I’m trying to find “the one site” that will give me a snapshot of COVID in the US. Here’s my take on three popular sites:
Rt.live has good information, but retransmission is just part of the picture.
Covidexitstrategy.org seems to bounce around a bit, probably because their three-category classification (green/yellow/red) is too simplistic. But they do take hospital capacity and testing into account.
My current favorite is CovidActNow.org, which uses four colors to code states, (though the two intermediate colors are a little hard to discern). They’re certainly not overly optimistic (only 3 states are on track to contain COVID today) and they also track tracing capacity, which is very important and lacking right now. They also allow drill-in to states to see county-by-county status.
If you have a site that you like better, please let us know in the comments.
In other COVID news, Trump’s super-spreader event in a Phoenix church with a capacity of 3,000 was overshadowed by the 3,591 cases reported in Arizona yesterday. CovidActNow tells me that Arizona’s ICUs are basically full, too. One would think that it’s about time to take off the rainbow shades.
Update: Germy mentioned this site and the top article explains why air purifiers can’t stop COVID in mass gatherings. The megachurch grifters hosting Trump’s rally claimed that their new air purifiers would keep everyone safe.
Chief Oshkosh
Do you know if any of these sites take into account “excess deaths” as a way to control for Republican governors lying? There’s no way Florida shouldn’t be a bright, nuclear-glowing red.
germy
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/
is a good place for facts. They address misconceptions and false claims.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Chief Oshkosh: None of those three factor in excess deaths, though 2 of them track flu-like symptoms. It would be an interesting metric to track, but it’s a lagging indicator, and these are all sites trying to predict the course of the pandemic.
germy
There’s a local furnace/air conditioner company that advertises a lot during my local news. (The owner is an older wingnut who ran unsuccessfully a few times for public office.)
Lately, they’ve been advertising a home air purifier they promise will remove covid from the air.
David Anderson
Disclaimer: I’m working on and with the COVIDExitStrategy.Org team
and yep, the 3 phase stoplight design is too simplistic. But at the core, we are trying to track where the country is relative to CDC and White House guidance as our benchmarks. Other benchmarks will have very different stories to tell.
Ohio Mom
I check rt.live, CovidActNow.org, the New York Times’ Ohio Covid map, and my county’s board of health page, which uses a zip code map to break out the numbers.
They all show the same thing, that we were on a nice enough downward trend until Governor DeWine wimped out. The lull is over and I’m glad I got my haircut while the going was good.
If things don’t turn around, I’m dreading the fall and winter. Any and all head colds will send me into profound anxiety.
hitchhiker
For Seattle-area juicers, this is useful. Updated constantly & very granular numbers in King County.
https://public.tableau.com/views/PHSKCOverviewDashboard/Summary?%3Aembed=y&%3Atoolbar=n&%3Adisplay_count=n&%3AshowShareOptions=n&%3AshowVizHome=n
different-church-lady
Tragedy is when I have to wear a mask. Comedy is when you die from the germs I spread not wearing a mask.
VOR
I bought a new furnace about 5 years ago and asked for the UV light option. There are a set of UV lights and the airflow passes right through them. The salesman had never actually sold this feature and had to figure out how to add it to the bid. Wasn’t expensive. I got it because my kids were dealing with a series of minor respiratory infections keeping them out of school. I never had much faith in the UV but figured it wouldn’t do any harm, other than to my wallet. I have absolutely no idea if it works on COVID.
different-church-lady
@germy:
Is it going to remove it from your cousin who’s standing right next to you and not wearing a mask first?
NotMax
No breakdown state by state but for worldwide numbers I pop by the very, very frequently updated Covidly. Many options there for displaying the data, also too.
Which, BTW, is now showing Brazil as having bumped the U.S. from the topmost position for cases reported in the last 24 hours.
Icedfire
https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en
I’ve followed along with this site as well over the past few months. Lots of information which isn’t always easy to parse (especially on mobile view), but still a pretty good aggregator I think.
Kay
It just feels so incredibly rudderless and overwhelming. This is when we really, really could have used a functioning federal government and we just don’t have one.
