coronavirus

[TheDrake]

If this were happening in China, we would have no problem labeling it as political suppression of information. Regardless of the technicalities in laws that were broken.

[cherrypoptart]

As predicted. Biden is the superspreader.


https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/migrant-caravans-head-u-border-100000033.html


“There are going to be caravans, and in the coming weeks it will increase,” said Jose Luis Gonzalez, coordinator of the Guatemala Red Jesuita con Migrantes, a non-governmental organization. “People are no longer scared of the coronavirus. They’re going hungry, they’ve lost everything and some towns are still flooded.”

Biden has pledged to abolish many of the migration policies of Donald Trump, including prolonged detention and separation of families, which were designed to deter illegal migration. This encourages more impoverished Central Americans to make the trip and test the Biden administration, said Gonzalez.

“When there is a change in government in the U.S. or Mexico, caravans start to move because they are testing the waters to see how authorities respond,” he said. “What they see is that the one who said he was going to build a wall and hated Latinos is on his way out.”

[Grant]

As predicted. Biden is the superspreader.

You forgot to call it an invasion. 

“People are no longer scared of the coronavirus. They’re going hungry, they’ve lost everything and some towns are still flooded.”

If they're able to walk from Guatemala, across all of Mexico, through Mexico City, one of the most squalid cities on earth, and then across the deserts of northern Mexico, with all they own in the universe on their backs, and NOT catch coronavirus until they reach Tijuana or even Hermosillo or Chihuahua...

then I personally think they should be granted immediate citizenship in the United States and given the home, property, and employment position of a Trump supporter.  Meanwhile we sent the MAGAs to Alaska.  Ain't no Guatemalans going there.  I've seen grown men from Puerto Rico cry during the summertime in Washington state.  They should be safe. 

Biden has pledged to abolish many of the migration policies of Donald Trump, including prolonged detention and separation of families, which were designed to deter illegal migration. This encourages more impoverished Central Americans to make the trip and test the Biden administration, said Gonzalez.

Has he pledged to end the immigration policies of Barrack Obama?  Who also stopped those mass migration caravans by setting up temporary detention?  Wasn't that a big point the Republicans were making?  Hasn't Biden chosen the same exact guy to run Homeland Security? 

“When there is a change in government in the U.S. or Mexico, caravans start to move because they are testing the waters to see how authorities respond,” he said. “What they see is that the one who said he was going to build a wall and hated Latinos is on his way out.”

Where was the change in government in 2018?

[yossarian22c]

We've hit the 3,000 deaths per day mark. Sadly I don't think we can expect this to begin declining anytime soon. Deaths typically lag infections by a couple weeks. I think we're on pace for 400k dead by the time Biden takes office. States are just now putting restrictions back on and there is more resistance to them this time. The Trump admin is doing nothing but fighting for less economic stimulus.

The silver linings is the current 7 day moving average seems to be stabilizing around 200k infections per day. Which is both scary and hopeful that it seems to have stopped increasing.

[DonaldD]

The silver linings is the current 7 day moving average seems to be stabilizing around 200k infections per day. Which is both scary and hopeful that it seems to have stopped increasing.

Hmmm... this doesn't seem to be correct.

With the exception of the Thanksgiving 'reporting holiday', the 7-day average of daily new infections has been increasing non-stop for over 2 months now...

Here are the last week's worth of 7-day averages:

Dec 9: 213173
Dec 8: 210449
Dec 7: 206615
Dec 6: 201824
Dec 5: 196293
Dec 4: 186813
Dec 3: 176527

[yossarian22c]

The silver linings is the current 7 day moving average seems to be stabilizing around 200k infections per day. Which is both scary and hopeful that it seems to have stopped increasing.

Hmmm... this doesn't seem to be correct.

With the exception of the Thanksgiving 'reporting holiday', the 7-day average of daily new infections has been increasing non-stop for over 2 months now...

Here are the last week's worth of 7-day averages:

Dec 9: 213173
Dec 8: 210449
Dec 7: 206615
Dec 6: 201824
Dec 5: 196293
Dec 4: 186813
Dec 3: 176527

I was going off of this site:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases

I misread their graph as the 7 day moving average, but the graph is the infections per day and they give an up or down arrow below for what the 7 day moving average is doing. So you're correct 7 day moving average hasn't flattened yet, but we are seeing total number of new infections per day (at least for the last 3 days) plateauing at around 200k. I'm not sure if we're hitting testing capacity, hiccup in the numbers, or if things have stopped getting worse and just flatlined at really bad instead of continuing onto completely catastrophic.

