Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

In after Baud. Damn.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, August 12-13

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, August 12-13

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25Comments

  1. 1.

    mrmoshpotato

    A Georgia school district that does not require masks has closed a high school and now has over 1,100 students and staff in quarantine due to the coronavirus.

    Just… All the side-eye!

    ???

  2. 2.

    jl

    Thanks for an informative post. The data on excess deaths is not surprising, people have been trying to estimate the excess deaths attributable to covid-19 for months now. Estimates have ranged from deaths being 25 to 50 percent higher than official stats, and this latest estimate comes in around 35 percent. So I dunno, yay statistics!, I guess is the most optimistic thing I can say.

    I personally find the news articles a little too pessimistic. The nice thing about getting the count of new cases really low, and also have good testing and contact tracking programs running well, is that you can figure out what the heck is going on.

    So, 16 middle and high income countries in Europe Asia and Pacific, with economies and resources comparable (per capita) to the US currently have sustained increases in prevalence of disease, measured as test confirmed cases. The big difference is that except for Spain, the increases would be undetectable blips in the US. Also, they understand where the cases came from and how they move through their societies.

    A big culprit is non-retail worksite outbreaks (agriculture, mining, distribution, manufacturing, etc.) due to corporate negligence. Another is relaxation of social distancing policies by general population (social distancing fatigue) , and in Europe, many countries have weaker mask policies than I thought they had. Big mask fight going in the Netherlands, similar to what we have been going through here. Importation of cases is a big problem. And countries do admit to have made mistakes in their reopening policies, and they are trying to fix them. Croatia didn’t provide isolation facilities for infected poor people who lived in crowded housing, and they think that is a big factor in their resurgence, so they are building separate dedicated isolation facilities for their poor. Other countries had dropped their public info and health education campaigns

    The US has cases coming out the woodwork and who knows what is going on (hint: nobody does). That is a big difference from the other countries. There is not a generalized resurgence all over Europe that no one has a clue about how to control. The US does have exactly that.

    Will be interesting to see whether the recent drop in new cases in the US is due to reduced testing (so just a measurement issue), population response to increased perceived risk, or maybe some new work on cross-immunity to other coronavirus can somewhat limit the total size of an epidemic wave will turn out to be an explanatory factor.

    Edit: though I forgot that some of the countries with increasing cases also increased their testing programs in response, so to get a real idea of how bad the increase really is, you need to figure out how to account for that.

    And, big policy response in Europe is to strengthen masking regulations, which as I noted, have been relatively weak compared to S Korea and Taiwan.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Oahu already announced this, now other islands get the go-ahead to pull back from in person attendance.

    Public schools on Kaua‘i, Hawaiʻi Island, and Maui County – with the exception of Moloka‘i schools and Hāna High & Elementary – will transition to full distance learning for the first four weeks of the 2020-21 school year.

    During the transition, school leaders will assess plans for the rest of the quarter. Schools will provide in-person special education services as appropriate and will serve as a learning hub to support students who lack internet access. Students and families are encouraged to utilize the ‘Ohana Help Desk, the nation’s first statewide, comprehensive technology support help desk to assist with distance learning. Source

  4. 4.

    West of the Rockies

    I hope DeSantis takes it in the shorts with a rusty jackhammer.  I call bullshit on Florida’s declining numbers.  About two weeks ago the WP had them (IIRC) at 58 per 100,000. Now, almost as if by magic, they’re at 30 despite no new regulations?!?

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Blech. Been awake since 1:15. Feeling a little sleepy now. I’m going back to bed.

  6. 6.

    Cermet

    But the stock market is doing great – so, all is well; not.

    If ever one needed proof that stocks have zero real world relevance to true economic health this is it. Those parasites eat middle class & poor wealth and spite out nonsense. Its only about making money for the elite and scamming everone else.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. 15 new cases. 11 cases from local infection: 10 Malaysians, nine from a new cluster related to a memorial service in Baling, Kedah, one in KL detected in pre-surgical screening. One non-Malaysian permanent resident detected in screening ahead of travel abroad. Four imported cases, all Malaysian students returning from Indonesia (three) and Yemen. Cumulative reported total 9,129 cases.

    Four more patients recovered and were discharged. Total 8,821 patients recovered, 96.7% of the cumulative reported total. Active and contagious cases in hospital for isolation/treatment rose to 183 patients; two are in ICU, no one is on a respirator.