It isn’t just Trump. There’s no leadership or cohesive effort of any kind, on anything. They’re ALL failing at the same time. People talk about the CDC or the White House but that’s only 10%. Where is the labor department, the education department, HHS, Homeland Security, and on and on and on.
These problems are HUGE. The idea that they’re going to be handled state by state (or in conservative states, city by city) is just ludicrous. It isn’t going to work. It isn’t working. But here we are hurtling towards fall and not one fucking area or issue has been adequately addressed, nationally.
You talk to people they’re like “what about school? What about daycare? What about my parents in the nursing home? What about my job?”. The stress on people is just incredible.
It occurred to me last night that if Biden wins we are doing the same cycle over again. Republican President creates GIANT FUCKING MESS, Democrat cleans it up. Biden is entering a shitstorm catastrophe, just like Obama did.
different-church-lady
@VOR: At the only job I’ve had in three months, they have one of those lunch-sized foil cooler things that’s been retrofitted with a UV light. We took all the wireless mic stuff that people would be wearing, and pens and pencils and headphones and other stuff, and we just constantly kept cycling them through the “UV lunchbox”. It may all be theater, but why not — if we need to do theater to make the clients feel safe and comfortable, we’ll do theater.
nevemoor
I use this one, to add a global perspective, and GG et down to county level:
https://www.statnews.com/feature/coronavirus/covid-19-tracker/?utm_campaign=hp_widget
germy
@different-church-lady: No it won’t, but the heating/AC company wants to make some $$ from nervous people.
The owner of the company is a piece of work. I remember him debating a Democrat during a race for some local seat (he lost badly) and he scowled the whole time and called global warming a liberal hoax.
So I’m not surprised he’s pushing a bullshit product.
NotMax
Apparently the manufacturer of the units sent out a release that the Arizona church honchos are full of it, the equipment is not intended to eradicate COVID and they never made any claim it does.
No link; heard on MSNBC yesterday.
CaseyL
@Icedfire: JHC, that site shows the virus has a 5.1% fatality rate – enormously higher than any other calculation I’ve seen!
It also shows a big gap between number of cases and the total of death/recovered.
E.g., for the US it shows number of cases as 2,407,358, deaths as 123,272 and recovered as 741,398. I assume the rest are still sick – that’s a hellacious number of still-sick.
It looks like the fatality rate is so high because it’s calculated only from the recorded deaths v. recovered. Doesn’t take into account the people still sick, because we don’t know their ultimate fate yet.
Kay
And this is mean but I have to say it. Having interacted with people from the day this thing started – I didn’t miss a single day of work, at work, I am convinced 95% of the mask resistance is VANITY. They’re too vain to wear a mask. The mask conflicts with how they view themselves and they treat it like a piece of clothing they’re rejecting, like “oh, I don’t wear hats”. These are the same fucking people who would rather cause a 10 car pileup than wear their godammned glasses, or the people who insist they aren’t hard of hearing when they clearly ARE, causing you to repeat yourself endlessly and scream at them. They’re vain.
rikyrah
@Kay:
truth
bemused
Last night Rachel Maddow reported feedback from viewers commenting the video of two Dream City Church pastors giddy about their ionization system had to be a spoof. She had to confirm that it was real, not a bad joke.
Icedfire
@CaseyL: Yeah, they are purely an aggregator from what I can tell – they show the data they have access to with no spin/interpretation/modeling. Thus they make no attempts to account for asymptomatic or mild cases that don’t get tested and identified, which is a major factor in lowering the CFR to more realistic numbers. They also only report those officially listed as recovered in state data – here in Minnesota that frequently gets reported in daily updates, but in many states it is not.
They also don’t make it particularly easy to tell what data is missing, though I’ve generally been able to find those limitations when looking closely. I’m honestly not familiar with how it all looks on a desktop view since I usually peruse on my phone.
For me, there’s value in seeing the raw numbers that they pull in, with the caveat that as time has gone on and more has been learned about Covid-19 simply looking at the numbers isn’t enough to get a clear picture of what’s going on.
germy
Cuomo is live right now. Another press conference.
He just can’t quit these.
NotMax
@bemused
Moving from believing in a magical sky dude to believing in a magical box ain’t much of a step.
