Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[Ralph-Wiggum]

The State Governor is all up in arms about COVID now. Geeee I wonder why....maybe because his wife has it.

The SC governor's wife has it to.

In completely unrelated news, the governor and his wife attended a Christmas party in DC last week.

The governor now has it as well. I'm shocked.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Trump is now threatening to veto to Covid relief bill...

[LawBeefaroni]

Trump is now threatening to veto to Covid relief bill...

That would be the most fitting way to end this year.

[Alefroth]

Trump is now threatening to veto to Covid relief bill...

Because he wants $2000 stimulus checks. Can't wait to see how this plays out.

[Kraken]

Trump is now threatening to veto to Covid relief bill...

Because he wants $2000 stimulus checks. Can't wait to see how this plays out.

That $1.5B for wall funding was specifically included to bribe him. I imagine that Congress is not amused.

[RMC]

I have not really looked at all the spending, but isn't there a substantial amount ear marked for other countries in that bill? YTou would have hoped that they could have kept the domestic and foriegn aid bills seperate. And the wall will never be built without a lot of drive from Trump, so not sure why they care if it is in there or not, right? I mean Biden will just not use those funds for a wall..

But I hope the people that need it get the aid that they have needed for a while.

[Defiant]

I have not really looked at all the spending, but isn't there a substantial amount ear marked for other countries in that bill? YTou would have hoped that they could have kept the domestic and foriegn aid bills seperate

It was an omnibus bill of a *lot* of different appropriation bills.

[Isgrimnur]

I have not really looked at all the spending, but isn't there a substantial amount ear marked for other countries in that bill? YTou would have hoped that they could have kept the domestic and foriegn aid bills seperate

It was an omnibus bill of a *lot* of different appropriation bills.

[Alefroth]

It clearly passed with veto proof majorities even if some don't vote to override. What are the chances of him trying a pocket veto?

[Isgrimnur]

Congress has to be adjourned for ~10 days, which they don’t do anymore.

And Rand Paul has said he’s going to be an asshole and filibuster any override and make McConnell force cloture to shut him down.

[Alefroth]

It's my understanding they only have to adjourn during the 10 day period, not be adjourned for 10 days.

[Isgrimnur]

On a second read, I believe that you are correct.

[Isgrimnur]

NY Times

Susan Moore, the patient, said the white doctor at the hospital in suburban Indianapolis where she was being treated for Covid-19 had downplayed her complaints of pain. He told her that he felt uncomfortable giving her more narcotics, she said, and suggested that she would be discharged.

“I was crushed,” she said in a video posted to Facebook. “He made me feel like I was a drug addict.”
...
After Dr. Moore, 52, complained about her treatment, she received care that she said “adequately treated” her pain. She was eventually sent home, and on Sunday, just more than two weeks after posting the video, Dr. Moore died of complications from Covid-19, said her son, Henry Muhammed.

[stessier]

Do experts still think the number of asymptomatic people is at least 10x those that have tested positive?

[Combustible Lemur]

Do experts still think the number of asymptomatic people is at least 10x those that have tested positive?

The last time i looked it up. Asymptomatic people made up 80%ish not 90. But if half of symptomatic people are not getting tested, that may be the case.

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[Max Peck]

One more Fuck You from the Trump administration on their way out the door?

White House coronavirus task force no longer proactively sending reports to states

The White House coronavirus task force has informed states that it will no longer proactively send its weekly state reports with tailored data and recommendations, according to multiple state officials. Instead, states will need to request the reports each week.

This new policy, which one official said came via email, is a departure from the previous process and removes a layer of transparency and vital information amid a raging pandemic.

The task force has been sending the reports to key state and public health officials weekly, usually on Mondays or Tuesdays, since June, when a second wave of Covid-19 infections began to spread across the country. The White House has declined to share the reports with press, but CNN has obtained hundreds of reports since then, and some weeks' reports have also been published by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

Over the past several months, the language in the reports and each states' respective recommendations have become increasingly dire.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for information on why the procedure for states has changed.

One state official told CNN they were informed of the new policy in an email.

Another state official told CNN that the policy went into effect last week, but their state was only informed of the new process this Tuesday. An email sent to the state from the Department of Health and Human Services said the reports would be "available by request" moving forward, and that states could put in the weekly request to the White House via email. There was no justification given for the change in policy.

Multiple state officials learned of the change via media inquiries.

