COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[GeorgiaModerate]

“Listen to the Scientists” has to be the most naive belief. Conventional Scientists once thought the earth was flat. It took brave men to stand up and prove otherwise.

No that is not true. The ancient Greeks were the first to know it was round (so far as we know). Thereafter, most educated elite knew it was round. Scientists knew it was round. Columbus knew it was round.

The Earth not being the center of the universe would fit your point.

The ancient Greeks not only knew the Earth was round, they had a very close idea of the actual size, as calculated by Eratosthenes.  Columbus actually underestimated the size of the Earth by a considerable amount, which led him to believe easternmost Asia was much closer to Europe than it actually is.

[Calthrina950]

Are most people still wearing masks in your area? I went out for the first time in a while and about 80% of people weren't even wearing masks. Kind of shows you why Biden and Harris backtracked on the mask mandate.

Yes, but there has been an noticeable (and alarming) increase in the number of maskless people recently. I got back from work not too long ago, and today, I saw at least 20-30 customers who were maskless, which was quadruple the number which I had observed in the previous two days. It has been nearly two months now since Polis issued his mask mandate, and there still isn't 100% compliance (and never will be). It goes to show you (and this is a point I made on here a few days ago) that even an official government order cannot compel absolute obedience from everyone. Many people simply don't care, and will go about as if things are normal.

[It’s so Joever]

...Considering complacency is what caused a second wave and the election is coming up, I am shocked Trump hasn’t tried to encourage mask usage.
I have a feeling the virus will hit a third wave (hopefully smaller) if what people are saying on here is true.

[It’s so Joever]

Coronavirus at only 0.4% lethality rate  is a ‘mostly peaceful virus.’

How cute, you really think you “owned us” didn’t you?
I’m not even going to merit such an asinine comparison with a counter argument.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Well this is frustrating:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/08/astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-study-put-on-hold-due-to-suspected-adverse-reaction-in-participant-in-the-u-k/

[It’s so Joever]

Well this is frustrating:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/08/astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-study-put-on-hold-due-to-suspected-adverse-reaction-in-participant-in-the-u-k/

I know, but this is routine. Besides, if they didn’t pause it, there would be even more vaccine skepticism. There is a decent chance it’s not related to the virus, but it’s still good to make sure before distributing a vaccine.

[emailking]

It's scary though how many people I've seen on social media who appear to genuinely believe that Bill Gates and/or the Democrats created the virus somehow.

[It’s so Joever]

It's scary though how many people I've seen on social media who appear to genuinely believe that Bill Gates and/or the Democrats created the virus somehow.

Yeah, it’s obvious it was the Greens and Libertarians who collabed with eachother to make it in the hopes of overthrowing the current political order. Vermin Supreme May have actually been patient one according to some classified documents.

Jeff Bezos also contributed for business reasons.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/PCH_SF/status/1303479356723871744?s=19

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

And people wonder why I don't trust the media. As if their 40 years of Big Pharma apologia wasn't enough of a reason.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

BLM wasn't a superspreader event.

Sturgis wasn't a superspreader event.

The bubble gum blowing contest at some county fair in Wisconsin wasn't a superspreader event.

None of that stuff was. This is not March. We're past that.

[Kingpoleon]

“Listen to the Scientists” has to be the most naive belief. Conventional Scientists once thought the earth was flat. It took brave men to stand up and prove otherwise. What looks like science today, could easily become fiction tomorrow.

Believe the Social Scientists. Listen to the Political Scientists. Dr. Fauci has been consistently wrong - he has zero credibility.

Critical thinking is what’s most important.

Dr. Fauci has very impressively made virtually no mistakes.

Refusing to listen to doctors is not “critical thinking” - it’s a display of overconfidence in your own knowledge of medicine, despite zero apparent training/education in it.

[Frodo]

Have we finally turned a corner on the coronavirus?

Pandemic seems to be leveling off in U.S., but numbers remain troublingly high, experts say

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be leveling off in most of the United States, with new cases, deaths and hospitalizations all down over the past week, but the plateau leaves the country with high and persistent infection numbers and worries of a post-Labor Day surge in some areas.

The number of new cases reported daily peaked above 70,000 in July and has been falling since. The decline now seems to be slowing, with the daily number hovering near 40,000 for more than a week, a review of nationwide data showed Tuesday. That is one sign that the infection may be leveling off.

Although that is good news, the numbers suggest continued high levels of infection and a long road ahead, particularly as cold weather and the flu season approach. Without a vaccine or a major advance in treatment, significant reductions in new cases would probably require voluntary or mandated changes in behavior that experts say are unlikely six months into the public health crisis.

[Calthrina950]

Have we finally turned a corner on the coronavirus?

Pandemic seems to be leveling off in U.S., but numbers remain troublingly high, experts say

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be leveling off in most of the United States, with new cases, deaths and hospitalizations all down over the past week, but the plateau leaves the country with high and persistent infection numbers and worries of a post-Labor Day surge in some areas.

The number of new cases reported daily peaked above 70,000 in July and has been falling since. The decline now seems to be slowing, with the daily number hovering near 40,000 for more than a week, a review of nationwide data showed Tuesday. That is one sign that the infection may be leveling off.

