Just the Facts, the Crown virus.

[doc henderson]

10 years from now we will know all the facts.  Our country has moved faster than anytime in history and the world is pulling together.  We have always known the deaths are over reported.  if you are killed in a car accident and have covid, it will be listed on the death certificate.  We did not have a test at the first of the year (did not need it, and this virus was unknown).  so those exposed and those who had it but were not tested and therefore not reported, goes untallied.  any time you estimate and extrapolate, it can have lots of errors, depending on the assumptions you make.  so when you do the math, and arrive at a percent of cases resulting in death, it will be over estimated.   :P

[Claybraker]

Doc I can't find the quote from Dr Fauci back around March or so, he said this is going to be like a game of Whack a Mole as hot spots suddenly appear. This source shows a positive test rate of 15% for Kansas, so be safe.
What U.S. States Are Ready To Test & Trace?

Never saw this web page before.
I dunno about our state. From what I can tell they've done almost no contact tracing here. Least wise everyone we know that's had it, the people they were contact with haven't been contacted.

I've been following that from the beginning, states change from doing fine, to not so good. It's updated daily. Then back to doing better. Whack a Mole, as predicted. Here's another site you might find interesting, risk of an event size n of at least 1 person having covid down to county level. n adjustable from 10 in increments. As a 3rd generation Bulldawg it's painful to say something nice about Ga Tech.  https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu

[SpaceBus]

I disagree about the deaths being over reported. If anything they are under reported. IF you have Covid and die in a car crash, you will not be listed to have died of Covid unless you died of Covid while in the hospital after the crash. In fact, nobody "dies of Covid" and instead it would be listed as complications due to Covid19. Even if you are diabetic and get covid you could die of complications due to the diabetes and not be listed as dying of coivd. There is no evidence of hospitals falsifying death certificates. 

[doc henderson]

no one is falsifying death certificates.  we always list primary and secondary illness.  the government is counting all death that lists covid.
edit:  I will try to find out more.  

[doc henderson]

there was talk that hospitals get more money if it is covid.  this is not directly true, but like any disaster, if they spent money on preparing or recovering from a catastrophe, they can get reimburse.  so if they buy a bunch of ppe, or paprs, or vents, that can be reimburse.  one could argue that no one dies from the covid virus, but from the complications of inflammation, or secondary pneumonia, or being weak and a fall and hitting your head.  or the systemic inflammatory response.  i do not care to argue the point, as i said, we will not know the true numbers for years to come.

[kantuckid]

"Somebody" gets money for covid... My local sheriffs dept in a tiny county with a very small sheriff's dept., no red lights, etc., per just told us the sheriff got $89,000 to be used for PPE and to pay covid related overtime. How that manifests is a very good question. Once you've spent thousands for mask for a couple of deputies then the rest for overtime? Why overtime as we have only 14 total cases in the county since this all got started. 
I am wondering how contact tracing takes place in my areas health district of like 5 counties. For one thing they are all at home not at work place like our medical center staff who began delivering services as soon as the guv allowed it. Early on our health district stopped tracing efforts having said that it was impossible to do with the staff they have as far too many people involved once someone goes to work, church, etc., interacts with others. 

[Ianab]

I am wondering how contact tracing takes place in my areas health district of like 5 counties. For one thing they are all at home not at work place like our medical center staff who began delivering services as soon as the guv allowed it. Early on our health district stopped tracing efforts having said that it was impossible to do with the staff they have as far too many people involved once someone goes to work, church, etc., interacts with others

This is a problem if you have a lot of cases in the community, and everyone wandering around like normal. The number of cases / contacts become impossible to manage. If you can get the number of cases down, and reduce the number of contacts then it becomes possible to trace the links. So if there are only 1 case today, and they only went to work, and only interacted with 3 people there, and only went to the supermarket on the way home, then that becomes possible to track. 

If you have 50 cases and they went 10 different places during the day, and interacted with 100s of people, yes it's pretty much a hopeless task. 

One mistake I think is being made a lot is that people think that if the case numbers a low, then they can go back to normal. The one thing that guarantees is that case numbers won't stay low for long, and the test results lag at least a week behind the rate that people are being infected, with the death toll maybe another 2 weeks after that. That's basically what happened in Australia. Their initial lock down was pretty successful, slightly lower rates than even NZ, with slightly less restrictions. Great. Then they basically relaxed, same as we did, and new cases sneaked in through the border. Although community cases started cropping up, no real controls were put in place because the numbers seemed small. Then over the weeks they kept growing, and more controls were gradually implemented, until they ended up in a strict lockdown again. Their "2nd Wave" was about 4X what the initial outbreak was. Here in NZ when a couple of new cases were found in the community measures were announced that day. not a full lockdown, but level 3(out of 4) for Auckland, and L2 for the rest of the country. Not a full shutdown, but gatherings limited etc. AND they started tracing those cases, where they worked, went to church, shopped etc. They found more cases in those places, and again traced the contacts of them. Took a few weeks to shut that outbreak down, but it ended with maybe 10% of the original outbreak (which had spread across the country before anyone really knew). 

