Georgia reopened...media is quiet about numbers

hedrick

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The IHME model has been consistently low. It has tended to show deaths decreasing rapidly starting the next day after the model was done, when many states remained at the peak for a while.
 

NerdGirl123

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Bear in mind that the numbers will never be completely accurate. It's been proven that Covid death rates are inflated because a death is still counted if Covid is listed anywhere in the patient's history, whether Covid actually caused the death or not.
 

tango

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Its seems that some southern states that opened early may be seeing numbers go up now.

It is hardly surprising that case counts will rise as people start to move about more.

The original narrative was to flatten the curve. From the outset the idea wasn't necessarily even that fewer people would need hospital treatment or die, merely that the people who needed extreme treatment could be spread out so we wouldn't end up shoveling bodies into mass incinerators because we had no other means to deal with so many deaths.

Now the narrative has shifted away from "flatten the curve" to the idea that the virus can somehow be defeated. It's a constant shifting of the rules, shuffling of the goalposts, that creates the illusion of the government being some kind of guardian angel creating safety when the reality is anything but that.
 

NewCreation435

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It is hardly surprising that case counts will rise as people start to move about more.

The original narrative was to flatten the curve. From the outset the idea wasn't necessarily even that fewer people would need hospital treatment or die, merely that the people who needed extreme treatment could be spread out so we wouldn't end up shoveling bodies into mass incinerators because we had no other means to deal with so many deaths.

Now the narrative has shifted away from "flatten the curve" to the idea that the virus can somehow be defeated. It's a constant shifting of the rules, shuffling of the goalposts, that creates the illusion of the government being some kind of guardian angel creating safety when the reality is anything but that.
I agree
 

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I'm glad that President Trump said he wouldn't shut the country down again if there is a second wave. Smart man. This first shut down was based on fear and unknowns and now that we're seeing what the numbers are we know that we just need to protect our elderly and those in high risk categories in a far different way. What we did now really didn't work because those in nursing homes are still catching it.
 

NewCreation435

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I'm glad that President Trump said he wouldn't shut the country down again if there is a second wave. Smart man. This first shut down was based on fear and unknowns and now that we're seeing what the numbers are we know that we just need to protect our elderly and those in high risk categories in a far different way. What we did now really didn't work because those in nursing homes are still catching it.
Nursing homes and other enclosed facilities have really been hit hard that is for sure
 

tango

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Nursing homes and other enclosed facilities have really been hit hard that is for sure

I read an article a couple of days back indicating that nursing homes in FL hadn't been hit hard while those in PA and NY had been. It mentioned how PA and NY didn't allow nursing homes to restrict return of residents from hospitals based on COVID status while those in FL required they be clear before readmitting them.

Naturally a lot of numeric projections are speculative but apparently if the death rates in nursing homes in PA and NY were on a par with FL we'd have seen something like 15,000 fewer deaths.
 

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In NJ patients are returned from hospitals to their nursing home, but only if the homes can keep them separate. If not they have to be moved to a home that can do that. Are NY and PA doing the same?
 

tango

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In NJ patients are returned from hospitals to their nursing home, but only if the homes can keep them separate. If not they have to be moved to a home that can do that. Are NY and PA doing the same?

I've only read a couple of articles that detail NY and PA specifically and, as with much else, trying to get at the reality behind the political spin and partisan howling on both sides is tricky.

One post I did find interesting was someone on Facebook who was howling about PA taking COVID patients into a nursing home, with a screen shot of an article to prove their point. The curious thing was that the screen shot detailed a negative pressure wing of the nursing home that was used for COVID patients, which did extremely little to support the point the person howling was trying to make.

It would be interesting to figure out if there is some other reason why nursing homes in FL apparently have death rates so much lower. Given the time of year and the weather associated with FL and PA/NY/NJ I start to wonder if it could be as simple as vitamin D - I've seen a couple of articles recently that correlate vitamin D deficiency to COVID mortality. Correlation doesn't prove causation but from what I recall the correlation is strong enough that it could be a fairly major factor.

As an aside the vitamin D idea could also explain why the virus causes a higher death rate in blacks than in whites - apparently the darker someone's skin the more sunlight they need to produce vitamin D, which would mean white people (very pale people in particular) need less exposure to the sun than black people.

I'm at least somewhat speculating here but the vitamin D line does sound quite interesting.
 

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On the original topic, cases and deaths in a Georgia have started to creep up. As long as it doesn’t go too far that may be acceptable, but it will take weeks to know for sure. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/georgia-coronavirus-cases.html

Do you know if those are actual new cases or if it has numbers that include people now getting the antibody testing? Some states are including antibody testing which shouldn't be included since we don't know how far back they were infected.
 

hedrick

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Yes, but NYT uses lots of data sources, not just official State totals. They attempt to get only actual cases, including "probable" where possible, but not antibody tests.

Even if states don't include antibody tests, testing is ramping up, so you'd expect that tests would be increasing.

