Due to problems with the interface between WordPress and Twitter, front-pagers have been asked to keep the number of tweets-per-post to ten or fewer. Since screenshots, I’m informed, don’t have those issues, today’s hodgepodge posting is a mixture of screenshots & embedded tweets, saving the embeds for higher-tier items, since I quail at the idea of sorting out more than one of these update posts per night. Yes, it’s ugly, but I’ve already spent twice as long as usual putting this together, and we’re all on a learning curve here…
Dr. Eric Topol:
When it comes to Covid, the United States specializes in denialism. Deny the human-to-human transmission of the virus when China’s first cases were publicized in late 2019. Deny that the virus is airborne. Deny the need for boosters across all adult age groups. There are many more examples, but now one stands out – learning from other countries…
In the past couple of weeks, the UK and several countries in Europe, including Germany, France and Switzerland, are experiencing a new wave. At least 12 countries, geographically extending from Finland to Greece, are experiencing new increases in cases, some quite marked, such as Austria exceeding its pandemic peak, and Finland with an 85% increase from the prior week. Many of these countries are also showing a rise in hospital admissions.
This is the sixth warning from the UK and Europe to the United States.
Indications within the United States support the idea that new wave is already getting started. Wastewater surveillance is relatively sparse in the United States, but 15% of the 410 sites where it was conducted between 24 February to 10 March 2022 showed a greater than 1000% increase compared with the prior 15-day period. Also, the BA.2 variant is gaining steam in the United States and is now accounting for more than 30% of new cases…
Not only is there a gaping hole in our immunity wall, but the $58bn budget of the American Pandemic Prepared Plan (AP3), advanced by the White House to comprehensively address the deficiencies, was gutted by the Senate and reduced to just $2bn. Under threat are the order of more than 9.2m Paxlovid pills, the Test-to Treat program announced at the State of the Union address, better data, wastewater surveillance, efforts to develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine, research on long Covid, and many other critical public health measures.
We haven’t even seen a new, major variant yet, but there are too many reasons to believe that is likely in the months ahead, owing to extensive animal reservoirs and documented cases of spillover to humans, a large number of immunocompromised people in whom the virus can undergo accelerated evolution, rare but increasingly seen co-infections, and lack of containment of the virus globally. That, in itself, requires preparedness. Unfortunately, we have a mindset that the pandemic is over, which couldn’t be further than the truth, as I wrote about in the epidemic of Covid complacency…
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Figures showing a global rise in COVID-19 cases could herald a much bigger problem as some countries also report a drop in testing rates, the WHO said on Tuesday, warning nations to remain vigilant against the virus. https://t.co/IlVFbPmVgP
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) March 16, 2022
China's local COVID cases decline for 2nd day as Jilin outbreak grows at slower pace https://t.co/PnaNbl2R1C pic.twitter.com/9juLfcuiXq
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 17, 2022
As the Omicron variant continues to spread across China in the biggest wave of COVID-19 cases since the 2020 Wuhan outbreak, it is pushing the country’s strict zero-COVID policy to the brink https://t.co/X2k6x0gfqz pic.twitter.com/DF4CDzSiY7
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 17, 2022
COVID-19 infections and pandemic restrictions have sucked much of the energy out of Hong Kong. As store shelves empty and the government sends mixed messages about plans for mass testing, it’s hard for residents to know what’s next. https://t.co/TFR0ALrJJ6 pic.twitter.com/RmpBIJnuAP
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 16, 2022
South Korea reached another daily record in COVID-19 deaths on Thursday as health officials reported more than 621,000 new infections. The massive omicron surge has been worse than feared and threatens to buckle an over-stretched hospital system. https://t.co/GJUIYFws4f
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 17, 2022
When South Korea, a model country for the pandemic, has >400,000 new cases in a day, leading the world per capita, you take notice. Tests 4X the US with <1/6th the population. BA.2 is 26% as of this week's report.
