills maybe 500 people per year in the US. It's a big, sad, and scary problem in certain countries, but not here. TB doesn't enter my personal risk assessment at all. For the same reason malaria doesn't: I do not live in the developing world. Although...

You mean "shithole countries".

 

[Tranquility]

You mean "shithole countries".

Yes. TB runs higher in people who shit in holes. No matter if they do that out of poverty in a rich country, like the homeless in the U.S., or out of necessity in a country with little indoor plumbing.

How Infectious Disease Defined the American Bathroom

 

[florduh]

Jonathan Swan’s metric of choice (and frankly mine) is deaths per capita. This is a metric the media has generally avoided because when it comes to deaths per capita, the United States is not number one

I like how the new measure of success for the greatest country on earth is not being the absolute worst. We went from "Make America Great Again", and "America First" to "Well, other countries are shitholes too. It is what it is."

As I mentioned, Swan was right that deaths per capita is a better metric. But his characterization of America’s deaths per capita was very misleading....

Very misleading? I don't know. Swan said that in the US, death in terms of population is “much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.” That's true. We don't have the absolute highest deaths per capita. We are just among the worst. Couple that with the most number of cases, and most deaths....it's hard to paint this as some sort of resounding success.

Here's How Trump Needs to Explain the United States' Coronavirus Response

This PJMedia article isn't substantively any better than Trump pointing at his little graphs and whining that Swan wouldn't only consider them, and nothing else.

 

[Tranquility]

I like how the new measure of success for the greatest country on earth is not being the absolute worst. We went from "Make America Great Again", and "America First" to "Well, other countries are shitholes too. It is what it is."

(For the record, Tranquility didn't say it, the article did.)

Goal post shifting? Impossible! Two weeks, flatten the curve!

But, just because a country/person/thing is not #1 in all things does not mean they're not the best overall. (If that was the now stationary goal post.) Nothing's perfect but I'm thinking where "we" went is just in "your" mind.

Very misleading? I don't know. Swan said that in the US, death in terms of population is “much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.” That's true. We don't have the absolute highest deaths per capita. We are just among the worst. Couple that with the most number of cases, and most deaths....it's hard to paint this as some sort of resounding success.

The virus is the virus. Well, about 6 or 14 mutations, depending on how you mean. We're not done with this yet either in the disease portion or in the economic portion or in the recovery portion or in the death from despair portions yet. No one in the world is done with this yet. Just as it seems a bit early to paint this as some sort of resounding success, painting it as some sort of failure is just as early. Not only has this thing not run its course and an accounting to be had, but also we have comparative issues. The U.S. is not Germany, it's more like Europe as a whole. Each country in Europe will have different results just like each state in the U.S. will have results. We'll see. Better is to focus on the stats to find out the specific things to do better.

This PJMedia article isn't substantively any better than Trump pointing at his little graphs and whining that Swan wouldn't only consider them, and nothing else.

The train wreck of the interview was not the facts but the presentation. The article explains that.

Here's one of the reasons of how we screwed up. Over-regulation. The numbers are probably not that bad, but multiply it by all the hospital rules.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1290689572075167744

New York's failure to use emergency hospitals is another reason to distrust government healthcare

 

[florduh]

Goal post shifting? Impossible! Two weeks, flatten the curve!

Trump extended the 2 week lockdowns. The people bitching about lockdowns often forget that. He claimed his decision saved "millions" of lives.

Nothing's perfect but I'm thinking where "we" went is just in "your" mind.

Not really. It's a fair interpretation of what Right Wing media pushes. Sure, we're literally the COVID Capital of the World, but 7 other countries have a slightly worse death rate per capita. So we're doing great. USA! USA!

The U.S. is not Germany, it's more like Europe as a whole. Each country in Europe will have different results just like each state in the U.S. will have results.

I'm well aware that's your spin on it. I find it unconvincing (we need a Federal plan for vandalism, but not a pandemic that easily crosses State lines?) But the US is doing worse than the whole of Europe. The outbreak is widespread throughout the country. And having one of the "good" Governors with a magical "R" next to his name didn't prevent my State from losing 7,000 people so far. Two 9/11's.

We'll see. Better is to focus on the stats to find out the specific things to do better.

There have already been articles posted on this thread by public health experts describing exactly what the Feds could have done to prevent us from becoming the COVID Capital of the World. Hell... the White House has a plan. They just don't follow it, or message it regularly. And they praise governors like my own who violate it.

The train wreck of the interview was not the facts but the presentation. The article explains that.

No. PJMedia did the same thing Donnie did. The only stats that matter are the ones painting the President in the best possible light. Everyone who doesn't look at the COVID Capital of the World through the rosiest colored glasses is Fake News.

Here's one of the reasons of how we screwed up.