Anyway, if you are questioning why restriction get imposed when there are only a handful of cases, that's why. The less cases that they are chasing, the easier and quicker it is to control. At least you would hope health officials are looking at what has and hasn't worked in other places, and adjusting their plans accordingly. 

[kantuckid]

Yes I get the tracing numbers easily taking quantum leaps but our bunch quit the effort back in late spring, early summer? I'm wondering what caused them to quit other than as was stated to be a numbers thing. Now tracing has taken on more discussion yet apparently none is done by my area? 
My wife & I are seniors, I'm borderline asthmatic and believe me we don't take covid-19 lightly plus my wife provides care in her Mothers home, age 96. 
I've lately been in several building supply places and it's quite obvious that tradespeople do not take covid seriously-the employees do if it's a corporate owned but not if it's locally owned with no handed down mandates. I went into a HVAC/plumbing place which had free masks and hand sanitizer and two guys/service guys were leaning on the freebie table yet no PPE. FWIW, the same place had a huge PPE display all around those same two guys. 
The other place I went in, early a.m. trucks from contractors had the off-road diesel pump blocked so I mask up and go in to ask for someone to move- the place full of coffee drinking trades people and nary a mask! 
My thinking is that the "I work for myself", "I make my own rules mentality" is at play? 
The topic of this thread, "just the facts" sure is lacking in the media and I don't only mean this in a political way at all. There is much conflicting information out there! 
It seems our population is in either a constant worry mode or could care less mode or like my wife & I , do our best until a vaccine arrives, then get it mode. 

[Jeff]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (12/12) Movie CLIP - The Scream (1978) HD - YouTube

[kantuckid]

the nightmares will begin tonite?

[SpaceBus]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (12/12) Movie CLIP - The Scream (1978) HD - YouTube

I saw this for the first time a few weeks ago and it definitely holds up well! 

[Sedgehammer]

Yes I get the tracing numbers easily taking quantum leaps but our bunch quit the effort back in late spring, early summer? I'm wondering what caused them to quit other than as was stated to be a numbers thing. Now tracing has taken on more discussion yet apparently none is done by my area?
My wife & I are seniors, I'm borderline asthmatic and believe me we don't take covid-19 lightly plus my wife provides care in her Mothers home, age 96.
I've lately been in several building supply places and it's quite obvious that tradespeople do not take covid seriously-the employees do if it's a corporate owned but not if it's locally owned with no handed down mandates. I went into a HVAC/plumbing place which had free masks and hand sanitizer and two guys/service guys were leaning on the freebie table yet no PPE. FWIW, the same place had a huge PPE display all around those same two guys.
The other place I went in, early a.m. trucks from contractors had the off-road diesel pump blocked so I mask up and go in to ask for someone to move- the place full of coffee drinking trades people and nary a mask!
My thinking is that the "I work for myself", "I make my own rules mentality" is at play?
The topic of this thread, "just the facts" sure is lacking in the media and I don't only mean this in a political way at all. There is much conflicting information out there!
It seems our population is in either a constant worry mode or could care less mode or like my wife & I , do our best until a vaccine arrives, then get it mode.

I think for most is not a worry, as if your under 64 and healthy there's not much to worry about. As the chart shows, flu is more deadly for this under 64. This same age group doesn't take very many precautions for the flu either.

[doc henderson]

in our county, the outbreaks have been nursing homes and staff, and the local prison and officers.  not so much just out and about i should say.  most of our hospital employees that have been positive, got it from friends, roommates and family.  stay safe all.  the flu season will hopefully not be as bad with all the precautions, and balance out covid.  

[doctorb]

Here's a fact from the WHO

I hate to repost something from another thread, but I hope it is informative regarding Covid vs. flu.


Got to put my medical editors hat on here.  You are falling into what has been dubbed, the "percentage trap".   % mortality is not the sole determinant of the "lethality" of a disease.  We see this error in submitted manuscripts all the time.  I'll try and explain...

Let's say the article is statistically correct (I am not suggesting that it is or is not), and the % of infected people who die are equal between Covid and the flu.   Pick a number, a small number. 0.1%. Ok. And let's say 50,000 get infected with the flu, so 50 people die.  If Covid infected the population at the same rate, and 50,000 people contracted Covid, then it too would kill 50 people.  But, in real life, it's much different.

Covid is a much more virulent infection than the flu.  It is much easier to catch and spreads like wildfire.  How do we know?  Because 7+ million people in the US have been diagnosed with Covid within a 7 month time frame, a number that far surpasses the annual number of influenza infections.  So even if the % mortality of the 2 diseases is the same, Covid is much more lethal, and will kill many, many more people than the flu.

The Spanish flu killed 675,000 Americans.  It took a couple of years to run its course.  That was at a time when therapeutic medical treatment and support were vastly different than now, so it's not surprising that a large number of patients, and a larger percentage, died from the Spanish flu.

