SARS-2-CoV (COVID-19)

[jgradyc]

The CDC COVID Data Tracker is a pretty good source to see moving trends. You can drill down to the state and even to the county level. What's immediately apparent to me in moving around the tabs on this site is that although the number of cases of COVID in the US are spiking, the death rate isn't increasing at a comparable rate. 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

[DaveTN]

I found this info interesting in a news story about the Governor of Illinois considering another shut-down of the state. 27 people died last Friday.

Over 100: 1
90's: 9
80's: 4
70's: 9
60's: 3
50's: 0
40's: 1
Under 40: 0

What the story doesn’t tell us is how many of those people were already in assisted living or care facilities that would have likely been unaffected by a state shut-down.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, jgradyc said:

The CDC COVID Data Tracker is a pretty good source to see moving trends. You can drill down to the state and even to the county level. What's immediately apparent to me in moving around the tabs on this site is that although the number of cases of COVID in the US are spiking, the death rate isn't increasing at a comparable rate. 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

Super great data!   Have you seen data on the % of population being tested and the positive test rate over time?  Given the number of daily deaths is basically flat for months, though positive test results are spiking, it's possible the spike is simply due to a higher rate of testing.     Easier access to tests, people catching other "normal winter-month bugs" so heading in for tests, etc.     

I suppose it could also be the result of young people (less-likely to die from covid) getting back to their normal lives?  If that were the case, AND given we're not seeing any apparent uptick in the death rate ("you'll take it to Grandma"), that's a positive sign relative to what could be.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Guest
re-word to remove ambiguity

[DaveTN]

I’d be curious to see the weekly or monthly death rate from all causes now vs. the same time frame last year.

[MacGyver]

If you do more pregnancy tests - does it result in more pregnancies or fewer pregnancies?

[DaveTN]

12 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

If you do more pregnancy tests - does it result in more pregnancies or fewer pregnancies?

Ha, ha, ha of course, it would have zero impact on the numbers of babies born. It could have great impact with whatever you were trying to show with the testing data. If hospitals or states were getting money based on how many pregnancies they handled; you would probably show men having babies.

[MacGyver]

55 minutes ago, DaveTN said:

Ha, ha, ha of course, it would have zero impact on the numbers of babies born. It could have great impact with whatever you were trying to show with the testing data. If hospitals or states were getting money based on how many pregnancies they handled; you would probably show men having babies.

Call any CEO of any hospital in America.  Pick any one.

I assure you that any of them would rather be back to the elective surgeries they were doing before.  A knee replacement is probably 10x as profitable as COVID treatments.

I’m sure they’re available in the press - I’m on mobile so I’ll have to link later - but our biggest system in middle Tennessee took double digit percentage pay cuts all spring and summer.

They’d all rather be doing anything else. 

[peejman]

1 hour ago, DaveTN said:

Ha, ha, ha of course, it would have zero impact on the numbers of babies born. It could have great impact with whatever you were trying to show with the testing data. If hospitals or states were getting money based on how many pregnancies they handled; you would probably show men having babies.

I'd say the impact would definitely be non-zero if pregnancy tests were only 50% accurate. Imagine the uproar if tens of thousands of people thought they were pregnant, began to prepare, went through all the prenatal stuff only to find out months later they weren't. And the converse, tens of thousands thought they weren't pregnant but were. High risk pregnancies and deaths due to complications would definitley climb. 

[Omega]

30 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

Call any CEO of any hospital in America.  Pick any one.

I assure you that any of them would rather be back to the elective surgeries they were doing before.  A knee replacement is probably 10x as profitable as COVID treatments.

I’m sure they’re available in the press - I’m on mobile so I’ll have to link later - but our biggest system in middle Tennessee took double digit percentage pay cuts all spring and summer.

They’d all rather be doing anything else. 

Of course they would, but do you think the hospitals are running things?  Are you telling me that doctors are taking pay cuts??

[MacGyver]

32 minutes ago, Omega said:

Of course they would, but do you think the hospitals are running things?  Are you telling me that doctors are taking pay cuts??

Yes. 

[DaveTN]

40 minutes ago, Omega said:

Of course they would, but do you think the hospitals are running things?  Are you telling me that doctors are taking pay cuts??

I know that wasn’t directed at me, but sure, if you google it there are plenty of Doctors taking pay cuts, and plenty of Doctors taking leave. But my point is simply that I, like most of us is trying to determine the real risk of this. I do not doubt even a little bit that Covid is killing people, and it can kill me. But turning off the economy is killing people also. So my question is… Is the data real? If health care facilities or states are getting federal aid; good. If they are getting it based on the number of deaths; everyone will be a Covid death and we have no way of knowing what the real risk is.

The information I tried to find was total monthly deaths from all causes in Tennessee for 2019 and the same months in 2020. If 30 people a day are dying of Covid in the state, the numbers should reflect that. If the numbers don’t reflect that, the only logical conclusion is that everything now is being called a Covid death. I don’t know if that’s happening or not. We have all heard the internet stories of fatalities in vehicle crashes being labeled “Covid”.  Are those rare, isolated cases? A cold can kill a 90 or 100-year-old person. Are they actually tested and positive for Covid?  

I’m not making an argument either way, other than to say shutting the economy down is deadly and should not be done without irrefutable facts. This ain’t rocket science. If the elderly deaths are being labeled Covid just because they were in respiratory failure, without a positive Covid test; we’re being lied to.

We are used to the manipulation of data here. We do it, the anti-gunners do it. It’s all about what you want the data to show.

[Links2k]

I trust the subject matter experts.  I also trust the doctors and icu nurses who are begging people to wear masks. We give lip service to front line medical workers, but can’t do one simple thing that may make their work lives easier.