Very high 2-shot vaxx 87%, 3-shot 63%. The pandemic isn't over. pic.twitter.com/X3JKQqvi9S— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) March 16, 2022
It's been a while since I posted this chart but the recent surge in cases has catapulted all Australian states into the most infectious Covid-19 infection rates per million of the population in the world. I for one will be wearing my mask and continuing to social distance. pic.twitter.com/yoqph6e0wf
— Frank Turner (@FrancisTurner11) March 17, 2022
The #Covid surge in Western Europe has US public health experts bracing for a new wave. Germany, a nation of 83M saw more than 250k new cases & 249 deaths Friday. The health minister called the situation critical. Most Covid protections there end Sunday https://t.co/m38mMOuPbl
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 16, 2022
In Africa, a mix of shots is driving an uncertain #Covid vaccination campaign. Supplies are more plentiful now but they're unpredictable & often a jumble of brands. Many places can’t meet WHO’s recommended dosing schedules https://t.co/hZDCKaPQi3 pic.twitter.com/70kKqoW34W
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 16, 2022
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… Croup, which causes a distinctive barking-like cough and high-pitched sounds when patients inhale, happens when viruses cause swelling in the respiratory tract that makes it hard to breathe. From the start of the pandemic until mid-January 2022, emergency physicians at Boston Children’s Hospital treated 75 children with croup, all but one of whom had COVID infections. Eighty percent of those cases occurred after Omicron began circulating in December 2021, they reported in Pediatrics. Most of the children were treated with steroids and sent home, but some required hospitalization. Overall, the children required more medication doses compared to children with croup caused by other viruses, the doctors found…
Tuberculosis vaccine improves immune response to coronavirus
… Early in the pandemic, studies began to suggest that people who received the so-called BCG vaccine as children had lower rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Research in hamsters now shows that animals vaccinated with BCG had less pneumonia due to COVID-19 and lower levels of the coronavirus in their lungs. Doctors at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found important differences in lung cells between animals infected with SARS-CoV-2 who did or did not get the BCG vaccine, they reported on Tuesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. Upon infection with the coronavirus, for the BCG-treated animals, antibodies came to lung cells much faster, lung repair mechanisms got underway much more quickly, and tissue-damaging inflammation was blunted, said coauthor Dr. William Bishai. Earlier this month, researchers in India reported on the effects of BCG in recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca (AZN.L) in a small study. The 21 subjects who had received the TB vaccine showed significantly “more robust” antibody- and T-cell attacks against the coronavirus than the 13 people who had not, they reported on Research Square ahead of peer review. Combining BCG vaccines with COVID-19 vaccines “may offer synergistic protection,” the Johns Hopkins team said. Clinical trials testing BCG vaccines for protection against COVID-19 are underway…
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Two years of #Covid have created a 2nd much more silent pandemic—one of grief. And yes, grief is hard to quantify https://t.co/lLr1lkHgME pic.twitter.com/9ipbDH8ubQ
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 16, 2022
On The Road – Uncle Ebeneezer – SE Asia Valentines (Part 11)- Hoi An (By Day!!)
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
129 new cases on 3/16. Still headed upwards. Crap.
Shalimar
2228 deaths. So we’re still losing more people each day to Covid than Russia is losing in their disastrous war. I’m glad no one around here including court personnel have to wear masks anymore.
p.a.
Maybe the only way to get unanimous, effective USG action on covid is to declare us all fetuses. That might get the ‘pro-life’ party on board, right?
Kristine
Currently reading posts on my phone. Faster, smoother page loading with no crashes.
HeartlandLiberal
Please include text URL link to each tweet below the screenshot. For most interesting, I go to Twitter to see threads, and to send to retired doctor I am friends with. Yesterday I sent him the poop doesn’t lie tweets. Humor in time of plague.
These curated tweets are an invaluable service, and Anne Laurie’s time is MORE than appreciated.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@p.a.: Except the ectopic-pregnancy treatment ban (among other things) shows it’s not about saving fetuses, it’s about damaging and denying agency to people who they think are threatening The Way Things Ought To Be.
Declare us all fetuses, and then they’ll restrict those rights to Only The Right Kind Of Fetuses.
To quote Granny Weatherwax, sin is when you treat people like things.
YY_Sima Qian
On 3/16 Mainland China reported 1,226 new domestic confirmed (28 previously asymptomatic), 1,206 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangdong Province reported 83 new domestic confirmed & 70 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Guangxi “Autonomous” Region reported 7 new domestic confirmed (all at Qinzhou) & 23 new domestic asymptomatic cases (11 at Qinzhou, 1 at Fangchenggang, & 10 at Chongzuo). 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 83 active domestic confirmed (47 at Fangchenggang, 15 at Baise, 18 at Qinzhou, 2 at Nanning, & 1 at Chongzuo) & 136 active domestic asymptomatic cases (46 at Fangchenggang, 13 at Baise, 48 at Chongzuo, 22 at Qinzhou, 4 at Liuzhou, & 2 at Beihai) in the province. 1 zone at Fangchenggang are currently at Medium Risk.
