CORONAVIRUS LATEST: https://t.co/Yujnxsvj50
• 1,984 fatalities from COVID-19 registered in the United States on Wednesday, per Johns Hopkins University.
• The U.S. is the worst-affected nation, with more than 10.4 million diagnosed cases and at least 241,800 deaths.— ABC News (@ABC) November 12, 2020
The U.S. reported 142,279 new COVID-19 infections, an all-time daily high for a second day, according to a Reuters tally. The number of people hospitalized with the virus also surged to at least 64,939, the highest ever during the pandemic https://t.co/xpRXWDw6vA pic.twitter.com/Cg82F87Hky
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 12, 2020
October 11 there were 46K new COVID infections.
November 11 there were 144K
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 12, 2020
Testing has risen in the US, but infections are rising faster. The positive test rate has now risen to 8.5%, higher than at any point during "second wave" this summer. pic.twitter.com/Mr0o3pKX3M
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) November 12, 2020
The US government’s coronavirus response is now officially a failure by its own measure https://t.co/Tcw13aiWp7 pic.twitter.com/AWivjnsb75
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 11, 2020
… “This was our prediction that if we do a really good job, we’ll be at about a hundred and — 100,000 to 240,000 deaths,” [Trump] said. “And we’re below that substantially, and we’ll see what comes out. But that would be if we did the good job.”
On Wednesday, the country passed 240,000 deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. We did not do the good job…
YES!
Shutting down businesses and paying people for lost wages for 4-6 weeks could control the pandemic and revive the economy until a vaccine is approved and distributed, said Biden coronavirus advisor Dr. Michael Osterholm. https://t.co/SODSmHpcDt
— CNBC Politics (@CNBCPolitics) November 11, 2020
Also good news, President-Elected Biden has chosen Ron Klain as his Chief of Staff:
Six years ago today I left the hospital after surviving Ebola.
At the time @RonaldKlain was coordinating the US Ebola response. He has the experience to get us through this.
We will soon have White House leadership that listens to the science and will take pandemics seriously. https://t.co/2O3QqdS4Ix
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) November 12, 2020
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A few places in the world, mostly small island nations in the Pacific, have yet to report even a single case of coronavirus. Highly secretive North Korea and Turkmenistan say they haven't any cases of COVID-19, but their claims are doubted by outsiders. https://t.co/MlcDWEqJBh
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 12, 2020
UK becomes first country in Europe to pass 50,000 coronavirus deaths, government statistics show https://t.co/xfoJzD24pP
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) November 11, 2020
The UK becomes the 5th country to exceed 50,000 coronavirus deaths https://t.co/aMBFtRzA5a via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 11, 2020
During Italy's resurgence of the pandemic, concern is falling less on intensive care wards and more on regular medical wards. Eight regions have moved alarmingly into the red-alert zone with more than half of their hospital beds dedicated to virus patients https://t.co/kB16yr2wlB
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) November 12, 2020
31,946 patients now hospitalized in France https://t.co/oGVqHR2Ud6 pic.twitter.com/8oL5i0gc9h
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 12, 2020
COVID leads to a measurable drop in life expectancy in Spain https://t.co/cv1zGMuNuh via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 11, 2020
Russia confirmed 19,851 new coronavirus cases and a record 432 deaths on Wednesday, marking the end of a five-day streak of new cases surpassing 20,000 https://t.co/9NN1bLsEXQ
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 11, 2020
Today's grim milestone of 432 deaths pushed Russia’s overall Covid-19 death toll to 31,593 https://t.co/0OCF202oVe
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 11, 2020
ICU beds full as COVID surges in Indian capital, weekend festival a worry https://t.co/exfBKkvvVA pic.twitter.com/aTtgbLKXDU
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 12, 2020
Delhi's Covid cases spike as temperatures drop and pollution rises https://t.co/siYjXzjq62
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 12, 2020
Japan recorded more than 1,500 coronavirus cases on Wednesday for the first time since early August. One expert says the country could be on the brink of a third wave of infections. https://t.co/ocYYGDqKbr
— NHK WORLD News (@NHKWORLD_News) November 12, 2020
SCOOP: The province rejected its own public health agency's advice when it launched its framework for #COVID19 restrictions. A member of the health measures table didn't see the final plan until it was publicly released.
