Has the Corona Virus infected anyone you know?

[NT93]

48 minutes ago, Coffee and TV said:

...this virus has gotten so out of control...

You are clearly a part of the media🤣

[Coffee and TV]

15 hours ago, NT93 said:

You are clearly a part of the media🤣

What about this doc in Houston saying they're running out of ICU beds? Is he a part of the media? 

 

[97and03]

On 6/19/2020 at 6:28 AM, THOR said:

actually, yes i am because people die every day and we don't know if more people are dying due to covid or it's just recategorized as a covid death.  i don't see the harm in this train of thought.  death sucks, no shit, but people die.  that's never going to be stopped.  you disagree, cool...no big deal, but the world doesn't stop because people die.  roughly, 8x as many people have recovered from covid as have died.  hell ya!  that's awesome to me.  it means if you get it...you're probably gonna be fine.  it's just a sickness.  

 

and i don't wear a mask, i don't wear gloves, neither does my wife or kids (unless the business requires it).   i go out every damn day and have since this started.  i frequent stores/restaurants/bars/you name it.   is this unpopular?  of course it is.  is it wrong?  good question....i don't know and neither do you.  

 

i'm not the expert on this stuff....because who really is when you can find positives/negatives based upon what expert you want to believe.  i could be totally wrong and my family and i will die a horrible death...but maybe won't (from covid...we could all dies in a plane crash/car crash/etc.), but i will not stop going out, living life, supporting the economy, having fun.  sue me...cuss me...whatever...we all have our beliefs and this is mine.  

 

hopefully, i'll see ya at apogee this year and the beer is on me!  i'm cool with folks that disagree with me, not a big deal...it's life and i'm going to live it.

 

edit:  damnit...i forgot to ask how this is "a very avoidable disease"? and if you're just going to jump on politics, don't answer...you have no idea how another president/government could have stopped this "very avoidable disease"

You were unhappy with responses that didn’t address your assertions so I tried to answer you directly paragraph by paragraph. I am also including some excerpts from my bio terrorism and public health textbooks as backing evidence to my statements. 
 

1) Yes we DO know that more people are dying and they aren’t all old people. Plus - as I have said ad nauseam - it isn’t only about deaths. People are suffering from heart and kidney problems from this, in addition to lingering lung problems. “Recovered” means not dead, not free of sometimes serious health problems.
2) It is wrong to not wear a mask in enclosed public places like bars, especially if you generally don’t practice physical distancing or use a mask. It protects others from you. 
3) You likely won’t die. You are more likely to just help spread the virus and not know it. Take a look at the rising cases in FL, AZ, and TX. My current city relaxed measures and people stopped wearing masks. We went from around 25 cases a day to today’s reported 192 within a week. Has been rising all week. I think you can do the math. Masks aren’t perfect but they help. The problem with your belief is that it probably affects you less than it affects others around you. The drunk driver usually survives the crash, if you get my analogy. 
4) I wish I could see you at Apogee but I can’t make it. If I could, however, I would skip that beer. You are one of the people I look forward to seeing but I would not expose my family to you because of what you practice. Not this year.

5) The virus wasn’t completely avoidable but we did little to prevent its spread in the US. We didn’t have early testing capacity. We didn’t adequately try to do contract tracing of incoming infected patients from overseas. We are the most powerful nation in the world and we had advanced notice. We should have tested everyone coming from China early on and then from Korea, Europe, and a few other selected countries at a minimum. As I understand that still isn’t happening. We could have require a two week at home quarantine upon arrive with or without testing. That rarely happened. We should have encouraged masks earlier but we didn’t because we didn’t have sufficient masks for medical professionals so we couldn’t. Then masks were stigmatized as not cool or not manly or some bullshit. Our political leadership didn’t follow their own guidance and even blatantly disregarded local regulations when visiting. Not to mention downplayed the virus and it’s seriousness while pushing false curses and false hopes for vaccines. It was almost a complete failure all around. New Zealand zeroed our COVID recently and then apologized when two cases popped up. We have over a 100k dead and rising and we haven’t had a task force briefing in over a month. 

Simply put, we knew how to deal with this kind of thing and chose not to. 
 

I hope this adequately addressed your questions, Thomas. Stay healthy because I look forward to that next beer with you sometime. 
 