Hunan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 4 active domestic confirmed cases in the province (2 at Changsha, & 1 each at Xiangtan & Huaihua).
Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 10 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 24 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Tianjin Municipality reported 48 new domestic confirmed (5 previously asymptomatic, 41 mild & 7 moderate) & 7 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all are traced close contacts already under quarantine,. 3 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 291 active domestic confirmed & 37 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 4 sites are currently at High Risk. 9 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shandong Province reported 36 new domestic confirmed (10 previously asymptomatic) & 96 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 5 confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 1,060 active domestic confirmed cases & 1,475 active asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Shanxi Province 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 20 active domestic confirmed cases in the province (9 at Jinzhong, 5 each at Yuncheng & Taiyuan & 1 at Jincheng).
Hebei Province reported 38 new domestic confirmed & 178 domestic asymptomatic cases. 17 domestic asymptomatic cases have been released from isolation. There currently are 271 active domestic confirmed & 832 active asymptomatic case in the province. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Liaoning Province reported 62 new domestic confirmed & 94 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 14 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 203 active domestic confirmed & 126 active domestic cases in the province.
Heilongjiang Province reported 16 new domestic confirmed & 13 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 70 active domestic confirmed & 88 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Jilin Province reported 742 new domestic confirmed (11 previously asymptomatic, 731 mild, 7 moderate & 4 serious) & 415 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 7,480 active domestic confirmed & 2,967 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Beijing Municipality reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases (2 mild & 2 moderate), 3 are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine, & 1 via screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. 1 village is currently at Medium Risk.
Shanghai Municipality reported 8 new domestic confirmed (1 previously asymptomatic) & 150 new domestic asymptomatic cases, 71 of the new domestic positive cases are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine, 87 from screening of persons deemed at risk of exposure. 4 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 103 active domestic confirmed & 1,106 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 11 sites are currently at Medium Risk.
Shaanxi Province reported 26 new domestic confirmed cases (24 mild & 2 moderate). 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 294 active domestic confirmed cases in the province. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Hubei Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 19 active domestic confirmed (13 mild & 6 moderate, 18 at Wuhan & 1 at Shiyan) & 3 active domestic asymptomatic (2 at Wuhan & 1 at Xianning) cases in the province..
Jiangsu Province reported 5 new domestic & 67 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 5 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 8 domestic asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There currently are 170 active domestic confirmed & 232 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Anhui Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed (moderate, at Tongling) & 10 new domestic asymptomatic (6 at Ma’anshan & 4 at Tongling) cases, 5 of the cases are Ma’anshan are traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine & 1 from screening of residents in areas under movement restrictions, all 4 cases at Tongling are found via community screening. There currently are 4 active confirmed (2 each at Ma’anshan & Tongling) & 30 active domestic asymptomatic (18 at Ma’anshan, 3 at Suzhou, 6 at Tongling & 1 each at Anqing, Chuzhou & Haozhou) cases in the province. 2 villages at Ma’anshan, & 1 village & 1 residential building at Tongling, are currently at Medium Risk.
Zhejiang Province reported 27 new domestic confirmed & 4 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 144 active domestic confirmed & 20 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Gansu Province reported 12 new domestic confirmed & 8 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 8 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 149 active domestic confirmed & 146 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
Fujian Province reported 99 new domestic confirmed & 42 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently are 166 active domestic confirmed & 86 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.
At Xining in Qinghai Province there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
Zunyi in Guizhou Province reported 2 new domestic confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic, both mild), the new domestic positive case is a traced close contact already under centralized quarantine. There currently are 8 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Nanchang in Jiangxi Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a traced close contact of domestic positive cases elsewhere. There currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
Henan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 7 active domestic confirmed (5 at Puyang & 1 each at Shangqiu & Zhengzhou) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Puyang) cases in the province. 7 sites at Puyang are currently Medium Risk.