Although that is good news, the numbers suggest continued high levels of infection and a long road ahead, particularly as cold weather and the flu season approach. Without a vaccine or a major advance in treatment, significant reductions in new cases would probably require voluntary or mandated changes in behavior that experts say are unlikely six months into the public health crisis.

This part is critical. We have been living with canceled events, capacity restrictions, social distancing guidelines, work from home, online schooling, mask mandates, quarantines, travel restrictions, tests, and all of the rest for over six months now. I'm not sure how much can be done to further reduce the number of cases, short of ordering another lockdown. I think it was foolish for us to expect that this virus would be completely suppressed. What we must do now is focus on "maintaining the curve", as it will, preserving hospital capacity and continuing with the reasonable restrictions that are currently in place.

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

“Listen to the Scientists” has to be the most naive belief. Conventional Scientists once thought the earth was flat. It took brave men to stand up and prove otherwise. What looks like science today, could easily become fiction tomorrow.

Believe the Social Scientists. Listen to the Political Scientists. Dr. Fauci has been consistently wrong - he has zero credibility.

Critical thinking is what’s most important.

Dr. Fauci has very impressively made virtually no mistakes.

Refusing to listen to doctors is not “critical thinking” - it’s a display of overconfidence in your own knowledge of medicine, despite zero apparent training/education in it.

lol about Fauci. Actually, Hahahaha I can’t stop laughing. He’s flip flopped on everything bc he initially gets it all wrong. What a joke.

And do you know what a balanced approach is? Bc we don’t have that, and it’s what I’ve been pleading about, but okay.

[7,052,770]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

And people wonder why I don't trust the media. As if their 40 years of Big Pharma apologia wasn't enough of a reason.

No...

They are saying that there are a quarter million cases connected to Sturgis. So if you went there, got COVID, came back home and infected people, and then they infected more people, and so on, all of those cases are included in the count, even though only 1 person went to Sturgis, as they presumably wouldn't have happened without the rally.

[Dr. Arch]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 9/8 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm keeping track of these updates daily and updating at the end of the day, whenever all states finish reporting for that day.

ΔW Change: Comparisons of Weekly Day-to-day Growth or Decline of COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: Comparing the numbers to the same day of last week, are we flattening the curve enough?

Σ Increase: A day's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.

• IE: What's the overall change in the total?

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8/30: <Sunday>

• Cases: 6,173,236 (+34,158 | ΔW Change: ↑4.40% | Σ Increase: ↑0.56%)
• Deaths: 187,224 (+369 | ΔW Change: ↓14.19% | Σ Increase: ↑0.20%)

8/31: <M>

• Cases: 6,211,682 (+38,446 | ΔW Change: ↓7.32% | Σ Increase: ↑0.62%)
• Deaths: 187,736 (+512 | ΔW Change: ↑0.39% | Σ Increase: ↑0.27%)

9/1: <T>

• Cases: 6,257,571 (+45,889 | ΔW Change: ↑14.44% | Σ Increase: ↑0.74%)
• Deaths: 188,900 (+1,164 | ΔW Change: ↓9.77% | Σ Increase: ↑0.62%)

9/2: <W>

• Cases: 6,290,737 (+33,166 | ΔW Change: ↓25.70% | Σ Increase: ↑0.53%)
• Deaths: 189,964 (+1,064 | ΔW Change: ↓14.81% | Σ Increase: ↑0.56%)

9/3: <Þ>

• Cases: 6,335,244 (+44,507 | ΔW Change: ↓3.81% | Σ Increase: ↑0.71%)
• Deaths: 191,058 (+1,094 | ΔW Change: ↓4.29% | Σ Increase: ↑0.58%)

9/4: <F>

• Cases: 6,389,057 (+53,813 | ΔW Change: ↑8.49% | Σ Increase: ↑0.85%)
• Deaths: 192,111 (+1,053 | ΔW Change: ↓4.71% | Σ Increase: ↑0.55%)

9/5: <S>

• Cases: 6,431,152 (+42,095 | ΔW Change: ↓1.75% | Σ Increase: ↑0.66%)
• Deaths: 192,818 (+707 | ΔW Change: ↓25.89% | Σ Increase: ↑0.37%)

9/6: <Sunday>

• Cases: 6,460,250 (+29,098 | ΔW Change: ↓14.81% | Σ Increase: ↑0.45%)
• Deaths: 193,250 (+432 | ΔW Change: ↑17.07% | Σ Increase: ↑0.22%)

9/7 (Yesterday): <M>

• Cases: 6,485,575 (+25,325 | ΔW Change: ↓34.13% | Σ Increase: ↑0.39%)
• Deaths: 193,534 (+284 | ΔW Change: ↓44.53% | Σ Increase: ↑0.15%)

9/8 (Today): <T>

• Cases: 6,514,231 (+28,656 | ΔW Change: ↓37.55% | Σ Increase: ↑0.44%)
• Deaths: 194,032 (+498 | ΔW Change: ↓57.22% | Σ Increase: ↑0.26%)

[emailking]

This is Labor Day related I guess? Otherwise these are some big drops.