[DonaldD]

I get my data from the Worldometers page for the USA. (there's even the option of seeing the raw data overlaid with the 7 day average)

I think the Johns Hopkins graph of the 7-day average is wonky - it looks like the calculation may include future non-reported numbers for the very latest days - it looks like all their 7-day averages drop off at the end.

It's better to look at the raw data - for instance, if last Wednesday's numbers were less than this Wednesday's numbers, then the 7-day average would necessarily have gone up in the past day.

For instance, here are the past 15 days:

Date   Day   New Cases
2020-12-09...Wednesday...225441
2020-12-08...Tuesday.......211011
2020-12-07...Monday........200572
2020-12-06...Sunday........183358
2020-12-05...Saturday......212990
2020-12-04...Friday..........238065
2020-12-03...Thursday......220771
2020-12-02...Wednesday...206379
2020-12-01...Tuesday.......184169
2020-11-30...Monday........167033
2020-11-29...Sunday........144644
2020-11-28...Saturday.......146631
2020-11-27...Friday..........166059
2020-11-26...Thursday......161411
2020-11-25...Wednesday...183596

[Ouija Nightmare]

“We are in the timeframe now that probably for the next 60 to 90 days we're going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor,” Redfield said during an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.
 

Good thing it’s just the old and weak or this might be a problem.

[TheDrake]

Well this sounds like an important discovery. Let's hope it doesn't spark another round of people clamoring for it to be immediately approved for emergency use without any diligence.

Scientists looked at the DNA of patients in more than 200 intensive care units in UK hospitals.

They scanned each person’s genes, which contain the instructions for every biological process - including how to fight a virus.

Their genomes were then compared with the DNA of healthy people to pinpoint any genetic differences, and a number were found - the first in a gene called TYK2.

“It is part of the system that makes your immune cells more angry, and more inflammatory,” explained Dr Baillie.

But if the gene is faulty, this immune response can go into overdrive, putting patients at risk of damaging lung inflammation.

A class of anti-inflammatory drugs already used for conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis targets this biological mechanism, including a drug called Baricitinib.

“It makes it a very plausible candidate for a new treatment,” Dr Baillie said. “But of course, we need to do large-scale clinical trials in order to find out if that's true or not.”

Covid gene study article

[msquared]

Doesn't he know it is a hoax and no worse than the flu?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hampshires-republican-governor-calling-people-200116197.html

[TheDrake]

Doesn't he know it is a hoax and no worse than the flu?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hampshires-republican-governor-calling-people-200116197.html

Live free or and die

[yossarian22c]

As predicted. Biden is the superspreader.


https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/migrant-caravans-head-u-border-100000033.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/14/945377248/even-disaster-veterans-are-stunned-by-whats-happening-in-honduras

Or it could have nothing to do with Biden and more to do with the fact that people have just lost everything in storms and are desperate.

The two Category 4 hurricanes – Eta and Iota — made landfall in Central America on Nov. 3 and Nov. 17 respectively. Even today, the region continues to dig out from mudslides. Aid agencies say nearly 7 million people in a zone stretching from Colombia to Mexico are in need of assistance.
...
The storms destroyed bridges, roads, schools and health clinics. Families lost their homes, farms and businesses to floodwaters. Landslides packed small downtown plazas with mud.
...
Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans remain homeless. Many are crowded into shelters. Others are staying with friends and relatives.
...
The Santa Barbara department is one of the 18 departments or states in Honduras. It's just east of the nation's second largest city, San Pedro Sula. Santa Barbara was hit hard by the rains and ensuing mudslides of Eta and Iota.

"The water system of the Santa Barbara department is 100% collapsed," he says.

Enough time without a functioning infrastructure and people are going to start walking to somewhere they can survive. Many of these people would be eligible for TPS under US law because they are fleeing a natural disaster.

Climate migrates at the Southern boarder wave 1.