Chongqing Municipality reported 11 new domestic confirmed (2 previously asymptomatic, all mild) & 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases. There currently is 35 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 3 dormitory buildings are currently at Medium Risk.
Yibin in Sichuan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city.
Yunnan Province reported 5 new domestic confirmed & 24 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 2 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 7 new domestic asymptomatic were released from isolation. There currently are 73 active domestic confirmed & 353 active domestic asymptomatic cases remaining in the province. As the province does not break down recoveries by administrative divisions, I cannot track the count of active cases in administrative divisions, given the multiple simultaneous outbreaks.
Imported Cases
On 3/16, Mainland China reported 91 new imported confirmed cases (19 previously asymptomatic, 6 in Guangdong), 104 imported asymptomatic cases, 8 imported suspect cases:
Overall in Mainland China, 247 confirmed cases recovered (158 imported), 98 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (51 imported) & 47 were reclassified as confirmed cases (19 imported), & 6,206 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 14,850 active confirmed cases in the country (2,524 imported), 16 in serious condition (1 imported), 11,029 active asymptomatic cases (1,729 imported), 14 suspect cases (all imported). 244,428 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.
As of 3/16, 3,209.041M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 5.353M doses in the past 24 hrs.
On 3/17, Hong Kong reported 21,650 new positive cases, 9 imported & 21,641 domestic (8,159 via RT-PCR & 13,022 from rapid antigen tests), 202 deaths (25 fully vaccinated, including 2 boosted) + 87 backlogged deaths.
On 3/17, Taiwan reported 90 new positive cases, 87 imported & 3 domestic.
Baud
@Shalimar:
I’m pretty sure we’re not at 2228 deaths per day.
Winston
Shit. It looks like another year in isolation for me. I’m too old for this. Shit.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 28,298 new Covid-19 cases yesterday in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 3,900,433 cases. It also reported 105 deaths for an adjusted cumulative total of 34,099 deaths – 0.87% of the cumulative reported total, 0.95% of resolved cases.
Malaysia’s nationwide Rt stands at 0.96.
147 confirmed cases are in ICU, 91 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 33,009 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 3,567,003 patients recovered – 91.5% of the cumulative reported total.
Six new clusters were reported yesterday, for a cumulative total of 6,893 clusters. 346 clusters are currently active; 6,547 clusters are now inactive.
27,600 new cases reported yesterday were local infections. 698 new cases were imported.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 47,773 doses of vaccine on 16th March: 12,788 first doses, 1,927 second doses, and 33,058 booster doses. The cumulative total is 68,328,203 doses administered: 27,364,874 first doses, 25,779,848 second doses, and 15,393,296 booster doses. 83.8% of the population have received their first dose, 78.9% their second dose, and 47.1% their booster dose.
Winston
@Baud: How do you know? Governors (Like DeSantis, Abbott) are fucking the stats. According to an article I read a couple of days ago only a third of deaths have been properly accounted as Covid.
Baud
@Winston:
That doesn’t allow us to make up stats. Last official count I saw was around 1000 per day.
NotMax
FYIs.
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– – – – – – –
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Greece: the Wedensday numbers show slight declines from Tuesday’s. New cases at 23,748, down from 26,536; 44 deaths, down from 50; and 354 ICU patients intubated, when Tuesday’s number was 358.
The Ministry of Health said that pandemic briefings will now be at larger intervals, with no daily briefing scheduled for Thursday, and the next scheduled briefing due on Monday. I can only guess whether they’ll release daily numbers for publication in the interim. The Ministry of Health did warn that the reductions in deaths and intubations do not signify the end of the pandemic, for what that’s worth.
Winston
@Baud: My girl friend died in Florida. She was diagnosed with Covid, went to the ER/ICU, tested Neg, a few days later, returned the the nursing home, died a week later. Of COPD. They said.
lowtechcyclist
If the fetuses are “unborn baybeez,” then maybe we should categorize adults as “born, grown up baybeez.”
Might work, if a respect for the sanctity of human life had the least thing to do with their opposition to abortion.
Baud
@Winston:
My condolences.
New Deal democrat
Cases increased by 1100 to 31,800, but still are down over 15% in the past week, while deaths declined below 1000 to 990. Except for a few days around Thanksgiving, this is the lowest number of deaths since late August.
