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Post by mervinswerved on Apr 12, 2020 7:49:09 GMT -5
"Reopening" the country is dependent on having a widespread and effective testing system. Everyone needs to be able to get a test for both the virus and for the antibodies to determine if they've already had it. After more than two months, we still can't do the first part in this country, let alone the second.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Apr 12, 2020 8:00:21 GMT -5
I live in a county of 7,997 people in the middle of Kansas. So far, our county has tested 71 people which is 0.89% of the population. This is a higher % tested than the entire state of Kansas and 32 other states. So far, the county has just 1 person test positive (1.41%). From what I understand - this person contacted the virus and tested positive in the middle of March when he had just got back from being out of the country. He was immediately self-quarantined and from my understanding never showed any symptoms. This is almost 1 month ago. The county is 656 square miles - so the county has 12.2 people per square mile. Yet I bet at least 1/2 the people in the county is scared silly. Does this strike anyone else as being nuts?
The entire state of Wyoming has tested 5,459 people (0.94%) and just 261 have tested positive - a very low 4.8%. So far, 0 have died. Wyoming has 5.92 people per square mile - less than 1/2 as much as my 'incredibly' tiny, disperse place I live.
IMO, there shouldn't be a one-size fit all. What we are doing in Metro Detroit or NYC isn't what we necessarily should be doing in large parts of the country. This is why the Federal Government shouldn't be in charge of either stay at home orders or when and how to open things up. And even doing this at the State level isn't optimal. What is going on in Johnson County Kansas is much different than out on a farm in Central/Western Kansas.
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Post by noblesol on Apr 12, 2020 8:51:47 GMT -5
"Reopening" the country is dependent on having a widespread and effective testing system. Everyone needs to be able to get a test for both the virus and for the antibodies to determine if they've already had it. After more than two months, we still can't do the first part in this country, let alone the second. I like the sentiment, and it's an aspirational goal. But, while we wait for widespread testing available to anyone anywhere anytime, we may need to explore reopening before that goal is attained. As we learn more about the disease, I don't think we can rule out that testing some appropriate% of the representative general population may be enough to establish how many have it or had it, within tolerable parameters. And then incorporate intensive testing programs in hotspots and for first responders and medical personnel and those caring for vulnerable populations, then for those with contact with our food supply, and within schools and daycare situations, etc., As we learn, we will quickly figure out other like situations that require frequent testing. In other words, with a good enough testing solution implemented right now, there may be greater value than waiting on the perfect solution implemented later.
When sufficient herd immunity is attained/when vaccines are widely available/when good treatments are available/when widespread testing programs are available, then this disease becomes one of the manageable risks of life we deal with as we do with other diseases. At that point we go back to living our lives and society adjusts to having one more manageable disease among the many.
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Post by mervinswerved on Apr 12, 2020 9:13:54 GMT -5
How can you say is an aspirational goal when other countries are already doing it? Is our government and health care system just that broken? We are literally months behind the capabilities of other nations.
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Post by noblesol on Apr 12, 2020 9:31:46 GMT -5
How can you say is an aspirational goal when other countries are already doing it? Is our government and health care system just that broken? We are literally months behind the capabilities of other nations. Aspirational doesn't mean not achievable. It means it isn't immediately attainable regardless of how much we want it. Getting there will require lots of hard work, stringing together many shorter term realistic goals, and some luck to get it done right the first time. We are after all a nation of over 300 million, with 50 federated states, plus territories and protectorates. Each state, territory, and protectorate will be managing its own testing programs, with some level of federal oversight and assistance. Likely there will be separate federal testing programs among the military, federal agencies, and on reservations, etc. Each tailored for the need. Even if great tests were immediately available everywhere, it wouldn't mean that great testing programs would be immediately available everywhere. We are not a totalitarian society, we must implement testing plans that differentiate among the many regions and that use local solutions, while recognizing the rights of individuals. Other countries are smaller, or more homogeneous, or more authoritarian, etc. We should learn from them all, their good and bad solutions and implementations, but I wouldn't expect any nation will be able to wholesale copy another nation's solutions and expect the same results.
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Post by mervinswerved on Apr 12, 2020 9:41:06 GMT -5
That's nonsense. The federal government exists to tackle problems the states cannot. This is one of those times. Germany and South Korea had vastly better testing responses than the United States with similar advance notice. To say nothing of most other liberal democracies' social and economic solutions for individual people. They are certainly not more authoritarian than the US and nominally not richer, either.