From me & @katecallenhttps://t.co/gNm4XMDPgd
— Jennifer Yang (@jyangstar) November 12, 2020
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A study of nearly 2000 US Marine recruits who went thru supervised quarantine before starting basic training revealed multiple instances of asymptomatic #coronavirus transmission. Findings have implications for the effectiveness of public health measures https://t.co/5JPJDCkDC7
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) November 11, 2020
New research confirms that temperature and symptom checks miss many coronavirus infections.https://t.co/jy6KpE2iKl
— AP Health & Science (@APHealthScience) November 11, 2020
A valuable reminder that even if Pfizer’s vaccine is indeed effective (we need more than a press release to know this for sure), there are GIANT challenges ahead, especially in ensuring equity. https://t.co/KzVYIMC4Ed
— Prof. Gavin Yamey MD MPH (@GYamey) November 11, 2020
EU buys 300 million doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer coronavirus vaccine https://t.co/WhzzNwteXk
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 11, 2020
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it feels a bit like the people running america have sort of just leaned back, lit a cigarette and taken their hands off the wheel https://t.co/OLg4sqiQrT
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) November 12, 2020
I was going to say "This is going to be such an awful winter" but we have weeks to go before winter begins and they're going to be awful too.
Didn't have to be this way. https://t.co/zE1vlawcuL pic.twitter.com/MQ4uFxyaZI— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) November 11, 2020
Yes but the thing you really and truly have to internalize is that our current government very much does not care if you die. https://t.co/PD0KHL7hfk
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 11, 2020
California close to 1 million #coronavirus cases as lines get longer, testing sites stay open later https://t.co/V9tNWd9LmF
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) November 12, 2020
The Minnesota Vikings have given up on trying to host larger crowds and said that the team will close the remaining home games to fans, as the state blew past its record for new daily coronavirus deaths. Minnesota reported 56 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday. https://t.co/PNQzwXJcDQ
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 11, 2020
Looks like Newark NJ is back to its March levels of #COVID19 again. Damn.https://t.co/WtufDKfzjP
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) November 12, 2020
the priests of Conservatism thank Governor Noem for her generous offering of constituent lives in sacrifice to the MAGA Gods, ensuring the party a bountiful harvest of judicial appointments https://t.co/rWgT4gT3Gg
— Zoomcock Archivist (@canderaid) November 11, 2020
"The prolific conservative political contributors have been outspoken opponents of COVID-19 restrictions, with Mrs. Uihlein arguing in the spring that the media is "overblowing" the threat from the coronavirus." https://t.co/etVd5GQ32B
— Michael Hawthorne (@scribeguy) November 12, 2020
Doesn’t this virus know who we are?!?
… Some of Uline’s roughly 7,000 employees have expressed concerns that too few office and call center employees have been permitted to work from home without a strong case for a medical condition.
Mrs. Uihlein explained Uline’s COVID-19 policies in her note to employees. Those with symptoms of COVID-19 should get tested immediately, and people who have had close contact with a confirmed infection should wait five days and then get a test.
“Employees who test positive will be allowed to return to work 10 days from the date their test was collected, if you don’t have any symptoms,” she said. “If you don’t have any symptoms, you are expected to continue working.” …
According to the Center for Responsive Politics compilation of campaign finance data, the Uihleins contributed over $65 million to political candidates and committees in the 2020 federal election cycle, trailing two billionaire candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, and Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who spent over $180 million on the election.
YY_Sima Qian
Yesterday, China reported 1 new domestic confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), and 0 new asymptomatic cases. The confirmed case is reported by Tianjin Municipality, the truck driver who had taken delivery from the cold storage facility with the contaminated imported frozen mean products at the Tianjin Binhai Port.
