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

[Isgrimnur]

We didn't get Lex Luthor. We got Biff Tannen.

[malchior]

We didn't get Lex Luthor. We got Biff Tannen.

Fair point.

[Zaxxon]

We didn't get Lex Luthor. We got Biff Tannen.

Fair point.

We'll get Lex in 2024 or 2028.

[Jaymon]

After enough years of Biff slowly grinding us into the muck, we will welcome Lex like a glorious savior.

[LordMortis]

Why is Florida so much worse than other red states in their COVID results? Obviously DeSantis is a soulless asshole, but my impression is that other red state governors are doing semi-similar things, right? Are DeSantis's policies materially crazier, or is it more that Florida is a high population state?

Old people and evangelicals. Though I have to admit, I don't get why Arizona isn't as bad as Florida. The only thing I can figure population density.

[msteelers]

Why is Florida so much worse than other red states in their COVID results? Obviously DeSantis is a soulless asshole, but my impression is that other red state governors are doing semi-similar things, right? Are DeSantis's policies materially crazier, or is it more that Florida is a high population state?

I think it’s the time of year. It’s unbearably hot throughout most of the state right now, so people are mainly hanging out inside in the ac. It’s the same concept of winter everywhere else, just reversed. When most of the country is forced inside, we can hang out outside comfortably.

Combine that with the general attitude that the pandemic is over and we shouldn’t have to wear mask or social distance anymore, and you get what is happening.

[Blackhawk]

I have no idea how that level of thuggery is going unchallenged. School districts are being financially punished for enacting protections for children? Seriously???

If he was a comic book villain no one would believe it.

I wonder - at what point can the parents of dead children start suing for willful negligence/wrongful death?

[Isgrimnur]

Diplomatic Sovereign Immunity!

[Smoove_B]

I wonder - at what point can the parents of dead children start suing for willful negligence/wrongful death?

You and me both. There's already public health case law from the last ~20 years covering Legionella outbreaks and failures of local health agencies to prevent them from happening. The lawsuits all stem from a documented case study on how a specific type of outbreak occurs (hot tub / spa displays) and how they need to be prevented (state/local regulation, inspection). Ultimately numerous plaintiffs argued that public health agencies should have known better and acted to prevent similar outbreaks in their own jurisdiction as the same types of outbreaks started appearing in other states.

So yeah. In this case we know that vaccines lower risk . But children aren't able to be vaccinated right now, but you also know masks, social distancing, increased ventilation, etc... all lower their risk, I don't know how you're not going to get sued into oblivion by actively working against known protections.

My first boss always told me as an agent of the Board I could never be personally sued for failing to do something that I had no idea about - we're not omniscient. However, here the situation involves someone actively working against a known infectious disease intervention; I don't really have a corollary.

[malchior]

[Kraken]

Why is Florida so much worse than other red states in their COVID results? Obviously DeSantis is a soulless asshole, but my impression is that other red state governors are doing semi-similar things, right? Are DeSantis's policies materially crazier, or is it more that Florida is a high population state?

I think it’s the time of year. It’s unbearably hot throughout most of the state right now, so people are mainly hanging out inside in the ac. It’s the same concept of winter everywhere else, just reversed. When most of the country is forced inside, we can hang out outside comfortably.

Combine that with the general attitude that the pandemic is over and we shouldn’t have to wear mask or social distance anymore, and you get what is happening.

Isn't that true throughout the Sun Belt, though? I wonder if FL's secret sauce is tourism. Do large numbers of tourists still go there in the summer?

[Blackhawk]

My first boss always told me as an agent of the Board I could never be personally sued for failing to do something that I had no idea about - we're not omniscient. However, here the situation involves someone actively working against a known infectious disease intervention; I don't really have a corollary.

Absolutely - we know how to make far fewer people die. We have politicians who have experts giving them this information. They are then actively and publicly preventing those things from happening without any actual, fact-based reason (which still matters in court - usually.)

Being unaware of a unforeseeable danger is justified (something about your product turns out later to be dangerous, but nobody could have known.) Knowing there is a danger and not doing anything about it is negligence (shipping a product after you know it is dangerous), as is not knowing about a danger that you should have known about (not checking to see if your product is safe.) Knowing about a danger and then actively working to prevent it from being made safe(r) - well, willful negligence, maybe.

But even that doesn't come close to actively stopping people from being safe. That's insane. And Florida is coming up on, what, 40,000 deaths? And probably 5 million 'long COVID' cases where long term or permanent disability is a thing?

[Smoove_B]

USA! USA! USA!

BREAKING: U.S. reports more than 146,000 new coronavirus cases, including 2-day backlog from Florida

Those are late January 2021 numbers - before the vaccine. Insanity.

[Smoove_B]

Alex Winter understands

So the new plan is we all get it and some of us die and some of us don't and some have debilitating long term conditions?

Okeeeee doke.

[El Guapo]

Well, I think the new plan is essentially "party on, dude".

[Isgrimnur]

Well, we failed at being excellent to each other...

[stessier]

Depending on where you live, the Plan isn't particularly new.

[Smoove_B]

Who could have predicted this?

BREAKING: Number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 tops 60,000, highest since February

HINT: Not Nate Silver

[LawBeefaroni]

Who could have predicted this?

BREAKING: Number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 tops 60,000, highest since February

HINT: Not Nate Silver

Everyone who has been vaccinated, apparently.

More than 99.99% of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 have not had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data highlights what leading health experts across the country have highlighted for months: Covid-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing serious illness and death from Covid-19 and are the country's best shot at slowing the pandemic down and avoiding further suffering.

