outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I read it earlier this year & found it really thoughtful on what drives “our” attitudes to public health, and it solidified some things I had been thinking about science communication and trust in experts (Michael Gove and Laurie Anderson otm basically). Plus I learned some cool facts (see unpopular TIL thread I started because I didn’t think there was anything shocking about my being 35 when I learned the origin of the term conscientious objector)

so i don't think i understand why or how COVID plateaus in a big city so continually and precisely? like NYC - according to the gothamist daily, which i take as gospel - has had a constant of between 300 and 200 new cases and 15 to 5 deaths more or less every day for what feels like a month.

Same with London, I can only assume it's down to lifestyle changes, social distancing and mask wearing but I don't really understand it.

I have massive skepticism about the US Covid numbers since that push from the administration to manipulate the stats in July. Apparently five days ago the CDC returned to collecting the stats.

use https://covidtracking.com/data/charts. they merge stats from individual states/counties, etc. which means that any effort to juice things requires a lot more thumbs on a lot more scales.

otm

serious question: who is still using the CDC/HHS numbers? all the serious analysis i've seen involves aggregating state data, doing some basic data quality cleanup, and trying to make it consistent and comparable. ie, what the federal government should have been from day 1. i can understand why some people would still look to them now, but imo until trump is out of office they should not be your first source.

i think the CDC/HHS are the only source of national hospitalization/ICU utilization data, so it's a problem that they can't be trusted, see july 15 on here https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/daily-log. but for counts and deaths you can just ignore them.

some really interesting stuff in this CovidTracking blog post from July 28:

https://i.imgur.com/Q01lRQ4.png

We compared hospital data published by the HHS with the same numbers as reported by states, and found substantial discrepancies. On average, the HHS reported 24 percent more patients hospitalized with COVID-19 than did the states.

...

Once again, there are several possible reasons for the discrepancies between state and federal datasets.

• In some states, hospitals may be reporting data to the HHS but not to their state public health authorities; we know that in California and Texas, the states are not receiving complete data from some percentage of hospitals, because the states have posted warnings on their COVID-19 dashboards to that effect. (We don’t know if those same hospitals are reporting complete data to HHS.)

• States may be posting lower numbers because their definitions of COVID-19 hospitalizations are more restrictive than the federal definitions. The HHS reports data on all COVID-19 hospitalizations, including suspected cases. But some states may omit suspect or probable cases from their figures. Other states may, like Florida, only report patients with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, which potentially excludes patients who entered the hospital for another condition, then tested positive after admission and became seriously ill with COVID-19.

• States that get current hospitalization data from their state hospital associations, may not be reporting any hospitalization data from Veteran’s Association and other federal hospitals. We are currently conducting outreach to states to determine how widespread this practice is.

• We may be seeing some combination of hospitals double-reporting in error as they get up to speed with the new reporting requirements, and data-entry errors in others cases, but this probably does not explain the national, unidirectional discrepancy between HHS and state reporting.

So what does this all mean for people trying to interpret the data? Until we see the data stabilize at the state level and understand more about the reasons why the state and federal datasets for current COVID-19 hospitalizations don’t match up, we would urge caution in using either state-reported or HHS hospital data in isolation to understand local outbreaks or the burden on healthcare systems.

The sudden change in federal guidelines on coronavirus testing came as a result of pressure from the upper ranks of the Trump administration, a federal health official close to the process tells CNN. https://t.co/nSDJfhlr1I

— CNN (@CNN) August 26, 2020

all that is solid melts into air

always dangerous to bet against Americans shooting themselves in the foot, but I feel like most people want to know if they have a potentially fatal illness

If only to ensure they spread the wealth before they croak.

On the lack of social distancing or face masks at Trump’s #RNC2020 acceptance speech in the middle of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, a senior White House official tells @Acosta: “Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.” 🤯 pic.twitter.com/0T5e6r3BSx

— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) August 28, 2020

:-O

That's certainly possibly true for the people there, for all they keep trying.

Wish they'd hurry the fuck up about it and get it reeeeeeal bad.

wish they'd get COVID in their ass

From my friend's physician group (she is also an MD:

"Grabbed from one of my physician groups with permission:

For EVERYONE getting flooded now by the #COVIDiot #conspiracy that the CDC “quietly updated” numbers that show only 6% of COVID deaths were actually from COVID -
Nobody has JUST COVID and dies. Nobody ever said that... Comorbidities like JUST Obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension (which a >109 million Americans have) will be present in a ton of people who get sick.

When people die at the end of their lives, they don’t ONLY die of like a heart attack OR kidney failure OR stroke OR COVID. It’s not like the movies or TV. THAT’S why death certificates include multiple lines! Just like people don’t die of HIV...They die when it becomes full-blown AIDS and get fungal pneumonias, infectious diarrhea, and leukemias. Just like COVID patients die mainly from multi organ failure, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, myocarditis, and massive clotting.

This is a bastardization of medical data and a rehashing is the conspiracy that says COVID death certificates show multiple causes. Of course they do!!! Almost every single death certificate I have EVER filled out has multiple causes of death with one major one. And I have filled out HUNDREDS of death certificates (again this is from another physician. I have not filled out hundreds😳).

All it says to me in this “quietly updated” CDC data is that 94% of people who died with COVID also had other massive diseases associated with COVID...And that’s something we ALL knew already. We all knew very few people JUST get COVID and fall over & die, with no other reason. That is not news."

