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

[MU82]

I nominate Laura Ingraham and her entire family as the first to die.

I really don't want anybody to die, but I get tired of the Laura Ingrahams happily sacrificing others. Mostly people of color, older folks and/or those of relatively modest means. They are all disposable to her ilk.

[rocky_warrior]

I nominate Laura Ingraham and her entire family as the first to die.

I really don't want anybody to die, but I get tired of the Laura Ingrahams happily sacrificing others. Mostly people of color, older folks and/or those of relatively modest means. They are all disposable to her ilk.

This really doesn't help the conversation.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

About 75,000 more Americans died from COVID-19 pandemic than reported in spring and summer, study finds
Adrianna Rodriguez
USA TODAY

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/10/12/us-covid-deaths-75-k-more-americans-died-than-previously-recorded-excess-deaths/5935813002/

[Pakuni]

There may be reason to be suspicious of the Great Barrington Declaration.

A widely-circulated open letter calling on governments to pursue herd immunity is counting homeopaths, therapists and fake names among its "medical" signatories, leading to accusations that it falsely represents scientific support for the controversial position.
The Great Barrington Declaration, a letter organised by prominent advocates of herd immunity, claims to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, as well as more than 150,000 members of the general public.
Yet Sky News found dozens of fake names on the list of medical signatories, which anyone can add to if they tick a box and enter a name. These included Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename and Dr. Johnny Bananas, who listed himself as a "Dr of Hard Sums".
One medical professional on the list gives his name as Dr Harold Shipman, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom.
A GP called Harold Shipman killed more than 200 of his patients before he was arrested in 1998.
Other famous names included Dominic Cummings, who is described as "PhD Durham Univercity".
Sky News also found 18 self-declared homeopaths listed on the open letter as medical practitioners, despite the fact that homeopathy has no scientific underpinning or clinical evidence to support its use.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-dr-johnny-bananas-and-dr-person-fakename-among-medical-signatories-on-herd-immunity-open-letter-12099947

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

Herd Immunity or 'burn through' is the next great magic pill. 

Slowly reality is being accepted by more people that a matrix of items are going to be needed for the foreseeable future. Masks, vaccines, better therapies, distancing and certainly the change in behavior where you work sick are all likely going forward.  Hopefully the medical advances reduce the more annoying things like distancing. 

As an editorial, I wish my government would work on advancing more of these items as we cross this bridge (therapies, paid sick leave, stimulus)

[Pakuni]

Sweet 16 party on Long Island leads to 37 cases and 270 people in quarantine.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/sweet-16-party-connected-37-covid-19-cases/story?id=73596338

[Jockey]

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/10/14/trump-ditched-obama-pandemic-plan-but-ignored-aspects-his-own/5953152002/

[Jockey]

Here Immunity or 'burn through' is the next great magic pill. 

Slowly reality is being accepted by more people that a matrix of items are going to be needed for the foreseeable future. Masks, vaccines, better therapies, distancing and certainly the change in behavior where you work sick are all likely going forward.  Hopefully the medical advances reduce the more annoying things like distancing. 

As an editorial, I wish my government would work on advancing more of these items as we cross this bridge (therapies, paid sick leave, stimulus)

Speaking of bridges, I got one that I will sell to you cheap.

[shoothoops]

128,000 and counting, one day, one county.

https://twitter.com/HarrisVotes/status/1316179752009560068?s=19

Day 2:

https://twitter.com/WCKitchen/status/1316418702338912256?s=19

Day 1 had over 1 million voters:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-surpassed-1-million-votes-on-first-day-of-15647238.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

[GooooMarquette]

NYT has a ballot tracker that will be regularly updated with available information.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/absentee-ballot-early-voting.html

As of right now, about 13.4 million ballots have been cast (12.2 absentee ballots returned, 1.2 million early votes cast).

[shoothoops]

Day 2:

https://twitter.com/WCKitchen/status/1316418702338912256?s=19

Day 1 had over 1 million voters:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-surpassed-1-million-votes-on-first-day-of-15647238.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

Having hundreds of locations as well as dozens of drop off locations has been well done in Houston. I know other states with extremely limited early voting, one location, etc...This really needs to be a nationwide effort.

[MU82]

NYT has a ballot tracker that will be regularly updated with available information.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/absentee-ballot-early-voting.html

As of right now, about 13.4 million ballots have been cast (12.2 absentee ballots returned, 1.2 million early votes cast).

Extremely interesting, Goooooooooooooooo. Thanks for providing.

[pbiflyer]

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/10/14/trump-ditched-obama-pandemic-plan-but-ignored-aspects-his-own/5953152002/

Monty Python explains Obama'/s failures:

[tower912]

So funny.   And so true.

[MU82]

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska rips Trump on a variety of issues, especially his coronavirus response -- saying, among other things, that Trump treated COVID-19 like "a P.R. crisis" rather than a health crisis.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/exclusive-gop-sen-sasse-says-trump-kisses-dictators-butts-mocks-evangelicals

"In his partial defense here, I think that lots of the news media has pretended that COVID is literally the first public health crisis ever. And somehow, it's Donald Trump's fault. That's not true. They just wanted to use it against him," Sasse said.

