Coronavirus

[milehiiu]

1 hour ago, 5fouls said:

The link you provided highlights Vermont as one of the states with increased hospitalizations,  Meanwhile, the info below highlights Vermont as the only state where the number of weekly cases has gone down by over 50%.  Both accurate stats, no doubt, but they tell a completely different story.  

 

According to data from Johns Hopkins University:

• These 24 states are seeing upward trends in newly reported cases from one week to the next: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Oregon, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

• Seven states are seeing steady numbers of newly reported cases: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

• These 18 states are seeing a downward trend: Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Virginia.

• One state, Vermont, has seen a decrease of at least 50%.

Really screwy.  In term of Colorado.  For days. Local Denver tv has been reporting decreases. Including. Just this morning.

And though this link is from two days ago... also reporting a decrease in cases in Colorado :

COVID-19 cases trend down in Colorado, but surge in some neighboring states | FOX31 Denver

[IU4Ever]

If life is to get back to some sense of normalcy, we're going to see an increase in confirmed cases.  It's inevitable as restrictions are lifted.  I'm more concerned with hospitalization and death rates.  We cannot put the world under a bubble and isolate each separate country and then further subdivide the isolation within each country.  If it were even possible, to do so for an extended period of time would ultimately lead to a global economic collapse.

Brian Snow tweeted this earlier today regarding overreacting to confirmed cases being reported at colleges as football teams return to campus:  "I am confused. Are people surprised that NFL/MLB/college teams are having positive COVID tests, so it becomes front page news? Like, the hell did you think was going to happen? What alternate universe are we living in right now."

 

[IU Scott]

I have seen where they have said that the regular flue season there are more deaths than what we have seen with this virus  My question is why have we not shut down before in the winter because it is the flue season.  My question is that is all deaths today pretty much being reported as covid deaths.  If something happens to me now and I die will it be reported as a covid death even though I have recovered from it.

[Seeking6]

Didn't think I would get to this point. Here's my two cents. Practice social distancing, wear a mask when going out in public (especially in high volume people areas) and the rest is just going to have to figure itself out. This just might be a virus we have to live with forever. Maybe a simplistic approach but people are getting this who have been quarantined since March. People are getting this even though they feel fine. Probably a very naive approach but we can't keep shutting a country down. 

[IU Scott]

This virus is not going away right away so we either have to start living with it or just isolate ourselves forever.  If we wait until this whole thing is over then we will be waiting for a long time to start opening things.  Are we just going to just have all the sports from May to October and close everything for the winter.

[jv1972iu]

The state of our country is very chaotic for many reasons.  I'm certainly not going to talk in any detail because the subject is toxic.  People are trying to get on with their lives as best they can.  It's hard.  It's frustating.  It's painful.  This is a marathon.  This is the new reality unless science discovers a vaccine.  Just my humble opinion.  Prayers and best wishes to everyone.

[milehiiu]

25 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

This virus is not going away right away so we either have to start living with it or just isolate ourselves forever.  If we wait until this whole thing is over then we will be waiting for a long time to start opening things.  Are we just going to just have all the sports from May to October and close everything for the winter.

Being retired for years. I have been self isolating for years now.  Actually going out less now. But no big deal in terms of that.  However, a neighbor in back of my house had a fence replaced.  They did have a cable finder come out.  However, the fence guy did not pay attention. And cut the cable to my internet and land line, last Tuesday morning. I was on line on HSN.... and it went out.  Service was not restored until late Friday afternoon.  As the people had dogs in their back yard.  And failed to respond to requests for days for Century Link to enter their yard to make the repair. 

[dbmhoosier]

36 minutes ago, milehiiu said:

Being retired for years. I have been self isolating for years now.  Actually going out less now. But no big deal in terms of that.  However, a neighbor in back of my house had a fence replaced.  They did have a cable finder come out.  However, the fence guy did not pay attention. And cut the cable to my internet and land line, last Tuesday morning. I was on line on HSN.... and it went out.  Service was not restored until late Friday afternoon.  As the people had dogs in their back yard.  And failed to respond to requests for days for Century Link to enter their yard to make the repair. 

I'm sorry about that.

[milehiiu]

17 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

I'm sorry about that.

