Wuhan Corona virus

[SGOS]

"Welcome Back Students" the sign outside the elementary school reads in my small unincorporated village.  I really don't know what the state legislature or the governor's plans are to combat Covid-19, not that it would make any difference what their plans are.

Outside Walmart a new banner says that you must wear a mask while shopping at Walmart as required by state and local regulations.  I followed some guy into the store who was not wearing a mask, and the attendant just welcomed him in.  On my way out, I met a woman and a child without masks.  About half the shoppers wear masks, no one follows the recommended traffic flow in the isles.  Other grocery stores do a bit better, but still at least 30 or 40 percent of shoppers take no precautions.

[Hydra009]

Meet the anti-maskers

“If the cases weren’t reported on anymore and talked about, coronavirus would be gone.”

*Team Fortress 2 music*

[Baruch]

"Welcome Back Students" the sign outside the elementary school reads in my small unincorporated village.  I really don't know what the state legislature or the governor's plans are to combat Covid-19, not that it would make any difference what their plans are.

Outside Walmart a new banner says that you must wear a mask while shopping at Walmart as required by state and local regulations.  I followed some guy into the store who was not wearing a mask, and the attendant just welcomed him in.  On my way out, I met a woman and a child without masks.  About half the shoppers wear masks, no one follows the recommended traffic flow in the isles.  Other grocery stores do a bit better, but still at least 30 or 40 percent of shoppers take no precautions.

Easy peasy.  Have your kid declare that he is a BLM revolutionary, and no mask or dirty teachers looks are allowed!

[Baruch]

"MAN RELEASED FROM PRISON OVER COVID, HIS VICTIM IS FOUND MURDERED AND HE FLED" ... hope the victim was a BLM protestor ;-)

He was a rapist, and his victim was the one accusing him.  #BelieveAllWomen??

[Hydra009]

How New Zealand beat covid19.  May I direct your attention here.

Early decisive government action, effective scientific communication to the public, etc.

They shutdown a lot of stuff for basically 2 months but during that time their case numbers dropped dramatically and afterwards they were able to get on with their lives!

Over here, we saw the hurricane coming and some people bolted the front door while others threw open the windows.  And I'm pretty sure some loons walked out during the eye as well.

[Baruch]

One little girl with autism did ;-(

[Hydra009]

The real deathtoll for covid in the US appears to be just over 200,000 compared to the official 164,000.

This 200,000 figure is based on comparing US deaths this year to previous years.  Particularly interesting is the fact that deaths are higher than average among almost all states, very few have had anything approaching a normal deathtoll.  30 states had over 10% more deaths than normal.

Now, the explanation for this is that it can take a while for authorities to fully process deaths (something I'm having a hard time processing myself), "even in a normal year, it takes up to eight weeks for full death counts to be reported by the C.D.C"

[Hydra009]

[Note, due to Trump's Don't Tell The CDC policy, the integrity of the following statistics is compromised and is likely higher than reported]

US daily cases: 63,246 (still relatively high but down from 7/24 peak, the overall trend is down)
Currently infected: 2,314,463 (record high)
US daily deaths: 1,290 (decreased compared to last week, still somewhat higher than previous weeks)
Source

National testing: 715,096 (decreased, 86% of testing peak on 7/29)  Source
The covid tracking project shows a similar decline in testing: 762,968 on 8/7, down from 930,968 on 7/24 about 81% percent of testing peak
Daily cases and tests have slumped at similar times and rates.  Isn't that interesting?

NC daily cases: 1,545 (decreased from 7/18 peak, trending down, though deaths have trending up, % positive tests have been stable at 6.9% since the end of May) Source

SC: 1,422 (trending down from 7/19 peak, testing % positive is 15.9%, SC appears to have predictable crests and troughs - highs of ~21% and lows of ~15%, though the overall trend is a very slow decline) Source
% positive has dropped very recently, so maybe that slow decline will speed up

Georgia: 4,109 (lower than 7/24 peak but still high and barely budged from last week, high death count since 7/21, testing % positive is 11%, declined from peak of 17% on 7/23) Source and Source

Florida: 7,686 (quite a decrease!  Almost half what it was just two weeks ago.  Incredible, simply incredible.  Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Health report gives 8,541 daily cases.  Hmm...)
Testing % is 17.7%, elevated but decreased over the past few weeks.
Florida testing and cases have dropped greatly lately, and at roughly the same rate

Louisiana: 1,500 (decreased, the data shows two giant spikes in the past two weeks but they appear to be outliers)
their testing page looks pretty bizarre with a 292% positive peak, which makes reading the graph a bit more difficult.  According to the covid tracking project, their testing has increased and their cases have decreased, which is good news.