Ben 

[Censored by Laurie]

On 6/18/2020 at 10:29 PM, THOR said:

so what part of my "diatribe" is wrong?  

core concept? 

you keep suggesting that you're not scarred of the virus...and that if you get the virus you'll likely recover. that is the definition of selfish thinking. you're not wearing the mask just for you, but for the protection of everyone around you. 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/21/880832213/yes-wearing-masks-helps-heres-why
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-masks.html

obviously the full science isn't known...we've been actively battling and learning for what, 3-ish months now? if masks protect even a little bit it seems worth the mild-to-moderate discomfort...and that seems a shared sentiment by many business owners, likely many of the same stores/restaurants/bars/you name it that you've been frequenting:

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/20/face-mask-order-dallas-harris-travis-bexar/

while both history and logic always indicated, now statistical trends since the re-open suggest that we're likely heading for another shut-down at some point and that most non-essential businesses are going to be operating for a finite amount of time. if masks can help extend that window for these business you care about...is that not worth it to you? 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

hey look everyone! the Civil Liberties Belt is the new US Corona Hot Spot! who ever could've guessed? 

as I've mentioned before...about half of my business and personal income comes from the service industry. my city and state (Portland, Maine) are heavily dependent on restaurants and tourism...10-12% of our state GDP comes from the service industry, another 4-5% from hotels/hospitality...we're basically neck-and-neck with Nevada as the most vulnerable should dining and tourism stop cold...so I'm actually very glad to read that you're out supporting local business...for both the sake of my business and my personal sanity I too have been grabbing snacks and beverages on local patios as we're slowly re-opening...

but do it douchebaging safely. not for you. for everyone. it's shared inconvenience. 

[Coffee and TV]

I know 1984 gets overused a lot on both sides of the political spectrum, but jesus christ...

 

 

[adman]

Yes.

My 34 year old neighbor tested positive. Neither her husband nor two children did. She fully recovered and was never hospitalized.

 

 

[LongJim]

What's good is that though there has been a rise in positives, the death rate has declined.  Hopefully that trend continues. 

[Censored by Laurie]

2 hours ago, LongJim said:

What's good is that though there has been a rise in positives, the death rate has declined.  Hopefully that trend continues. 

I think that basically says that combination of consensus-of-information we have around the most vulnerable and more social opportunities means that younger, (potentially) "less vulnerable" people are out more acting with everything from assumed-risk to impunity...more "healthy" people testing positive will drop the death rate, sure...but it's the next steps that are more important...at risk populations have to continue vigilance, but more importantly now these "healthy" populations need to be more conscious of their subsequent interactions and behaviors. 

the latter is the part I worry about. I'm with you, hopefully this trend continues...but I fear death rate may just be a lagging indicator.  

[LongJim]

30 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

I think that basically says that combination of consensus-of-information we have around the most vulnerable and more social opportunities means that younger, (potentially) "less vulnerable" people are out more acting with everything from assumed-risk to impunity...more "healthy" people testing positive will drop the death rate, sure...but it's the next steps that are more important...at risk populations have to continue vigilance, but more importantly now these "healthy" populations need to be more conscious of their subsequent interactions and behaviors. 

the latter is the part I worry about. I'm with you, hopefully this trend continues...but I fear death rate may just be a lagging indicator.  

Hope not, but I guess we'll see.  The latest info I have seen has been encouraging though. 

Agree with your first paragraph.  Consideration for others is a good thing.

[97and03]

Again it also isn’t all about deaths. 

[SteaminWillieBeamin]

On 6/22/2020 at 5:52 PM, LongJim said:

What's good is that though there has been a rise in positives, the death rate has declined.  Hopefully that trend continues. 

The death rate declined because the NY and NJ outbreaks are contained. Their ICU utilizations are back into normal range. 

The death rate goes up when the ICUs fill up - which is what we are seeing now. There will be less resources and some considerations on who gets the resources. That leads to more deaths. 

Houston Children's is now taking adults since all the ICUs are filled.
The Dallas area big hospitals are near filled and are transferring to auxiliary hospitals. Parkland - near full. BUMC - full. 
This is how NYC started - I hope we are aren't going to have that situation here. Terrible. 

 

[SteaminWillieBeamin]

Thor said: 

"we don't know if more people are dying due to covid or it's just recategorized as a covid death"

This is just dangerously ignorant of the facts.

https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/mortality-in-the-u-s-noticeably-increased-during-the-first-months-of-2020-compared-to-previous-years/

There are considerably more deaths this year than prior years. Outside the range of normal. So if it isn't the fake new Covid - what is it? You are more willing to believe that more people are dying of other things at a higher rate - than to believe that Covid is actually the cause? That is dangerous. 

That isn't even up to date ... At week 15 of this year we were already over 70,000 more deaths in the same period of time the year before. 

As you can add up - we way past week 15 and our numbers are getting worse. 

Here is a great site covering the excess deaths over the globe. NYC alone has over 25,000 excess deaths. 