//
bemused
@Kay:
They can’t stand anyone but especially not of their own kind to tell them what to do. “You’re not the boss of me” attitude rules their lives.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah:
And we have to fight the Republican party, their media flunkies which is not only Fox but the so called respectable liberal media like NPR, PBS and the Vichy Times. And now we also have to fight the so called “progressives” who are unhappy that their one true savior was beaten badly, again.
Kay
The reason Fauci is so famous and popular is because he fills a huge gaping VOID left by the rest of the Trump Administration who not only seem incapable of doing any of their jobs, but don’t even know what those jobs might be.
In a way they’ve gotten off easy, because the bar is now SO low no one even asks where all these federal agencies are. We never even get to that question. They have put more energy and effort into chasing phantom antifa members than they have doing ANYTHING for 350 million people. They can put helicopters in the air to spy on protesters but none of them can lift a finger to regulate these meat production plants, where the workers are dying.
gene108
@Kay:
One thing Trump, and his people could have done, which is easy is to wear masks.
And not turn mask wearing into some sort of political purity test.
That alone is the minimum level of leadership that could’ve slowed the spread of the virus.
CaseyL
@germy: Yeah, I was surprised to see that; I thought he was done doing these as of last week.
I’m watching the NBC feed on YouTube, where it hasn’t actually started yet. Are you getting a conference, or the “Wait” screen?
JR
@VOR:
UV would kill COVID but there’s no way you’ll catch droplets quickly enough via a whole-home air circulating system.
bemused
@gene108:
Right. I don’t care if they wear masks that say Fuck Off Libtards as long as it’s properly worn mask on their faces.
CaseyL
@rikyrah: Yeah, and when Biden succeeds in at least cleaning up some of it, the GOP will get elected again and fuck it all up again.
West of the Rockies
It would also be awesome if people could sack up and commit to just not going to bars and churches and Lake of the Ozarks swim-fests for a few months. And put on a mask–your face ain’t that pretty that we just gotta see it, especially yours, Trump.
germy
@CaseyL: He’s on right now. I’m watching on my local ABC affiliate.
Kay
@bemused:
IMO, you give them too much credit. This isn’t a world view. They won’t wear the mask because it conflicts with their self imagine, as expressed through their clothing. It’s vanity. I saw Mattis with a bandana around his neck. Now you tell me why that old man can’t bring himself to wear a mask. He’s vain. He thinks it makes him look weak. They should tell him no one gives a shit if his ugly mug is covered up.
Baud
@CaseyL:
I thought that he said that it wouldn’t happen on a daily basis.
bemused
@Kay:
Something to that. If they have masks on like most others, perhaps they don’t feel “special” enough.
Kay
@gene108:
That’s true but why do we do this? Why do we lower the standards for these people? They could have worn a mask, true. They also could have done their jobs. It isn’t just Trump who didn’t do his. We have many, many federal agencies. Where are they?
Baud
@CaseyL:
My forlorn hope is that we’ll have finally caught up with demographic change and will be able to break the cycle this time.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve been using
https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
This graphs a whole bunch of different numbers, as raw cases and per population. There are log and linear charts. Weekly averages are available, which flattens out the wiggles caused by lighter testing activity on the weekends.
This site graphs numbers as they are reported, not backdated to test dates or anything. This avoids some artifacts (e. g. the artificial drop in recent numbers from reporting lag) while creating others (if a state has a big backlog of cases that it reports on one day, because of a holdup or because they changed their reporting criteria, that causes a huge apparent spike that will also affect weekly averages).
CaseyL
@Baud: Ah. OK, that makes sense.
Searcher
@CaseyL:
germy
CaseyL
If Mother Nature is intent on severely reducing the human population, it’s quite funny to see the people who are helping Her the most are the ones who, at least politically, care the least about preserving the natural world.
different-church-lady
@gene108: Masks would violate Cleek’s Law. Cleek’s Law cannot be violated, so people have to die instead.
gene108
A coworker on a call a couple of days ago said, his reply to people not wanting to wear masks is that he’s not wearing pants for his benefit, but for everyone else’s.
I thought that’s funny, and true.