Cases increased week over week in NY, RI, IL, HI*, NV*,and DE* (*due to data dumps), and were flat in AR and TX.
Aside from Nevada’s data dump alone, which added 500 to the daily total, the worst State was ID at 38 cases per 100,000, followed by AK, and VT at 20. The best State was NE, at 3.9 cases per 100,000, followed by KS, LA, OH, SD, IN, IA, UT, MD, all under 5. The rest of US jurisdictions are between 5 and 17.
We are probably getting close to the point where BA.2 causes a more sustained increase in daily cases, but I don’t think we are there yet, and I suspect the increase will be a small wave rather than a major one. In the meantime, I still expect deaths to decline to the lowest we have seen since last July.
Winston
@Baud: Well thanks, but she didn’t get counted as dying from COVID when I know sure as hell she would still be here if she han’t got COVID
Cameron
Got invited to go to a play tomorrow evening – it’s going to feel like a six-week vacation in the Mediterranean. And Congress wants no more money to fight COVID and no more masks on public transit? Sorry, folks, I’m going to continue riding the N95 route for a looooong time.
Baud
@Winston:
Still doesn’t allow us to make up numbers. You can say that the official numbers are an undercount.
Ohio Mom
@NotMax: Always glad to see white collars criminals brought to justice, even if they are the littler guys.
As for the idea another surge may be on its way shortly, I’m going to pretend I didn’t read that. I’ll continue masking, etc., but I’ll be pretending it’s all for show.
lowtechcyclist
@Winston:
U.S. excess deaths during the pandemic topped a million right about the time the official count of U.S. Covid deaths hit 900,000. So the official U.S. counts can’t be off by very much.
For sure, I’d love to see Florida’s excess death counts, because I feel fairly confident that DeathSantis is monkeying with Florida’s numbers. But there’s only so much a few states, even big ones like FL and TX, can do to affect the national counts
ETA: Condolences on the loss of your friend.
Winston
@Baud: You obviously don’t live under the DeSantis regime.
bjacques
Here in NL, we get the weekly figures late Tuesday afternoon. For the week ending the 15th, figures are 429,252, close 2.5% of the population. They’re down slightly from 439,775 for the previous week, which followed the last last days of Carnival and almost all COVID measures being dropped. As of next week, masks will no longer be required on public transport. About a dozen of our friends in Amsterdam got Omicron in the past 2 months, after having successfully dodged the Rona for 2 years. Another friend made it to Oz and back, only to catch it in London.
Hospitalizations 1545, up slightly from 1356; ICU new admissions 91 vs 64 previous week, but deaths 104 vs 56 previously.
Source:
https://www.rivm.nl/en/coronavirus-covid-19/weekly-figures
We also seem to be having a nasty flu season, but nobody seems to care about that.
I’m hoping to get in a few museum visits before the next lockdown. I managed to finally see the show of Artemisia Gentilleschi that had been in London only to be closed down during COVID. Same happened here (in Enschede) but they extended it to March 27th, happily. Even so, a few paintings had to be returned on time and were replaced by replica screenprints.
Baud
@Winston:
Thankfully no.
NotMax
@Ohio Mom
Kicker is what part of the money they filched was used for:
Cameron
@Winston: I’m sorry for your loss. And I do live in FL, so I’m all too familiar with the governor and his surgeon general.
Ohio Mom
@Winston: My sympathies on your loss.
I’ve always had some skepticism on the Covid stats, I don’t think any big count of anything can be anything more than an estimate — and that’s when everyone is trying their best. But Covid numbers, the last Census, nope, very clear they’ve been purposefully slipshod.
New Deal democrat
It was completely irresponsible for Senate Dems to roll over on COVID funding. I repeat what I said a week ago. Biden should do what Trump did with the border wall*: declare a state of emergency and allocate the money anyway. It takes 2/3’s of both Houses to overrule the declaration, and it really is an emergency.
*To those worried about legal niceties: that Rubicon has already been crossed. The next GOPer President will do it anyway, and I am not in favor of unilateral disarmament.
Winston
I don’t make this shit up : https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/florida-is-undercounting-covid-19-deaths-per-new-report/Content?oid=29055318
I follow it closely. The way the Florida dept of Health reports is confusing at best. This was reported initialy by Rebekah Jones who was persecuted in much the same way Putin does to people who try to tell the truth.
