If I remember correctly, and I’m not sure that I do, the antibody tests aren’t that reliable. Also it seems that people without detectable antibody will still have non-antibody mediated immune responses to the virus.
So, I’m not sure how much value checking for antibodies is when it comes to deciding whom to vaccinate.
Huh, that’s weird, I seem to remember a certain churchill taunting US folks like three weeks ago that we weren’t going to get vaccines until like 2022
We are already at 0.15% of the entire country dead from this given we are underestimating deaths by 57% based on excess deaths (and that underestimation % goes up each time we get more numbers on excess deaths)
Yeah, we need less vaccines as a % of population since we’ve already sacrificed a ton to the gods of the economy.
I’m not saying it’s dropping until we start getting post-Thanksgiving results back.
Positivity rate was supposed to decrease last week and even some this as people get tested before/after their trips even if no reason to believe they have it.
If positivity rate is still going down next week then I’ll agree.
They did do mask mandate so it’s probable that it should go down some, other than the counter-acting force the other way of thanksgiving get togethers increasing spread.
Again we have a “disagreeement” when someone applies their own definition of a term and then argument boils down to an issue of semantics.
Ifr is the number for the overall population. We can and do define overall population in different ways. Could be countries. Could be US states. I think used generically we mean countries. That is inclusive of the given geographies demographics.
If we treat better we can lower ifr over time (and we can treat worse if we overwhelm healthcare capcity). The idea that we can artificially adjust demographics of the infected is a pipe dream so far. It gets the olds eventually.
But mostly ifr is a function of the disease and to a lesser extent a function of our ability to treat it.
Changing demographics of who is infected is just like mask wearing. It’s an R mitigation strategy. The underlying ifr remains the same.
We may not ever get a great overall ifr number. We just need to accept and deal with estimates.
Also herd immunity is the same thing. 30% doesn’t throw the spread down 30%. Most of the reduced spread kicks in as you approach the herd number. For a large intermixed population that only happens in practical terms from vaccination. People don’t stay put, they move in and out of areas. Some types of immunity dont last that long. Lots of travel and mobility.
im not an epidemiologist or a doctor. I am fairly read on the subject and my education is at least adjacent. And I don’t claim to have true textbook knowledge of the definitions, but I think some of the lay defintions used here are pretty far off the mark. Mrs Spartan has a law degree. I butcher the meanings of legal terms all the time.
This is not a criticism. It’s something we all do to try and understand things. It is frustrating when we talk past each other when folks share a pretty good level of agreement.
All— let’s wait a full week to get past the Thanksgiving reporting biases. I watch data come off on real time for a living. It’s is frustrating to wait and ignore obviously bad data when it comes out. I’ve seen many a process get swung as people instantly respond to bad data and then have to respond in the other direction a shift later. Have literally watched the day and night shift data interpretations cause a cycling over a number of days. (At least here we are just projecting and not turning nobs on a pump or something).
We hit a new high for cases today also which is just fantastic because it means we are a bare minimum of 3-4 weeks from peak death.
Medicare finalizing pay cuts for ER and ICU work too. Doesn’t affect me at all but lots of people are pissed
I’m up late tonight because my family member I spoke of in this post just passed away.
Rough timeline, they were first diagnosed with covid in mid October and spent a couple weeks in the hospital at that point, released and back in with covid related pneumonia a few weeks later. Sent home again because they didn’t have room in an overcrowded hospital but returned a couple days later as things deteriorated. Passed after a little more than a week in on the final stay.
I spoke to them before their passing and they were at peace with it which helps a lot. Spoke to their doctor at one point over the phone who was incredibly kind and caring and went over details of everything that was happening. Family member told me how wonderful the care had been from every healthcare worker they dealt with in each of their stays in the hospital.
Those of you who work in healthcare, I don’t know how the hell you are doing this right now and I wish we were better for you as a country. You don’t deserve to have to deal with this daily or what is coming your way over the next couple months.
So for the last couple of weeks I’ve been hearing low flying helicopters all the time. Very low. Enough the ground shakes. My buddy who’s lived here for years says he’s never noticed much before, but now he’s noticed too. Our theories were: political campaigns going to a private airport since they were peppering the great Commonwealth of PA with events, some weird military exercise (these are big choppers), or covid medevacs.
It just happened again so I decided screw it, enough conspiracy theories, I’m finding out.
Pulled up the radar and snagged the helicopter. It’s an Airbus helicopter that’s usually used for military, but sometimes medical stuff. Found the owner and it’s a medical transport company. Found a picture of the helicopter using the tail number and it’s got the logo of a major area hospital. Found the flight path and radar is picking it up a few blocks from a local hospital in their network.
So it’s almost certainly COVID medevacs. Probably happening 3-5 times a week, and this is a facility with about 150 beds but no ICU. That seems like a pretty high rate. Also seems not great that they’re medevacing them instead of taking them in an ambulance or something since it’s a 45 minute drive. They must be in bad shape for it to require that expense.
Meanwhile you can’t get a test in the area, and we’ve been hearing more sirens too. Looks like the Philly suburbs are in the process of being hit hard.
@CaffeineNeeded @Will1530 any insight into the frequency for a facility that size, or the fact that they’re using helicopters instead of ambulances even though this was after 1am and there’s no traffic and it’s not super far away?
Transfer patterns are super local things that neither of us will have insight into
Holy shit. Most of my county’s hospitals are full and are on “divert” status. The ER’s are overflowing because the wait for a COVID bed is too long. They expect the others to overflow soon.
Meanwhile we have a great county health commissioner, she was right on top of it in the spring. Blue area. No shutdown now. I’m starting to think there aren’t going to be any shutdowns. Maybe they’re just going to let it rip because there’s no federal aid and most people can’t afford one?
They’re just urging people to wear masks, wash their hands, and avoid gatherings.
The insane thing is that now, the end is in sight. Like the UK are going to start vaccinating people next week. The case for lockdowns and trying to run out the clock before a vaccine is stronger than it has ever been. I posted once before that if I thought there was never going to be a vaccine, I would become an anti-lockdown guy, just because they are not sustainable in the long term and we would just have to learn to live with COVID being a substantial cause of death in older people. We’re now at the opposite end of that spectrum, with COVID control right around the corner, and the US is going to eclipse the single-day death total from 9/11 pretty soon. It was what 2,831 today and 9/11 was 2,977. 100% going to get there.
There aren’t going to be any shutdowns. It’s Die for the Dow Joans time all the way and race to vaccinate people and hope that works.
Does every city’s mayor have to do this?
These fucking people. I mean I get that it’s always easier to see the flaws in the way someone else is handling a situation, and I likely do things that others would think I shouldn’t be, but cmon man!
