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

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Are people still seriously citing case numbers?

Yes.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=370528.msg7405122#msg7405122

I don’t know what you are linking to.  Whenever someone posts a link to another message in the same thread, that link always seems to send me to the bottom of a message, and I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to be looking at that one or the one after it; both seems only vaguely relevant in this case.

[emailking]

Ok well yes we're still seriously citing case numbers. Today's looking pretty bad at about 32K, even more than Brazil, and it's Saturday.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Ok well yes we're still seriously citing case numbers. Today's looking pretty bad at about 32K, even more than Brazil, and it's Saturday.

I’ll gladly take a 30% rise in cases (with a 0.5% bump in positivity rate) in exchange for a 20% drop in deaths, which is what today’s numbers look like week-over-week.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Another day, another 33k (new cases).

The positivity rate also ticked very slightly up again today.

I’ll gladly take a 30% rise in cases (with a 0.5% bump in positivity rate) in exchange for a 20% drop in deaths, which is what today’s numbers look like week-over-week.

That's a bad trade (if we could hypothetically make such a trade) and a bad way to look at it. Hypothetically, we would be better off and it would likely mean fewer deaths in the long run if we instead had a 20% drop in cases and a 30% rise in deaths than vice versa.

Increasing cases (unless the increase is purely attributable to testing) imply that the virus is still spreading and R is > 1. As long as R > 1, more and more people will be infected, and the number of true new cases per day will rise exponentially at some rate that is higher the more R is above 1, but which is exponential even if R is only slightly above 1. As long as R remains > 1, that implies the virus will keep spreading amongst the population until herd immunity is achieved, which means as long as the death rate is > 0, you will get more deaths over time as a greater and greater share of the population becomes infected.

By contrast, if new cases were decreasing by 20%, then as long as we were not simply testing less, that would imply R < 1. Which would mean that the virus was disappearing, and there would be fewer deaths in the long run because the virus would wither away.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I'm starting to think this virus is starting to become endemic more like the coronaviruses that are already out there.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Another day, another 33k (new cases).

The positivity rate also ticked very slightly up again today.

I’ll gladly take a 30% rise in cases (with a 0.5% bump in positivity rate) in exchange for a 20% drop in deaths, which is what today’s numbers look like week-over-week.

That's a bad trade (if we could hypothetically make such a trade) and a bad way to look at it. Hypothetically, we would be better off and it would likely mean fewer deaths in the long run if we instead had a 20% drop in cases and a 30% rise in deaths than vice versa.

Increasing cases (unless the increase is purely attributable to testing) imply that the virus is still spreading and R is > 1. As long as R > 1, more and more people will be infected, and the number of true new cases per day will rise exponentially at some rate that is higher the more R is above 1, but which is exponential even if R is only slightly above 1. As long as R remains > 1, that implies the virus will keep spreading amongst the population until herd immunity is achieved, which means as long as the death rate is > 0, you will get more deaths over time as a greater and greater share of the population becomes infected.

By contrast, if new cases were decreasing by 20%, then as long as we were not simply testing less, that would imply R < 1. Which would mean that the virus was disappearing, and there would be fewer deaths in the long run because the virus would wither away.

If we continue to improve treatment or alter the profile of the infected population such that a 15-20% week-over-week drop in deaths is sustainable, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t take this trade.   It doesn’t matter much what the R of the disease is if almost no one is dying from it.   At that point, everyone will simply get infected and recover until we have achieved herd immunity.  (We’d also want to monitor hospitalizations, but I believe those are still decreasing on aggregate.)

One the other hand, if new cases kept dropping but deaths kept increasing, that would either mean the virus has gotten much more lethal or that we had gotten worse at identifying infections.  I can’t see how either of those would be a good thing.

