Coronavirus

[fishonjazz]

Unfortunately "we just can't help ourselves in in our response to Trump -- it's his fault" fails to be a legitimate discussion point when someone who isn't Trump is engaging with someone substantively on the issues.

I know right? It's totally not a legitimate discussion point, yet it exists and is used often.
Would be nice if that option didn't exist.

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[Avery]

Correlation doesn't equal causation and what not, but outside of better use of masks, I don't feel that anything has necessarily changed as a root cause. I still see crowded parks, team activities, etc.

I am concerned that cramming students into crowded classrooms is going to go awry especially as children will fidget and teenagers are poor at mask use (anecdotal on my part). That probably won't show up until September.

 

[infection]

Also wanted to note that over the weekend there was a KSL article that mentioned that if we were down, per the governor's goal, to 500 cases per day on the 7-day average by August 1, that it would be "the first time in months" that we've been under 500. This was patently false. I had made a comment to the article stating that it hadn't even technically been a month yet, at that point, that we've exceeded 500 per day on a 7-day average, and the nearest date that would qualify as the plural "months" we were at 165 cases per day. Eventually, they corrected this. They didn't, however, reference that a change had been made in the report (which is standard) and they deleted my comment from the comments section.

 

[Avery]

Also wanted to note that over the weekend there was a KSL article that mentioned that if we were down, per the governor's goal, to 500 cases per day on the 7-day average by August 1, that it would be "the first time in months" that we've been under 500. This was patently false. I had made a comment to the article stating that it hadn't even technically been a month yet, at that point, that we've exceeded 500 per day on a 7-day average, and the nearest date that would qualify as the plural "months" we were at 165 cases per day. Eventually, they corrected this. They didn't, however, reference that a change had been made in the report (which is standard) and they deleted my comment from the comments section.

Your first mistake was using KSL comments. They can be as bad as Youtube and Facebook comments in so far as either the world is ending due to COVID, hide your chilrden or it's all a hoax propagated by the deep state to reduce the world population to 5 million.

 

[infection]

Your first mistake was using KSL comments. They can be as bad as Youtube and Facebook comments in so far as either the world is ending due to COVID, hide your chilrden or it's all a hoax propagated by the deep state to reduce the world population to 5 million.

I don't typically read the comments. I had an account because I made comments once back about 5 years ago. I was going to contact the author but felt I'd just make the comment so at least other people could see it.

There's a bias toward "oh ****" and I have no idea where they ever got the idea that we'd been at over 500 for "months," because that's among one of the easiest things to check, but it must have sounded and felt good and was consistent with "oh ****" so they ran it.

 

[infection]

The other thing with KSL is that you will get the headline each day of "x new cases, y deaths." Except on days where the death number isn't as "sexy." So when there are 0-2 deaths, you get "x new cases." They don't mention 0 deaths. Ever. Or 1 death. Or 2. Just watch.

 

[Avery]

The other thing with KSL is that you will get the headline each day of "x new cases, y deaths." Except on days where the death number isn't as "sexy." So when there are 0-2 deaths, you get "x new cases." They don't mention 0 deaths. Ever. Or 1 death. Or 2. Just watch.

All media is guilty of sensationalism with headlines. My guess is people click more if they see people are dying (seeing where they are, age, hospitalized or not, etc).

As poor as it is, death sells for media. The more dire something is, the more they become a beneficiary.

 

[infection]

All media is guilty of sensationalism with headlines. My guess is people click more if they see people are dying (seeing where they are, age, hospitalized or not, etc).

As poor as it is, death sells for media. The more dire something is, the more they become a beneficiary.

Of course. Yet many will not allow themselves to acknowledge the subtle variables that greatly influences how they're viewing and approaching this problem.

 

[Avery]

Of course. Yet many will not allow themselves to acknowledge the subtle variables that greatly influences how they're viewing and approaching this problem.

Which is why you should never use one source of media for all your news intake. I try and read stories from many organizations to try and get a more centralized view. Yes, that means reading Fox News as well as CNN and also tossing in smaller online-only periodicals. It helps let you make your own informed opinions as often-times, the answer may lie somewhere in the middle.

Always a pleasure seeing how the same piece of news gets portrayed depending on who tells the story.

 

[leftyjace]

Mrs. Leftyjace and I went in and got tested again this morning.

 

[Ron Mexico]

The chart is missing countries, and I was trying to find a more complete one but settled for that. With regard to who has tested the most, here's Johns Hopkins, updated for 7/29:

How Does Testing in the U.S. Compare to Other Countries? - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

The U.S. has conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country. However, there is no expert consensus on a recommended target for the raw number of tests or even the rate of tests per capita

coronavirus.jhu.edu

That link gives me an error but that might be on my end. I am fairly confident China has done more tests. I was just in Beijing where they did mass testing of about half the city and witnessed it. They have done over 90 million tests. Also producing the vast majority of tests for the world, but that's another issue. Either way your statement or quote that USA has done more tests in July than any other country has overall is incorrect.