[yossarian22c]

On a more personal note.
The father of one of my childhood friends died recently from COVID.

Also the family that lived next to me growing up got it. The father's life was probably saved by getting into a regeneron drug trial and being likely being lucky enough to be in the group that received treatment. He was 70+, overweight, and was home within 4 days of entering the hospital. Despite that recovery, he and his wife (who was also infected) are struggling with some of the long term symptoms like difficulty breathing during everyday tasks like walking to the bathroom.

And even though he was over 70 he wasn't an "unproductive" member of society. He runs a successful small business with dozens of employees.

[msquared]

OK 300,000 dead total as of today.  Only 33 days since we broke 240,000. That is just over 1,800 per day. And the Thanksgiving surge is still to come.  Will we break 350,000 by the end of the year?

At least Trump is sure we will only loose 100,000 and that is a very good number.

[cherrypoptart]

Imagine thousands of Americans traveling from one state to another the same way these thousands of migrants are traveling across countries and continents. Everyone would rightly be concerned that they would be spreading Covid-19 because of their travels. No matter how good their reasons are, Covid-19 doesn't care. If Trump had his way and they knew they wouldn't be getting into America then maybe not as many of them would be traveling all that way to get here. Sure, if they are in a bad situation they would travel to somewhere better but it might be somewhere closer. The point is that with the pandemic situation the way it is right now, the less traveling people do, the better. While Americans are being discouraged from traveling even between states and even between cities in the same state to see family for Christmas, Biden is encouraging dangerous international travel by migrants that will spread the virus all throughout Latin America even more than it is already being spread, making a terrible situation even worse.  It flies in the face of the best advice of all medical experts. It contradicts everything that we're being told to do ourselves. It's irresponsible.

Trying to put a good light on it won't change how much damage it's going to do or how many extra people it's going to sicken and kill. The virus doesn't make exceptions for political correctness no matter how much the Democrats seem to think otherwise.

[msquared]

so to go from 180,000 dead to 240,000 dead took 76 days.  To go from 240,000 to 300,000 took 33 days. At the rate people are dying now, it will take 18 days to reach the next 60,000 dead. Can you say exponential growth?  The exact thing the experts warned about?

[yossarian22c]

Imagine thousands of Americans traveling from one state to another the same way these thousands of migrants are traveling across countries and continents. Everyone would rightly be concerned that they would be spreading Covid-19 because of their travels.

You mean like the millions of Americans who flew to travel for Thanksgiving?

[cherrypoptart]

Another potential problem with this accelerating infection rate is the increase in likelihood of new strains developing that the vaccine may not work against and which may be more infections or deadly or cause more long term health issues or all of the above. Britain apparently is looking at a new strain of the virus. So the infection rates aren't just exploding in America though but all over.

[cherrypoptart]

Yeah, well, traveling is a problem. It's been a problem since the very beginning and is why this virus is spreading the way that it is. Is the point that the conservatives don't mind traveling for holidays so why should they mind migrants traveling for better lives? If people are allowed to spread the virus around for selfish reasons then shouldn't other people be allowed to spread it around for good reasons?

[msquared]

Ok who wants to put money on Trumpist claiming, in the next 2-3 months, when the number of cases start to fall due to vaccines being given out, that the actual reason for the decrease is that the virus has burnt itself out and that Trump was right all along.  Just like the anti vax people did about the polio vaccine after it was rolled out. Cases dropped dramatically and they claimed it was not due to the vaccine, but to the virus just naturally burning itself out in the population.

[TheDrake]

Ok who wants to put money on Trumpist claiming, in the next 2-3 months, when the number of cases start to fall due to vaccines being given out, that the actual reason for the decrease is that the virus has burnt itself out and that Trump was right all along.  Just like the anti vax people did about the polio vaccine after it was rolled out. Cases dropped dramatically and they claimed it was not due to the vaccine, but to the virus just naturally burning itself out in the population.

Not at all. They will claim that now that Biden is president, doctors are no longer falsely attributing deaths to covid and that the media is no longer overhyping the virus to destroy Trump.

[Fenring]

Or even more likely, that Trump's great work at getting the vaccine ready is why Biden is enjoying its results.