"We became aware of it from a media inquiry, and then we confirmed the new policy with Region X HHS, who were also unaware until they inquired about it. In truth, all of our inboxes are a mess, so we could have missed an email, but we were not aware of the change initially," one state health official said.

[Unagi]

Why are they saying the darkest days are still ahead of us?
Shouldn’t they not be?

[wonderpug]

Why are they saying the darkest days are still ahead of us?
Shouldn’t they not be?

Have you played Plague Inc? Your virus still has a chance to win even if the cure starts to be distributed.

[Unagi]

It needs to have stored up a lot of DNA ready to spend on mortality, and spend it pronto.

But, seriously. I’d don’t understand how , with the vaccine coming down the pike, the darkest days are still to come...?

[raydude]

It’s needs to have stored up a lot of DNA ready to spend on mortality, and spend it pronto.

But, seriously. I’d don’t understand how , with the vaccine coming down the pike, the darkest days are still to come...?

It's all about the lag. Haven't seen the surge yet from Christmas get-togethers and the Kirk Kameron Christmas-Death sing-along.

[Smoove_B]

But, seriously. I’d don’t understand how , with the vaccine coming down the pike, the darkest days are still to come...?

Because the greatest number of infected people leading to the greatest number of potential complications and deaths is looming. We're just entering the post-Thanksgiving bump and will not be seeing the post-Christmas and NYE bumps for another month.

We've long moved beyond being able to vaccinate out way out of this. Yes, the vaccination will help but it's really targeting such a small (but important) cohort of people right now (because vaccine production/supply is limited) that we all need to continue to be vigilant.

Or not, depending on where you live and what you believe.

[GungHo]

Has anyone else played the darkly morose game in their head of 'What if we were never able to develop a vaccine for covid?'
We're looking at ~500k dead by March 1st which would just about be a year from when we started to talk about this thing seriously. Without a vaccine would we be looking at 500k a year dead until the virus had so mutated that it was no longer infectious? Or until it was no longer lethal? Or just 500k/year forever? Were we staring The Apocalypse in the face?

I suppose, depending on vaccination rates, we still could be in for a lot of death. I suppose it also matters what our actually herd immunity number really is; seems like that has been a bit of a moving target though not unsurprising given the 'novel' part of covid.

[Daehawk]

Obviously the answer is more sex and more babies. We'll outrun this thing with a new young generation.

[Kraken]

But, seriously. I’d don’t understand how , with the vaccine coming down the pike, the darkest days are still to come...?

Because the greatest number of infected people leading to the greatest number of potential complications and deaths is looming. We're just entering the post-Thanksgiving bump and will not be seeing the post-Christmas and NYE bumps for another month.

We've long moved beyond being able to vaccinate out way out of this. Yes, the vaccination will help but it's really targeting such a small (but important) cohort of people right now (because vaccine production/supply is limited) that we all need to continue to be vigilant.

Or not, depending on where you live and what you believe.

Additionally, we won't achieve widespread immunization until April, optimistically, if everything goes according to plan (Narrator: "It won't.") Production and distribution snafus, potential pauses to investigate unexpected reactions, and public resistance will probably push that back to May or June. And we don't yet know if the vaccine only prevents one from getting sick or actually stops transmission, nor do we know how long it lasts. And finally, people's preventive habits will only keep getting more lax as the vaccination rate rises and pandemic fatigue deepens. In other words, this isn't going to end quickly, and it might not even be the magic bullet we're hoping for.

Right now, expectations are that infections will peak somewhere around February 1, and won't start to retreat until some months later -- probably coinciding with the return of warm weather, which would knock it back anyway. But science is still making it up as we go along. All we can say with confidence is that January and February are going to be grim.

[Smoove_B]

Additionally, we won't achieve widespread immunization until April October,

Slight correction there.

EDIT: I should clarify - that's with information I've seen as of today. Maybe (hopefully) things will change after 1/21, but at some point there's only so much that can be done.

[El Guapo]

Has anyone else played the darkly morose game in their head of 'What if we were never able to develop a vaccine for covid?'
We're looking at ~500k dead by March 1st which would just about be a year from when we started to talk about this thing seriously. Without a vaccine would we be looking at 500k a year dead until the virus had so mutated that it was no longer infectious? Or until it was no longer lethal? Or just 500k/year forever? Were we staring The Apocalypse in the face?

I suppose, depending on vaccination rates, we still could be in for a lot of death. I suppose it also matters what our actually herd immunity number really is; seems like that has been a bit of a moving target though not unsurprising given the 'novel' part of covid.

