Coronavirus General Discussion

[Libertarian666]

The media hasn't allowed even a small slice of the truth about this to be aired. I am, at the moment, beginning the workup of a wrongful death case involving one of the many victims of this political stunt who were locked down and therefore unable to obtain monitoring and treatment for cancer. It was my friend, and I watched the whole fricking thing unfold from beginning to end.

They've counted every last sniffle in this county, but no one has shown the slightest interest in including my friend's death in their statistics.

How awful. The people responsible for this outrage should roast in hell.

[Tortoise]

A recent medical study found that of people who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 on an RT-PCR test with a cycle threshold of 35 (the standard threshold currently used in the U.S.), less than 3% of them are actually infectious:

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-ar ... 91/5912603

The take-home message: For many months now, U.S. policy decisions on lockdowns, school closures, etc. have been based on an RT-PCR test setting that’s far too sensitive for the intended application.

[Libertarian666]

A recent medical study found that of people who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 on an RT-PCR test with a cycle threshold of 35 (the standard threshold currently used in the U.S.), less than 3% of them are actually infectious:

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-ar ... 91/5912603

The take-home message: For many months now, U.S. policy decisions on lockdowns, school closures, etc. have been based on an RT-PCR test setting that’s far too sensitive for the intended application.

Depending on the definition of "intended", of course.

[Cortopassi]

I have not approached my friends here at work who were of the belief that on Nov 4th, Corona would just start "disappearing."

Wondering for those who track Q or other conspiracies, what the latest conspiracy morphing has become?

Has it gone from Covid disappearing after the election to Biden's going to lock everybody down for months and destroy the economy?

I suppose most in the conspiracy crowd still believe Trump will stay in office?

I thought I was writing this tongue in cheek, but I am seriously asking.

[Cortopassi]

Corto, is this a conspiracy?

Why Is Big Media Hiding That Illinois Has Far More COVID Cases Than Florida? Because Illinois Has A Democrat In Charge And Tighter Lockdowns

Biased? Absolutely. Grand conspiracy? Unlikely.

And if the intention was to single out FL so more people would vote for Biden, it didn't work.

[WiseOne]

Is that even really worth talking about? It all depends on how much testing is done - which depends in part on how panicky the population is. Remember that when the media says "cases" they really mean "positive tests", which are an entirely different animal and some unknown proportion of them are clinically irrelevant. And "hospitalizations are increasing" is not helpful either, because that always happens this time of year. You need to know whether the increase differs from the normal range.

Perhaps a better assessment is the question I asked a couple people I know on the front lines: If there was no media reporting, no testing, and you weren't aware that there was such a thing as COVID, would current conditions in emergency medical settings be unusual?

My sister (ER doc in Massachusetts) said yes, because of nursing home patients coming in with clinical syndromes that are not like the flu. The number of these isn't too different from what she'd normally see, only the clinical presentation. And she's not seeing anything unusual in any other demographic group.

My friend (NYC paramedic) said no. He's been watching the figures for ambulance/911 calls, and there is nothing out of the ordinary going on. In the spring he was working extra shifts nonstop for the two months that the big spike lasted, but none of that is happening now. Wonder what they're going to do with that new field hospital in Staten Island...probably same as the one in Javits in the spring, i.e. a bunch of photo ops for the governor.

[I Shrugged]

A lot of times, what looks like a conspiracy or coordinated action is just common goals.

[Tortoise]

Pardon the weird format (lack of capitalization, etc.); I copied this verbatim from Twitter. Source link provided at the bottom of this post.

@foogatwo was kind enough to introduce me to a fun new CDC tool that tracks CARES act funding by hospital

one need not possess sherlock holmesian deductive powers to guess that those under the cuomo regime would be first & piggiest about getting snouts in trough

5/5 top spots!



big props to NYC HHC for getting twice as much as the next closest competitor!

$1.2 bn in federal funding. to one hospital system.

NY presby in second with 630 million. montfiore in 3rd with 467mm.

a full NYstate podium!

these are the true champions of crony capitalism.

NYS got 12% of funding. (5.7% of US population)

the only hospital outside of NY state to break $400mm in funding was HMH and they are actually 1/2 in NY 1/2 in NJ, so they get some honorary rights

once you break the top 10, it's <$300 million a paltry 25% of NYC HHC

pikers...

the average US hospital received $251,036, 0.02% of NYC HHC.

they got 4730X as much.

median was $9,994.

NYC HHC got $1,196,544,217. that's 120,000X the median.

boy, knowing how to play the pork game sure does pay.

bigly.

(pigly?)

$98 billion has been allocated via this program.

