The Coronavirus

[oops]

2 hours ago, Boges said:

People can transmit the disease before experiencing symptoms and requiring a test. 

The growth in cases indicates that isolating only people with positive tests doesn't really work. 

Not that I expect a lockdown to work either. But it may keep the Healthcare system from collapsing. 

I hope, in the future, governments immediately lockdown travel to and from any country that has a similar disease. We as a species have proven that we are incapable of controlling the spread of a highly communicable disease. 

Edited 2 hours ago by Boges

The answer is rapid at home test kits. 

Where are Canada’s rapid at-home coronavirus tests?

Infectious disease experts have been asking themselves — and public health officials — this for months.

“If every Canadian had that in their medicine cabinet, we might be able to test our way out of this,” said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

On this specific front, the United States is one step ahead of Canada.

On Tuesday, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) authorized its first rapid test that can be performed entirely at home and deliver results in 30 minutes.

The single-use test kit, from California-based Lucira Health, allows users to swab themselves to collect a nasal sample. The sample is then swirled in a vial of laboratory solution that plugs into a portable device. Results are displayed as lights labeled positive or negative.

According to company-run trials, Lucira’s coronavirus tests were able to accurately detect 94.1 per cent of infections, as well as 98 per cent of healthy, uninfected people.

ttps://globalnews.ca/news/7469571/coronavirus-canada-rapid-at-home-tests/

Edited December 29, 2020 by oops

[OftenWrong]

3 hours ago, Boges said:

Not that I expect a lockdown to work either. But it may keep the Healthcare system from collapsing. 

Fine, agreed in principle. But I'll be damned if I agree to lockdowns because inept government leader has left the health care system in a state of disaster, long before the virus came along, and then expect everyone to suffer for the "what if..." scenario. Yet they do not provide the funding and address that specific problem accordingly. Instead, they blow ten times that amount on what are now recognized as useless actions that harm society even more, even by us regular laymen.

Explain it to me, please.

You can't.

[Cannucklehead]

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&time=latest&region=World

 

And people said Canada was hording dosages unfairly.  ?  

 

I've never even heard of Bahrain until now....

[Shady]

Our policies aren’t based on science.

 

[Shady]

[Shady]

A really interesting distinction between people dying with covid vs from covid.  Which isn’t being made in death counts by public officials.

 

[OftenWrong]

11 hours ago, Shady said:

Our policies aren’t based on science.

Und so,

vat we gonna doo ist,

tell the government to f-off.  

[Adam1980]

On 12/29/2020 at 12:42 PM, Shady said:

You're assuming that highly communicable diseases can be controlled.  I'm not sure they are.  But they're especially hard to control when the country of origin holds off of making the rest of the world aware of the situation.  A U.K. study suggests that 95% of the pandemic could have been prevented if China disclosed much earlier, and shut down travel from their end.

Agree regarding controlling diseases, given that it requires humans to do a certain thing some or all of them will not like to do.

Good journalism on the virus: The Plague Year | The New Yorker

Taking at face value, there's many failures that made things worse than they need to be, including non-ideal information sharing.   

[oops]

1 hour ago, Adam1980 said:

Taking at face value, there's many failures that made things worse than they need to be, including non-ideal information sharing.   

The main failure was an inappropriate response to the virus. 

The problem is that the WHO is fighting covid19 using the measures used on the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus. Covid19 is not that virus.

 

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus (H1N1). The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide.

Covid19 has infected 83,716 of the world's 7,800,000 people, or 1.07% of the world's population. Of the resolved cases 3% died. In 1918 3.3% of the world's population died. So far with covid19 0.02% or the world's population has died. Clearly we need a response tailored to this infection, not one that ended 100 years ago.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html#:~:text=It is estimated that about,occurring in the United States.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[OftenWrong]

People claim that the US has had hundreds of thousands of deaths thanks to Donald Trump. They base this on a simple comparison, comparing country vs country. People nod approvingly at what other, more sensible nations are doing, and how the US (under Donald Trump) looks absolutely terrible.

Felgercarb, I say. Pure unadulterated felgercarb. 

Graph showing United States versus Europe:

 

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by OftenWrong

[Cannucklehead]

https://torontosun.com/news/world/wisconsin-pharmacist-arrested-on-charges-of-sabotaging-covid-vaccine-doses/wcm/a71fc866-48cd-4caf-8f78-53c660bf674b/amp/

 

Military guard coming next I bet. Such a waste.  

