COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

414k tests today, 21,600 new cases today - 5.2% positive rate

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/JRReed/status/1263172467389894656?s=20

[Tender Branson]

China Cover-up ?

More athletes claim they contracted COVID-19 at October Military World Games in Wuhan

More athletes have revealed that they fell ill during the Military World Games in October when the Chinese city of Wuhan hosted the event months before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Taking place in October, the allegations came two months before the first identification of COVID-19 by China.

Close to 10,000 competitors competed at the Games from over 100 countries during the nine-day event.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, German volleyball player Jacqueline Brock alleged that she got COVID-19 despite no cases being reported until December.

She said: "After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill, I got sick in the last two days.

"I have never felt so sick, either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19, I think it was COVID-19."

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1094347/world-military-games-illness-covid-19

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

https://twitter.com/JRReed/status/1263172467389894656?s=20

I mean, they're not wrong

[Grassroots]

Illinois Gov Pritzker moving to Phase 3 on June 1, reopening Retail, Manufacturing, almost all simple outdoor activities, and outdoor seating for restaurants.

[GP270watch]

I still think it is reasonable to say that covid is at most approximately the same threat to children as chicken pox prior to the development of a vaccine.  About 50 children died each year from chicken pox (death rate around 1 in 60,000), and several thousand were hospitalized.  But it was still seen as important to expose your child to the disease early because it was much more lethal in adults.

But this is a respiratory virus and something you can catch even if you're far enough away, making this a terrible idea in this case.

 And also a disease that is still relatively unknown. Nobody knows what the long term consequences are. Purposely exposing children to Covid-19 at this time is completely reckless.

[tjstarling]

Talk about unnecessary.

I don't understand such a gesture either, especially since the past few months have revealed the flaws to an entirely online approach. Many colleges and universities will not be able to survive if they stay online for the next academic year. Students are not willing to fork over thousands of dollars in tuition for such classes. But at the same time, it's going to be hard to implement social distancing safeguards for such campuses. There has to be a solution that addresses both issues.

Honestly, I think the fact that so many universities can move many of their programs online so easily speaks to the fact that they're seriously overcharging in the first place.

I understand that lab courses can't be replicated online, but if, ultimately, there is little difference between the in-class and online deliveries of, say, a history course... how can we justify paying $6000 a year for what essentially amounts to "being talked at." This was a problem I had before COVID.

First, I completely agree with the notion that universities overcharge for education. However, as an assistant professor at a university in the DC/NOVA area (in the business school) I can provide some insight on the move to online education. The transition to online has not been easy from the professor standpoint. The existing systems we had in place are not well optimized for transitioning effectively online and to deliver quality education online (I’m speaking about textbook publisher resources and online platforms like blackboard). Furthermore, evaluating and testing students has been an absolute nightmare. Cheating has been rampant because we have no way of monitoring students and seeing what students are doing during examinations. Colleagues have frequently complained that exam questions are showing up online. The university has been clamoring to find ways to make summer online education more seamless but it’s still a extreme challenge in terms of what we can require the students to have from a technological standpoint to effectively assess them in the course. We also did student evaluations of the online experience and the overwhelming preference of students is to return to face-to-face instruction. Many were not motivated by the online format (but we are seeing very high enrollment and online courses because students know it’s an easy grade). Also students don’t seem to be reluctant about coming back to campus. Only 7% of students expressed health concerns about returning in the fall. In the near term it seems very likely we’re going to see some kind of online and face to face hybrid in higher Ed. But what I’ve learned from this online experience is that the move more permanently to online education at universities might be set back by the fact that there were so many negative experiences both on the instructor side and the student side.

[Politician]

Illinois Gov Pritzker moving to Phase 3 on June 1, reopening Retail, Manufacturing, almost all simple outdoor activities, and outdoor seating for restaurants.

Excellent news.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Not really relevant to anything, just a funny tweet.

https://twitter.com/SenatorTester/status/1263215784182022145

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I still think it is reasonable to say that covid is at most approximately the same threat to children as chicken pox prior to the development of a vaccine.  About 50 children died each year from chicken pox (death rate around 1 in 60,000), and several thousand were hospitalized.  But it was still seen as important to expose your child to the disease early because it was much more lethal in adults.