The CDC reported 6,587 Covid-19 breakthrough cases as of July 26, including 6,239 hospitalizations and 1,263 deaths. At that time, more than 163 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Divide those severe breakthrough cases by the total fully vaccinated population for the result: less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people had a breakthrough case that led to hospitalization and less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people died from a breakthrough Covid-19 case.

[stimpy]

Who could have predicted this?

BREAKING: Number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 tops 60,000, highest since February

HINT: Not Nate Silver

Everyone who has been vaccinated, apparently.

More than 99.99% of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 have not had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data highlights what leading health experts across the country have highlighted for months: Covid-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing serious illness and death from Covid-19 and are the country's best shot at slowing the pandemic down and avoiding further suffering.

The CDC reported 6,587 Covid-19 breakthrough cases as of July 26, including 6,239 hospitalizations and 1,263 deaths. At that time, more than 163 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Divide those severe breakthrough cases by the total fully vaccinated population for the result: less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people had a breakthrough case that led to hospitalization and less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people died from a breakthrough Covid-19 case.

[Smoove_B]

Another slice of data:

Of the >10,000 people who have died preventable COVID deaths in the past month, 31% are younger than 65, relative to 20% of those throughout the whole pandemic

Mask policies + improving vaccine delivery would prevent further deaths at young ages

[Smoove_B]

And yes, I'm following the insanity that is Nate Silver trying to explain to epidemiologists that he is, in fact, the first to describe a core element of epidemiology 101. He is a real piece of work. In summary:

[malchior]

I've just caught up on all this and all I can say is this episode further paints Nate Silver as a deeply bizarre person. He might want to log off Twitter for a little while and re-orient himself to reality or something.

This is a great synopsis of what a dip shit Nate has become.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

A good reply from a prof at UF I know:

[Smoove_B]

I mean, really

BREAKING: Florida reports 22,783 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record, and 199 new deaths

[Smoove_B]

And this should likely start getting more coverage

New CDC study:

"hundreds of Kentucky residents with previous infections through June 2021 found that those who were unvaccinated had 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with those who were fully vaccinated."

For all those people suggesting they don't need to be vaccinated because they already had it.

[malchior]

Thanks. This is very topical for us. My wife's grandmother in Florida has had it twice and refuses to get vaccinated for this reason. She also believes aliens are calling her. I don't know if we will be able to get through to her even with hard facts. But we can try.

[Isgrimnur]

Have a caregiver dress up like an alien, sneak into her house and give her the shot.

[Smoove_B]

There was a different pre-print study released this morning suggesting people that recovered from COVID-19 had a detectable immune response after ~8 months, but I don't know the details (strength of immune response, size of study, etc...) - just saw a quick headline/digest.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Thanks. This is very topical for us. My wife's grandmother in Florida has had it twice and refuses to get vaccinated for this reason.

So getting Covid a second time didn't change her belief that she was safe from reinfection?

[LawBeefaroni]

Thanks. This is very topical for us. My wife's grandmother in Florida has had it twice and refuses to get vaccinated for this reason.

So getting Covid a second time didn't change her belief that she was safe from reinfection?

It's only after the second dose that you're fully infectionated.

Though it does raise the question.

[Smoove_B]

BREAKING: U.S. reports 131,628 new coronavirus cases, biggest one-day increase since January

For reference, on 8/6/20 we had ~58K new cases in America.

[Smoove_B]

This Twitter post is everything

this pandemic is the worst group project i’ve ever been a part of in my life.

[Zaxxon]

Truth.

[Skinypupy]

Co-worker went home yesterday after a couple weeks in the hospital. She’s on oxygen, but the doctors don’t think that she’ll have to be on it permanently. She was very excited because she was actually able to walk to her living room three times last night.

Cousin isn’t quite so lucky. While they say he’s doing slightly better, he’s still on a ventilator. They found a blood clot in his lungs yesterday as well. He’s in for a long recovery, I’m afraid.

But hey, COVID only has a 2% mortality rate, so it’s all good, right?

[Pyperkub]

From the Alma Mater:

The tool allows demographers to conduct fine-grained analyses in specific regions over various periods of time, offering a new and more dynamic way of gauging how different areas of the country and the world experience decreases in lifespans over the course of the pandemic, Heuveline said.

Heuveline’s analysis, published online in the open-access journal PLOS One, suggests, for example, that as COVID-19 peaked in New Jersey in mid-April 2020, the average lifespan in the state plummeted by almost nine years, the most dramatic example from the U.S.

[Zaxxon]

I would just link to Ed Yong's latest COVID mega-piece for The Atlantic today, but his Twitter intro thread is tough to beat...

[Smoove_B]

He's been a beacon of awesome information this entire time. I know he's already won awards; he deserves more.

[YellowKing]

That's a great read, and while it doesn't necessarily make me feel *better* since all of this was avoidable, it at least offers a glimmer of hope that we won't be fighting the same battle forever. It's just a shame that the trade-off will be thousands of unnecessary deaths.

[Smoove_B]

....and if you want another reason to absolutely despise Nate Silver - if you're looking for more proof he's a total shitbird, flinging disinformation into the ether:

The COVID deniers are shifting their strategy.

First, they downplayed the seriousness of the virus.

Now that the data can't be ignored, they are saying that there's nothing we can do to prevent suffering.

Don't be fooled by inconsistent bad-faith arguments.

Shifting the argument towards fatalism is a common strategy used by science deniers

Climate deniers have for years asserted that global warming doesn't exist

Now they are saying that it's too late to stop it

Ppl who want to stop public health measures are using the same tactic