[Pericles]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

That would be absurd. Fortunately, that's not anywhere close to what it actually says. It estimates 250k cases as a result of Sturgis.

Grossly oversimplifying: if 2,500 people at Sturgis had it, and each of them spread it to ten people while they were there, and each of those 25,000 infected two more people over the week after, and each of those people infected two more the next week, and each of them two more the next week (three weeks, bringing us from the end of Sturgis to now) you get 250k cases.

I was just going to say the same. Bandit's post misunderstands how this stuff works.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

That would be absurd. Fortunately, that's not anywhere close to what it actually says. It estimates 250k cases as a result of Sturgis.

Grossly oversimplifying: if 2,500 people at Sturgis had it, and each of them spread it to ten people while they were there, and each of those 25,000 infected two more people over the week after, and each of those people infected two more the next week, and each of them two more the next week (three weeks, bringing us from the end of Sturgis to now) you get 250k cases.

So I can understand the second step in this calculation (each previously infected person spreading it to ten people) since this sort of event would seem to facilitate the spread in an extreme way. 

But I don’t understand the assumption that they would be three additional tiers of spread to two other people for each infection, even among people who had no connection to Sturgis.  This would assume an overall Rt of 2.  But rt.live currently estimates that only one state (WV) has an Rt right now greater than 1.2.   Given the steadiness of new cases, I’d have to think the overall Rt is around 1, not 2, which would reduce the total number by a factor of about 4.

[Devout Centrist]

Have we finally turned a corner on the coronavirus?

Pandemic seems to be leveling off in U.S., but numbers remain troublingly high, experts say

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be leveling off in most of the United States, with new cases, deaths and hospitalizations all down over the past week, but the plateau leaves the country with high and persistent infection numbers and worries of a post-Labor Day surge in some areas.

The number of new cases reported daily peaked above 70,000 in July and has been falling since. The decline now seems to be slowing, with the daily number hovering near 40,000 for more than a week, a review of nationwide data showed Tuesday. That is one sign that the infection may be leveling off.

Although that is good news, the numbers suggest continued high levels of infection and a long road ahead, particularly as cold weather and the flu season approach. Without a vaccine or a major advance in treatment, significant reductions in new cases would probably require voluntary or mandated changes in behavior that experts say are unlikely six months into the public health crisis.

Didn't this happen in May?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

That would be absurd. Fortunately, that's not anywhere close to what it actually says. It estimates 250k cases as a result of Sturgis.

Grossly oversimplifying: if 2,500 people at Sturgis had it, and each of them spread it to ten people while they were there, and each of those 25,000 infected two more people over the week after, and each of those people infected two more the next week, and each of them two more the next week (three weeks, bringing us from the end of Sturgis to now) you get 250k cases.

This wouldn't have happened in such a short period of time, since the R0 isn't high enough. It would have been more likely to happen in mid-March, when there was real exponential growth because there were more susceptible people who hadn't been exposed yet.

Also, this study was done by some economists who tried to track smartphone locations. I haven't seen any epidemiologists confirm it yet.

[It’s so Joever]

I generally don’t support muting people, but Bandit is really challenging that. He has been shown the facts/reasoning many times and yet refuses to ever stray from his #populist “Fauci bad” stupidity. It seems like either deliberate trolling, or serious cognitive issues at this point.

[It’s so Joever]

Have we finally turned a corner on the coronavirus?

Pandemic seems to be leveling off in U.S., but numbers remain troublingly high, experts say

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be leveling off in most of the United States, with new cases, deaths and hospitalizations all down over the past week, but the plateau leaves the country with high and persistent infection numbers and worries of a post-Labor Day surge in some areas.

The number of new cases reported daily peaked above 70,000 in July and has been falling since. The decline now seems to be slowing, with the daily number hovering near 40,000 for more than a week, a review of nationwide data showed Tuesday. That is one sign that the infection may be leveling off.

Although that is good news, the numbers suggest continued high levels of infection and a long road ahead, particularly as cold weather and the flu season approach. Without a vaccine or a major advance in treatment, significant reductions in new cases would probably require voluntary or mandated changes in behavior that experts say are unlikely six months into the public health crisis.

This part is critical. We have been living with canceled events, capacity restrictions, social distancing guidelines, work from home, online schooling, mask mandates, quarantines, travel restrictions, tests, and all of the rest for over six months now. I'm not sure how much can be done to further reduce the number of cases, short of ordering another lockdown. I think it was foolish for us to expect that this virus would be completely suppressed. What we must do now is focus on "maintaining the curve", as it will, preserving hospital capacity and continuing with the reasonable restrictions that are currently in place.

Agreed.
America simply doesn’t have the right culture to control a virus and these comments are just proof of it. The best thing we can do is to enforce masks, record people who aren’t following the basic rules, and just try to keep the curve flattish to avoid overload.
If the long term health consequences are bad, we can place some of the costs on the people recorded breaking rules.

[GeorgiaModerate]

President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book "Rage."

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.

In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. "Pretty amazing," Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times "more deadly" than the flu.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html