I had no problem with the land line being down.  However, not being able to interact with my HSN friends was tough.  No PBR for me.  Just extra boxes of white wine.  LOL

I love the pic.  Thanks !  And it's great to be back you people again. 

[Muckraker]

5 hours ago, milehiiu said:

I had no problem with the land line being down.  However, not being able to interact with my HSN friends was tough.  No PBR for me.  Just extra boxes of white wine.  LOL

I love the pic.  Thanks !  And it's great to be back you people again. 

Welcome back, Mile. I got called back to work, this week, so I haven't been able to be on here much. 

[Muckraker]

Hey, Mile, were you able to get in on the $35 for life deal with CenturyLink?

My CenturyLink internet isn't the fastest on the planet, but $35/month is a no-brainer. 

[milehiiu]

6 hours ago, Muckraker said:

Hey, Mile, were you able to get in on the $35 for life deal with CenturyLink?

My CenturyLink internet isn't the fastest on the planet, but $35/month is a no-brainer. 

Yes. I am locked in for life.  Years back, I got their super speed, which they said is for businesses.  Later they told me I did not need it. But I never changed.  Then.... when the locked in for life offer came.... they never changed the speed for me. In fact. Since we have been a customer since the early 1970's they reduced the price !

I have read. On line. People in other states that don't like Century Link.  However, I can't say the same.  Every time I have had an issue. Which is not often. They have been fantastic. For instance. In this latest issue. We got texts every day, as to what was going on.  Employees coming to my door to update us.  Or phone calls to tell us what way happening.

Then, when our service got restored. One employee came to check and make sure everything was good.  I told him about my experiences with Century Link.  And told him I think it had a lot to do with the fact that so many of their employees were carry overs from Mountain Bell/Quest.   And he said he had been with the phone company for 41 years. And his dad retired from them before him. 

Stay safe. 

[tdhoosier]

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29340521/sources-mlbpa-delays-vote-proposal-wake-spring-training-outbreaks

I just can't help thinking that we won't see any team sports in the near future unfortunately. If baseball, which is about as socially distanced as you can get, is already having issues then what will other sports do? I don't think it's necessarily a matter of being overly cautious, I think it's going to come down to teams not being able to play an equal amount of games. The virus doesn't abide by agendas or guidelines; it will hit some teams harder than others, causing cancelled games and ultimately unbalanced records by the season's end. 

If I was a betting man, I'd put money on the major sports leagues' seasons either not happening or being cut short until a vaccine is developed. Really hope I'm wrong.

[Reacher]

I heard that somewhere the median age of those being diagnosed is now 32.  The younger people being diagnosed are mostly asymptomatic and obviously not at as great of a risk of dying which helps to explain why cases can be going up and deaths down. Personally, I think this is good news as we are now identifying more people- not just the ones that show up with symptoms.

[Hoosierhoopster]

Houston is now over 85% capacity in ICU, COVID infections have now doubled -- as in 2X -- since Memorial Day. I don't know what good news there is here, the simple fact is cases and hospitalizations have been skyrocketing in Houston and other Texas cities, which has led to the fully appropriate response by County officials, first in San Antonio / Bexar County, and then promptly in Houston/Harris County and Dallas to mandate that businesses providing services/goods to the public require patrons / customers to wear masks. That should help limit further growth and spread of the virus, bring it back under control -- as it was before people ran around without masks etc. 

[tdhoosier]

6 minutes ago, Reacher said:

I heard that somewhere the median age of those being diagnosed is now 32.  The younger people being diagnosed are mostly asymptomatic and obviously not at as great of a risk of dying which helps to explain why cases can be going up and deaths down. Personally, I think this is good news as we are now identifying more people- not just the ones that show up with symptoms.

This doesn't surprise me.....just the results of increased testing, which slowly is giving us a clearer picture. Those younger people with milder symptoms probably couldn't even get a test in March and April. My friend was diagnosed with 'likely COVID' by his doctor in early April; his symptoms weren't severe enough to get rationed a test at that time. Thus, never officially was counted as a positive.