That's why I chose a source that gives deaths. That's a bit clearer, though because of variable reporting delays on weekends, you need to look at moving averages over a period of days. You'll note that the deaths number isn't going up quite as much as the new cases number, though deaths also lag by several weeks.

At any rate, there's reason to watch Georgia, but at the moment it's not clear how significant the recent increases are.
 

hedrick

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NJ uses primarily hospital admissions for Covid. It's not subject to the odd variations of testing, reacts faster than deaths, and is connected with the actual problem, which is possible overload of hospitals. Unfortunately these numbers aren't widely reported for states other than NJ.
 

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I'm looking at the Georgia covid site now and I'm just not seeing a huge increase in death counts and even the cumulative case counts aren't a catastrophe.
 

tango

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NJ uses primarily hospital admissions for Covid. It's not subject to the odd variations of testing, reacts faster than deaths, and is connected with the actual problem, which is possible overload of hospitals. Unfortunately these numbers aren't widely reported for states other than NJ.

The original problem was the fear that hospitals would be overwhelmed, hence the whole "flatten the curve" meme. It's just that the goalposts have moved so far now the original problem is a distant memory.
 

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The original problem was the fear that hospitals would be overwhelmed, hence the whole "flatten the curve" meme. It's just that the goalposts have moved so far now the original problem is a distant memory.
I can’t speak for other states, but as soon as hospital admissions had been going down for two weeks, NJ started relaxing. We’re doing it slowly, so we can see whether the problem starts coming back. But I don’t think there’s been any moving of goalposts.

there was actually a second purpose of the original exercise. It was to get us to a position where further cases could be treated by the kind of contact tracing that is typically done for dangerous infections. I think most states are about ready for that, which is why they’ve all started backing off restrictions.

I looked at stories from March 16, which is when Trump recommended distancing and N.Y. and NJ acted. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/tru...crisis-could-stretch-into-july-or-august.html. Note that Trump said the battle was going to go into July and August, though the initial two week recommendations wouldn’t necessarily be extended that long.

Here’s a typical article from that time period. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-...l-distancing-flatten-curve-coronavirus-2020-3. One well publicized implication of flattening the curve was that it would prolong the epidemic. This article was pretty blunt. When asked how long it would last, the answer was until it was over. If you paid attention to people other than a Trump, what you would have expected is just what has happened.
 
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tango

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I can’t speak for other states, but as soon as hospital admissions had been going down for two weeks, NJ started relaxing. We’re doing it slowly, so we can see whether the problem starts coming back. But I don’t think there’s been any moving of goalposts.

If the idea was to flatten the curve as originally suggested the admission rate wouldn't start to decline for an extended period. If the whole idea is to take something that's essentially a bell curve and stretch it out (i.e. not reducing the hospitalisation total, just slowing the flow to make it manageable) then by the nature of the process it makes it very slow.

I forget the precise details but PA's governor imposed metrics that required very low rates of new cases, and then partially reopened some counties while requiring other counties with objectively better figures to stay closed.

there was actually a second purpose of the original exercise. It was to get us to a position where further cases could be treated by the kind of contact tracing that is typically done for dangerous infections. I think most states are about ready for that, which is why they’ve all started backing off restrictions.

The problem with contact tracing this one, at least from what we are being told, seems to be that you can be totally asymptomatic while still being highly contagious. If you don't know you are infected, you never show any symptoms and therefore never even think of the possibility that you might be infected, how would you get into a contact tracing system at all? How would anyone even know they needed to consider who you might have been in contact with?

Another issue is with the obsession over this mysterious figure of six feet. Theoretically speaking, if you could get something like a phone app that everybody agreed to use (and for now let's ignore the glaring problems with privacy etc) and that could tell who you had been close to for any length of time, the data it produces is still of very limited use. Taking hypothetical cases to make the point, if you stood back-to-back outdoors with someone who was not only infected but one of the "superemitters" who sprays more saliva than is usual and stayed touching them back-to-back for an hour before going your separate ways the chances are you'd be perfectly safe. On the flipside the infected person with powerful lungs who stayed more than six feet away but who coughed near a fan that blew the moisture droplets into your face could infect you even though there isn't a form of contact tracing out there that would register you'd been "in contact" with them.

I looked at stories from March 16, which is when Trump recommended distancing and N.Y. and NJ acted. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/tru...crisis-could-stretch-into-july-or-august.html. Note that Trump said the battle was going to go into July and August, though the initial two week recommendations wouldn’t necessarily be extended that long.

It's probably safe to say a global pandemic will go on for many months, the question isn't so much how long the virus will last but how long specific phases of trying to contain/manage/fight the virus will last.

Apparently now Dr Fauci is saying that an extended lockdown could do "irreparable damage" (https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-fauci-irreparable-damage-stay-at-home-too-long-2020-5). I'd have thought that much was obvious from weeks ago. Even if the lockdowns had been lifted a month ago the damage is still huge, simply because a precedent has been set that state governors may simply shut down businesses on a whim and order moratoriums on rent without compensation to those affected.
 
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