Kay
@bemused:
It is absolutely vanity with the Trump Administration people. That’s what that is- that’s the word for it. They can use modern language for it and use 15 words instead of one, where “Trump thinks it conflicts with his image” but what that is? Vanity. He’s too vain. We already know this about him. He’s ALSO too vain to wear the glasses he needs and he spent 15 minutes explaining why he’s too vain to wear the proper shoes for an old man with balance problems to walk down a ramp.
These are vain, petty people who are obsessed with how they appear. That’s the mask resistance.
scav
If only they’d be consistent and insist on not wearing masks during a pandemic and not wearing bullet proof vests in a war zone and not wearing orange while hunting and furthermore, insisting on working on construction zones in nothing but flip-flops. Real men don’t hide behond steel-toed boots!
Litlebritdifrnt
@Kay: There was a tweet yesterday that had a close up of Trump’s open shirt collar after the Tulsa rally. It was covered in make up. THAT is why he won’t wear a mask, it will mess up his make up and expose him as the fraud he is.
Roger Moore
I would give a slightly simpler, easier to understand answer: the filter can’t get anything out of the air until the air reaches it. If an infected person is in the middle of the room and the air filter is at the edge, the air that’s full of virus will have to pass by a whole bunch of people to get there, potentially infecting them. Masks work by filtering the air at the source, so nobody is exposed to unfiltered breath.
Jinchi
That statement by the church leaders was transparently absurd. If there was a system that could kill 99% of all coronavirus within 10 minutes we’d have installed them in every hospital in the country by now.
Calouste
@bemused: These people stopped growing emotionally the moment their parents told them to tidy their room or eat their broccoli.
bemused
@germy:
I saw a clip on twitter of two students for trump at mic after trump spoke at Dream City Church. One, Jack Bishop, son of dist Rep Dan Bishop, said something like his dad always says trump’s not a choker and we’re not chokers.
Benw
@germy: “you are courageous warriors! Please sign this waiver absolving me of responsibility”
A profile in leadership, Trump-style
Jinchi
Even when they’re protective glasses and he’s staring straight at the sun.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, it’s basically like bragging that “this quarter-inch steel plate will stop the bullet that just passed through you.” Some combo of HEPA, electrostatic and UVA might actually remove/inactivate COVID but it has to travel into the system first, before that can happen. We inhale it during that journey.
bemused
@Kay:
Also Dunning-Kruger all the way.
Kay
@Litlebritdifrnt:
The level of their self regard is just mindblowing. They go into facilities where EVERYONE is wearing a mask- a hospital, a factory, and even then they can’t tamp down their own obsession with how they LOOK long enough to just comply. They’re so incredibly self absorbed they don’t even see it. They think it’s a real “zinger” to point out Biden’s mask. I mean, Jesus Christ. Do they still call people who wear glasses “4 eyes”? We’re dealing with spoiled 9 year olds here. They’re not grown ups.
Kay
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You notice Trump will wear a hard hat. That piece of protective equipment he will don. That’s a costume he’s willing to wear. That’s required in the workplace he’s in just like the masks are, yet one he eagerly grabs and struts around in and the other he refuses. Because he’s vain.
bemused
@Kay:
Yup. I don’t know if any of them were fans of Arrested Development but they probably thought the series was a reality show.
The Moar You Know
@CaseyL: Shouldn’t be unless you’ve only been looking at the numbers out of China. Every other country is showing between 3.5-6%.
jonas
Um, yeah. They should probably start lawyering up in 3…2…1…
If someone on the floor of a crowded auditorium with Covid breathes on you *before* their virus-filled exhalations get caught up to the ventilation system and circulated into the purifier, you get sick, numbnuts. God, what morons.
Ohio Mom
I like to think that Biden’s people have a long, detailed list, that they are continually updating, of all the Trump actions that need to be reversed, along with who will be responsible for seeing each item through. And that someone is being deputized to orchestrate these efforts.
I also have to believe that they understand that they may only have two years to get everything important done. In my worst moments I worry that we’ve given COVID such a head start that it won’t be tamed easily enough to prevent a backlash two years from now.