Baud
@Winston:
That’s excess deaths, not Covid deaths, so it includes people who died due to loss of hospital capacity. But even if you assume it’s all covid deaths, adding the excess doesn’t get you close to 2200 deaths per day.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Winston: I think the bigger tell is the MSM dropped the “Were does DeSantis go to get his apology?” narrative. That means even DeSantis fake record on COVID sucks now and he wants to change to the topic.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud: Here’s a site that tracks excess deaths for the nation, and by state. Counting from 3/1/2020 through the most recent reported date, I’m getting 78,721 excess deaths for Florida. Worldometer is showing 72,246 Covid deaths for Florida since the pandemic began.
So even though it’s bile in my mouth to do so, I have to take back what I said about Florida. It’s hardly beyond belief that they had 6,500 deaths that were indirectly caused by the pandemic, but weren’t actually Covid cases.
Soprano2
Fixed that for you. It’s not Congress that doesn’t want more money for Covid.
topclimber
@Winston: Sorry for your loss. Are you in a state known for fudging numbers?
ETA: I see in your response to Baud that you do.
Winston
[email protected]: Well I live in Polk County. I look at https://covidactnpow.org/us/florida-fl/county/polk_county/?s=30581916 for current stats. Right now it is reporting 2.9 deaths per 100,000 daily. The state of Florida is reporting 0 deaths per Worldometer.info. Polk County has 720k people. It’s hard for me to understand why state of Florida has less deaths than Polk county since we are part of State of Florida and 9th largest county. Tell me I’m stupid.
Soprano2
@Ohio Mom: It’s also that in the beginning we had no idea what we were dealing with. The story that sticks in my mind from April 2020 was that in New York City 911 got calls from people who said they thought someone in the house next door had died. They found people who lived alone dead in their houses. I don’t know if those were counted as Covid deaths or not, but I guarantee you that in April 2020 they weren’t tested. We got better as we went along, but for the first six months or so testing was sparse, never mind all the asymptomatic cases people never knew they had. I think someday math nerds will crunch the numbers, like they did on the 1918 pandemic, and come up with an estimate of how many people got sick and how many people died from Covid. That’ll probably be the best number we’ll ever have for it.
Soprano2
ITA, plus this has the virtue of being a real emergency! Dare Republicans to make a stink about money for meds for Covid.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Kieran Healy did what I thought was a convincing analysis of excess deaths in 2020. He found that the state that actually had the highest excess deaths per capita in 2020 wasn’t New York or New Jersey (though they were up there); it was Arizona. I suspect 2021 looks radically different.
Baud
@Winston:
I think that’s likely an artifact of when the reporting is done. Some places have moved to weekly reporting. But I’d have to look into it to be sure.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: Cool Web site. According to it. MO had 22,055 excess deaths. They are reporting 19,853 died of Covid, for a difference of 2,202. Surprisingly, that actually seems pretty reasonable considering I know we have at least one county here whose coroner refuses to put Covid on any death certificates.
Soprano2
So right now we’re at the lowest 7-day case average we’ve had since July 2020. So far no Covid deaths have been added for March. This is an area that hasn’t had any mask mandates or other measures since last fall. I’m hopeful the numbers will keep going the right way for awhile.
sab
Thanks Anee Laurie for these posts.
I am finding the site much easier to read this morning. It loaded faster and it’s not all twitchy, so I can scroll down without accidentally jumping around or into some other site.
Sigh. My city’s schools decided to drop the mask mandate, just in time for spring break and the increase in infections that come from that.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I hope he does it for 2021, and I agree that it will look different. With all those retirees, it’s not surprising to me that AZ would be first.
lowtechcyclist
The in-laws are in Plant City, just a stone’s throw from Polk County. I’ll wave in your direction the next time we’re down. ;-)
No, I’m going to tell you how Florida is fudging its numbers. Don’t have a link handy, but it was covered in the news at the time: only those Florida Covid deaths that occurred in the past day get reported as new deaths. The thing is, there’s usually a bit of delay between the date of death for any cause, and the time the county reports the death to the state, so Florida has almost no new deaths ever anymore.
And I’ve been noticing that their death total on Worldometer will stay unchanged for days, then increase by several hundred in one day, with either zero or maybe one or two new deaths that day. So their totals are keeping pace with where they should be, but in a sneaky way.