    No new deaths since 31st July. Total is still at 125 deaths, 1.37% of the cumulative reported total and 1.40% of resolved cases.

    In other news, the owner of a nasi kandar eatery in northern Kedah was sentenced today to five months jail and a RM12,000 (US$2,860) fine for violating his home quarantine order to visit his business. Nezar Mohamed Sabur Batcha, 57, was also failing to keep the required customer log at his restaurant, the epicentre of the Sivagangga cluster that resulted in several communities in two states going into lockdown. Nor did he require that customers use the national contact tracing phone app. The restaurant has been permanently closed.

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack

    @Cermet:

    I think the last statistic I saw said that the top 10% of the population owns 90% of stocks. It’s probably more lopsided than that (i.e., the top 1% owns a huge percentage of that 90%).

    Wall Street is not Main Street.

  10. 10.

    Zinsky

    @jl:  Good post, jl!  Very informative.  I recently sent a letter to the editor of my local newspaper.  It said simply:

    History has shown that smart, disciplined societies can overcome pandemics readily.  Unfortunately, the United States of America in 2020, under Donald Trump’s administration, is neither.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    16 days ago, a huge crowd of Umno supporters gathered at the KL Court Complex as former PM Najib Abdul Razak was sentenced in a 1MDB-related misappropriation of funds case. It was widely feared at the time that this could be the start of a big cluster, and the Health Ministry said it was monitoring.

    The Health Ministry is now reporting that there have been no new cases attributable to this incident, and there is no cluster. As a not-fan of both Umno and Najib, I am relieved but  vaguely disappoint.

  15. 15.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Amir Khalid:

    As a not-fan of both Umno and Najib, I am vaguely disappoint.

    Infections happening to people you don’t like are unequivocally bad even if the news of such might make you feel good since it’s yet another infection source that can spread to people you care about more.

  17. 17.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — no new deaths of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported yet again today. 47 new cases were reported with a 1% positive test result rate. Over half of the new cases are in the Grampian area but not yet positively confirmed as part of the Aberdeen cluster which now has 182 linked cases.

     

    An adult working at a primary school in Peterhead, near Aberdeen has tested positive and the school has been closed pre-emptively. There are reports of some pupils at a secondary school in Glasgow testing positive too, more details to come. A small outbreak in the Orkney islands has been reported, possibly linked to the Aberdeen outbreak. The figures for people in hospital in Scotland remain high at 258, indicating many of them may be “long-haul” sufferers being treated for chronic ongoing medical problems either caused or exacerbated by the disease.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @Robert Sneddon

    Back in the mid-70s I was among a small group loudly “banned for life” from the Peterhead Inn by the barkeep, who I assume was also the owner.

    Our horrid crime? An impromptu round of kicking around a football in the parking area after we’d departed at closing hour. I wasn’t even playing, was standing and watching.

  19. 19.

    Fair Economist

    @jl: Excess deaths is worse than in that report because excess deaths is a very lagged number. It take about a month on average for a death to get reported and numbers continue to climb until about two months out.

  22. 22.

    Seanly

    We haven’t just passed 200k COVID deaths; we’re rapidly approaching potentially 400k based on that NYT piece. 170k confirmed from COVID plus 200k unknown above statistically expected = 370k. Far enough to say that maybe not all 200k excess deaths are from COVID.
    This is bad. And now Trump wants to totally fuck over the election. While I think that Biden can pull this out, I worry about election fuckery from Trump abetted by the Republicans.

  23. 23.

    Seanly

    Oops, I see that the deaths above normal includes those attributed already to COVID. So we are likely at just over 200k deaths. Still not good.

  24. 24.

    Jess

    Focusing on the silver lining here: in the developed countries, people have taken functioning government that cares about its citizens for granted in recent decades. Especially in the US. Now we all see what happens when we don’t collectively take responsibility for ensuring that we have such a government. I’m hoping that this will be a wake up call for everybody to get their shit together and start voting in competent, science-respecting representatives, and maybe it will even be in time to do something about climate change. Fingers crossed.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @YY_Sima Qian: WordPress flagged them as spam.  The format was pretty similar to a lot of messages that are spam.

    This morning I didn’t check spam for messages that don’t belong – as I usually do first thing in the morning.  Just catching this now.  Sorry about that!

    If that happens again, know that after the first two don’t post, nothing will post, so please raise a flag or send me an email message.

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