[msquared]

My sister and my Mom were finally able to get to my Mom's place in the Caymans. They are on day 6 of quarantine.  My sister sent me this today.

https://people.com/travel/american-woman-and-boyfriend-sentenced-to-4-months-in-cayman-islands-prison-for-quarantine-breach/

Now this is a place serious about quarantine.

[Fenring]

My sister and my Mom were finally able to get to my Mom's place in the Caymans. They are on day 6 of quarantine.  My sister sent me this today.

https://people.com/travel/american-woman-and-boyfriend-sentenced-to-4-months-in-cayman-islands-prison-for-quarantine-breach/

Now this is a place serious about quarantine.

Most of the Caribbean islands are serious and impose a mandatory quarantine for anyone entering. I don't know if prosecution is done equally rigorously on each island, but generally you can't even stay in a normal "residence" (whatever that meant in this case). The system I have seen is that you must stay at either an approved hotel (where you are not permitted to leave your room for any reason) or in an "approved residence". In both cases this means they have 24 hour security and guards. So I'm not sure it would even be easy to just walk out and play the delinquent. Doing so would probably involve breaking more laws than just skirting the quarantine. Personally I think the sentencing is more than fair, and endangering the safety of an entire country seems to me that it could just as easily fall into a much more aggravated sentence. I think four months in slam is getting off easy.

[TheDrake]

My sister and my Mom were finally able to get to my Mom's place in the Caymans. They are on day 6 of quarantine.  My sister sent me this today.

https://people.com/travel/american-woman-and-boyfriend-sentenced-to-4-months-in-cayman-islands-prison-for-quarantine-breach/

Now this is a place serious about quarantine.

OMG But what about their FREEDOM to infect as many people as humanly possible!!!! What a *censored*hole country.

[msquared]

In Cayman you are allowed to stay in your own residence, if you have one.  My Mom is a widow and my sister is quarantining with her in my Mom's condo. They are wearing geo fencing bio monitors that track your location. Food and groceries are delivered (Mom is very good friends with the owners of a number of great restaurants, so they will bring her food. Other friends have done shopping for her.

They drop the food off a the front (maybe the back door) and then go back to their cars. My Mom or sister then opens the door and gets the food.

I have been doing a take off on the 12 Days of Christmas, calling it the 12 Days of Quarantine, for them. We are half way through as of today.

[TheDrake]

This summer the number crested at just under 1,500 daily cases. On Dec. 10, when a Post photographer and videographer reported from inside the St. Mary Medical Center, the county reported what was then an all-time high of 5,670 new cases of the virus. A week later the daily caseload had jumped 48 percent.

Newsom announced this week that the state had ordered 5,000 additional body bags, sending most of them to southern counties. He also made 60 refrigeration units, used to store bodies, available to regions that need them.

The hospital has set up “covid pods” in hallways, waiting rooms and wards to provide as close to intensive care standards as possible. Forty patients, including Galdamez, were being treated in the pods on a recent day.

“I don’t think that most of the general public around the area really understands what’s going on inside the walls of the hospital,” Loveless said. “I’ve been doing this 25 years. I’ve been all over the country with my career. I’ve never seen anything like this. … And one of the worst things about it is there’s no end in sight.”

devestation

I'm an atheist, but God be with them.

[yossarian22c]

Mutation of the coronavirus in the UK.

The new mutation could be up to 70% more transmissible than earlier variants of the virus, Susan Hopkins of Public Health England told the BBC. This variant was first identified in the middle of October from a sample taken in September, Hopkins said.

[oldbrian]

But as long as the markers the vaccine looks for are still there, it will still work against the new version.

[yossarian22c]

But as long as the markers the vaccine looks for are still there, it will still work against the new version.

I agree.

About 20 pages back I had a lengthy discussion with Noel about what a mutation would look like, he was trying to defend Trump's miraculously disappear quote with genetic mutation of the current virus and I said for that to work we would just have something more transmissible. Which is what we are seeing in the dominant strain in the UK now.

[fizz]

From what I heard, the new mutation cause a few changes on the "spike" protein that's the target of the new vaccines, but quite limited ones.
The scientist I heard talking about that said that the changes are only 3 tiny mutations on that protein, so it's likely the vaccine will still work, but it can't be excluded that it will change something, they are just starting some experiments to check that now.
The good news is that, even if that was the case, thanks to the mRNA approach it should be possible to create a new one for the modified protein quite quickly.
In that case of course you would still have the difficulties with a new distribution round.

