COVID-19: Chapter 4 - OPEN FOR BUSINESS

[ViridianDreams]

@beetlejuice

On a call with the governors, audio of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Pence urged them “to continue to explain to your citizens the magnitude of the increase in testing” in addressing the new outbreaks.

And he asked them to “encourage people with the news that we’re safely reopening the country.”

In fact, seven-day averages in several states with outbreaks have increased since May 31, and in at least 14 states, the positive case rate is increasing faster than the increase in the average number of tests, according to an analysis of data collected by The New York Times.

The vice president played down the overall size of the outbreaks, stressing that some states were seeing what he called “intermittent” spikes of the virus.

We need to start a movement to make sure every one of these bastards spends time in prison. This is so fucking wrong.

[MimosaDef]

Holy shit don’t read the replies. What the fuck is wrong with people.

[Churchill]

Dexamethasone first life-saving coronavirus drug

A cheap and widely available drug called dexamethasone can help save the lives of patients who are seriously ill with coronavirus, UK experts have said.

The low-dose steroid treatment is considered a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus.

It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and, for those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.

The drug is part of the world’s biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

Researchers estimate that if the drug had been available in the UK from the start of the coronavirus pandemic up to 5,000 lives could have been saved.

Because it is cheap, it could also be of huge benefit in poor countries struggling with high numbers of Covid-19 patients.

[bobman0330]

In the American system of democracy, political decisions are made by elected officials, not surveys.

[Supwithbates]

@anon38180840

I don’t see how Arizona and South Carolina avoid tipping over. I think we’re looking at people dying in hospital hallways or being “cared for” in field hospitals.

Our Covid hospitalizations have not substantially increased yet, overall bed availability is up, and yesterday we had a significant drop in new cases (SC). Haven’t seen a weekend effect in SC reporting, at least not for cases. SC DHEC is projecting that the spike last week was an anomaly not a trend.

[TheNewT50]

Critical week for COVID-watching. Last week was the first week it became undeniable that COVID was spiking in warm-weather states (AZ, TX, FL, CA, AR, AL, NC, SC).

Will the states that surged to new highs last week continue spiking? Or will they mysteriously level off or decline?

[Supwithbates]

What’s odd is that there appears to be a massive variance in death rate. NY has amazing testing yet like 13 cases per death. SC, FL, TX have had shit for tests yet ratio is closer to 30 cases per death. Anyone know why?

[WichitaDM]

That’s where I am at. If we see these upward trends continue they matter a lot. If they level off or decline from here obviously that is great news for those states.

[TheNewT50]

Yesterday was the fifth highest number of new cases in a day for South Carolina. The preceding four days were the four highest days of new cases for South Carolina.

Yesterday’s drop does not suggest a downward trend in cases there.

[econophile]

New York has good testing now, but they were really only testing hospital admits during the peak. Antibody testing shows about 19% of NYC was positive, so that should be work out to similar fatality rates as other places.

[WichitaDM]

Red states have gotten guidance by Trump/Birx to not report most Covid related deaths with comorbidities. There is a reason why red states have 3x or so less death per case than blue states and it isn’t because they have the most healthy populations.

Trump is pressuring the CDC to change its death-toll methodology and produce...

[TheNewT50]

I think it’s because the really bad outbreak in NYC was on a massively larger scale than anything any other states have seen, and during the height of the outbreak they barely had any testing. They pretty much only were able to test extremely sick people.

After that, they massively scaled up testing. But presumably some very large number of people had COVID between late Feb and early March, and were never tested. They think 20% of NYC’s population had the sickness (perhaps 2 million cases), but only 200,000 positive tests have come up in the city.

2 million cases causing 20,000 deaths makes perfect sense (1% fatality rate, with overburdened hospitals at the beginning).

[Supwithbates]

@TheNewT50

Critical week for COVID-watching. Last week was the first week it became undeniable that COVID was spiking in warm-weather states (AZ, TX, FL, CA, AR, AL, NC, SC).

Will the states that surged to new highs last week continue spiking? Or will they mysteriously level off or decline?

Agreed.

SC DHEC has been pretty spot on on their projections until this spike, so when they came out Saturday saying they expected 2900 cases this week in S.C. it raised my eyebrows…

3 weeks ago 2900 would have seemed super high, now it seems 50% below what I would expect. As you say, it will be critical. Delmarva had a spike a couple weeks ago that seems to have leveled off, maybe we will see the same here

[TheNewT50]

Interesting. They’re already ~50% of the way to 2,900 cases as of Monday. This would be a snap bet bankroll on the over.

[Supwithbates]

FYI this was after Sunday was released

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thestate.com/news/coronavirus/article243526957.html

[WichitaDM]

It’s a good thing no one dies from Covid-19 in Florida because they hit an all time high of new cases today with 2,783.

[Danspartan]

https://twitter.com/kyleayers/status/1272714818957438976?s=21

[kre8tive]

Love the caption

McGinty is my hero. Quality sign.

[Tilted]

Heh. I went to college with Kyle. Weird seeing his tweet here.

[Supwithbates]

Florida Reports new record high cases

Still somehow the Villages are unscathed