[DaveTN]

19 minutes ago, Links2k said:

I trust the subject matter experts.  I also trust the doctors and icu nurses who are begging people to wear masks. We give lip service to front line medical workers, but can’t do one simple thing that may make their work lives easier.

I wear a mask any time I go out in public. Am I convinced it helps protect me or anyone from me? No. But it costs me nothing and is no inconvenience, other than when it fogs up my glasses, so I use it. I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with the government destroying lives, families, and businesses for political gain, when we don’t have the facts.

I don't need a subject matter expert to know shutting down the economy is killing people and impacting families. 

[Links2k]

1 hour ago, DaveTN said:

I wear a mask any time I go out in public. Am I convinced it helps protect me or anyone from me? No. But it costs me nothing and is no inconvenience, other than when it fogs up my glasses, so I use it. I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with the government destroying lives, families, and businesses for political gain, when we don’t have the facts.

I don't need a subject matter expert to know shutting down the economy is killing people and impacting families. 

The world is in new and unknown territory with this virus. Therefore everything we try to fight Covid is trial and error. I would rather go through extremely minor inconveniences until we can contain the virus and come up with a reliable vaccine as opposed to continue denying the lethality of the virus while people suffer, die or have to live with lifelong side effects of having contracted the virus. 
 

Wearing a mask is a minor inconvenience. Every time my son complains about something I remind him that young people his age are serving all over the world in conditions that suck. The small sacrifices the country is being asked to make are nothing. Yet here we are. Does everyone who gets covid have to die for this to be a “legitimate” pandemic?

[deerslayer]

1 hour ago, Links2k said:

The small sacrifices the country is being asked to make are nothing. Yet here we are. 

Losing a job/home/financial well-being for an economy-wrecking shutdown thats merely delays the inevitable is not a small sacrifice.  A President Biden would probably advocate another shutdown.  

[Grayfox54]

Just checked the Shelby County numbers. Active cases continue to rise and are now at 3.162.  The really sad news is that deaths have hit a new milestone and stand at 604. 

[btq96r]

For those wondering if doctors took pay cuts; if they are the sole practitioner or among a partnership of physicians who own a group practice, then yeah, they took pay cuts in 2020.  Hard to pay out the bonuses when the revenue wasn't coming in as budgeted.  Even with some free Uncle Sugar donations from HHS via the CARES act, it's been a kick in the junk for the medical industry. 

That's not to say I have too much sympathy for those who should have a pile of cash reserves and investments back up to par with the market having rebounded...but it happened, and hit their support staffs as well in a lot of cases. 

 

On 11/13/2020 at 12:56 PM, MacGyver said:

ICU capacity in Nashville is currently at 6%. Rutherford county facilities are on diversion.

Sumner County is on COVID diversion as well.  The more outlining facilities that go on diversion, the more it will just a create compounding pressure on the Davidson County hospitals.

[Links2k]

3 hours ago, deerslayer said:

 A President Biden would probably advocate another shutdown.  

I agree with you, but I also think that Biden will attempt to pass a relief bill that will help small businesses and the poor instead of corporations. That’s the right thing to do, but Moscow Mitch may stand in the way as usual.  
 

We can keep half assing our efforts against this virus and deal with it for years, or we can put on our big boy pants, bite the bullet and do what see working for various other countries around the world. Steven Mnuchin still won’t tell where a great deal of the last stimulus money went. I have my opinion, but I don’t care to spend my evening arguing. 

[Links2k]

2 hours ago, Grayfox54 said:

Just checked the Shelby County numbers. Active cases continue to rise and are now at 3.162.  The really sad news is that deaths have hit a new milestone and stand at 604. 

I’m on Facebook and Twitter, you wouldn’t believe the videos of some of the local gatherings that I see daily. 

[Garufa]

1 minute ago, Links2k said:

I’m on Facebook and Twitter, you wouldn’t believe the videos of some of the local gatherings that I see daily. 

The people will not be stopped.

[Links2k]

Just now, Garufa said:

The people will not be stopped.

Obviously 

[MacGyver]

The virus is the economy right now. Full stop.

I expect we’re heading for another shutdown - whether we like it or not.

We’ve had 100k plus cases every day for the last 6 days.  170k yesterday. A month from today, 3000 of those folks will be dead.

We lost 2,977 Americans on the morning of September 11 - and it has changed so much about our day to day lives since.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong about this. But this time next month we’ll be losing a 9/11’s worth of Americans every single day.

It’s going to suck. 

[Guest]

Nevermind.  Don't want to get sucked into debate.   Mod - please delete, thanks

Edited November 15, 2020 by Guest

[btq96r]

1 hour ago, MacGyver said:

The virus is the economy right now. Full stop.

I expect we’re heading for another shutdown - whether we like it or not.

We’ve had 100k plus cases every day for the last 6 days.  170k yesterday. A month from today, 3000 of those folks will be dead.

We lost 2,977 Americans on the morning of September 11 - and it has changed so much about our day to day lives since.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong about this. But this time next month we’ll be losing a 9/11’s worth of Americans every single day.

It’s going to suck. 

While I'm in agreement with you on the grim state of forecasting in numbers, I don't think another shutdown is on the horizon...at least not like we had before.  State and local governments are staring down so much red ink, that I'm guessing most of them will let things stay open in some way above what we saw in April.  If an economic shutdown is going to happen, it'll have to be be consumer driven, not governmental.

We really could have been like New Zealand if we had the collective will...but, #Murica.

[FUJIMO]

I could have swore I read something yesterday saying sleepy and his bakers dozen COVID TASK FORCE were looking at a 6-8 week nationwide shutdown.