Edit: I don't know how USA is testing but China is doing mass testing by panels. Meaning they do 1 test for I think 5-10 people then if it's positive everyone tests individually. So it might be less tests but more people. But still that's not a correct number.

 

[Ron Mexico]

My brother in Idaho had his son get a fever and other symptoms. This prompted him to get his son and himself tested. The results are taking over a week to get back. His work told him it was a bad idea for him to get tested because he can't work now until he gets the results but should have skipped the test and kept working until he showed symptoms himself. Stupid stuff like this is why it's spreading.

 

[fishonjazz]

Saw this today and chuckled.


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[The Thriller]

Interesting.

 

[The Thriller]

Saw this today and chuckled.
View attachment 9601

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I love how any criticism of fixable issues in our country triggers some people to say, “well then Leave.” Whether it be gun violence, universal health care, law enforcement, etc. As if this is the same country that was founded in the 18th century and everyone who had an idea on how to improve it was shunned and moved away.

 

[Avery]

Sad to see that one-time presidential candidate and Trump surrogate Herman Cain passed away due to Covid. I still remember his 9-9-9 plan fondly.

Didn't agree with him politically and question some of his character, but death (a preventable one at that) is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone.

 

[infection]

That link gives me an error but that might be on my end. I am fairly confident China has done more tests. I was just in Beijing where they did mass testing of about half the city and witnessed it. They have done over 90 million tests. Also producing the vast majority of tests for the world, but that's another issue. Either way your statement or quote that USA has done more tests in July than any other country has overall is incorrect.

Edit: I don't know how USA is testing but China is doing mass testing by panels. Meaning they do 1 test for I think 5-10 people then if it's positive everyone tests individually. So it might be less tests but more people. But still that's not a correct number.

I'm not sure how to respond to that. The first thing I'd note is quite possibly a certain level of irony when you're saying China's reports are accurate, while simultaneously not being able to access that website from China. The other is that multiple sources other than Johns Hopkins have stated the US has done more testing. I could be wrong, but my supposition on why they're saying that isn't because they think the US' response has been amazing or because they're in love with the administration. But let's play along with the numbers for a moment:

90 million tests? They're reporting that they've had a total of 84,125 confirmed cases. If we were to pretend, for instance, that the specificity for the testing was 99.9% (which is an ungodly generous number), then you'd see 90k cases from false positives alone! So China's either not being forthcoming about 1) the number of cases, 2) the number of tests, or 3) both.

I can't speak for or discount your personal experience of what you've witnessed with regard to testing. But I'd be curious when seeing a lot of testing there, how your ability to quantify that by observation is able to differentiate 100k from 1M from 10M from 200M. It reminds me of this scene from Harry Crumb:

 

[Red]

 

[infection]

Saw this today and chuckled.
View attachment 9601

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I get that this is an attempt at humor, and I'm being a stick in the mud, but things like this become telling because they require a certain cultural framework with which the contextualization of the scenario is supposed to make this humorous. But it requires the reinforcement of a number of things that aren't true in the way in which we perceive them.

For instance, here's the current deaths per 100k population, per Johns Hopkins, as of today:

Belgium: 86.11
UK: 62.5
Spain: 60.87
Italy: 58.13
Sweden: 56.27
USA: 46.07
France: 45.12
Netherlands: 35.78
Switzerland: 23.24
Germany: 11.2

Mortality Analyses - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

How does mortality differ across countries? Examining the number of deaths per confirmed case and per 100,000 population. A global comparison.

coronavirus.jhu.edu

And, yes, we have many, many more confirmed cases than these countries. But what about testing? Here's how many tests each of those same countries have run:

Belgium: 1.21M
UK: 9.12M
Spain: 4.35M
Italy: 6.69M
Sweden: Not disclosed.
USA: 53.83M
France: Not disclosed.
Netherlands: 0.96M
Switzerland: Not disclosed.
Germany: 8M

Total COVID-19 tests

Comparisons across countries are affected by differences in testing policies and reporting methods.

ourworldindata.org

I get that this is way more information than what the superficial level humor is supposed to be. But it's important to look at because it identifies our cultural understanding of this problem, which doesn't align as smoothly with the actual data. And, yes, we can appeal to the idea that Trump's a chode, and many in the US are stupid, and that chodes and stupid people will mismanage pandemics through their stupidity, but ultimately we have to ask if these are comfortable beliefs that reinforce our biases, or if there are other important areas of critical thinking that need to happen that we bypass because "lol."

 

[LogGrad98]

View attachment 9628

It is. That's how I got to the astral plane.