outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

i'm really afraid for the mental health of these employees. the endless hours, the risky conditions, the poor pay, the aforementioned scenario above....

^ yes

i feel awful for them, it must be exhausting

stand down everyone

Deaths now less than 5-year average. The epidemic, by any interpretation, is over. https://t.co/Id2oyb0ouk

— Alistair Haimes (@AlistairHaimes) June 30, 2020

oh god, not the "more tests means more lockdown we should stop testing" guy

Salvini sent packing after he travels down to Mondragone in Southern Italy. He tried to exploit disturbances over an outbreak of Covid-19 in an occupied building housing migrant workers who are paid so little they can't afford rent. Bravo @Giul_Granato!pic.twitter.com/7yzQbUN7t8

— Rosa (@rosagilbert) June 30, 2020

Fuck the USA

I heard, on the radio while driving, a snippet of Dr. Fauci testifying to the Senate today that the rate of new US cases could jump up to as many as 100,000 a day! It is currently ~40,000 a day, which is plenty awful as it is.

It's always good to have something to aspire to, a goal to achieve, a record to beat. We can do this! USA! USA!

I've been reading about the Austrian super-spreader ski resort where they tested pretty much everyone. Nearly half the people in the town had covid antibodies but only 15% of the people who tested positive had displayed any symptoms.

I guess the population of an Austrian ski resort is going to skew pretty young but still that's insane. How many cases are there out there that we know nothing about?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-25/austrian-ski-resort-study-shows-pervasive-coronavirus-spread

Yeah. This is why the Île-de-France—the greater Paris region—is going to be testing 1.4 million people at random in the next days : to identify “dormant clusters”.

I guess the population of an Austrian ski resort is going to skew pretty young but still that's insane. How many cases are there out there that we know nothing about?

― Matt DC, Tuesday, June 30, 2020 6:19 PM (two hours ago)

a lot, but this study found that the seropositivity was 6x higher than those who had been PCR-positive. general wisdom, at least around may, was 10x, and there were some (bad) papers that were suggesting as high as 80x

it is obviously population- and resource-dependent as you point out

the frustrating thing about all this is that obviously the unknowns re: COVID transmission should result in the average civilian thinking "well, since we're not sure how high the risk of asymptomatic or presymptomatic transmission is, I'll just stay home to be safe", but instead it's "well, there's nebulous evidence as to how much the asymptomatic are transmitting this, so until that proof is here, it's business as usual for me".

Positive tests (and hospitalizations) are up, but the rolling 7-day total of USA fatalities (3,959) is the lowest since 3/24-3/30, which coincidentally was the week ending exactly 3 months ago.

Do we have a good explanation for that yet?

i think it's supposed to be a number of factors, but especially 1) average age of people getting infected is going down, and 2) better treatment as we're now 6 months into this thing

https://i.imgur.com/QhFrluD.png

Gyms and fitness centers across Arizona are defying Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s shutdown guidelines and pledging to stay open as the number of coronavirus cases in the state continues to rise.

After Arizona set records for current hospitalizations, Ducey ordered all bars, gyms, entertainment theaters and water parks to close for at least the next 30 days. However, on Tuesday, Life Time Athletic, which bills itself as an upscale fitness club, informed members of its decision to reopen its fitness floors for programs and classes on July 1. Members will be able to access the spa, pools, saunas, steam rooms and locker rooms, to name a few of the club’s amenities.

“We believe providing access to these services — with proper social distance, on regularly-cleaned equipment, and in masks as appropriate — is vital to allow individuals to maintain their overall health,” chief executive Jeff Zwiefel wrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post.

While Life Time plans to open its doors Wednesday, another Arizona gym has taken it a step further. In response to Ducey’s order, Mountainside Fitness chief executive Tom Hatten held a news conference at one of his fully operational sites — as several members walked on treadmills in the background — to announce his intention to sue the governor.

LAW AND ORDER

https://i.imgur.com/byhflqK.png

Residents in Milton, Fla., will not be required to wear face coverings following the City Council’s decision to rescind an emergency declaration that stipulated face coverings.

The council held a special meeting Monday in which it unanimously voted to rescind Mayor Heather Lindsay’s order issued Friday.

Lindsay told a mostly unmasked crowd that the decision was a disappointment, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

“It is a sad state of affairs today that there is so much passion around personal liberties; if that same passion were applied to preventing the spread of this disease, imagine where we could be,” she said, according to the paper.

Only three of the seven council members wore masks as they heard questionable testimony against the order and the benefits of masks, the News Journal reported.

NO

NO

THIS was the depressing chart i meant to post

https://i.imgur.com/He6eCTw.png

never gonna win tetris stacking that way

Proper social distancing in a sauna

i think it's supposed to be a number of factors, but especially 1) average age of people getting infected is going down, and 2) better treatment as we're now 6 months into this thing

― time is running out to pitch in $5 (Karl Malone), Tuesday, June 30, 2020 9:59 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

3) deaths lag tests.