2 complicated 4 me, u just die of death.

the fact that 6% of otherwise healthy people die is still pretty scary imo

poorly phrased, shoulda said “6% who died were otherwise healthy”

counterpoint to this whole "doctor" thing: who are these "doctors"? who says they are a doctor? is it the same people they give money to? the secret no one wants you to know is that doctors have just paid a bunch of money for the privilege of being called a doctor. could i be a "doctor"? sure, if i payed a large institution a bunch of money, and agreed that what they told me about medicine was true! good luck with that! what a joke

yeah the "6%" thing was widely known beforehand, no surprise everyone I know posting about it is a total moron

I mean people posting about it as though it means "oh the REAL death count is only 10,000". not you guys

modern medicine is a web of lies!

this is why their idol is called webmd.com

gj, thx

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/us-covid-19-vaccine-refuses-international-effort-coronavirus

Sanjay Gupta made me laugh earlier today (they were talking generally about what to look for the next couple of months): "The virus is very predictable in the way it behaves. You know what else is very predictable in the way it behaves? College students."

this message from CDC's Redfield to all the governors went out on Aug 27 - i think it's just now been brought to light?

CDC Director Redfield sent a letter to governors "urgently" requesting them to expedite applications for vaccine distribution facilities and waive requirements that would prevent them "from becoming fully operational" by November 1, @CBSNews confirms.
First reported by @mcclatchy pic.twitter.com/nFrS7vpA3W

— Sara Cook (@saraecook) September 2, 2020

seems like they're really planning on pushing a bunch of vaccines the week before the election, for real.

pushing a bunch of vaccines the week before the election, for real

Trump badly wants a vaccine made available before Election Day, not for public safety during the election, but as a Big Win he can use to sway all those voters that he's driven away through his mishandling of the pandemic, most especially the elderly voters. It doesn't matter if it's an empty show or a menace to public health. All that matters is making a big noise and creating the perception of success a few days before the voting.

well, if 11/1 is the deadline to be fully operational, they're not going to succeed much in that

like 30 people will get the vaccine at that point

and every one of them will form an indie rock band

Yeah, it’s just so that trump can tweet “THE VACCINE IS ON THE WAY, THE BEAUTIFUL VACCINE IS IN THE MAIL, I PROMISSSS” the night before the election

come on vaccine, oh I swear what he means
in this moment it means everything

doesn't a rushed vaccine kind of cut against the natural antivaxx instincts of his base?

or am i being too logical again? i'm being too logical again.

the vaccination is holy and good if it comes from donald trump. the vaccination is evil and bad if it comes from someone who is not trump

trump is good, things he doesn't like are bad. that's the logic

Maybe the solution is for the left to shadow the right until it becomes indistinguishable from it. Then he'll decree universal healthcare and prison reform and the defunding of police departments and the abolition of ICE, etc., just to pwn the libs.

doesn't a rushed vaccine kind of cut against the natural antivaxx instincts of his base?

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, September 2, 2020 4:22 PM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i have no idea who they think the target market for a vaccine rushed under the trump administration is? people who like trump won't get it. people who don't like trump won't get it. if this is their october surprise it seems like a longshot.

same logic as the "see, I love the Mexican people!" photo of the taco bowl and unearthly sadistic grin, the target audience of which was definitely not Mexican-American. in this case, whether or not his supporters believe a vaccine is valuable, they will enjoy telling the libs that ACTUALLY trump brought a vaccine and nobody gives him credit for it and the liberal fake news media have blocked out the truth that he's done more than any president ever has done for vaccines and the Vaccine People, etc etc.

yep, i agree

I don't really see the presence of a vaccine on Election Day helping him at all honestly

Pretend you are an elderly voter who is sympathetic to republican issues and fearful and mistrustful of social change, especially 'socialism' which is a thinly veiled fear of minorities. iow, you are a natural Trump voter. Except you are scared to death of covid-19. You saw all the pictures of swamped hospitals in Italy and NYC. You know friends or else friends of friends who died in ICU, and you can't understand why Trump claimed it would disappear "like magic", and has been so slow to stop this horrible, horrible frightening situation.

In that case, delivering a vaccine by election day might just reassure you and remove that nagging idea that maybe that nice Joe Biden would do more to save you from dying.

the "vaccine" is just going to be a Snickers bar

he's done more than any president ever has done for vaccines and the Vaccine People, etc etc.

Aimless - I know people like that. They’d still vote Trump even if they were on their deathbed.

Thinking about Nixon and Vietnam and how he handled that just prior to the election in '68, obviously he would have been in back-channel negotiations with the drug companies to postpone any positive vaccine-related news until the day after the election (meanwhile touting his secret plan to end COVID).

The idea that a vaccine is going to be available to the general public by election day is blatant political propaganda. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the NYT would make a headline out of it and keep it up on their website all day

More than 1,000 students at the University of South Carolina tested positive for the coronavirus in the month of August, bringing the positivity rate for the most recent reporting period to nearly 28 percent, according to the university’s data dashboard.

By comparison, the World Health Organization has advised countries against reopening when positivity rates are higher than 5 percent.

That total is nearly double the 553 cases that had been detected when the university last updated its data a week ago, WLTX reported.

Over the weekend, a crowded pool party in an apartment complex near campus raised concerns after the fire chief described a scene that was “like Mardi Gras,” with about 200 mask-free revelers. On Tuesday, USC President Bob Caslen said that students’ off-campus behavior had been “both disappointing and unacceptable,” and that the number of active infections was “larger than we expected at this point.”

...There are no plans for USC to close down, Caslen said at a Wednesday town hall, according to the paper. He expressed hope that the alarming case count would serve as a wake-up call and help the school get the outbreak under control.

“If I don’t test, I don’t have any positives,” he said. “If I don’t have any positives, you don’t make them news and no one pays attention.”

uh, ok. what a weirdass threat, at the end

listen, i could let these people die in secret, if i wanted. ok. by not doing my job. they could die and you wouldn't even know about it until it was too late.