391,602 hospitals have been recipients.

the top 10% have taken $92 billion of that. (94%)

the top 1% have taken $71 billion (72%)

the top 0.1% have taken $35 billion (36%)

392 hospitals out of 391,602 got 36% of funds.



so, the next time you wonder: "why would hospitals seek to overstate covid" keep this in mind.

this is why. it's been a massive pork barrel bonanza if you know how to play the game of "find covid, get paid from federal firehose of funding."



this has been a never before seen grab bag of goodies and danger for the US hospital system.

they were forbidden from undertaking the elective procedures that pay all the bills and left reeling and insolvent.

then they were offered gobs of free money for finding covid.

what else could they do? this was clearly a gravy train leaving the station and their core businesses had been demolished by governmental diktat.

so they responded to incentives to survive.

it's not some conspiracy, it's just bad incentives breeding bad behavior.

and until we shut off this staggering spigot of funding, it is not going to stop.

big business LOVES crony capitalism. it's safer, more predictable, and harder for competitors to encroach on.

it's also terrible for consumers, taxpayers, and in cases like this all citizens.

the over reporting and over-diagnosis this encourages is then used to inform policy that further limits hospitals' traditional revenue lines and adds more pork.

competing for that pork ups apparent dangers through over-reporting.

this tightens policy.

it's inescapable so long as the money flows and it rewards the worst and most aggressively cronyistic and at the expense of the honest and non-politically connected.

it is everything you do not want in a hospital system and a government.

stop the gravy.

#DemandBetter

the tool can be found here:

feel free to check my work.

https://t.co/9isThLGpMm?amp=1

https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/ ... 9260419073

[Kriegsspiel]

Johns Hopkins study confirms what WiseOne has been saying for a while.

The study found that “This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years.” In fact, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”

Briand concludes that the COVID-19 death toll in the United States is misleading and that deaths from other diseases are being categorized as COVID-19 deaths.

'"On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University explained that they deleted the article on the study because it “was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic.”' Narrative collapse.

[dualstow]

If covid took away my sense of taste and smell, I would want to die.

[Kriegsspiel]

Hedonic Helen Kellers Longing For Death: Americans And The Coronavirus.

[Libertarian666]

If covid took away my sense of taste and smell, I would want to die.

It's temporary, at least from what I've seen.

[Cortopassi]

If covid took away my sense of taste and smell, I would want to die.

Of the 6 people in my office who have gotten it, 3 had lost their sense of taste and smell. Mostly back for all of them, but went through a period of things tasting wrong too.

I had some sort of sinus issue 30 years ago and lost sense of smell for around a year. It sucked.

[dualstow]

A year! That must have been agony. I guess the worst part is wondering when/if it will ever return. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I cannot imagine wondering for a year if I’ll be able to taste food again.

[Cortopassi]

Yes, it was bad. And the last two months of it I had a similar experience as some of the Covid people, where stuff started having taste but was either wrong or just bad. That was almost worse.

I distinctly remember a couple food memories in my life:

1) Coming home for the first time from college and having my grandma's meat sauce and spaghetti after not having it for a couple months.
2) Being able to finally taste a Reese's PB cup correctly once my taste came back.

[WiseOne]

Don't worry dualstow, the loss of smell is temporary. I would find that really annoying too though.

As far as those hospital figures....you have to remember that NYC had a genuine huge surge of COVID cases in March and April that was way beyond anything seen in any other region. It's why I've been harping on herd immunity likely existing here already. NY Health and Hospitals Corp is the public hospital system that handles all the indigent/Medicaid cases. They got the worst of it, because those are disproportionally black and Hispanic and those racial/ethnic groups are inherently more susceptible to COVID. NY Presbyterian at one point was jammed full with over 1300 COVID cases - a friend of mine (anesthesiology resident in that system) called it a "COVID cave".

It really was a nightmare. But yes, it was almost all nursing home cases, or sick elderly people living at home cared for by family. The average age of patients who died was over 80. Locking down the rest of us was kinda silly, although at that time we didn't know as much about the virus as we do now. The ban on elective procedures and mandates for hospitals to increase capacity by 50% were very much necessary though. Cuomo is talking about bringing all that back, which is absolutely absurd when it's done for positive tests with very little current impact on hospitals.

Here's the website reporting figures for cases (i.e. "positive tests"), hospitalizations (more important) and deaths (expect a time lag here).

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/cov ... e#epicurve

[barrett]

Here's the website reporting figures for cases (i.e. "positive tests"), hospitalizations (more important) and deaths (expect a time lag here).

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/cov ... e#epicurve

WiseOne,

If I am reading the charts correctly, there are currently just over 100 people per day with COVID being hospitalized for all five boroughs. Is this well within range of what the NYC hospital system can handle assuming that they would normally already be close to capacity at this time of year? 100 per day sounds like a lot but maybe not for such a large hospital system?