My god, I’m in a state today.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Would these people be open to lawsuits if an attendee or close family gets seriously ill and/or dies?
trollhattan
@Searcher:
Very informative, thanks!
re. IFR, is there yet a reliable and widely available antibody test? That seemed like an area of much conversation a couple months ago but today I don’t see much discussion at all. Personally, I’d prefer everybody returning to work or school to get both a viral and antibody test, first.
trollhattan
@Ohio Mom:
To your point, Obama’s window of opportunity was even shorter than two years because of Franken’s recount and Kennedy dying, to be replaced by Scotty Hotpants. Then it was Tea Party and the age of dysfunction. Joe better get his sneakers in order.
germy
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Kay: I saw Mattis on a pro-mask commercial with the bandana around his neck. I just assumed that he didn’t have it up because he was talking to the camera in an otherwise-empty outdoor area.
Jinchi
Quite the opposite in fact. Trump called on the powers in the Defense Production Act to mandate that all meat packing plants remain open, and to reopen those that had been shut down due to major outbreaks. It included liability protection so that the plant owners didn’t have to worry about getting sued when employees started getting sick. That made it impossible for states or cities to enforce lockdowns when outbreaks occurred, undoubtedly making the problem much worse.
I don’t believe Trump ever got around to using DPA to require widespread manufacture of PPE or testing kits.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
As with all these things, I think it’s overdetermined. It’s not just their vanity. Masks are legitimately uncomfortable to wear for long periods, even when you’ve spent some time getting used to them, and I’m sure that’s a factor. But much more important is that the people they trust are validating their unwillingness to wear masks and even discouraging them. Republican leaders have made masklessness into a political statement, and people are apparently willing to make that statement even if it’s personally risky. It’s even possible that the notional risk is part of the attraction, since it shows the sincerity of your belief.
TS (the original)
Gov Cuomo’s announcement
N.Y. N.J. and Conn. order quarantine for travelers from Florida, other states hit hard by coronavirus
Some of the Australian states have been doing this for 2 months for people coming from the states with the higher COVID-19 rates – although their are exceptions for lots of reasons (maybe not a good idea)
I do remember when Cuomo was most upset when some states considered closing their borders to people from NY.
gene108
@CaseyL:
I hope our side still is willing to stay mad at Republicans, once Trump is gone. I hope we remember the lessons of 2010, and 2018, where one side had an advantage in voter enthusiasm, which helped them win.
I think we can maintain the enthusiasm for beating Republicans. Something changed regarding people’s complacency, with Trump’s election. People are more engaged, and involved then they were during the Obama years.
@Kay: I do not know. I think there’s a “boys will be boys” attitude to our treatment of Trump, and Republicans in general.
This is really glaring, when a Republican goes off on how Democrats hate America, and that’s just met with a shrug by the media. But Democrats are constantly policed for civility.
germy
jonas
@The Moar You Know: That’s my take as well — early on some stats out of China suggested something in the area of 3%, but all the reporting I’ve seen the past couple of months has put overall mortality around 5%. That’s really bad — worse, I believe, than the 1918 pandemic, in fact.
Baud
@germy:
The lack of respect for corporate property and trade dress rights is shocking.
Kelly
Where is OSHA? Clear workplace safety covid19 problems in slaughter houses, food processing, medical facilities, retail, etc
hueyplong
@germy: Amos N Andy have been canceled. They were the picture of the American dream. They were the children of freed slaves who went on to be the “face” of American radio comedy.
FFS
Jinchi
It was pretty noticeable at the Tulsa event. Virtually all the people wearing masks were in the overwhelmingly empty top rows, almost as though they had been shunned by the larger group below. Of course, they also had plenty of room there to socially isolate themselves, so good choice guys.
jonas
Except that mask-wearing isn’t about mitigating the risk to *yourself* — it’s about acknowledging that you may be an a- or pre-symptomatic carrier and unknowingly infect others. People flaunting the mask rules are essentially proudly broadcasting how little of a fuck they give about others’ well-being. Which is why they’re almost all Republicans.
Baud
@Jinchi:
Wasn’t the assumption that they were the paid attendees and they didn’t want to risk dying for a Trump gig?
gene108
@Kay:
Nine year olds libel!!!
I got glasses in second grade, and have been called four eyes once, shortly after getting them. That’s it. One time, in second grade, and not since the subsequent thirty-eight years.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
One ancient retired lawyer who sends me shit was grumbling last week and said “I don’t know anybody with this thing”.