What they do have is actual state capacity.
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Post by dawnsong on Apr 12, 2020 9:49:35 GMT -5
I live in a county of 7,997 people in the middle of Kansas. So far, our county has tested 71 people which is 0.89% of the population. This is a higher % tested than the entire state of Kansas and 32 other states. So far, the county has just 1 person test positive (1.41%). From what I understand - this person contacted the virus and tested positive in the middle of March when he had just got back from being out of the country. He was immediately self-quarantined and from my understanding never showed any symptoms. This is almost 1 month ago. The county is 656 square miles - so the county has 12.2 people per square mile. Yet I bet at least 1/2 the people in the county is scared silly. Does this strike anyone else as being nuts?. Yet the “Spanish” flu of 1918 not only killed hundreds in Kansas, strong evidence indicates that the virus originated in and spread from Haskell County in western Kansas. www.kshs.org/kansapedia/flu-epidemic-of-1918/17805Note that Camp Funston is Fort Riley. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Apr 12, 2020 10:03:04 GMT -5
"Reopening" the country is dependent on having a widespread and effective testing system. Everyone needs to be able to get a test for both the virus and for the antibodies to determine if they've already had it. After more than two months, we still can't do the first part in this country, let alone the second. After a very slow start to testing - the US testing now or over the past couple weeks has been very good. Compared to South Korea - who is considered among the best in the World - the US is gaining. South Korea has tested 1.00% of their population compared to 0.81% for the US. However, the US will pass South Korea over the next couple weeks. South Korea maxed out around and average 260 tests per 1M per day over any 7 day period. The US has averaged 455 tests per 1M per day over the past 10 days. The lack of testing capacity in the US is mostly old news.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2020 10:16:14 GMT -5
"Reopening" the country is dependent on having a widespread and effective testing system. Everyone needs to be able to get a test for both the virus and for the antibodies to determine if they've already had it. After more than two months, we still can't do the first part in this country, let alone the second. After a very slow start to testing - the US testing now or over the past couple weeks has been very good. Compared to South Korea - who is considered among the best in the World - the US is gaining. South Korea has tested 1.00% of their population compared to 0.81% for the US. However, the US will pass South Korea over the next couple weeks. South Korea maxed out around and average 260 tests per 1M per day over any 7 day period. The US has averaged 455 tests per 1M per day over the past 10 days. The lack of testing capacity in the US is mostly old news. A poor comparison. South Koreans are no longer testing at full capacity. They had 32 new cases yesterday and 3 deaths bringing their risk death toll to 214. There were 783 deaths in New York alone yesterday. In total Korea has had 10,512 confirmed cases. Their fast start to tracking and testing the infected is part of why that number is comparatively low. The U.S. has now reached more than 530,000 cases. Our slow start to tracking and testing the infected is part of why that number is comparatively high (more than a quarter of the total worldwide cases). I believe the phrase is "A day late and a dollar short".
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Post by noblesol on Apr 12, 2020 10:33:24 GMT -5
That's nonsense. The federal government exists to tackle problems the states cannot. This is one of those times. Germany and South Korea had vastly better testing responses than the United States with similar advance notice. To say nothing of most other liberal democracies' social and economic solutions for individual people. They are certainly not more authoritarian than the US and nominally not richer, either. Both Germany and South Korea are unique in their own ways. Both are more homogeneous than the U.S., both geographically more contained.
South Korea because of its proximity to China and experience with SARS has, compared to the rest of the world, been uniquely prepared for another corona virus epidemic. I'd also argue that their war footing with North Korea has shaped their society in such a way that top down national solutions and group think are the norm not the exception.
Germany, unlike its neighbor Italy, had not had a recent bout of leftward lurching resulting in selling off large portions of its businesses to China, with large amounts of China immigration and travel following, resulting in an early and widespread sparking of epidemic disease among its 2nd in the world elderly and vulnerable demographic.
Germany has implemented widespread testing, but its implementation is carried out locally, as ours eventually must be.