In response to the new infections at Shanghai, Anhui and Tianjin, highly suspected to be caused by imported frozen meat or other goods, regional governments have instituted limited lock downs and mass testing campaigns. Shanghai has tested 26 close contacts, 186 Tier 2 close contacts, 8,717 regular contacts and 524 environmental samples, all negative. The village with the case is under lock down. Shencheng Township of Yingshang County, Fuyang City in Anhui Province, where a close contact of the case at Shanghai had been diagnosed, all 8,222 residents are being tested. Of the 7,421 results obtained so far, all are negative. The residential compound with the case is locked down. In Tianjin, all 77K residents of the Hangu sub-district in Binhai New District with cold storage warehouses are being tested. Of the 65+K results obtained so far, all are negative. 1,962 environmental samples have been collected from the 8 cold storage facilities in the area (1,809 from outer packaging and 163 from the environs), all are negative. In Dongli District, where the infected cases reside, 8 close contacts, 113 Tier 2 close contacts and 339 regular contacts have been tested, all negative. The residential compounds with the cases live are under restricted access management.
Kashgar and Kizilsu Prefectures in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region did not report any new cases yesterday, the 4th day in a row since the start of the outbreak in late Oct. 3 serious cases improved to moderate, 11 cases have recovered and 24 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There are currently 41 confirmed cases (including 1 in serious condition), all in Kashgar, and 268 asymptomatic cases in Xinjiang (251 in Kashgar and 17 in Kizilsu).
Yesterday, China reported 14 new imported confirmed cases and 6 imported asymptomatic cases and 1 imported suspect case:
Yesterday, Hong Kong reported 23 new cases, 17 imported cases, 6 from local transmission (1 has source of transmission identified, 4 are taxi cab drivers).
YY_Sima Qian
Anvisa, Brazil’s health regulator, has resumed Phase III trial of Sinovac’s Coronavac vaccines. It was halted a couple of days ago due to a “major health incident” with a volunteer in the trial. It turns out to be a suicide, not sure whether the volunteer had taken a placebo or not. There is some bickering between Anvisa and Butantan (the health institute in the Sao Paolo state that is running the trial) about whether Butantan relayed full information to Anvisa, or whether Anvisa halted the trial on incomplete information. Not sure if the Bolsonaro put any pressure on Anvisa, but the vaccine certainly became political football between Bolsonaro and the leader of Sao Paolo state (and likely challenger in the next election) for a bit, and has been for a while.
YY_Sima Qian
Interesting to see Dr. Osterholm advocating a hard lock down to suppress the massive surge in the US. I distinctly remember during Hubei’s lock down he expressed skepticism whether such non-pharmaceutical intervention is viable or sustainable. It turns out such measures do not need to be indefinite, just long enough to achieve eradication. Difficult but definite sacrifice for a relative early return to normality (and targeted response to new outbreaks) is more sustainable than having successive large waves of infections wash across the population necessitating repeated large scale lock downs.
I am not criticizing him. Changing assessment based on new information is the scientifically sound approach.
NeenerNeener
281 new cases up here in Monroe County, NY yesterday. No new deaths yet.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers. DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 919 new cases today for a cumulative reported total of 43,791 cases. He anticipates being able to bring R0 as low as 0.5 in the next week or two. He also reports one new death for a total of 303 deaths — 0.7% of the cumulative reported total, 0.93% of resolved cases.
Meanwhile, 996 patients recovered and were discharged, for a total of 32,069 patients recovered — 73.2% of the cumulative reported total.
One new cluster was reported today, Teluk in Sabah.
916 new cases are local infections. Sabah has 318 cases: 29 in older clusters, 27 in Teluk cluster, 143 close-contact screenings, and 119 other screenings. Negeri Sembilan has 240 cases: 236 in existing clusters, 3 close-contact screenings, and one other screening. Selangor has 174 cases: 122 in existing clusters, 37 close-contact screenings, and 15 other screenings. Penang has 63 cases: 55 in existing clusters, and eight close-contact screenings. KL has 47 cases: 39 in existing clusters, two close-contact screenings, and six other screenings.