[Petros]

8 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

People claim that the US has had hundreds of thousands of deaths thanks to Donald Trump. They base this on a simple comparison, comparing country vs country. People nod approvingly at what other, more sensible nations are doing, and how the US (under Donald Trump) looks absolutely terrible.

Felgercarb, I say. Pure unadulterated felgercarb. 

Graph showing United States versus European Union:

Doesn't Europe have over twice the population than that of the United States (741 M vs 331 M)?

[OftenWrong]

1 hour ago, Petros said:

Doesn't Europe have over twice the population than that of the United States (741 M vs 331 M)?

Google "EU population" and see what it tells you.

[Petros]

50 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Google "EU population" and see what it tells you.

The chart you present compares Europe vs USA, not the European Union. 

 

Cases: 

Europe: 23,877,000

United States: 20,617,000

 

Deaths:

Europe: 547,499

USA: 356,445

 

Population:

Europe: 747,867,000

USA: 331,002,000

 

When compared to countries with over 10 million people,the USA ranks #2 in terms of per-capita cases (behind the Czech Republic), and  #7 in terms of per-capita fatalities (behind Belgium, Italy, Peru, Czech Republic, UK,and Spain).

For comparison sakes, Canada is #32 in per-capita cases, and #27 in per-capita fatalities.

 

same source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Petros

[Petros]

On 12/30/2020 at 9:06 PM, Shady said:

A really interesting distinction between people dying with covid vs from covid.  Which isn’t being made in death counts by public officials.

 

Well for comparison sake, nobody has ever died of HIV/AIDS alone.

[oops]

9 hours ago, Petros said:

When compared to countries with over 10 million people,the USA ranks #2 in terms of per-capita cases (behind the Czech Republic), and  #7 in terms of per-capita fatalities (behind Belgium, Italy, Peru, Czech Republic, UK,and Spain).

For comparison sakes, Canada is #32 in per-capita cases, and #27 in per-capita fatalities.

Why do some care so much about death, and so little about life?

[OftenWrong]

9 hours ago, Petros said:

The chart you present compares Europe vs USA, not the European Union. 

 

 

You are correct, and I posted the wrong graph as well. Fixed it now.

regards,
OW

[Adam1980]

On 12/31/2020 at 5:02 PM, oops said:

The problem is that the WHO is fighting covid19 using the measures used on the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus. Covid19 is not that virus

For sure. I think it speaks to the time it takes for humans to adjust their conventional wisdom. You can read many military history books about the generals fighting the last war because that's what they know; same thing here perhaps. It's not a terrible way to do business in basing your response on past experience, but it seems to be very hard to adapt in the moment. I suppose that's what we hope our leaders can do though. 

[oops]

3 hours ago, Adam1980 said:

but it seems to be very hard to adapt in the moment. I suppose that's what we hope our leaders can do though. 

Here is what Dr. David Nabarro said on October 9

 

[Adam1980]

20 hours ago, oops said:

Here is what Dr. David Nabarro said on October 9

Fellow seems pretty common sense. Following a 'middle road' usually gives a better result than other methods. Thanks for this; I'll read some more about his positions.

[oops]

1 hour ago, Adam1980 said:

Fellow seems pretty common sense. Following a 'middle road' usually gives a better result than other methods. Thanks for this; I'll read some more about his positions.

Nice to know that someone wants to be more informed on the subject. It is unfortunate that our elected leaders, top doctors and news media don't share that desire.

Edited January 3, 2021 by oops

[Boges]

The AstraZeneca/Oxford Vaccine has started being administered in the UK. 

I think this vaccine will be the game-changer. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-k-rolls-out-astrazeneca-shots-touts-taking-lead-in-global-vaccine-race-1.5860352

Both the US and Canada have gotten off to a very slow start in vaccinating people. 

I think Canada needs to quit trying to be fair an equitable. Urban Centres need these vaccine more than remote locations. That should be the only real focus for the first 3 months. 

[OftenWrong]

On 1/4/2021 at 12:06 PM, Boges said:

I think Canada needs to quit trying to be fair an equitable.

Pathetic Canada is still talking about giving everyone a half-dose, rather than give fewer people the full dose. Or maybe mixing vaccines. This despite warnings from vaccine makers not to do that.

One can only presume the mealy mouthed politicians realize they couldnt score enough vaccine, and are now scrambling.

[OftenWrong]

Governor Andrew Cuomo, today:

"We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. "

[Boges]

13 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

Governor Andrew Cuomo, today:

"We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. "

It's true. 

COVID fatigue is real.

Unless we do want to go down the Police state avenue, people are just going to ignore public guidelines.