He has sent me three potential new files this week, and in those three unrelated families, 8 have tested positive and one is in the ICU.
A newborn baby that is O Negative does not have it, while his mother does.
The old lawyer was a little surprised at how fast it is going around.
jonas
Haven’t checked, but almost certainly headed now by some Trumpist stooge who previously worked for a law firm that helped corporations fight workplace safety rules or something.
Tata
Yesterday, my co-workers and I at a large, unnamed university were told we would be phased back into the office after we filled out a questionnaire and someone on Zoom watched us take a test and we submitted insurance information and agreed to remain masked the whole time we were in our offices and so on, and so on. I asked how often we would be tested after the initial test. Just the once.
HARD NOPE.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Your observations about masks and vanity finally got me off my duff and ordering some cute custom-made masks that will benefit the Colorado Horse Rescue Network. No more improvised bandanna stuff for me! : )
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: My impression is, there’s a lot of indirect evidence from excess-death counts and randomly-sampled antibody testing that the real infection fatality rate is somewhere around 1-1.5% (which, I should stress, is bad–way worse than a typical flu). But we’re missing a lot of infections in the “case rate”. As long as the fraction of missed infections is larger than the fraction of undercounted deaths, that inflates the case fatality rate.
Early on, there was a lot of speculation about the fraction of missed cases being so large that the fatality rate could actually be quite small, maybe seasonal-flu level. But that’s not possible, because there’s a lower limit just by looking at New York City and realizing that no more than 100% of the population could have been infected.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Masks have virtually disappeared in Louisville this week – it is as if people who are living in a riot debris-strewn hellscape have collectively said “fuck it, we don’t care anymore”.
Baud
@jonas:
I haven’t seen any polling, but I think most people who don’t wear masks simply aren’t doing it because they don’t appreciate the risks when it’s not legally required, especially given the absence of federal leadership. Of course, that still leaves many who are refusing for Cleek’s law purposes.
Emma from FL
@Kay: They are controlled by people appointed by the real criminals.
L85NJGT
Negative pressure requires air handlers capable of moving some serious volume, and externally vented ducting, or hospital level air filters in the case of recycled air. Some stand alone room HEPA units from Walmert ain’t gonna get’er done.
germy
@hueyplong:
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
In other fantastic news, 3%er boards have apparently been whispering an intention to come out in force this weekend to clear out the park that is the Louisville protest rallying point.
Baud
@L85NJGT:
What about the pine tree air freshener I have hanging from my rear view mirror?
The Moar You Know
@jonas: The last numbers out of China I saw were in the 1.5% range. We could all only wish that was the case.
We don’t have any accurate stats on the 1918 pandemic as they didn’t even know what viruses were back then. No way to test, track, or even guess accurately.
1 in 5 who get sick go to the hospital. 1 in 20 who get sick die. It’s looking like quite a few of those who do not outright die from it are suffering long-term complications that will either lead to lifelong disability or early death.
The United States is not taking this disease seriously and never has. We are focusing on the economy. Even the blue states. That’s insane. I think a lot of people are going to have to die before we change focus on trying to actually stop this disease.
hueyplong
@germy: Yep, that’s where I was coming from.
jonas
Stephen Robinson over at Wonkette has a pretty good takedown of this horseshit. “Aunt Jemima” was a minstrel show character that a guy borrowed to brand his pancake mix and hired a Black woman to hawk the product by playing a crudely stereotyped “mammy”-type kitchen cook character.
So yeah, not exactly your “American dream” there.
Kelly
I’m wearing pants so I have pockets.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: I second your recommendation of 91-divoc.com. Lots of interactive ability on a host of metrics.
Another good site is Conor Kelly’s tableau page:
https://public.tableau.com/profile/ckelly2528#!/vizhome/COVIDDashboard-Public/Introduction
Includes hospitalizations, and allows the building of data for almost any kind of State or regional combination you might want to check.
The Moar You Know
@Kelly: As someone who had had dealings with OSHA and Cal/OSHA over the years, let me reassure you: they were never meant to be anything but an ineffective sop to incurious voters who would like their workplaces not to kill them. It was never meant to be a serious workplace safety enforcement agency, and it isn’t.
