Coronavirus

[AlanSubie4Life]

Yeah, 700k/day seems way too high. Though I think COVID Projections' 200k is too low. They have TX at 20k/day. We're finding 6-8k/day and with positivity of 13%+ I'm confident we're not catching 1 in 3 infections. They seem to be behind the curve in other hotspots, too.

Yeah, it's possible it is 250-300k. Hard to say. If so we'll be rocking 1000 deaths a day again pretty soon, I would think.

 

[HG Wells]

Wife says they are running out of meat and toilet paper again.
We are just shy of three years worth.
Better make another run to costco.
Will report back tomorrow. /S

 

[EVCollies]

I saw a patient today complaining mandatory mask wearing was weakening his immune system by limiting his exposure to pathogens. After a brief discussion of the skin and gut’s preventative efforts thwarting organisms wishing to end our life that will always keep his immune system active, he shifted his argument to personal freedoms.

Why do I even bother explaining science?

 

[madodel]

I saw a patient today complaining mandatory mask wearing was weakening his immune system by limiting his exposure to pathogens. After a brief discussion of the skin and gut’s preventative efforts thwarting organisms wishing to end our life that will always keep his immune system active, he shifted his argument to personal freedoms.

Why do I even bother explaining science?

I asked my wife earlier today if she has had any patients complain about masks and she said none of her patients want to even leave their houses. Of course her patients trend old and older so they seem to more easily grasp that COVID19 can kill.

 

[bkp_duke]

I saw a patient today complaining mandatory mask wearing was weakening his immune system by limiting his exposure to pathogens. After a brief discussion of the skin and gut’s preventative efforts thwarting organisms wishing to end our life that will always keep his immune system active, he shifted his argument to personal freedoms.

Why do I even bother explaining science?

This hits the nail on the head. These are simply people with a firmly held belief LOOKING for an argument to support their reasoning.

In psychology, we call this:
Rationalization (psychology) - Wikipedia.

"Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). People rationalize for various reasons—sometimes when we think we know ourselves better than we do. Rationalization may differentiate the original deterministic explanation of the behavior or feeling in question."

And . . .

"According to the DSM-IV, rationalization occurs "when the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for his or her own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self serving but incorrect explanations"."

Seems to explain the behavior many groups right now . . .

 

[wdolson]

This hits the nail on the head. These are simply people with a firmly held belief LOOKING for an argument to support their reasoning.

In psychology, we call this:
Rationalization (psychology) - Wikipedia.

"Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). People rationalize for various reasons—sometimes when we think we know ourselves better than we do. Rationalization may differentiate the original deterministic explanation of the behavior or feeling in question."

And . . .

"According to the DSM-IV, rationalization occurs "when the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for his or her own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self serving but incorrect explanations"."

Seems to explain the behavior many groups right now . . .

Robert Heinlein once said humans are a rationalizing animal, not a rational animal. Though I think Stephen Colbert summed it up best when he coined the world "truthiness". Some people prefer to believe what they feel should be true and make that their truth instead of actual, provable facts.

 

[shinytop]

Well, turns out our governor is not the dumbest ass in our government. FL Education Commissioner requires all Florida school districts to reopen campuses in August

 

[TespaceX]

Well, turns out our governor is not the dumbest ass in our government. FL Education Commissioner requires all Florida school districts to reopen campuses in August

I have mixed feelings about this.

Fun fact: In my general area of almost half million residents, surveys (from the various school districts) to families showed that about 70% do not want an in-person full-time school schedule. Anecdotally, families who send their kids to private school seem to mostly demand a full-time in-person schedule.

 

[eevee-fan]

I saw a patient today complaining mandatory mask wearing was weakening his immune system by limiting his exposure to pathogens. After a brief discussion of the skin and gut’s preventative efforts thwarting organisms wishing to end our life that will always keep his immune system active, he shifted his argument to personal freedoms.

Why do I even bother explaining science?

Make sure your patient signs up for TB parties.

 

[cwerdna]

There have been news stories about covid in meat processing plants, but I've seen nothing about outcomes. The one death story I remember was about a family member.

I don't know the tally but 99 Slaughterhouse Worker COVID-19 Deaths Provoke Coalition To Urge #boycottmeat has a claim of numbers COVID-19 Among Workers in Meat and Poultry Processing Facilities ... from April 2020 claims 20 deaths.

BTW, not necessarily related to outcomes, but other countries have had similar problems w/meat processing plants like Coronavirus outbreak at German meat packing plant drives virus reproduction rate back up.

The neighborhoods in Chicago currently most infected by Covid are Mexican-American.

That's not too surprising. I suspect many of people are workers that fall under the essential workers (or are amongst a household one with or more) and thus have a greater chance of being exposed to infected people than those who can WFH.