I was supposed to report back for work tomorrow. I broke my leg a month before the pandemic so I've been out a while. Still using a cane and I'm on relegated to desk duty while my job is normally fairly physical. Convinced the boss to let me work from home even though he grumbled about it.

Just found out boss has a fever. If he has it, there's a good chance it is running through my department because the nature of our work does not allow for social distancing. I'm worried about coworkers that I regard as friends. So glad I dig in my heels on going back to work. Fuck.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/amazon-misled-the-public-about-its-coronavirus-problem.html

3) deaths lag tests.

this is true too, but am i wrong to think it might be less of a factor than the first two? i base that on states like FL and TX having relatively steady death rates despite their daily cases doubling or tripling or more over the last month or so.

i guess it depends on what the typical lag is. 2-4 weeks, maybe?

3) deaths lag tests.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, June 30, 2020 9:15 PM (thirty minutes ago)

source on that? this chart shows a growing gap between the (log) curves in active cases vs. fatalities:
https://i.imgur.com/m2QLpJM.png

i'm making a logical point: people get coronavirus before they die of coronavirus because that's how time works. absent other effects (such as the mortality rate going down, or a change in the number of tests administered each day) it's a logical certainty that an increase in positive tests is followed by an increase in deaths.

"absent other effects" is doing a lot of work there, and i don't mean to imply the lag is the whole story. the factors karl mentioned are certainly present, but so is this one. they pull in different directions and it's an open question which is bigger. i guess we're about to find out.

what a disaster https://t.co/RS4UMjCzHJ

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) July 1, 2020

A jolly thread

Good morning in sad, jealous tweets. All schools in Taiwan have been open since February. They did not listen to China or WHO in January and immediately masked up and shut down travel. They also traced the hell out of their outbreaks. They were practically done by February.

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) July 1, 2020

This case number increase in Illinois is really bumming me out this morning. Not surprised, the virus doesn't just hop off when people cross state lines, but it reinforces that even states that did the right things earlier are still in for a long, long, long, long road ahead.

good news is that in IL the increased cases are mostly coming from increasing testing. the positivity rates are holding steady at around 2-3% and have been for weeks

for context, the IL 7-day average for cases is around the same point now (773 cases/day) as we were back on the front end of the curve, at the beginning of april. but the difference is that at the beginning of april, we were struggling to hit 5,000 tests per day, and the positivity rate was above 20%. now we're doing 30,000+ tests a day, and the positivity rates about 2.6%

http://i.imgur.com/jV9hMmA.png
https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york

Despite Texas’ surge of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday evening that he doesn’t need the advice of the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci.

“Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Patrick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview. “We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”

Patrick also said Fauci has “been wrong every time on every issue,” but did not elaborate on specifics.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-dan-patrick-dr-anthony-fauci-comment/285-ee7a4619-22d5-4135-a83b-99c573785601

GRRRRAAAARRRGH @#$%$@!! DAN PATRICK IS SUCH A FUCKFACE RAT BASTARD

Possibly Patrick's worst crime is making people think Abbott is the reasonable one.

Patrick already volunteered to be taken by the 'Rona, I don't see any need to be rude and deny his generous offer.

Arizona just reported *4,878* new COVID cases in the last 24 hours--a staggering record.

Arizona just reported *88* newly-reported COVID deaths--another staggering record.

Arizona just reported the percent positive rate of tests today was *28.3%* -- this is...a numbing number.

— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) July 1, 2020

it’s just because they’re doing more, uh, more targeted, more precise tests on exactly the right people. we should be applauding this state’s laser-like focus on testing precisely the people who will probably die from a margarita rocks, no salt.

“MY BODY, MY CHOICE” - that’s what a group of about 100 - 200 people are chanting as they walk down 1st Street in downtown Sanford - protesting Seminole County’s mask mandate, which took effect today.

Group is headed to county’s govt building. #N13COVID19

⁦@MyNews13⁩ pic.twitter.com/pRFMyVE8u1

— Jeff Allen (@News13JeffAllen) July 1, 2020

let's see, what is different about that phrase as applied to wearing a mask during a pandemic as opposed to supporting the right to have an abortion, hmmmmmmmm, could there be any difference, hmm

considering how busy the traffic is in downtown Sanford, be a shame if someone didn't see a stop sign.

we live in such a stupid fucking country

That said, uh, not cool Neanderthal, esp after we literally saw multiple examples of cops driving into BLM protests.

clearly trolling xxp

I get pretty angry when I see this ignorant bullshit in my own backyard. esp when we're at risk of becoming the next NYC.

have nothing but hate for these people at this point

I understand the anger behind it, just pointing out that it's not a particular good look.

maybe these assholes could go volunteer at the FL DEO and help process the hundreds of thousands of backlogged unemployment claims if they have nothing better to do with their time