ETA: maybe as Baud said, they’ve gone to weekly reporting. I don’t tend to notice which day of the week the numbers increase.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: The CDC actually has big dumps of weekly excess death data by state in CSV format, so it wouldn’t be too hard to do the comparison just with a spreadsheet.
Chris T.
The thing that gets me is this: Who cares what the official diagnosis is? Dead is dead.
Imagine there’s some new disease, let’s call it “kilgore”. It’s never fatal on its own, but if you have any other problem, even a hangnail, it causes you to die, nearly instantly, of the other problem. If you’re diabetic, you die. If you have asthma, you die. If you have allergies, you die. If you accidentally poke yourself with a pin, you die. It’s so easily transmissible that one person with kilgore who sneezes infects everyone within a hundred million square miles. So everyone on earth comes down with kilgore. Out of 7 billion people on earth, 6.999 billion have at least a hangnail. All but 1 million people drop dead, overnight. None of them died “of” kilgore, they only died “with” kilgore. What difference does it make to the survivors?
This is a silly example of course, on purpose, but it makes the point: “excess deaths” is the right statistic. “Covid deaths” is not relevant. If there’s a prevention—a “kilgore vaccine”—everyone should take it. What’s so hard about this?
Kalakal
@lowtechcyclist: They’ve announced they’re going to 2 weekly reporting
Winston
@Baud: Both data bases acknowledge Florida is reporting weekly some what. Apparently DeSantis thinks that makes him look better. He laughs, and sends his goons to terrify Rebeka Jones. She is running against Matt Gaetz for congress. Get out and vote for her. Send her money if you can.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2: @lowtechcyclist: Cool Web site.
Thanks! I literally just found it.
I guess one symptom of being old-ish is that even after a quarter-century of the Web, I can type something like “For sure, I’d like to see Florida’s excess deaths,” and still have a lag of a couple minutes before the thought smacks me that I almost surely can see them, if I just type a few words into Google. And that’s how I found that website.
sdhays
@HeartlandLiberal: You can get the link by right-clicking or touching and holding and choosing “Copy Link”, or some equivalent depending on browser/platform.
@Annie Laurie – Thank you so much for these COVID updates every day!
Shalimar
@Baud: 2,228 is the number of new deaths in AL’s 2nd link. It may have been an abnormally high day, the average may be lower, but it isn’t made up.
Baud
@Shalimar:
The tweet doesn’t say per day. Not sure what that number is based on.
Ohio Mom
@Soprano2: I just know that the numbers for the two medical conditions I know a fair amount about are wacky.
For breast cancer, no one tracks how many people considered treated successfully for early stage BC later recur and die. You will read 30% but it turns out that was a number a BC expert pulled out of the air, without any numbers behind it. It shouldn’t be too hard to collect this information but no one even tries.
And autism prevalence rates, forget it. We will never know. For one thing, the parameters of the diagnosis keeps changing so we are counting different things at different points in time. I could go on but I’ll leave it at that.
I agree with your observation that in the early months of the pandemic, no one knew anything. But now, two years in, we could be collecting fairly accurate estimates, if we had the will to.
I read somewhere that infections are biology but pandemics are sociology. Well, we already know enough about the sociology of Florida so we are not surprised that Winston’s friends was left out of the count.
Betty
I think it is good news that the White House is bringing Dr. Ashish Jha in to coordinate on Covid. May he not be subjected to the attacks that Fauci has suffered.
Kay
@sab:
I would have kept the mask mandate in schools. Adults object to kids in masks, kids don’t and I think there’s plenty of evidence that it helps.
But, we tried. There became an elite consensus that kids couldn’t wear masks, so now we find out what that looks like. How many more are infected if there’s a wave.
I just really resent the main “unmask the kids” proponent- Emily Oster, who is not a physician but an economist. I have no idea why this person who is an economics prof and sells parenting books about how to run your family like a business became our go-to expert on whether kids in public schools wear masks. It’s ridiculous, but I imagine it’s very good for her book sales. Gross. So, so sick of these people butting into things they know nothing about.
Shalimar
@Baud: So you’re saying the information she posted is worthless without context and shouldn’t have been relied on for anything.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris T.: For a while, they were trying to claim that most of these excess deaths were somehow caused by the preventative measures, not by COVID. I saw people raising the possibility with a straight face that most of them committed suicide because of the shutdowns and social distancing.