Covid has killed more people (211,000) in the US in 7 months than died of the seasonal flu over the last 5 years combined.  We may have another 100,000 deaths or more before the new year.  Then there's next year.....We could easily reach a final death toll equal to 50% of that we suffered in 1918-1919. How much of that difference between our death toll from Covid and that seen with the Spanish flu is due to differences in the diseases versus differences in the treatment?  No one knows, but if I told you that we lost 350,000 people to Covid, I'll bet your not thinking it's just like the flu.

So don't let statistics prop up your desire to minimize the impact of this virus.  When comparing diseases, you need to compare all of their characteristics, not just a single statistical determination.  It is a very easy trap in which to fall.

[Jeff]

I actually understood that! Thankyou.

[Claybraker]

Thanks Doctorb I remember the late 70's early 80's when most STD'd could be cured with a silver bullet penicillin, although one of my fellow soldiers described in viviid detail his treatment for the Bull Head Clap. His description 40 ago years was enough to convince me I dont want it.

[kantuckid]

Though most obviously anecdotal-> my DIL in AL, her older sister, whos still young @ early 40's a single parent, healthy, active, petite, vibrant person until she contracted covid-19 at the N AL hospital (most likely place) where she's a PHd psychologist. She was a school psychologist but that job died out from covid-doesn't show "dead jobs" on the chart in discussion).
 I suppose she's been called one of those active covid-19 persons who's asymptomatic ?, but her life's reality is that she's felt like crap in myriad ways for months now. Missed much work and continues to hope for better days. There's more to her covid affections but thats the gist of it.
  

[Sedgehammer]

Really feel for those that it never really goes away. 

[Banjo picker]

 

 Probably wondering why I put this picture on this thread.  As I said previously, I didn't cut them, but the landowner and his help did.  Must have had a small saw.  Anyway I bought all the logs laying where they were felled.  Track hoe operator finished pushing them over to control where they went.  The track hoe Operator was supposed To move them from a low area to higher ground for me to load.  That Hurricane before this one was supposed to bring us 5 inches of rain.  Operator don't show up, so I start moving the logs with my Kubota....took me about 5 hours.  Land owner showed up that afternoon, and said "I hope he is alright, he wasn't feeling good".  I found out a couple days later that while I was moving the logs he finally went to the Dr here in Iuka.  They put him in an ambulance and headed to Tupelo....I think....13 miles down the road they turned around and came back.  He died.  He was a very well respected contractor, and much liked in the area. But I am glad I didn't come in contact with him.  The landowner didn't get it either, even after eating a watermelon together on his back porch.  Tim

[doc henderson]

I do not disagree with Dr B.  the thing I find interesting is gearing up and fighting a brand new unknown viral pathogen.  it could have been so much worse.  Our social distancing and mask wearing was to slow the spread, not to prevent it entirely.  The flu had a vaccine (some years better than others)  and antivirals (we now have one for covid).  and other therapies like antibodies and steroid use to decrease the SARs pneumonitis.  stay safe folks.

[Ianab]

I suppose she's been called one of those active covid-19 persons who's asymptomatic ?, but her life's reality is that she's felt like crap in myriad ways for months now. Missed much work and continues to hope for better days. There's more to her covid affections but thats the gist of it.

I don't think anyone has really studied the long term effects of the virus, so most reports like this are "anecdotal", but increasingly common. 

I seems that it can not only affect the lungs, but also the brain, heart and possibly other organs. And damage to those organs can take a long time to heal, if they ever do. Estimates I've read suggest that there may be about the same number suffering longer term affects as actually die. And because the individual symptoms can be so varied it's hard to directly correlate then to the virus. 

[Walnut Beast]

The NFL is getting a surge in cases. There coming down hard on the coaches for not properly wearing a face mask 😷 but all the players don't wear face masks and in close proximity face to face. There the ones testing positive but the coaches are getting fined 100k plus when it slips down off there face when no one is in close proximity yelling. WHAT A JOKE!!!!

[Sedgehammer]

The NFL is getting a surge in cases. There coming down hard on the coaches for not properly wearing a face mask 😷 but all the players don't wear face masks and in close proximity face to face. There the ones testing positive but the coaches are getting fined 100k plus when it slips down off there face when no one is in close proximity yelling. WHAT A JOKE!!!!

What's a NFL?

[kantuckid]

Without any politics-
 I'm bothered to hear MD's telling us on national TV that they'd choose a mask over a viable vaccine. I'm not attacking those docs here, just the statement on it's own merits.
  In my small mind I'm thinking that a vaccine might not be as certain prevention wise but I damned sure don't want to wear a mask the rest of my life? And furthermore, in the USA at least, I don't see people wearing masks over the seasonal flu vaccines which are most years pretty effective.

[Mossy Chariot]

I question the number of deaths reported in the U.S. due to COVID (currently reported as 219,800).  Illinois Department of Public Health Director, Dr. Ngozi Ezike explained that anyone who passes away after testing positive for the virus is included as a COVID death.

"If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it's still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who's listed as a COVID death doesn't mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death." Dr. Ezike outlined.

Too bad we don't really know the "facts" about much of anything that is reported by the media.