Isn't that basically the Spanish Flu scenario, upped for the higher population of today? The result is not 500k/year forever, it's something like that per year until we get to herd immunity. Guessing that'd maybe be a couple years anyway?

[LawBeefaroni]

January is probably going to be a bitch. 2020 isn't over by a longshot.

[Daehawk]

Small Number of Covid Patients Develop Severe Psychotic Symptoms

The patient, a 42-year-old physical therapist and mother of four young children, had never had psychiatric symptoms or any family history of mental illness. Yet there she was, sitting at a table in a beige-walled room at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, N.Y., sobbing and saying that she kept seeing her children, ages 2 to 10, being gruesomely murdered and that she herself had crafted plans to kill them.

The only notable thing about her medical history was that the woman, who declined to be interviewed but allowed Dr. Goueli to describe her case, had become infected with the coronavirus in the spring. She had experienced only mild physical symptoms from the virus, but, months later, she heard a voice that first told her to kill herself and then told her to kill her children.

“But then,” he said, “we saw a second case, a third case and a fourth case, and we’re like, ‘There’s something happening.’”

Indeed, doctors are reporting similar cases across the country and around the world. A small number of Covid patients who had never experienced mental health problems are developing severe psychotic symptoms weeks after contracting the coronavirus.

A 36-year-old nursing home employee in North Carolina who became so paranoid that she believed her three children would be kidnapped and, to save them, tried to pass them through a fast-food restaurant’s drive-through window.

A 30-year-old construction worker in New York City who became so delusional that he imagined his cousin was going to murder him, and, to protect himself, he tried to strangle his cousin in bed.
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A 55-year-old woman in Britain had hallucinations of monkeys and a lion and became convinced a family member had been replaced by an impostor.

Beyond individual reports, a British study of neurological or psychiatric complications in 153 patients hospitalized with Covid-19 found that 10 people had “new-onset psychosis.” Another study identified 10 such patients in one hospital in Spain. And in Covid-related social media groups, medical professionals discuss seeing patients with similar symptoms in the Midwest, Great Plains and elsewhere.

“My guess is any place that is seeing Covid is probably seeing this,” said Dr. Colin Smith at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, who helped treat the North Carolina woman.

[LawBeefaroni]

Need a lot more data. What were their treatment regimens? What is the base rate of "severe psychotic symptoms" among general population and also among those hospitalized for illness?

[Kraken]

Additionally, we won't achieve widespread immunization until April October,

Slight correction there.

EDIT: I should clarify - that's with information I've seen as of today. Maybe (hopefully) things will change after 1/21, but at some point there's only so much that can be done.

Yeah, I misspoke; I meant we wouldn't BEGIN widespread (general population) immunization until spring, optimistically.

[Defiant]

Additionally, we won't achieve widespread immunization until April October,

Slight correction there.

EDIT: I should clarify - that's with information I've seen as of today. Maybe (hopefully) things will change after 1/21, but at some point there's only so much that can be done.

Do you know if this estimate the result of insufficient vaccine supply until late summer or insufficient throughput of people actually getting vaccinated? And if it's insufficient throughput, would that be a logistics problem, or people being reluctant to getting vaccinated?

[Smoove_B]

Do you know if this estimate the result of insufficient vaccine supply until late summer or insufficient throughput of people actually getting vaccinated? And if it's insufficient throughput, would that be a logistics problem, or people being reluctant to getting vaccinated?

The stuff I'm seeing is related to vaccine supply. I think there's been a general assumption of vaccine compliance (which I think is problematic), though I'm still not sure what exactly the target number is (% of adults, number of adults) we're looking for. However, there might be a weird (or typical, depending on whom you ask) "late adopter" effect that happens where the first 50% of the population to be vaccinated will drag, but after that, the next ~35% (those late adopters) will be much faster as peer (most likely family) pressure kicks in. After that, we're down to those final ~15% laggards and who knows how many of them we'll convert.

I'm still having a hard time understanding the actual logistics of delivery in my own state and haven't been given a straight answer when I've asked a few people involved. My feeling is this is all still very much seat-of-the-pants delivery (in my state) and I can only assume it's similar elsewhere. Not that it's dangerous, but just trying to coordinate and deliver is turning into a logistical/administrative maze.

[LawBeefaroni]

Do you know if this estimate the result of insufficient vaccine supply until late summer or insufficient throughput of people actually getting vaccinated? And if it's insufficient throughput, would that be a logistics problem, or people being reluctant to getting vaccinated?