Labuan has 35 cases: 20 in existing clusters, 13 close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. Sarawak has eight cases: three in existing clusters, three two close-contact screenings, and two other screenings. Perak has nine cases: six in existing clusters, and three close-contact screenings. Johor has eight cases: three in existing clusters, four close-contact screenings, and one SARI screening.
Melaka has eight cases: seven in existing clusters, and one close-contact screening. Kedah has three cases: two in existing clusters, and one other screening. Kelantan has two cases, both in existing clusters. And Putrajaya has one case, detected in other screening.
Perlis, Terengganu, and Pahang reported no new cases today.
Three new cases are imported. They arrived from Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria.
11,419 active and contagious cases are currently in hospital; 92 are in ICU, 35 of them on respirators.
The one death today, reported in Sabah, is a 66-year-old non-Malaysian man.
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid: What are the “other screenings”. Pre-hospital check in, pre-flight?
Sabah’s case counts seem to be coming down again, but still many cases being found in “other screenings”.
WereBear
Am I wrong at wondering why Trump didn’t get sicker? He had ALL the risk factors.
Maybe… having medical care is a BFD, huh?
Bruce K
Greece is going from a “soft” lockdown to a “hard” lockdown – curfew 9pm-5am, with exceptions only for work, health, and exercising pets. Things are bad in Attica, but worse in Thessaloniki, where ICUs are nearly at capacity, and a large military hospital is converting its bomb shelter into a treatment ward.
low-tech cyclist
May the Covid Leopard eat their faces.
satby
The former manager of the doctor’s office where I work has tested positive, so has her husband and adult daughter living in the same home. Her sister-in-law still works at the doctor’s office and just started wearing a mask instead of a face shield last weekend, though I also told her she had to wear a real mask or bring a doctor’s note verifying she can’t (which I was positive her doctor wouldn’t give her, because no competent doctor with a COPD patient would). Now, because she’s a raging Trumpcultist, I have to try to find out if she’s been with her infected relations in the last two weeks, because she would never admit it and voluntarily quarantine.
TS (the original)
These people are insane. Spreading the virus by considering a person with no symptoms is not contagious.
14 days quarantine for those who had close contact with a confirmed case was standard in Australia. Isolation for those who test positive, until they have a negative test.
This is how you control covid.
@WereBear:
I worry that I am into conspiracy theories, but I don’t believe he had covid.
satby
@low-tech cyclist: All the covid denialists think they’ll never get it. Diseases attack other people, not good decent people like themselves.
satby
@TS (the original): I think he did, and that aggressive early treatment with all the newest medicines and protocols kept it to a mild case. But even asymptomatic cases can show long term damage, so we’ll see.
It doesn’t make sense that he hasn’t had it given the multiple outbreaks at the White House. And though the theory is that he’d pretend to have it to prove it was no big deal, I doubt a narcissist like him would admit to anything he would consider weak.
TS (the original)
@satby:
I sure you are probably right but I still wonder. He could well have thought he had it, panicked himself into hospital.
It is just so hard to believe that the country we always thought was at the forefront of medical research, controlling outbreaks of deadly disease and having all the right research/controls in place has become the worst country on earth at controlling this virus.
Like the 3rd lady, he really doesn’t care.
snoey
@satby: Hospitalized and getting supplemental oxygen isn’t a a mild case.
Geo Wilcox
When this is finally over, Covid 19 will make the 1918 flu pandemic look like a walk in the park.
WereBear
That is my take.
My own theory is that he’s going to take dexamethasone as his new drug of choice until his immune system breaks down like an untreated HIV-positive person.
Which is awful, but karmic justice.
Mary G
@TS (the original): Ever since Republicans started bleating about “American exceptionalism” the less and less exceptional we’ve become. Sad!
OzarkHillbilly
It depends on how advanced the COPD is. A friend of mine has real problems wearing a mask and has to stop frequently and open the mask for more air to catch his breath. It is literally that or pass out. For somebody like him a Doc will tell the patient to stay the fuck at home and give a note for those times when they absolutely have to go out.
satby
@snoey: Well, I agree for most normal people, but given his age and likely mediocre health they could have advised him to go in earlier so they could treat him more aggressively than they would even admit any member of the hoi polloi.