I'm of the opinion that we should cut NO politician slack on the COVID response. You believe Trump should be graded on a curve, but those evil Democrat Governors should be lambasted. It's tiresome.

 

[Tranquility]

Trump extended the 2 week lockdowns. The people bitching about lockdowns often forget that. He claimed his decision saved "millions" of lives.

If we go by the first model he saved millions. The discredited Imperial College model that caused the fear that lead to the shutdowns.

I mentioned that long ago in this thread as irony and not because I believe anything he did saved anyone let alone millions.

Trump extended nothing. He closed nothing but federal offices. The state's made their choices based on recommendations and advice for their situation.

Not really. It's a fair interpretation of what Right Wing media pushes. Sure, we're literally the COVID Capital of the World, but 7 other countries have a slightly worse death rate per capita. So we're doing great. USA! USA!

When you use words they should have some context. The "slightly" you're talking about, if we use the numbers at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

Puts us about 41.79 slightly less death per capita than Chile. At U.S. rates (https://www.census.gov/popclock/) that's about 13791 people slightly less dead.

I'm well aware that's your spin on it. I find it unconvincing (we need a Federal plan for vandalism, but not a pandemic that easily crosses State lines?) But the US is doing worse than the whole of Europe. The outbreak is widespread throughout the country. And having one of the "good" Governors with a magical "R" next to his name didn't prevent my State from losing 7,000 people so far. Two 9/11's.

My goodness, didn't we already discuss this. You said there was no plan and I posted the plan and the resources to find out about it in more detail. Are you suffering from Biden-itis or are you talking of something else?

There are no magical letters after one's name. There are principles that one follows or not follows. I suspect, while we don't know yet, those who follow more conservative political principles will do better than those who don't. At least this attempt to gaslight which party were most in favor of shutting down the economy shows there are those of the "D" party who are beginning to realize which ideas will be best in coming out of this morass.

There have already been articles posted on this thread by public health experts describing exactly what the Feds could have done to prevent us from becoming the COVID Capital of the World. Hell... the White House has a plan. They just don't follow it, or message it regularly. And they praise governors like my own who violate it.

What we COULD have done is disengage from China earlier and to track all their travel. Would have solved everything.

But, we don't have a time machine to do what might have been good in the past.

Especially when, when we look back, we find the non-magical "D" politicians telling everyone to ignore the president's fears and to come down and party. Oh yeah, protests are safe too!

Don't get me wrong, it is right and free and good to protest and I have no problem with any of them that did not turn to violence against people or property. But, it spread it around no matter how many masks were claimed to have been worn. Which magical letter should we look at for that portion of the spread?

No. PJMedia did the same thing Donnie did. The only stats that matter are the ones painting the President in the best possible light. Everyone who doesn't look at the COVID Capital of the World through the rosiest colored glasses is Fake News.

All "news" is fake news. All news organizations have bias and all will try to create a narrative their viewers/readers will like. Our job is recognizing it. There, for conservative news bias, you're doing great! Properly suspicious and wanting to bring up other facts. For left bias? I'm going to go with a "needs to improve".

I'm of the opinion that we should cut NO politician slack on the COVID response. You believe Trump should be graded on a curve, but those evil Democrat Governors should be lambasted. It's tiresome.

I'm not even sure Cuomo is a fuck up yet. We need to investigate why he took some of the actions he did and recognize that there are sometimes no good choices. Probably one of the reasons why I could never lead men into battle; I'm not that good at making choices while knowing someone will die. Taking that hill of hospital limits while knowing it will save others but kill the ones taking it is hard. If that was what it was, then we should learn and move on. If, on the other hand, it was a poorly thought out policy that did not consider all the risks, then he should never get a vote from anyone ever again and I hope we don't have to listen to how awesome he is ever again. If we find there were financial reasons behind the choices from an efficiency perspective, he should probably be put in jail. If we find there were financial reasons behind the choices from a personal or friend's or political supporter's perspective, he should be executed for the deaths caused.

I have no idea why he actually decided as he did and don't believe financial reasons are behind it. I'm still wavering behind, bad choice but no one is perfect and no one should vote for him again. I don't think I'm grading him on a curve so much as waiting for a real telling of the facts about what happened.

The only curving we should really talk about in grading Trump might be considering the alternative paths that would have been laid out by Clinton or Biden if they were in charge or comparing to Swine Flu with Obama and Biden. I personally believe he did better than Clinton would have (The most interesting thing would have been how authoritarian she became.) and certainly did better than the Biden would do today. Swine flu comparisons might make him look worse or better depending on metrics and would take some distinguishing of facts. We know there were less deaths in the Swine flu period than this Covid-19 period. How much of that was based on government actions rather than disease characteristics would be the part that needs distinguishing.