However, in a perfect world where all cases are reported accurately and instantaneously, I still think the cases reported and deaths reported ultimately follow the same trajectory....it's just that the deaths reported is 10-15 days behind. Kinda like riding a roller coaster with a really long train on a line graph, with the front car being 'cases reported' and the rear car being 'deaths reported'. While the font car may be ascending on a new peak, the rear car may still be descending from the previous peak. This may be a reason why the deaths are going down while cases rise. Conversely, it's also probably the reason that when NYC's cases began to fall last month people were wondering why the death rate was still climbing - it was because the back of the train was still working its way over that peak.  Ultimately the 'deaths' followed the same path as the 'cases' and began to descend.

 

[Reacher]

[Reacher]

33 minutes ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

Houston is now over 85% capacity in ICU, COVID infections have now doubled -- as in 2X -- since Memorial Day. I don't know what good news there is here, the simple fact is cases and hospitalizations have been skyrocketing in Houston and other Texas cities, which has led to the fully appropriate response by County officials, first in San Antonio / Bexar County, and then promptly in Houston/Harris County and Dallas to mandate that businesses providing services/goods to the public require patrons / customers to wear masks. That should help limit further growth and spread of the virus, bring it back under control -- as it was before people ran around without masks etc. 

You can see from the chart above that TX cases are growing from low levels and many states are much worse off. In IL, we are on the other end of the curve (not sure how). Like those in NY, NJ and elsewhere, we had our peak earlier. You can choose the pessimistic view but don't fault me for thinking that more younger people being diagnosed is good news. These are people who were out spreading undetected before and now our testing has reached levels to identify more of these people. Combined with better treatment regimens, I don't see deaths spiking as much as it did earlier when more of the elderly were being hit, we are now catching it earlier, and Drs and hospitals have a couple months history to guide them. 

[5fouls]

I hate to use this analogy, because it comes off as kind of crude.  But, in regards to the death rate, in many parts of the country, the virus has already picked a good portion of the low hanging fruit (nursing homes, people with underlying conditions, etc.).  It now seems to be hitting some of the states that were not as hard hit before (Texas, Arizona, etc.).  After the most at risk are impacted in those states, what happens next?  Do we then begin to view this virus as 'just another illness'?  At what point does a professional athlete with no symptoms not shut down a season, camp, etc.  In 2024, if there is no vaccine and Mike Trout is diagnosed with the virus, does MLB shut down?

.  

 

[tdhoosier]

34 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

I hate to use this analogy, because it comes off as kind of crude.  But, in regards to the death rate, in many parts of the country, the virus has already picked a good portion of the low hanging fruit (nursing homes, people with underlying conditions, etc.).  It now seems to be hitting some of the states that were not as hard hit before (Texas, Arizona, etc.).  After the most at risk are impacted in those states, what happens next?  Do we then begin to view this virus as 'just another illness'?  At what point does a professional athlete with no symptoms not shut down a season, camp, etc.  In 2024, if there is no vaccine and Mike Trout is diagnosed with the virus, does MLB shut down?

.  

 

This is the USA....there's a plenty of 'low hanging fruit'. I hope you forgive me as coming off equally as crude. 😀

And being older makes one more likely of dying from the virus, not catching it. There's a lot of high risk elderly who haven't been infected. The graph below is from 6/16:

 

source: https://www.scdhec.gov/infectious-diseases/viruses/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/sc-demographic-data-covid-19

Edited June 22, 2020 by tdhoosier

[milehiiu]

On 6/20/2020 at 2:29 PM, dbmhoosier said:

I'm sorry about that.

Oh by the way. I failed to mention... if one wonders what mile looks like.  Over the years, I have had numerous women come up to me, asking me, if I was him.   LOL

[5fouls]

1 minute ago, tdhoosier said:

This is the USA....there's a plenty of 'low hanging fruit'. I hope you forgive me as coming off equally as crude. 😀

And being older makes one more likely of dying from the virus, not catching it. There's a lot of high risk elderly who haven't been infected. The graph below is from Friday:

 

I guess that's kind of my point.  Should people in the at risk age groups be participating in risky behavior?  Probably not.  But, should the high school class of 2021 miss out on everything the class of 2020 did (prom, graduation, sports, etc.)?  

I don't know the answer to that,  I guess I'm just trying to get a handle on how long the virus will dominate decision making.  If some cities are ready/willing to re-open, but someplace like Los Angeles still does not allow crowds, what does that mean for to the Lakers, Dodgers, Rams, etc.?