Rusty
@NeenerNeener: I am glad to see the state is responding. 15,000 tests through the schools and limiting home gatherings to 10 people. I hope those and the other actions keep us from moving into the orange zone. My kids will be devastated if we go back to full remote school and all their outside activities get cancelled again. Unfortunately we seem to have a hard core of deniers that are just going to continue what they want to do, even if it makes it worse for everyone else.
SectionH
@Mary G: Too True to Be Good, Or updating GBS, too fucking True to be sane.
satby
Exactly my point. If she was so bad she truly couldn’t wear a mask, the doctor would have told her to stay home. Plus I brought one of my pulse oximeters to work, so that if she was hypoxic we could call an ambulance. Which she has so far declined to use.
I also play a mean game of poker.
snoey
@satby: We’ll never know, but I don’t see him showing weakness with an unnecessary hospitalization.
OzarkHillbilly
The doctor can tell her anything s/he wants and your workmate is free to ignore it. The doc would know this and still give her the note in the full knowledge that she might abuse it because if they didn’t it might end with her dying from a skull fracture after a fall. My buddy is a bonehead who hates to be dependent on others and so does things he could wait and have his wife do. Your workmate may feel like she needs to work because the money is the diff between any number of hard choices.
Sloane Ranger
Yesterday’s figures from the UK, there were 22,950 new cases, up about 2500 from the previous day. The trendline continues to be plateaued at a high level. Broken down by home nation the new cases,
England – 19,970 (up @1300)
Northern Ireland – 791 (up @300)
Scotland – 1261 (up @400)
Wales – 928 (up @500). Not looking good given they have just come out of lockdown.
Nationwide the R number was 1.1 to 1.3 as of 6th November.
Deaths – There were 595 new deaths yesterday and, unhappily if not unexpectedly, this has increased by 26.9% when comparing the period 5-11th November to the previous 7 day period. England had 478 of yesterday’s deaths, Northern Ireland 8, Scotland 64 and Wales 45. As AL has noted we now have over 50,000 people dead with this disease. 50,365 to be precise and this is conservative, given it does not include those where COVID was a contributory factor.
Testing – 304, 843 tests were processed out of a capacity of 511,451. Test processing in the 7 days ending 10th November has increased by 8.2% compared to the previous 7 day period.
Hospitalisations – 14,196 people were in hospital as of 9th November and 1219 were on ventilators on the 10th November. Both trending upwards. Hospital admissions increased by 3.4% in the 7 day period ending 31 October compared to the previous 7 day period.
General – Only 4.5% of people received their test result within the target of 24 hours in the week ending 4th November. This is an increase of 1% from the previous week. In marginally better news, 57.7% got their results within 48 hours, up from 36.5 the previous week. Also Test and Trace hit rates have improved in that 85% of people were contacted. This is the best result to date with the system.
Zzyzx
@Geo Wilcox: The 1918 flu killed something like 3-6% of the entire human population living at the time. Coronavirus isn’t a joke but it’s nowhere near that level.
satby
@snoey: I didn’t say unnecessary, I said he was most likely advised to go in as soon as he started to show reduced respiratory function, even though it was probably sooner than someone *not the president* would have been admitted. He got special treatment.
SectionH
@Bruce K: I hate that it’s gotten so bad there. Hope you’re safe and stay that way.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Not disagreeing with you much, though most ethical doctors won’t write an excuse note that could actually harm a patient if followed, they would decline because it opens them to a potential malpractice claim.