When a mine owner can kill dozens of coal miners through deliberate negligence and pays a fine of under a half-million dollars, that’s not an agency that’s serious about their mission.
Kelly
delete duplicate
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
There are contrarian idiots who will actually argue the economy is more important, the lockdown protesters were justified and were “mischaracterized” as being about haircuts, and that they just wanted to go back to work to support themselves, as is their right, because people will starve to death otherwise.
Nevermind that none of that is true and the economy will never bounce back until this virus is under control
Kelly
Good point. OSHA has some value where ethical bosses use the safety guidelines as a resource.
different-church-lady
@Baud: That thing is completely racist! Oh, wait, sorry, got my thread tendrils mixed up there…
different-church-lady
@Kelly: I’m now thinking about the alternative and I’m completely sorry I logged in today…
Haroldo
@Matt McIrvin:
Another vote for
https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
BruceFromOhio
I watch this one for the waterfall effect – cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, deaths updated daily.
https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/current-trends
It was good for a bit, and now the trend is turning bad again.
I ran an errand this morning, and passed an older couple in an SUV with AZ plates. Made me wonder where they were headed, and if they were healthy.
gene108
@jonas:
Definitely true with Sec. Scalia (Anthony’s son) at DOL. He worked hard to dismantle labor protections throughout his legal career.
L85NJGT
@Baud:
It would be more effective if used in conjunction with a crystal.
I’ll also note (again IIRC) meat packing plants run at a high level of negative pressure to avoid external contaminants, and that didn’t stop them from becoming COVID hotspots.
Practice social distancing, and wear your damn masks.
dnfree
@The Moar You Know: once In the 1980s when I worked for a consulting firm I was in a factory where workers were overhead doing some kind of repairs above workers below. Someone above dropped a wrench that nearly hit a worker. The first words out of her mouth were “I want my union steward!” OSHA would have taken too long, and she wasn’t injured. That’s what many businesses don’t have now.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
I crack up now every time I think back to how DeWine claimed he was following the science and experts and how he wimped out on mandating masks. He folded like a cheap suit and I don’t think he did a very good job of defending Acton. Now she’s resigned and I have a feeling we’re not going to lockdown if we need to in the future. DeWine has always struck me as mediocrity that could have only have won election in Ohio. The Ohio legislature is the absolute fucking worst also too.
DeWimp back in April:
Roger Moore
@gene108:
This is an important reason to continue hammering on the point that it’s not just Trump. This is about the entire Republican party enabling him, and we shouldn’t let the enablers off the hook once Trump is gone.
Kelly
Oregon mask mandate in indoor public spaces limited to 7 counties starts today. Enforcement is up to business and facility owners, no government tickets will be issued. It’ll probably work OK in the blue area’s where masks have already become the norm. Out here in the red hinterlands probably not so much
https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/DHSForms/Served/le2351j.pdf
JustRuss
Well, the parts that include slavery and genocide, yeah.
patrick II
@JR:
my neighbor is making a nice back right now instantly UV lighting inside of ventilation systems. People are desperate.
Some hospitals are using it in their Vent systems. It has to be UV -C to be effective and that is harmful to people if people use it directly.
The real problem is, of course, if the unmasked guy standing next to you has Covid, it won’t enter the ventilation system before it gets to you.
Gvg
@Tata: that is what my employers spokesperson said originally, but 1 week in, the latest from the zoom meeting they called a townhall was presented by a doctor ( I work for a university with research and teaching hospital) and he said, of course there will be more testing, for instance if you get sick, before you are returned to work, but it’s hard work to get ready for that, and the contact tracing etc. look for more info to come. The doc is on the team building the plan. The original spokesperson to our division was an HR person given current info but not on the inside planning the future which isn’t set and keeps changing.
they do tell us obtaining supplies was a big hold up and still is, we ended up manufacturing some of our own things….including swabs.
most employers don’t have our resources but the person answering your question may not even know what they don’t know and the answer may not be correct. On the other hand the original answer we got made a lot of employees unhappy and they probably said so a lot. It may be worth saying why nope rather than just quitting.
