COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[Coleman]

Let's see:
Daily Deaths (7-day moving average)
Spain: 2
Italy: 6
France: 10
United States: 1,129

bUt We HaVe A bIgGeR pOpUlAtIoN!!

[Coleman]

'Murica!

We aren't getting past this until a vaccine is created and then I am not even sure of it then.

30% of Americans have already said they won't take the vaccine.

You can't fix stupid

[cheebs09]

30% of Americans have already said they won't take the vaccine.

You can't fix stupid

This makes me wonder if it doesn't matter who was President, we would have still had a tough go of it. It probably would have been better, but we are so divided on each side, it's tough to come together on anything. The federal government can only do so much. At the end of the day, it's each person who has to have some discipline to get through this.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

If you're a small business owner, it's short term gain or certain death. Make mandates about mask usage, do what you can to encourage or enforce correct behavior with the pandemic, but vilifying people trying to make any money they can as "short term gain", and somehow selfish creating long term pain, is ignorant as to what many business owners are going through.

I think this fits a narrative and certainly can be true to capture a short-term opportunity like Sturgis.

However, if you are a ongoing concern, the most important thing you can do is create an environment where the most people feel safe and willing to return.  That is actually what is holding back the economy (virus/willingness to spend/uncertainty of employment).  Catering to the folks who militantly believe they are safe everywhere is not the best way to make it to the other side in my opinion...

[tower912]

I have spelled out elsewhere how I think COVID should have been handled.   As to mask wearing and vaccines, I agree that there would have been a percentage that would refuse vaccines regardless of who was in charge.   
(A) 70% gets close to herd immunity.
(B) to quote a famous comedian philosopher, "You can't fix stupid.".   Let them catch it.

[Jockey]

If you're a small business owner, it's short term gain or certain death. Make mandates about mask usage, do what you can to encourage or enforce correct behavior with the pandemic, but vilifying people trying to make any money they can as "short term gain", and somehow selfish creating long term pain, is ignorant as to what many business owners are going through.

On the surface, your suggestion about masks sounds reasonable. But I have been to Sturgis. The rally there is several degrees right of Attila the Hun. If there was a mask mandate and police attempted to enforce it, riots would ensue (and trump would defend the rioters).

[Not all scoop users are created equal apparently]

Me too. But to be fair to Eng, back then many assumed CDC would be allowed (and able) to do its job like it did in previous pandemics. I certainly assumed that back in February. Then CDC messed up the initial tests, got pulled off the case ("I take no responsibility at all"), and suddenly the states were forced to deal with something they were never supposed to have to deal with. Game over.

Eng, was not meant to call you out, but rather wistful thinking on my part.

[Jockey]

30% of Americans have already said they won't take the vaccine.

You can't fix stupid

Things may change by the time a vaccine is ready for the public.

If Biden is in charge most people will get the vaccine because it will be the experts that are recommending it and vouching for its safety. If trump is in charge, it will be at least 30%, maybe much higher.

We can laugh about trump's sex alien witch doctor or the utter incompetence of Birx, but people take their lives seriously. Even Rs. People absolutely will not trust trump with their lives or the lives of their families. By shutting out Fauci and other true experts in the field, he is courting one more disaster. I know I won't get it if it is pushed by trump and Jared without the experts being fully on board.

What would you do if trump says the vaccine is ready and Fauci says it hasn't had enough testing?

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

I have spelled out elsewhere how I think COVID should have been handled.   As to mask wearing and vaccines, I agree that there would have been a percentage that would refuse vaccines regardless of who was in charge.   
(A) 70% gets close to herd immunity.
(B) to quote a famous comedian philosopher, "You can't fix stupid.".   Let them catch it.

Frenns posted the article last week where it's estimated only 43% to 66% need to be vaccinated for herd immunity.

[GooooMarquette]

Frenns posted the article last week where it's estimated only 43% to 66% need to be vaccinated for herd immunity.