But this is a respiratory virus and something you can catch even if you're far enough away, making this a terrible idea in this case.

 And also a disease that is still relatively unknown. Nobody knows what the long term consequences are. Purposely exposing children to Covid-19 at this time is completely reckless.

If 60-70% of the population is going to get the disease regardless of what we do (as medical experts like Michael Osterholm are saying), how is it reckless to try to steer the virus toward those who can most easily fight it?  The only responsible thing to do is to make sure that we protect the 30-40% of out population that is most vulnerable. 

Some demographics of the population are literally 500 times more likely to die of this virus than other demographics.  We are going to kill a million Americans by continuing to do what we are doing, when we could save over 90% of them if we were willing to take on a more courageous strategy.

[emailking]

For almost any field, you can learn all you want from resources online or buying your own books. People go to college because in person lectures (even when it's you and a few hundred other people) and studying in groups in person are important learning experiences that cannot be replicated from your computer.

I took and taught many labs in school. The only way to do this is hands on. Watching a demo of the lab is interesting but gives you 0 insight into how to conduct such experiments yourself (which rarely work the first time you do them). You learn by doing.

For some fields like architecture or design, a hands on experience is integral, for most of the courses!

I don't think colleges are going anywhere in their traditional form, and I think the online stuff will end or start to be scaled back soon, even though a few have announced long continuations.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/MarkMazzettiNYT/status/1263260122010304513

Does this tweet remind you of any people in this thread?

[emailking]

Yes it does!

I have no clue what's going to happen. 😳

Today the world recorded a record number of (confirmed) cases, which belies any notion of this going away anytime soon. The 1918 2nd wave was much worse than the first.

On the other hand, maybe summer in this hemisphere really will just zap it and it will never really recover.

Who the heck knows.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Latest US vs. European case & death graphs.

This was a very good last few days for the European numbers.
A quick detail about the last graph, since it can be a little unclear with the stacked bars:
- New York's 7-day average for deaths is down 82.3% from its peak on April 12
- New Jersey's average is down 47.6% from its peak on April 21
- Massachusetts's average is down 38.6% from its peak on April 29
- The rest of the country's average is down 19.8% from its peak on May 5

[Dr. Arch]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 5/20 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.

Δ Change: Day-by-day Growth or Decline or COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: 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?

<Last Numbers for 3/26-3/28 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 3/29-4/4 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 4/5-4/11 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 4/12-4/18 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 4/19-4/25 in this post>
<Last Numbers for 4/26-5/2 in this post>
<Last Numbers for 5/3-5/9 in this post>

5/10: <Sunday>

• Cases: 1,367,638 (+20,329 | Δ Change: ↓20.35% | Σ Increase: ↑1.93%)
• Deaths: 80,787 (+750 | Δ Change: ↓47.27% | Σ Increase: ↑0.94%)

5/11:

• Cases: 1,385,834 (+18,196 | Δ Change: ↓10.49% | Σ Increase: ↑1.33%)
• Deaths: 81,795 (+1,008 | Δ Change: ↑34.40% | Σ Increase: ↑1.25%)

5/12:

• Cases: 1,408,155 (+22,321 | Δ Change: ↑22.67% | Σ Increase: ↑1.61%)
• Deaths: 83,377 (+1,582 | Δ Change: ↑56.94% | Σ Increase: ↑1.93%)

5/13:

• Cases: 1,430,348 (+22,193 | Δ Change: ↓0.57% | Σ Increase: ↑1.58%)
• Deaths: 85,197 (+1,820 | Δ Change: ↑15.44% | Σ Increase: ↑2.18%)

5/14:

• Cases: 1,456,828 (+26,480 | Δ Change: ↑19.32% | Σ Increase: ↑1.85%)
• Deaths: 86,901 (+1,704 | Δ Change: ↓6.37% | Σ Increase: ↑2.00%)

5/15 (Yesterday):

• Cases: 1,483,736 (+26,908 | Δ Change: ↑1.62% | Σ Increase: ↑1.85%)
• Deaths: 88,479 (+1,578 | Δ Change: ↓7.39% | Σ Increase: ↑1.82%)