[DJQuag]

Latest news has it that the new varient has been seen in Denmark. Given the enhanced transmisabilty and how a good number of covid infections go undetected, it's most likely that the new varient is alive and well all across Europe.

[TheDrake]

So for those of you who think I'm an evil lib who will criticize everything trump does, I'm gonna give him a shout out for limiting travel from the UK. Oh no wait a minute, he didn't.

[msquared]

Even Mnuchin thought the Covid relief bill was a done deal.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-reportedly-wants-inflict-much-162900146.html

A telling quote

"Loyalty and assistance to President Trump generally gets rewarded with humiliation," Brian Reidl, a conservative policy expert at the right-leaning think tank, the Manhattan Institute, told the Post.

How many people who have had the audacity to not agree 100% with Trump, or shown any sort integrity, have found this out.

[msquared]

And Trump signs the relief bill.  What a jack ass.

[Ouija Nightmare]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/29/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

[msquared]

Remember, the virus only takes the old and not usefull.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/louisiana-congressman-elect-dies-covid-025154687.html

[msquared]

Well it looks like I tested positive for the virus yesterday.  I have been feeling just a bit under the weather and woke up Tuesday morning with a 101.5 temp.  Temp is down on low 98's now and no major symptoms. Will be working from home.

[Ouija Nightmare]

Well it looks like I tested positive for the virus yesterday.  I have been feeling just a bit under the weather and woke up Tuesday morning with a 101.5 temp.  Temp is down on low 98's now and no major symptoms. Will be working from home.

Best luck with that. It really really sucks.

[DonaldD]

Yeah, best of luck with that, Mark.

[TheDrake]

Best wishes for a mild course and speedy recovery.

[DJQuag]

"Caught the Rona."

"Working from home."

Like hahaha what a quintessential American response.

Take a few days off work, my friend. And of course all the best.

[TheDrake]

And LA is overrun.

Covid: LA ambulances told not to transport some patients to hospital

Ambulance workers in Los Angeles County, California, have been told not to transport hospital patients that have extremely low chances of survival.

The directive comes as officials say the region could soon hit over 1,000 Covid-related deaths per day, and hospitals are overrun with patients.

Emergency workers have also been told to ration oxygen, which is in short supply due to the pandemic.

Hospitals in California, which are already at maximum capacity, have begun seeing patients in gift shops, parking lots and outdoor tents. Ambulances are being forced to queue outside of hospitals for hours as they wait for Emergency Room workers to take their patients.

[msquared]

So we passed 360,000 dead yesterday.  We were at 300,000 on Dec 14.  22 days for 60,000.  Just over 2,700 per day dead.  Maybe a leveling out of the dead. So another 60,000 by the end of Jan?

in less than a year over 420,000 dead.  Hopefully the vaccine will start to show some effect in the older population.

[yossarian22c]

So we passed 360,000 dead yesterday.  We were at 300,000 on Dec 14.  22 days for 60,000.  Just over 2,700 per day dead.  Maybe a leveling out of the dead. So another 60,000 by the end of Jan?

in less than a year over 420,000 dead.  Hopefully the vaccine will start to show some effect in the older population.

We won't see any effects from the vaccine on the death totals for at least a month. Probably March before it really has an effect because it takes a couple weeks to a month from the first dose until you see the full protection after the second does. I think it will take until the end of January before you see enough people starting to get the vaccine then add a month before we see any effect that is noticeable at a societal level. 

[msquared]

Over 3,800 dead yesterday.  At this rate we will only need 16-17 days to hit 420,000

[TheDrake]

I never wished trump anything but recovery. The jackals that defiled my nation, desecrated the flag, and invaded my capitol? A POX UPON THEM ALL! I CURSE THEIR NAMES!

[TheDrake]

Nearly four thousand people died in the US. YESTERDAY.

One hundred thirty-two thousand four hundred seventy-four Americans are currently in the hospital.

[DonaldD]

And what is just as worrisome - yesterday saw a record number of new cases reported for a single day.

[msquared]

Over 4,000 deaths yesterday.