But those percentages are completely dependent on the effectiveness of the vaccine. If the vaccine is only 50% or less effective (a highly likely scenario), the numbers go up.

[shoothoops]

"How the Pandemic defeated America."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/?utm_term=2020-08-03T09%3A00%3A36&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=the-atlantic

[The Sultan]

"How the Pandemic defeated America."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/?utm_term=2020-08-03T09%3A00%3A36&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=the-atlantic

Man is that spot on:

"Despite ample warning, the U.S. squandered every possible opportunity to control the coronavirus. And despite its considerable advantages—immense resources, biomedical might, scientific expertise—it floundered. While countries as different as South Korea, Thailand, Iceland, Slovakia, and Australia acted decisively to bend the curve of infections downward, the U.S. achieved merely a plateau in the spring, which changed to an appalling upward slope in the summer. "The U.S. fundamentally failed in ways that were worse than I ever could have imagined," Julia Marcus, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, told me.

Since the pandemic began, I have spoken with more than 100 experts in a variety of fields. I've learned that almost everything that went wrong with America's response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable. A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation's ability to prevent the pathogen's spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation's social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood. The same social-media platforms that sowed partisanship and misinformation during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa and the 2016 U.S. election became vectors for conspiracy theories during the 2020 pandemic.

The U.S. has little excuse for its inattention. In recent decades, epidemics of SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1 flu, Zika, and monkeypox showed the havoc that new and reemergent pathogens could wreak. Health experts, business leaders, and even middle schoolers ran simulated exercises to game out the spread of new diseases. In 2018, I wrote an article for The Atlantic arguing that the U.S. was not ready for a pandemic, and sounded warnings about the fragility of the nation's health-care system and the slow process of creating a vaccine. But the COVID‑19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society: its shortsighted leadership, its disregard for expertise, its racial inequities, its social-media culture, and its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism."

[Babybluejeans]

In the same way major wars and events have marked the close of past empires, the 2020 pandemic will be the moment that history points to as the end of the U.S. empire.

[shoothoops]

Indiana University Football Freshman Offensive Lineman Brady Feeney is in a very difficult battle with COVID-19 according to his mom, also having heart issues in addition to breathing.

https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1290372030085451776?s=19

[JWags85]

In the same way major wars and events have marked the close of past empires, the 2020 pandemic will be the moment that history points to as the end of the U.S. empire.

SHEESH that's a hot take. The US has handled this poorly but nothing you could base the "decline" of the US vs other Western nations (education, life span, infant mortality, per capita GDP, etc...) will be long term seismically shifted in ways that didn't affect other nations. This is a "rah rah US NUMBA 1" objection as much as pointing out how quickly people make incorrect long term assessments based on short term situations.

Indiana University Football Freshman Offensive Lineman Brady Feeney is in a very difficult battle with COVID-19 according to his mom, also having heart issues in addition to breathing.

https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1290372030085451776?s=19

Not for nothing, and thoughts and prayers with him and his family, but this is the kind of "young athlete" who would have issues. He may have been healthy, but he's 300+ lbs and surely not chiseled out of granite. He's listed at 325 according to IU, and 285 in his senior year recruiting information. If with some exaggeration on IU's part, it's very common for young OL to put on unhealthy levels of weight in a hurry to get up to D1 standard size. Which is significant as we've seen weight be a substantial factor for COVID.

I don't necessarily think this is a good example for "this can affect young people too!" However on the flip side, it is a very valid concern for NFL and CFB with the weights on many players

[GooooMarquette]

Not for nothing, and thoughts and prayers with him and his family, but this is the kind of "young athlete" who would have issues. He may have been healthy, but he's 300+ lbs and surely not chiseled out of granite. He's listed at 325 according to IU, and 285 in his senior year recruiting information. If with some exaggeration on IU's part, it's very common for young OL to put on unhealthy levels of weight in a hurry to get up to D1 standard size. Which is significant as we've seen weight be a substantial factor for COVID.