 

[florduh]

Trump extended nothing. He closed nothing but federal offices. The state's made their choices based on recommendations and advice for their situation.

He also supported the State lockdowns. And extending them past 2 weeks. For all your bitching about lockdowns, you continue to forget this. Now, he did later want to LIBERATE Blue States. Said fuck-all about Florida and Texas, who were locked down at the same time though.

My goodness, didn't we already discuss this. You said there was no plan and I posted the plan and the resources to find out about it in more detail. Are you suffering from Biden-itis or are you talking of something else?

You're being fucking ridiculous. They have a PDF on their site that the President hasn't talked about for MONTHS. And as I pointed out... they aren't following it. My Governor hasn't been following the plan. The VP and President continue to praise him. This is called a disjointed Federal response. Probably part of the reason why we're the COVID Capital of the World.

"My goodness" I pointed all of this out to you before.

The only curving we should really talk about in grading Trump might be considering the alternative paths that would have been laid out by Clinton or Biden if they were in charge or comparing to Swine Flu with Obama and Biden.

I don't really have the patience to unpack all of the nonsense you posted here. But I know one thing for a fact. If Obummer presided over the United States becoming the COVID Capital of the World, Right Winger media would not be spinning it as any sort of success. Neither would I. I also sort of doubt Obummer's son-in-law would've scrapped a national testing plan in an effort to kill more Red State inhabitants, making their governors look worse.

An interesting part of Trump's embarrassing Axios interview was when Swan pointed out that Trump's downplaying of the virus was dangerous to his supporters. They trust him. Not the Fake News. So when Trump continually acts like the pandemic is beat, it gives them a false sense of security. I wonder how many of his supporters Trump killed with this "Baghdad Bob" attitude towards the pandemic.

 

[Tranquility]

It sure does seem a lot of rewriting going on here. It seems the realization is starting to set in about the cost of the choices.

Were we the Swine Flu capital of the world too?

 

[florduh]

It sure does seem a lot of rewriting going on here. It seems the realization is starting to set in about the cost of the choices.

I'm just pointing out that Trump supported State lockdowns at first. In the Axios interview he said "I shut down the greatest economy on earth." You need to remember that every time you bitch about lockdowns. Personally, I've always been of the opinion that bitching about lockdowns is a canard. There is no economic recovery until we get the virus under control, meaning a significant drop in the number of new cases and deaths.

There is no coherent national plan for achieving that goal. Instead, we're just hoping enough people ignore the virus that the economy gets back on track. I think that's delusional, but we'll have to see what happens.

 

[EmDeemo]

I know America is having problems agreeing to wear face masks but you cant just send em here hidden in nuggets!

McDonald's: 'Face mask' found inside Aldershot store's chicken nugget

McDonald's: 'Face mask' found inside Aldershot store's chicken nugget

A six-year-old girl "nearly chokes" on Happy Meal from the Aldershot branch of the fast food giant.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Tranquility]

I think the paywall disappears tomorrow, but some interesting facts in the WSJ op ed.
The Hidden Danger of Masks

The following I found interesting, but have not looked up the underlying studies yet. (Mistakes in quotes are mine. Paywall applies to me too and Ctrl+V not available)

"According to a YouGov survey in late June,face-mask use was higher in the U.S. (59%) than in countries with fewer infections, including Taiwan (57%), France (54%), Canada (35%), Netherlands (9%) and Denmark (2%). And, Japan (77%) and Hong Kong (83%) have experienced recent infection spikes."
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"The only trial with reusable cloth masks suggested they're ineffective. They could even increase the risk. In the 2015 study, hospital workers in Vietnam who were given cloth masks were 13 times as likely to develop influenza-like illnesses as those given surgical masks. Face masks are speculated to be more useful in preventing Covid-19 because many infected people are asymptomatic. But some three-fourths of flu cases are also asymptomatic, and most people who develop symptoms are infectious for a couple of days first.

"A new independent analysis of cloth masks'efficacy on the CDC website notes the mask in the Vietnam trial was 'a locally manufactured, double-layered cotton mask"--similar to what many Americans buy today--and that higher infection rates among wearers 'may have been because the masks were not washed frequently enough or because they became moist and contaminated.'"
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The rest is pretty much the same argument here. The main thing I learned was mask compliance numbers. Those would not have been my predictions.

Edit:
Here's the Vietnam study:

A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers - PubMed

Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12610000887077.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I think this is the mask compliance numbers sheet. Tons of great info there even though the numbers are not the exact same as the article.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/interna.../03/17/personal-measures-taken-avoid-covid-19

I know America is having problems agreeing to wear face masks but you cant just send em here hidden in nuggets!

Go to the website and find the face mask numbers for Australia and for the U.S. You might dial back your assumptions on who is having problems.