What both South Korea and Germany did right is they quickly approved test kits that could be produced in sufficient quantity and quality to permit testing programs to proceed widely. In the U.S., the CDC fumbled early on in its bureaucratic development of test kits and implementation of them, and in conjunction with the fumbling of the FDA and its bureaucracy, new and better tests took too much time to get through approval. Never underestimate the CYA nature of federal and state bureaucrats and their 'experts' and need to over-control and CYA. It is why you never 'trust' them to do the right thing at the right speed at the right time. Never take your eyes off them or cut them slack! We the public are their ultimate oversight.
In the U.S., the existing public health structure is implemented at the state and local level. The Feds providing support and some oversight, coordination of efforts nationwide, safety and efficacy approvals of drugs, medical devices, and testing kits, and emergency backup and resourcing. But the rubber meets the road at the state and local levels, where sustainable national public health policy must eventually be implemented and sustained locally by each state and local government closest to the local manifestation of the problem among its regionally unique demographic and situation.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Apr 12, 2020 11:08:56 GMT -5
While COVID is a highly contagious and infectious virus, mainstream media has taken this and turned it into the black plague. If you watch COVID NEWS NETWORK, one would think that half of NYC has COVID, is dying, and the bodies are being buried in mass graves. It just isn't that way. YES, there are over 6,000 deaths in NYC from COVID and 100,000 confirmed COVID cases. That's a lot! NYC is our Wuhan. But let's keep a little perspective here...NYC has over 20 MILLION residents. That means one half of one percent of NYC has gotten the virus. Not one percent. One half of one percent. And of that group, 6 percent of the one half of one percent have died. Pandemics are going to hit places like NYC especially hard: Several areas of NYC have populations of almost 70,000 people PER SQUARE MILE. That's only 400 square feet of space - public and private - per person. No other metro area in the US even comes close to this population density. Many metro areas in Texas have only 2000 people PER SQUARE MILE. Social distancing is a way of life. Most people don't take subways, trains or buses. There are very few 30 story apartment buildings in Texas. Most people live in one or two story apartment dwellings or single family residences. Texas ain't NYC, and neither is the rest of the country. We need to get back to some common sense here and quit listening to the CNN guys for a while. Yikes. Looks like OANN has sunk their dirty talons into you pretty deep.
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Post by dman on Apr 12, 2020 11:15:32 GMT -5
As of April 6 there have been as many as 55 million cases of flu in U.S. this year with 400,000 hospitalization and 63,000 deaths, 162 being pediatric. Compare that with the numbers of COVID and influenza numbers blows them away. I get that this is a new virus and hospitalization are longer than flu cases to those that reach that point but do question of there is some ulterior political motives at play and media stoking our fears. We didn't do this for HIV in the 80's, which truly was a death notice for those that had it back then.....just throwing it out there. By the end of this the flu may be the big killer this year, not COVID.
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Post by cindra on Apr 12, 2020 11:40:45 GMT -5
As of April 6 there have been as many as 55 million cases of flu in U.S. this year with 400,000 hospitalization and 63,000 deaths, 162 being pediatric. Compare that with the numbers of COVID and influenza numbers blows them away. I get that this is a new virus and hospitalization are longer than flu cases to those that reach that point but do question of there is some ulterior political motives at play and media stoking our fears. We didn't do this for HIV in the 80's, which truly was a death notice for those that had it back then.....just throwing it out there. By the end of this the flu may be the big killer this year, not COVID. Can't catch HIV from a cough...
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Post by dman on Apr 12, 2020 11:44:43 GMT -5
But did we know that right away when it first appeared?? If I remember correctly there was an initial fear it could be airborne. Didn’t shut down country for it and mortality rate was almost terminal with diagnosis. You ignoring the influenza stats??
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trojansc
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Post by trojansc on Apr 12, 2020 11:53:44 GMT -5
As of April 6 there have been as many as 55 million cases of flu in U.S. this year with 400,000 hospitalization and 63,000 deaths, 162 being pediatric. Compare that with the numbers of COVID and influenza numbers blows them away. I get that this is a new virus and hospitalization are longer than flu cases to those that reach that point but do question of there is some ulterior political motives at play and media stoking our fears. We didn't do this for HIV in the 80's, which truly was a death notice for those that had it back then.....just throwing it out there. By the end of this the flu may be the big killer this year, not COVID. HIV disproportionately affected gays and minorities, so that could have something to do with it....
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