And as for all that money thrown at the NYC COVID problem last spring, I would also think that it makes sense to send resources ASAP to the heart of the problem, especially with the anticipated spillover effects to the rest of the region.

[WiseOne]

Here's the website reporting figures for cases (i.e. "positive tests"), hospitalizations (more important) and deaths (expect a time lag here).

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/cov ... e#epicurve

WiseOne,

If I am reading the charts correctly, there are currently just over 100 people per day with COVID being hospitalized for all five boroughs. Is this well within range of what the NYC hospital system can handle assuming that they would normally already be close to capacity at this time of year? 100 per day sounds like a lot but maybe not for such a large hospital system?

That's a rather hard question to answer, because daily hospitalizations per condition is not an easy statistic to find outside of the COVID news. For a city of 8 million people though, 100 hospitalizations a day is not a lot. I can tell you the number of total hospital beds in the city: 23,000 under normal conditions.

Also, COVID is displacing the flu as the cause of respiratory illnesses. That is, there are only so many vulnerable people. Normally, they come in with a respiratory illness presumed to be the flu (the tests are notoriously unreliable). Now, they're coming in and getting COVID tested with a super-sensitive test, so they are now classed as COVID cases. My sister the ER doc in Massachusetts did tell me that she hasn't seen any flu cases, only COVID. Is that because flu took a vacation this year? That would be quite surprising.

[vnatale]

If covid took away my sense of taste and smell, I would want to die.

That my father lose his sense of smell somewhere along the way, perhaps, made it possible for me to be alive and writing this.

He was still able to taste food, though.

Losing his sense of smell kept him stateside during World War II because lacking a sense of smell he'd not have been able to have smelled gas if it had been used during battle (even though I believe it'd been outlawed at that time).

Vinny

[barrett]

Also, COVID is displacing the flu as the cause of respiratory illnesses. That is, there are only so many vulnerable people. Normally, they come in with a respiratory illness presumed to be the flu (the tests are notoriously unreliable). Now, they're coming in and getting COVID tested with a super-sensitive test, so they are now classed as COVID cases. My sister the ER doc in Massachusetts did tell me that she hasn't seen any flu cases, only COVID. Is that because flu took a vacation this year? That would be quite surprising.

Thanks for that, WiseOne.

Just checked the CDC site to do a bit of flu research here:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

That gives estimates of total flu illnesses, hospitalizations & deaths.

And on this page is a brief explanation as to why these numbers are almost certainly low:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/wh ... imates.htm

I'm sure this info is not new to you, WiseOne, but thought others would be interested.

[Cortopassi]

Normally, they come in with a respiratory illness presumed to be the flu (the tests are notoriously unreliable). Now, they're coming in and getting COVID tested with a super-sensitive test, so they are now classed as COVID cases. My sister the ER doc in Massachusetts did tell me that she hasn't seen any flu cases, only COVID. Is that because flu took a vacation this year? That would be quite surprising.

You are saying regular flu cases are being categorized as Covid because the Covid tests are detecting flu as Covid? Is there any data on this, or any established news outlets talking about this? Are the viruses so similar that flu does get detected as Covid?

I agree it does seem like the flu, at least as a story, has disappeared this year, which has me wondering the same thing.

[Kriegsspiel]

I don't know if there's a way to make them stop, but mass disobedience is something we can all do. Antifa/BLM have ignored the edicts the whole year. Politicians ignore them all the time. I imagine tons of people disobeyed over Thanksgiving as I did. Be the change you want to see in the world

[Tortoise]

I don't know if there's a way to make them stop, but mass disobedience is something we can all do. Antifa/BLM have ignored the edicts the whole year. Politicians ignore them all the time. I imagine tons of people disobeyed over Thanksgiving as I did. Be the change you want to see in the world

+1

Governments never voluntarily give freedom back. People take freedom back.

[Kriegsspiel]

I took that part out of my reply because there's not really a good answer. Support the small businesses defying the lockdowns. Get local police on your side (tougher in cities, easier in small communities) so they don't enforce them. Vote against your local authoritarians and mock them in public if you see them. Decorate your town with tasteful anti-lockdown graf street art.

I mean, I'm just riffing here, actual smart people probably have better ideas.

[Tortoise]

True. But, for instance, if the governor shuts the gyms and movie theaters and you want to use them, what option is there? Break in and have your way?

I agree with Kriegs that one approach is to build a relationship with local law enforcement and get an implicit agreement that you’ll operate your business and they won’t come in to shut you down. For example, that’s what Mark Rippetoe did with his gym in Texas, but he lives in a small town. As Kriegs said, it’s easier to do that in a small town.

If you run a small business that’s about to become insolvent anyways, why not just start defying the lockdown orders? What have you got to lose at that point?

If that stuff doesn’t work out well, I guess you vote with your feet and move somewhere that won’t force your business to remain closed or heavily restricted.