Guac
Jeff Zients is finally leaving, thank goodness. Will be nice to have someone with actual medical and public health expertise advising the White House:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/17/zients-stepping-down-as-covid-coordinator/
Belafon
Someone should bug Charles Johnson over at littlegreenfootballs. He uses the Twitter API to pull the content and create a local representation of the tweets.
Baud
@Shalimar:
Kind of worthless. If it’s intended to be a per day stat, it’s very out of date.
sab
So I was at work yesterday picking up and dropping off files at the front desk, and a client couple arrived for an appointment. I was wearing my new free-from-the-government N95 mask (I love it since it doesn’t fall off). I am about the only one masking around that office. The clients looked shocked and asked if they had to wear masks. I said “No. That’s just me. I have grandchildren and I might be an asymptomatic carrier.”
That’s my new approach- I am trying to protect you. So deal with it.
smith
Regarding the apparent sharp decline in deaths this week, that should be taken with a big ol’ grain of salt: MA changed the way it counted covid deaths a couple days ago and subtracted 3770 deaths from its cumulative numbers. That plunged the rolling average from 1242/100k to 1003/100k in one day. This will affect the numbers for a few days yet.
Citizen Alan
@Cameron:
If the scum win the trifecta in 2024, expect a federal law banning masks in public places.
smith
Also, regarding what the actual death count for yesterday was, you can easily find it at 91-divoc. They give the raw, unaveraged number as 1943. This is derived from the Johns Hopkins tracking site. There has always been a certain amount of variation in exact numbers among the various tracking sites, but they are quite consistent in reflecting trends. It’s not unreasonable to say that yesterday’s death toll was in the neighborhood of 2000.
ETA: Also remember that many states only report on limited days of the week, so raw numbers will always be quite variable from day to day.
Matt McIrvin
@smith: Per-capita case rates in Essex County, MA bottomed out a little below 7/100k/day and now may be rising, slowly. I think I can also see a rise in the wastewater counts on the South Shore–I suspect there’s some kind of modest new outbreak happening around Providence and it’s filtering in. None of this is tremendous but I think it’s a sign that lifting school mask mandates stopped the general drop in cases. Need to look at the age breakdown
…hmm, the highest case rates by about a factor of 2 continue to be in older teenagers and young adults, not in little kids. So that’s inconclusive. That suggests college campus outbreaks, which would jibe with some of the geographic data.
smith
@smith: Correction to my post above: numbers are rolling averages, not rate per 100k.
J R in WV
@Citizen Alan:
Expect me to keep wearing masks regardless of RWNJ fuckery. I’ll have a note from my Doc, too.
bluefoot
Anecdote: My company has had a vaccine mandate in place since last fall, and just loosened the mask mandate. There was a large department gathering. Within 5 days, at least 10% of all attendees tested positive for COVID, and all are varying degrees of sick. The people I know who are sick are all vaxxed and boosted.
I am not letting go of my N95 for a while.
Ruckus
Conservative denial is going to destroy themselves and we shouldn’t tell them – except. They will take us with them. The concept that politics can wish away a pandemic is strong in this country, too bad it is a horrible myth. If they didn’t take anyone with them I’d say merry on. But, and it is a huge, firm, round but, that’s not of course how disease transmission works. Their sanctimonious bullshit doesn’t even register on the pandemic how to meter. It is however blazing red lights on the how not to meter. They seem to believe in the idiot fairy, that says do every exact opposite thing that actual science tells us. It’s stunning that they can believe that they can wish away anything, hell even Peter Pan couldn’t do that. Do they think their bank books can do that? What really stuns me is that a lot of the leaders of this insanity seem to be vaccinated. They don’t seem to give a damn if they lose their support, is it that they think their money can buy anything and everything they want? Or are they trying to kill by example, a theory that seems to have a somewhat fatal flaw.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
I’m crediting this to Anne Laurie: “one of the factors most consistently associated with a high risk of death due to Covid-19 in the US was the lack of internet access….”
https://www.vox.com/22979086/covid-pandemic-deaths-mortality-broadband-internet-access
Matt McIrvin
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: That’s actually kind of stunning–judging from where I see the bullshit flying I’d expect better Internet access to lead to WORSE outcomes.