The stuff I'm seeing is related to vaccine supply. I think there's been a general assumption of vaccine compliance (which I think is problematic), though I'm still not sure what exactly the target number is (% of adults, number of adults) we're looking for. However, there might be a weird (or typical, depending on whom you ask) "late adopter" effect that happens where the first 50% of the population to be vaccinated will drag, but after that, the next ~35% (those late adopters) will be much faster as peer (most likely family) pressure kicks in. After that, we're down to those final ~15% laggards and who knows how many of them we'll convert.

Compliance is less of an issue when supply can't meet demand anyway.

[malchior]

I'm still having a hard time understanding the actual logistics of delivery in my own state and haven't been given a straight answer when I've asked a few people involved. My feeling is this is all still very much seat-of-the-pants delivery (in my state) and I can only assume it's similar elsewhere. Not that it's dangerous, but just trying to coordinate and deliver is turning into a logistical/administrative maze.

Its getting weird here. I have a couple of friends who are nurses/first responders in NJ. One already got her 1st dose last week drive-thru style in Union county. Another nurse we know and her EMT husband in Monmouth know nothing at all yet - he already had COVID-19 back in April and has still not regained taste or smell. Wonderful. And we just heard from our friend in Jersey City who is a paid firefighter that he got the call this morning to come down to the medical center to get his out of the blue. Our other friend is a NY/NJ PA cop and surprise they don't know anything which isn't a shock since they are probably arguing which pile the vaccine is coming out of.

[Smoove_B]

I don't know anything for sure, but my gut is that there's someone at the state running calculations with the limited vaccine they have and trying to figure out where to send (and to what job categories) the doses to have the greatest impact. Not quite rationing but targeted distribution to make sure it's being provided in a way that makes sense given the reduced quantity.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'm still having a hard time understanding the actual logistics of delivery in my own state and haven't been given a straight answer when I've asked a few people involved. My feeling is this is all still very much seat-of-the-pants delivery (in my state) and I can only assume it's similar elsewhere. Not that it's dangerous, but just trying to coordinate and deliver is turning into a logistical/administrative maze.

Its getting weird here. I have a couple of friends who are nurses/first responders in NJ. One already got her 1st dose last week drive-thru style in Union county. Another nurse we know and her EMT husband in Monmouth know nothing at all yet - he already had COVID-19 back in April and has still not regained taste or smell. Wonderful. And we just heard from our friend in Jersey City who is a paid firefighter that he got the call this morning to come down to the medical center to get his out of the blue. Our other friend is a NY/NJ PA cop and surprise they don't know anything which isn't a shock since they are probably arguing which pile the vaccine is coming out of.

Logistics are a mess. The firefighter probably got his call because they had stock going old and needed to use it or lose it.

It's state by state, county by county, and facility by facility.

[LawBeefaroni]

I don't know anything for sure, but my gut is that there's someone at the state running calculations with the limited vaccine they have and trying to figure out where to send (and to what job categories) the doses to have the greatest impact. Not quite rationing but targeted distribution to make sure it's being provided in a way that makes sense given the reduced quantity.

That's an extremely generous assessment.

[Smoove_B]

That's an extremely generous assessment.

Forever the optimist.

[Max Peck]

I am shocked to discover that Russia has been lowballing their COVID-19 deaths.

Russian Covid deaths three times the official toll

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova has revealed more than 80% of excess deaths this year are linked to coronavirus, which would mean more than three times the official death toll.

Official figures say 55,827 people have died of Covid-19 in Russia but excess deaths would raise that to 186,000.

Ms Golikova said mortality in the first 11 months of 2020 had been 13.8% higher than the previous year.

Russian statistics service Rosstat said 229,700 more people had died this year.

Based on the deputy prime minister's announcement, that would mean that more than 186,057 deaths were linked directly or indirectly to coronavirus.

This is higher even than the numbers provided by Rosstat, which puts Russia's number of coronavirus-related deaths at 116,030.

Only the US and Brazil have reported higher fatalities.

Well, I'm shocked that someone in the government admitted it, anyway.

[gilraen]

First U.S. case of the more contagious COVID-19 strain has now been identified in Colorado.

The person who tested for this variant has no history of travel and lives in a very rural county with low population density. To me that just sounds like this strain is likely already spreading here unnoticed, and someone just happened to be paying more attention to this guy's COVID test.