"But the reality is that he careened from curb to curb. First, he ignored COVID. And then he went into full economic shutdown mode. He was the one who said 10 to 14 days of shutdown would fix this. And that was always wrong. I mean, and so I don't think the way he's lead through COVID has been reasonable or responsible, or right."

[MU82]

The White House has installed two political operatives at the nation's top public health agency to try to control the information it releases about the coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook, sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-pandemics-elections-6e638bcaaebe4b5e83721440203b7511?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AP%20Morning%20Wire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers

The two appointees assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters in June have no public health background.

They have instead been tasked with keeping an eye on Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency director, as well as scientists, according to a half-dozen CDC and administration officials who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal government affairs.

When the two appointees showed up in Atlanta, their roles were a mystery to senior CDC staff. Eventually one, Nina Witkofsky, became acting chief of staff, an influential role as Redfield's right hand. The other, her deputy Chester "Trey" Moeller, also began sitting in on scientific meetings, the sources said.

[Jockey]

One more reason to avoid information coming out of the CDC.

[GooooMarquette]

One more reason to avoid information coming out of the CDC.

It really is unfortunate how this administration politicized CDC. Through decades of Democratic and Republican regimes, it had maintained a stellar reputation as the world's gold-standard for public health information and research...specifically because presidents on both sides of the aisle largely let them do their jobs as scientists.

I certainly hope things revert to past practices after the election, so the world class scientists at the agency can get back to doing what they do best, unhampered by political agendas....

[Jockey]

It really is unfortunate how this administration politicized CDC. Through decades of Democratic and Republican regimes, it had maintained a stellar reputation as the world's gold-standard for public health information and research...specifically because presidents on both sides of the aisle largely let them do their jobs as scientists.

I certainly hope things revert to past practices after the election, so the world class scientists at the agency can get back to doing what they do best, unhampered by political agendas....

Absolutely. At many points earlier in this thread, I said listen to the CDC. Trust the CDC. They are the gold standard.

Now? They have been completely corrupted by this administration. They lie. They make bogus recommendations. They cannot be trusted anymore and need to be ignored.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Absolutely. At many points earlier in this thread, I said listen to the CDC. Trust the CDC. They are the gold standard.

Now? They have been completely corrupted by this administration. They lie. They make bogus recommendations. They cannot be trusted anymore and need to be ignored.

"They" in the "they lie" is not the scientists. It's the political appointees. So hopefully it is fixable.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-new-york-e321f4c9098b4db4dd6b1eda76a5179e

"NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump White House has installed two political operatives at the nation's top public health agency to try to control the information it releases about the coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook, sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence.

The two appointees assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters in June have no public health background. They have instead been tasked with keeping an eye on Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency director, as well as scientists, according to a half-dozen CDC and administration officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal government affairs."

[cheebs09]

Which tests are NFL players getting? They seem fairly unreliable with many being false positives. Is this different than the general public? Or does the general public follow a similar process? If positive, you confirm with the POC test.

[GooooMarquette]

Which tests are NFL players getting? They seem fairly unreliable with many being false positives. Is this different than the general public? Or does the general public follow a similar process? If positive, you confirm with the POC test.

The NFL has contracted with Bioreference Laboratories for its tests. I believe this lab does a lot of testing on samples from the public.

https://www.bioreference.com/bioreference-labs-says-it-will-conduct-coronavirus-testing-for-all-32-nfl-teams/

The routine, mandatory tests are rapid PCR tests, but they also utilize antibody testing.

https://www.playsmartplaysafe.com/newsroom/fact-sheets/nfl-nflpa-covid-19-testing-treatment-protocols-fact-sheet/

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

This was an interesting read/theory that some of the severe child and potentially long haul cases are due to the virus staying active in the gut.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/super-antigen-tied-multisystem-inflammatory-syndrome-children-long-covid/

[forgetful]

Which tests are NFL players getting? They seem fairly unreliable with many being false positives. Is this different than the general public? Or does the general public follow a similar process? If positive, you confirm with the POC test.

I don't think it is so much an issue with the tests, rather it is what is expected with as much testing as they are doing. Every player and essential personnel is tested EVERY day. That means these organizations may be doing 200 tests a day.

Even if the false positive rate was only 0.5%, you'd expect a false positive daily. What you are seeing is a side effect of massive testing platforms.

[MU82]

This was an interesting read/theory that some of the severe child and potentially long haul cases are due to the virus staying active in the gut.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/super-antigen-tied-multisystem-inflammatory-syndrome-children-long-covid/

It is one of the under-reported stories of this pandemic. So many survivors have had their lives altered.

And obviously we don't know yet how long a haul these folks are in for. Maybe the rest of their lives. I personally know 2 of them. Feel so bad for them.