I don't necessarily think this is a good example for "this can affect young people too!" However on the flip side, it is a very valid concern for NFL and CFB with the weights on many players

True, his weight is probably a factor. But the rate of obesity in the US general population - including 'young people' - is ridiculously high. According to the CDC, an astonishing 40% of people age 20-39 are obese. To me, that DOES mean COVID "can affect young people too"...or at least a pretty substantial percentage of young people.

And I understand that many of those obese people probably aren't anywhere near the 325-ish that this guy weighs. But most of them aren't major D1 athletes either, and many people who weigh far less than him might struggle getting out of a chair or walking up a flight of stairs. Bottom line - yes, this guy is 'obese,' but there are plenty of other young obese people who are at far higher risk than this guy IMO.

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

At least we can explain away every death.  Makes me feel better. 

[pbiflyer]

I feel so much better about the pandemic after today's covid briefing.

[Marquette Gyros]

This makes me wonder if it doesn't matter who was President, we would have still had a tough go of it. It probably would have been better, but we are so divided on each side, it's tough to come together on anything. The federal government can only do so much. At the end of the day, it's each person who has to have some discipline to get through this.

+1

And perhaps if we had a different president, there wouldn't have been "sides" to how we approached this global pandemic.

[JWags85]

True, his weight is probably a factor. But the rate of obesity in the US general population - including 'young people' - is ridiculously high. According to the CDC, an astonishing 40% of people age 20-39 are obese. To me, that DOES mean COVID "can affect young people too"...or at least a pretty substantial percentage of young people.

And I understand that many of those obese people probably aren't anywhere near the 325-ish that this guy weighs. But most of them aren't major D1 athletes either, and many people who weigh far less than him might struggle getting out of a chair or walking up a flight of stairs. Bottom line - yes, this guy is 'obese,' but there are plenty of other young obese people who are at far higher risk than this guy IMO.

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

I don't disagree. Weight is the big equalizer among at risk groups. I wish this would make people wake up about that, but I know it's a pipe dream. It's become far too normalized

And Frenn, I'm not explaining away anyone's potential death. I've firmly been of the belief in all these threads that correct information and not broad brush generalizing is most key for this pandemic. Not using singular examples, sad as they may be to stoke undue  fear, just like incorrect or half baked conclusions to make it seem like it's not a big deal at all. Everyone has someone close to them that has one of a variety of risk factors. Encouraging or forcing them to think of those people instead of using someone with nothing in common with them but age to make them scared into submission. Easier said than done, but that doesn't make my mindset incorrect. I've just seen far too much over the top blanket warning or fear stoking, even before COVID, get brushed aside for being absurdist.

[Jockey]

I don't disagree. Weight is the big equalizer among at risk groups. I wish this would make people wake up about that, but I know it's a pipe dream. It's become far too normalized

In a PC world, it's not even allowable to mention how terrible that obesity is for one's health.

We can't offend people.

[Jockey]

Today's tally

France - 0 new cases
Spain - 0 new cases
US - 49,000 new cases

Thank you, bunker Boy. Send the kids back to school.

[GooooMarquette]

Today's tally

France - 0 new cases
Spain - 0 new cases
US - 49,000 new cases

Thank you, bunker Boy. Send the kids back to school.

Those numbers are staggering, and terribly depressing. What could have been....

[buckchuckler]

Today's tally

France - 0 new cases
Spain - 0 new cases
US - 49,000 new cases

Thank you, bunker Boy. Send the kids back to school.

Those countries had their big outbreaks sooner.  I'm sure that's where we will be in 2 week or so...

[buckchuckler]

In a PC world, it's not even allowable to mention how terrible that obesity is for one's health.

We can't offend people.

Cmon man.  Body positive.  No problem at all with 300LBs.  Well, the only problem is that is too slender.