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

It's baffling to think the whole globe is lying about excess deaths. 

Edited June 24, 2020 by SteaminWillieBeamin
..

[El Paso Eagle]

My brother and his wife along with my niece and her husband, all from the Sugerland area, have tested positive. 

They are doing OK, the ladies have had a little more symptoms. Luckily not in their lungs.

[meangreendork]

Oof, now there's a push to cut federal funding for testing as we hit our highest case count. This is getting worse all while vaccines are still in testing, at best. 

[CMJ]

The deaths had been going down slightly for some time. Even before the last 3 weeks or so, the general trend has been down since April 21st (that was the height of the 7 day rolling average figure). That number peaked at 2214. It has been going down slightly ever since, with the occasional uptick till June 2nd...and then down every day since then (two days ago that average was 619). HOWEVER, yesterday that figure nosed up to 620 and today (6/24) it was also at 620.   I've started watching the rolling averages because there isn't as much "noise" as the day by day numbers can sometimes have (especially around the weekends the numbers always fall, then climb Tue/Wed and then settle down as it heads to the weekend when the pattern repeats).  

 

The number to watch is a the deaths from last Thursday, because that is the number that will next be replaced in the rolling average. Last week the number was 747.  So, if the number for tomorrow goes north of 747 the rolling average will also notch up.  It's too early to know if we're in a trend back up or just a blip.

[Coffee and TV]

[Censored by Laurie]

1 hour ago, Coffee and TV said:

ya, but what’s The Dow look like?

[97and03]

13 hours ago, CMJ said:

The deaths had been going down slightly for some time. Even before the last 3 weeks or so, the general trend has been down since April 21st (that was the height of the 7 day rolling average figure). That number peaked at 2214. It has been going down slightly ever since, with the occasional uptick till June 2nd...and then down every day since then (two days ago that average was 619). HOWEVER, yesterday that figure nosed up to 620 and today (6/24) it was also at 620.   I've started watching the rolling averages because there isn't as much "noise" as the day by day numbers can sometimes have (especially around the weekends the numbers always fall, then climb Tue/Wed and then settle down as it heads to the weekend when the pattern repeats).  

 

The number to watch is a the deaths from last Thursday, because that is the number that will next be replaced in the rolling average. Last week the number was 747.  So, if the number for tomorrow goes north of 747 the rolling average will also notch up.  It's too early to know if we're in a trend back up or just a blip.

Again. It. Isn’t. All. About. Deaths.

Stop helping  the deniers by even engaging in the deaths discussion. 
The numbers to watch is hospitalizations. 
 

That is more relevant to the overall public health concern. 

[Coffee and TV]

1 hour ago, Censored by Laurie said:

ya, but what’s The Dow look like?

 

[CMJ]

3 minutes ago, 97and03 said:

Again. It. Isn’t. All. About. Deaths.

Stop helping  the deniers by even engaging in the deaths discussion. 
The numbers to watch is hospitalizations. 
 

That is more relevant to the overall public health concern. 

No...the numbers I've cared about since the beginning is deaths.  When people look back on this pandemic in 50-100 years, that is what they will remember.  No one knows how many people were sick with the Spanish Flu -- but we all know the approximate death toll was 670K in the US.

[97and03]

11 minutes ago, CMJ said:

No...the numbers I've cared about since the beginning is deaths.  When people look back on this pandemic in 50-100 years, that is what they will remember.  No one knows how many people were sick with the Spanish Flu -- but we all know the approximate death toll was 670K in the US.

And that is foolish. We should be worried about the people who can’t or won’t receive treatment because of hospital capacity. We should be concerned about the “recovered” patients with various lingering health issues. Our health care system is pretty horrible and bankrupts thousands every year. Many never seek treatment for that reason. 
There have been people who develop kidney issues from this. Even preliminary reports of this triggering diabetes. Heart problems in young people.

Deaths are horrible and tragic. But they are the tip of the iceberg. I am not worried about history. 

Edited June 25, 2020 by 97and03

[97and03]

Oh and to the original thread topic: yes now I have many people in my community with confirmed, suspected, or possible COVID-19. 

[CMJ]

I typically view things in a historical sense.  I've always been sort of detached in that way.

[El Paso Eagle]

To the person who rolled the eyes at this news, please feel free to kiss my ass you f'ing coward. 

 

[NT93]

2 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

To the person who rolled the eyes at this news, please feel free to kiss my ass you f'ing coward. 

 

I can almost guarantee that the person who did it is in favor of taking down statues, changing team mascots, etc because they don’t want people to feel bad.

Irony