 

[bkp_duke]

I have mixed feelings about this.

Fun fact: In my general area of almost half million residents, surveys (from the various school districts) to families showed that about 70% do not want an in-person full-time school schedule. Anecdotally, families who send their kids to private school seem to mostly demand a full-time in-person schedule.

Interesting. They did a similar survey here. 59% wanted traditional school, 26% wanted a hybrid model (part in person, part remote), and only 15% wanted complete distance learning. This was for the public school system.

 

[jerry33]

I have mixed feelings about this.

Fun fact: In my general area of almost half million residents, surveys (from the various school districts) to families showed that about 70% do not want an in-person full-time school schedule. Anecdotally, families who send their kids to private school seem to mostly demand a full-time in-person schedule.

Not surprising as most private schools tend to be religious and anti-science.

 

[Dr. J]

...early cases didn’t have the advantage of wearing a mask due to the public policy of limiting masks to our frontline health workers since supplies weren’t stockpiled to meet the pandemic.

I wouldn't call it a policy so much as a public disinformation campaign to persuade people that masks don't work so supplies weren't hoarded/profiteered by anyone who could get their hands on them. Interestingly, there apparently was significant mask usage among so-called "conservatives" when it was cool to be doing the opposite of what the CDC recommended, then behavior switched as the recommendation changed. Can't remember where I saw that.

 

[electracity]

I don't know the tally but 99 Slaughterhouse Worker COVID-19 Deaths Provoke Coalition To Urge #boycottmeat has a claim of numbers COVID-19 Among Workers in Meat and Poultry Processing Facilities ... from April 2020 claims 20 deaths.

April is early, of course. But it's 20 deaths is out of 130,000 workers.

Do uninfected people in high exposure environments have T-cell immunity? Those people presumably won't test positive for covid or antibodies.

I increasingly believe that disease problem here isn't the coronavirus, but poor metabolic health. According to the CDC 100 million americans are diabetic of pre-diabetic. Fatty liver(NAFLD) in adults is 25%.+.

 

[SageBrush]

Not surprising as most private schools tend to be religious and anti-science.

For the most part they are paying out of pocket. They want value. I hope they are not paid in Covid

 

[SageBrush]

@dfwatt better find sub-contractors to manufacture products
From a recent Gallup poll

Republicans are standing by Trump, with 91 percent saying they approve of the job he’s doing, up from 85 percent last month.

 

[SageBrush]

Florida March (off a cliff):

 

[Daniel in SD]

April is early, of course. But it's 20 deaths is out of 130,000 workers.

Do uninfected people in high exposure environments have T-cell immunity? Those people presumably won't test positive for covid or antibodies.

I increasingly believe that disease problem here isn't the coronavirus, but poor metabolic health. According to the CDC 100 million americans are diabetic of pre-diabetic. Fatty liver(NAFLD) in adults is 25%.+.

Well everyone who tests positive for antibodies has T-cell immunity. I have seen people proposing that many people are immune without testing positive for antibodies. There is a paper that found T-cell response in family members who did not test positive for antibodies or the virus itself (Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19). It has been found in other studies that the attack rate in families is surprisingly low.
On the other hand we have direct evidence in some populations of extremely high attack rates. There are prisons where 80%+ have been PCR positive and another prison where 92% tested positive for antibodies. 90 of 110 soldiers in a "survival, evasion, resistance and escape course" tested positive for COVID-19 (https://taskandpurpose.com/news/90-soldiers-sere-course-coronavirus-positive). Surely they had perfectly good metabolic health? Hopefully they go back and test them all for antibodies!
To me it's clear that almost no one is immune to COVID-19 in the right circumstances.
Maybe it's possible that viral load does play a big part in disease severity and antibody production?

 

[dfwatt]

@dfwatt better find sub-contractors to manufacture products
From a recent Gallup poll

Yes that's an excellent suggestion. Today's latest proof of mass psychosis/ refractory idiocy in the United States (aka Trump-induced popcorn brain as found in clinical trials with Moron Spray). For folks who do not remember these esoteric biomarkers, my groundbreaking studies found with plain cranial CT scan or structural MRI that in refractory idiocy, brain parenchyma has been replaced by 50% popcorn and 50% unpopped corn kernels. This results in 100% idiocy, or in the words of our Warner Brothers spokesperson 'UltraMaroons'. For anybody who thinks this is a laughing matter, here is the latest evidence of mass psychosis.

This basically means that 43% of the American population is completely disconnected from reality, and would drink bleach on instruction. Very scary!

 

[bkp_duke]

Not surprising as most private schools tend to be religious and anti-science.

I went to a "religious" private school, and it had one of the top ranked science programs in the world. I literally skipped a year of college at a top-10 university because of it.

Please be careful with oversimplifications.