Texas: 7,675 (Another incredible decrease!  Though The New York Times gives 7,997 which is a bit different, and Texas' official dashboard gives 7,039 which is different still.  I might need a craps table for this one.)
Testing was high, though it seems to have dropped off quite a bit in the past few days.  New cases have dropped in tandem with testing.

Arizona: 1,406 (a dramatic decline, deaths have somewhat declined on average as well)
Testing has declined somewhat, though not as fast as cases.
% positive is 15.5%, down from 20-25% in the past few weeks
All in all, this appears to be a genuine recovery.  Keep it up!

California: 7,904 (high but down from 7/22 peak) Source
The New York Times gives 7,129 cases on the same day, a VERY different figure.  Not sure what happened there.
Deaths are elevated, nearly hitting the 200 mark in recent days when before they were 100-150.
% positive is 5.7%, down from 8% just a little over a week ago
New tests have dropped somewhat, but new cases have dropped much faster
Overall, coronavirus seems to be declining there.

---

Some genuinely good news lately mixed with some suspicious figures, a couple states allegedly showing a steep decline but likely experiencing a much more modest decline.  The inclusion of testing figures really does seem to serve as a reality check for the more rapidly fluctuating daily cases. 

I'm using more sources now, so it takes much longer to analyze what exactly is going on in a given state, and even then, things are kinda uncertain in a few places, but I think it's worth the extra effort to provide a deeper understanding of what's going on.  Let me know if you have any corrections or clarifying information.

[Hydra009]

California records glitch resulted in about 300,000 unprocessed records.

State officials believe the number of new COVID-19 cases in California has been underreported since July 25, when a server outage created a delay in lab records coming into the state's reporting system. At the same time, the state hadn't realized they weren't receiving data from one of the largest commercial labs for five days. Those problems combined have created the extensive backlog.

"Our data system failed and that failure led to inaccurate case numbers and case positivity rates."

Definitely eye that entry with extra scrutiny.

[Baruch]

""Within Days I Was Able To Breathe": NYC Democratic Councilman Says Hydroxychloroquine Saved His Life" ... people here will disbelieve this, as if he claimed Jesus healed him.

[Baruch]

"Fed's Kashkari calls for 6-week economic shutdown to control coronavirus spread" ... Fed sides with Biden, kill the economy until after the election

[Hydra009]

US tops 5 million confirmed cases, to Europe's alarm

“We Italians always saw America as a model,” said Massimo Franco, a columnist with daily Corriere della Sera. “But with this virus we’ve discovered a country that is very fragile, with bad infrastructure and a public health system that is nonexistent.”

With America’s world’s-highest death toll of more than 160,000, its politicized resistance to masks and its rising caseload, European nations have barred American tourists and visitors from other countries with growing cases from freely traveling to the bloc.

“Had the medical professionals been allowed to operate in the States, you would have belatedly gotten to a point of getting to grips with this back in March,” said Scott Lucas, professor of international studies at the University of Birmingham, England. “But of course, the medical and public health professionals were not allowed to proceed unchecked,” he said, referring to President Donald Trump’s frequent undercutting of his own experts.

“There’s no reason to fear any sickness that’s out there,” said Julia Ferjo, a mother of three in Alpine, Texas, who is “vehemently” against wearing a mask. ‪Ferjo, 35, teaches fitness classes in a large gym with open doors. She doesn’t allow participants to wear masks.

‪“When you’re breathing that hard, I would pass out,” she said. “I do not want people just dropping like flies.”

[Cassia]

Saw some Sturgis video clips. Looked like some sort of a comorbidity staging area on wheels.

[Mike Cl]

Sturgis--Covid on wheels this year.  If I were a health worker in that city/county, I'd be pissed.  Covid, however, is having a hell of a time with a 10 day spreading window!

[Baruch]

"California Will Soon Be Paying $1,250 To People Who Test Positive For Coronavirus" ... get asymptomatic Covid, go get tested once a month, and you got a good scam.  What money will California use, wooden nickels?

Yes, make people drop like flies ... giant can of Raid with Trump's face on it ;-))  California is not a Roach Motel, the Californicators keep checking out, I did, twice!

"The British Government Admits the COVID 19 Deaths are Inflated" ... they admit that the daily toll is overstated.  The British government is thinking of scrapping the daily count entirely, and replacing it with a weekly count.

"California Public Health Director Suddenly Quits After Massive Virus Data Error Discovered" ... agony hire.

"Insolvency Looms For Connecticut's Unemployment Fund Without Emergency Bailout" ... actual genuine need of the states, not self caused.