There’s a lot of backstory to this one that I won’t go into, but she’s a die hard Trumper who used to work fighting wc claims at one of his casinos. She’s been grifting off this doctor for years redefining what parts of her job she’s willing to do on a constant basis but expecting full pay for half assed or no work, and I am documenting it all. She’s been claiming to be too sick to perform more than half her job functions for years, but can’t produce a letter from her doctor backing that up. If she did we would have some reason to accommodate her under the ADA with a different job (the ADA doesn’t require we jettison essential job requirements, just that we make accommodations so that she can perform them. Which she doesn’t want to actually do, able or not).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@WereBear: Maybe false positive quick test and coward’s panic attack?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Zzyzx: Not yet, remember the Spanish Flue mutated into something much worse during the second wave. That’s why Herd Mentality is so insane, gives the virus more chances to do that.
J R in WV
@Zzyzx:
Coronavirus isn’t a joke but it’s nowhere near that level YET!!!
You think we’ve already seen the worst? ‘Cause I don’t. Winter is coming! and the weather is lousy…
ETA: And I see reading onward, I am not the only pessimistic person reading this report. I think people should be acquiring real masks, industrial respirators that seal to your face with a big soft plastic gasket and filter n100 particulates.
If we are going to be surrounded by people who may be infected but refuse to be tested, we need to protect ourselves from the Trumpist fools spreading the Trump Plague willy-nilly all around us. The better we can mask, the more likely we are to survive.
Zzyzx
@J R in WV: I think these next few months are going to be bad, but no one is calling for 7-8 million deaths in this period.
Some perspective is useful sometimes. Something can be horrible even if there have been worse disasters.
Zzyzx
Run the numbers. Let’s say that there’s no vaccine yet and this runs rampant through the end of February with no slowing. To get to 3 million deaths – which still would be 1/3 of the rate of the 1918 flu and that was worldwide, not just in its worst country – we’d need to be averaging north of 27k deaths a day.
You want to say that we’re going to hit 2-3k a day at its peak? That seems believable. 27k is completely nonsensical for everything we’ve seen in the last 9 months.
The reason why I push back is because this kind of over prediction is what makes 250k deaths seem like not that big of a deal.
Percysowner
Mike DeWine is slowly lowering the boom in Ohio.DeWine: Mask must be worn, says restaurants, bars may close Both Republicans and Democrats are unhappy. Republicans are threatening to pass legislation limiting his ability to make any mandates and to close and business. DeWine has told them he will just veto the bill. The Repubs tried to pass this earlier this year, got the veto threat, counted heads and realized they couldn’t override it. The Republicans are now threatening to do “something with the budget” to force his hand here, I have no clue what. Democrats are understandably saying this is too little and we should be shutting down right now. Both Republicans and Democrats find fault with Gov. DeWine’s new COVID orders
I disagree with almost everything DeWine stands for and I won’t vote for him, ever, but I give him props as one of the few Republican Governors to actually CARE about keeping his state safe.
mrmoshpotato
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Fuck you, murderous Trump humpers!
mrmoshpotato
@low-tech cyclist:
?️?
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G:
“Exceptional – exceptionally stupid because you keep re-electing Rethuglican trash like us, but we repeat ourselves.”
StringOnAStick
@Geo Wilcox: The 1918 flu epidemic ended because the flu virus mutated into a less virulent form, and there was an ever shrinking remaining unexposed population to infect. This is what makes it hard to get a perfectly effective vaccine; flu mutates rapidly and the current year’s vaccine is created based on models that predict what strains will be dominant in the year into the future, but for which they must manufacture the vaccine now because it is grown using eggs (that’s why people who are allergic to chicken eggs can’t get a flu vaccination).
Covid is different in that it appears to not mutate rapidly. Combined with no vaccine and plenty of people to still infect, and your prediction is basically baked into the cake now. What a horrible moment in human history to be ruled by idiots.
lowtechcyclist
It’s estimated that ~675,000 Americans were killed by the 1918 flu pandemic, and the 2020 Census says our population was 106.5 million at the time. So that would be like over 2,000,000 Americans dying due to Covid-19.
If Trump steals this election, it could happen. Otherwise, no.
This is going to be a nasty winter, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if the death toll is in the 350-400,000 range by the time Biden is sworn in.