Soprano2
They use UV to disinfect wastewater, so I know it does work for that. I don’t think it takes the virus out of the air, however.
As for vanity and masks, Nancy Pelosi has that figured out, at least for women. I agree, it’s mostly vanity with a bit of “masks are only for the weak and frightened” thrown in. Plus Cleek’s Law, of course.
patrick II
@Roger Moore:
When the guy couldn’t pronounce “ionization” it gave me a clue that perhaps he wasn’t the guy to listen to about technology.
patrick II
@Soprano2:
It doesn’t take the virus out of the air or water – it kills it. Too much energy , not unlike a microwave. If our atmosphere didn’t filter out the Sun’s UV – C we would all be cooked.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
No. 1 in 5 of those who test positive have wound up in the hospital and 1 of 20 have died. But we’re clearly under-testing, so we are only guessing about how those numbers relate to the number who actually got sick or were infected. For example, the numbers from New York serum antibody tests imply that testing has only caught something like 20% of cases. In other states that haven’t tested as heavily, it may be only 5-10% of cases getting caught.
Frosty Fred
@Kay: Watch this through to the end.
patrick II
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
That’s because we are the City on the Hill. The COVID will not touch us. We are the exceptional country (read entitled).
Ksmiami
@CaseyL: we have to bury the GOP. Tbh, I’m hoping that we can reorder our government after this
Roger Moore
@L85NJGT:
I think you have that backward. You want positive pressure to protect you from the outside environment and negative pressure to protect the outside environment from you. So, for example, my employer typically runs its hospital rooms at positive pressure, since they’re trying to protect immunocompromised patients from infection, but COVID wards will run their rooms at negative pressure to prevent the disease from spreading.
Ksmiami
@Roger Moore: remove all traces of this ill gotten administration including the judges.
patrick II
@Roger Moore:
So, where do they pump the air to to maintain the negative pressure?
Roger Moore
@patrick II:
I assume the excess air is exhausted to the outside, hopefully after going through some kind of filtering/UV/whatever to avoid contaminating everyone. Suzanne would obviously be the person who really knows the answers to this stuff. Note that it doesn’t take a huge amount of airflow to create useful negative pressure, and you’d need to refresh the air in the room anyway, so maintaining negative pressure doesn’t create any new problems for infection control.
bluefoot
@trollhattan:
There are a lot of antibody tests out there, but few with good false positive/false negative rates. The good ones for which I’ve seen some data don’t appear to be in widespread use yet (but they are very new). (At least one that i know of has been submitted to the FDA but isn’t yet approved.) Antibody tests also require a blood draw, and with a lot of clinics closed or with limited capacity, it may be affecting how many people are getting tested.
Barbara
@bluefoot: I got an antibody test through Labcorp. It was negative. I have to assume that it was correct even though I have my doubts. I got it because I had a persistent dry cough for a month, and in the first week, gastric symptoms and chills, then chills alone, then fever and chills and feeling really exhausted for the better part of four days. It’s like no other flu I ever had. No respiratory symptoms, however.
So I waited until the cough went away and got the test.
JAM
I like this one: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states It was just added to the site a couple of weeks ago.
Ohio Mom
Frosty Fred: that was enjoyable. I don’t know if these sorts of videos sway anyone but they are morale-building to me. Someone else is as fed up as I am!
evodevo
@different-church-lady: Yes, UV works, within limits. At least 15 minutes of exposure…the virus/bacterium has to be on the surface of the object, and just running an object under a light for a couple minutes is NOT gonna do anything…UV does not penetrate the way heat and microwave do…do NOT under any circumstances expose your eyes …UV light is extremely mutagenic (hence skin cancers)
Michael
@Kay: He wears the hard hat because he thinks it makes him look like a butch rugged construction worker. Maybe he is also thinking about the anti-Muslim hard hat demonstrations
This is a great blog with a terrible comment system: no up or down votes, replies parked a mile south of the original comment. Well, it has editing so there’s that.
Another Scott
@Icedfire: That is a very well done site. Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
Michael: Cole gives this blog pretty free rein but among the bottom lines are no nested comments and no up/down votes.
Another Scott
@Calouste:
It’s time to pull off the band aid, eat our peas… (0:35)
Cheers,
Scott.