I'm blessed that both my wife and I are able to work from home.  But, I also have 2 kids in high school that I would like to have the full high school experience.  At the same time, I have an elderly mother and elderly in-laws that are most certainly in the age group for the most serious impacts.     

There does not seem to be a 'good' answer as to how we should proceed.  However, there needs to be 'an' answer. 

Protect your most vulnerable.  At the same time, don't freak out if an otherwise healthy 34 year old in Maryland dies of the virus. Healthy 34 year old people can die unexpectedly while out jogging.  And, yes, I realize one of those can be spread person to person and one cannot.  But, are the dangers to certain age groups actually significantly higher than other health related threats?  

[Hoosierhoopster]

1 hour ago, Reacher said:

You can see from the chart above that TX cases are growing from low levels and many states are much worse off. In IL, we are on the other end of the curve (not sure how). Like those in NY, NJ and elsewhere, we had our peak earlier. You can choose the pessimistic view but don't fault me for thinking that more younger people being diagnosed is good news. These are people who were out spreading undetected before and now our testing has reached levels to identify more of these people. Combined with better treatment regimens, I don't see deaths spiking as much as it did earlier when more of the elderly were being hit, we are now catching it earlier, and Drs and hospitals have a couple months history to guide them. 

I'm not choosing the "pessimistic view," I'm not choosing any view. I posted what is actually happening in Texas, and 85% and growing ICU capacity is not a positive, it's a reflection of the significant spike in COVID cases and hospitalizations (which previously were denied here) since Memorial Day, and the number is reaching dangerous levels. Texas wasn't hit mildly before, it was hit pretty hard, including Houston. It's getting hit hard again, because of an extremely lax approach to basic public safety in the way people went back to work and play after the measures put in place, that were effective, were relaxed.  And fwiw, the charts do not reflect just a bunch of young people getting cases, that's clearly just not the case. 

The reason cities like Houston (the 4th largest city in the country), Dallas and San Antonio are passing these County and city orders/ordinances is to help drive the spread back down while we return to work and play. That's a good thing.

[5fouls]

Honest question here.  I know they develop a unique vaccine each year for the flu.  However, when they test someone for the flu, are they able to determine if two people have been infected with the exact same flu strain?  Or, just because it's flu season, is the assumption that everyone has the same kind of flu?

I ask because there are multiple types of Coronavirus.  Is the testing that is being performed for Covid-19 sophisticated enough to say that what a person diagnosed in Texas today is the exact same Covid-19 strain that a person who died of the virus in April in New York had?  

[5fouls]

6 minutes ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

I'm not choosing the "pessimistic view," I'm not choosing any view. I posted what is actually happening in Texas, and 85% and growing ICU capacity is not a positive, it's a reflection of the significant spike in COVID cases and hospitalizations (which previously were denied here) since Memorial Day, and the number is reaching dangerous levels. Texas wasn't hit mildly before, it was hit pretty hard, including Houston. It's getting hit hard again, because of an extremely lax approach to basic public safety in the way people went back to work and play after the measures put in place, that were effective, were relaxed.  And fwiw, the charts do not reflect just a bunch of young people getting cases, that's clearly just not the case. 

The reason cities like Houston (the 4th largest city in the country), Dallas and San Antonio are passing these County and city orders/ordinances is to help drive the spread back down while we return to work and play. That's a good thing.

I'll push back a little on the assertion that Texas was hit 'hard' earlier.  No one has ever lumped Indiana in with New York, New Jersey, Illinois, etc.  Yet, look at the Indiana and Texas comparison, even after the recent spike in Texas (which is real).  Stats through yesterday.

Indiana

• Total cases per $1MM population  - 6,333
• Total deaths per $1MM population - 379

 

Texas

• Total cases per $1MM population - 3,957
• Total deaths per $1MM population - 76

 

Despite having about 4 times the population as Indiana, Texas has had fewer total coronavirus deaths than Indiana up until this point (2,553 to 2,203).  

So, yes, Texas is, unfortunately, having a rough time of it right now.  But, they were not hit 'hard' in late March through April like other states were.