I’m kinda surprised that I haven’t seen the GoT “Winter is Coming” meme adapted for our upcoming coronavirus winter. Seems like a natural.
chopper
@StringOnAStick:
covid can, from what i’m able to tell, mutate a bit more quickly (or at least effectively) if it moves into an animal reservoir for a bit, hence why denmark and the netherlands are flipping out and culling all the nations’ mink.
chopper
@lowtechcyclist:
our medical establishment is a million times better than it was a hundred years ago. i’ll bet if it was similar to back then, covid would be cutting americans down by the tune of several million.
Aleta
N. Geo about the vaccine news from Pfizer
It’s good to have an article pointing this out. Understandably, the announcement has at the same time helped with discouragement, a positive effect.
Aleta
On my zoom this morning (not about Covid) this news given by a woman in Hungary: “Total lockdown, no ventilators, no room in hospitals, only little children are going to school.” (A translation by another member, assumed to be fairly accurate.)
VOR
I read a book on the 1918 epidemic which drove this point home. Germ theory still wasn’t fully accepted yet. Professional medical schools were still developing. Very different world as far as public health and yet we are still fighting some of the same battles. Look up the Anti-Mask League of 1918.
Uncle Cosmo
@Geo Wilcox: I believe I have pointed out before why you are almost certainly wrong, but you insist on continuing to push this misguided meme.
The 1918 “walk in the park” caused 675,000 deaths in the USA out of a population of 103 million. That is the equivalent of 2,160,000 deaths in a population of 330 million.
Even at the highest death rates seen so far, the pandemic would have to rage unchecked for over 2 years more to reach that figure. And it is highly likely that, even if there’s no effective vaccine available long before then, even the bulk of Trumpistas, once they know someone who’s died from (or even had a really miserable case of) Miz ‘Rona, will clamor for action.
Stop scaremongering out of your ignorance.
(ETA: Essentially what lowtechcyclist said at #42 supra, which I just saw, sorry,)
Scout211
Being on the west coast, I am late to this thread but Costco just announced its new policy for face coverings. If you can’t wear a mask over your face and mouth, you must wear a face shield. No one, except children under 2, will be admitted without a mask or face shield.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2020/11/12/costco-face-masks-policy-shields-medical-conditions-change-coronavirus/6263114002/
LongHairedWeirdo
Yes, right before the giant, anthropomorphic bee asks “yeah, don’t you know anything about cars?”
(Ref: The Nice Guys. See, the bee explains bees can’t fly with all the air pollution, so they mostly go around in cars… hey, it’s *in the movie* don’t blame me!)
Bill Arnold
@WereBear:
He was given a quadruple dose of the Regeneron monoclonal antibody cocktail. His immune system vs SARS-CoV-2 (and just SARS-CoV-2) was artificially boosted, a lot.
A bunch of other people around him got infected, and some got sick. Decent odds that he was the index patient in the first White House cluster; they refused to do tracing for that cluster for reasons never explained. A genetic analysis was never done, though an independent university did test a few in the cluster and found a unique and easily identifiable strain, IIRC.
Bill Arnold
@J R in WV:
I’m in NYS, where mask discipline in public indoors places is quite good (essentially 100 percent, though maybe 5 percent nose-exposers), but since the active infection rate in my county is about 5X what it was in August, I’ve started wearing a N95 in stores rather than a more comfortable mask. (Shaving, too, to improve the fit/reduce leakage. :-)
Governor Cuomo recently (Nov 10) ordered no private gatherings indoors with more than 10 people. This was because private indoor parties have been found through contact tracing to have started a bunch of clusters. Some of that was Halloween parties.
Uncle Cosmo recently mentioned in some thread that he had been mentioning to nose-exposers that the science has been emerging that virus often takes root in the nose and that if people want any protection for themselves, they need to have the mask covering their nose.
Bill Arnold
@StringOnAStick:
BTW partial herd immunity is the main selection pressure driving the dominance of strains resulting from small drifts, if I’ve read the papers correctly. (Influenza epidemiology is complicated; the literature is intimidating to a non-biologist like me.)