5/16:

• Cases: 1,505,033 (+21,297 | Δ Change: ↓20.85% | Σ Increase: ↑1.44%)
• Deaths: 89,511 (+1,032 | Δ Change: ↓34.60% | Σ Increase: ↑1.17%)

5/17: <Sunday>

• Cases: 1,526,842 (+21,809 | Δ Change: ↑2.40% | Σ Increase: ↑1.44%)
• Deaths: 90,973 (+1,462 | Δ Change: ↑41.67% | Σ Increase: ↑1.45%)

5/18:

• Cases: 1,550,294 (+23,452 | Δ Change: ↑7.53% | Σ Increase: ↑1.54%)
• Deaths: 91,981 (+1,008 | Δ Change: ↓31.05% | Σ Increase: ↑1.11%)

5/19 (Yesterday):

• Cases: 1,570,583 (+20,289 | Δ Change: ↓13.49% | Σ Increase: ↑1.31%)
• Deaths: 93,533 (+1,552 | Δ Change: ↑53.97% | Σ Increase: ↑1.69%)

5/20 (Today):

• Cases: 1,591,991 (+21,408 | Δ Change: ↑5.52% | Σ Increase: ↑1.36%)
• Deaths: 94,994 (+1,461 | Δ Change: ↓5.86% | Σ Increase: ↑1.56%)

[Tintrlvr]

414k tests today, 21,600 new cases today - 5.2% positive rate

New York's positive rate today was just 4.0%, for what it's worth.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

414k tests today, 21,600 new cases today - 5.2% positive rate

New York's positive rate today was just 4.0%, for what it's worth.

I wonder if the herd immunity threshold is a lot lower than we thought. Michigan was another early hot spot, and now its positive rate is really low too. Same for some other early hot spots. I think Rhode Island is another.

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/MarkMazzettiNYT/status/1263260122010304513

Does this tweet remind you of any people in this thread?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

https://twitter.com/MarkMazzettiNYT/status/1263260122010304513

Does this tweet remind you of any people in this thread?

Except if epidemiologists are so uncertain about the so many aspects of the virus, why do they seem so certain about what the solution is?  Given how little we knew and still know, we should have been trying many different potential solutions in different places so we could better adapt to what was working and what was not.  Instead, regardless of new evidence and new knowledge, we seem to be locked into a single strategy.

[KaiserDave]

U. of Cambridge scraps face-to-face lectures for entire 2020-21 academic year.

Wherever you are in the debate

This is premature

However, I think this is just them trying to get ahead and then go back on it later.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

U. of Cambridge scraps face-to-face lectures for entire 2020-21 academic year.

Wherever you are in the debate

This is premature

However, I think this is just them trying to get ahead and then go back on it later.

Most colleges have already started to make plans for what they're going to do some more scrapping in-person lectures for the entire year some are making the semester shorter and less people in a classroom some are doing hybrid

[KaiserDave]

U. of Cambridge scraps face-to-face lectures for entire 2020-21 academic year.

Wherever you are in the debate

This is premature

However, I think this is just them trying to get ahead and then go back on it later.

Most colleges have already started to make plans for what they're going to do some more scrapping in-person lectures for the entire year some are making the semester shorter and less people in a classroom some are doing hybrid

I don't agree with doing away with in person classes all the way till June of 2021, I think that's an overreaction and I think its premature to say so.

[anthonyjg]

U. of Cambridge scraps face-to-face lectures for entire 2020-21 academic year.

Wherever you are in the debate

This is premature

However, I think this is just them trying to get ahead and then go back on it later.

Yeah, it's probably not needed, but I like the idea of working back from a set date instead of continuously extending measures. I think it's a good way to avoid killing support.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

So the scoredboard looks like this:
Oxford: We think we already have a working vaccine
Cambridge: We give up for the next 18 months

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

So the scoredboard looks like this:
Oxford: We think we already have a working vaccine
Cambridge: We give up for the next 18 months

I don't really trust Oxford tbh, they're using barely tested tech to make their vaccine and expecting one out before years end is a fools errand.