[Dr. Arch]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 6/20 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>
<Last Numbers for 5/10-5/16 in this post>
<Last Numbers for 5/17-5/23 in this post>
<Last Numbers for 5/24-5/30 in this post>
<Last Numbers for 5/31-6/6 in this post>

6/7: <Sunday>

• Cases: 2,007,449 (+20,274 | Δ Change: ↓39.93% | Σ Increase: ↑1.02%)
• Deaths: 112,469 (+412 | Δ Change: ↓38.78% | Σ Increase: ↑0.37%)

6/8:

• Cases: 2,026,493 (+19,044 | Δ Change: ↓6.07% | Σ Increase: ↑0.95%)
• Deaths: 113,055 (+586 | Δ Change: ↑42.23% | Σ Increase: ↑0.52%)

6/9:

• Cases: 2,045,549 (+19,056 | Δ Change: ↑0.06% | Σ Increase: ↑0.94%)
• Deaths: 114,148 (+1,093 | Δ Change: ↑86.52% | Σ Increase: ↑0.97%)

6/10:

• Cases: 2,066,508 (+20,959 | Δ Change: ↑9.98% | Σ Increase: ↑1.02%)
• Deaths: 115,137 (+989 | Δ Change: ↓9.52% | Σ Increase: ↑0.87%)

6/11:

• Cases: 2,089,701 (+23,193 | Δ Change: ↑10.66% | Σ Increase: ↑1.12%)
• Deaths: 116,034 (+897 | Δ Change: ↓9.30% | Σ Increase: ↑0.78%)

6/12:

• Cases: 2,116,922 (+27,221 | Δ Change: ↑17.37% | Σ Increase: ↑1.30%)
• Deaths: 116,825 (+791 | Δ Change: ↓11.82% | Σ Increase: ↑0.68%)

6/13:

• Cases: 2,142,224 (+25,302 | Δ Change: ↓7.05% | Σ Increase: ↑1.20%)
• Deaths: 117,527 (+702 | Δ Change: ↓11.25% | Σ Increase: ↑0.60%)

6/14: <Sunday>

• Cases: 2,162,144 (+19,920 | Δ Change: ↓21.27% | Σ Increase: ↑0.93%)
• Deaths: 117,853 (+326 | Δ Change: ↓53.56% | Σ Increase: ↑0.28%)

6/15:

• Cases: 2,182,950 (+20,806 | Δ Change: ↑4.45% | Σ Increase: ↑0.96%)
• Deaths: 118,283 (+430 | Δ Change: ↑31.90% | Σ Increase: ↑0.36%)

6/16:

• Cases: 2,208,400 (+25,450 | Δ Change: ↑22.32% | Σ Increase: ↑1.17%)
• Deaths: 119,132 (+849 | Δ Change: ↑97.44% | Σ Increase: ↑0.72%)

6/17:

• Cases: 2,234,471 (+26,071 | Δ Change: ↑2.44% | Σ Increase: ↑1.18%)
• Deaths: 119,941 (+809 | Δ Change: ↓4.71% | Σ Increase: ↑0.68%)

6/18:

• Cases: 2,263,651 (+29,180 | Δ Change: ↑11.93% | Σ Increase: ↑1.31%)
• Deaths: 120,688 (+747 | Δ Change: ↓7.66% | Σ Increase: ↑0.62%)

6/19 (Yesterday):

• Cases: 2,297,190 (+33,539 | Δ Change: ↑14.94% | Σ Increase: ↑1.48%)
• Deaths: 121,407 (+719 | Δ Change: ↓3.75% | Σ Increase: ↑0.60%)

6/20 (Today):

• Cases: 2,330,578 (+33,388 | Δ Change: ↓0.45% | Σ Increase: ↑1.45%)
• Deaths: 121,980 (+573 | Δ Change: ↓20.31% | Σ Increase: ↑0.47%)

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The last 2 days each had the highest number of new cases since May 1, and I'm sure by far the highest if you exclude NY and NJ.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1274500811486228482

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Are people still seriously citing case numbers?

Yes.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=370528.msg7405122#msg7405122

Again, I can't speak for everybody, but it definitely put me out of commission for about three weeks -- and I can confidently call myself an athletic-type with no *prior conditions*

2000 calories or less a day while watching the sodium and carbs, nearly-vegetarian (I do love chicken, though), and I run five miles five times a week.  

IIRC you had a good idea of who infected you.  What ever happened to them (i.e. did they get symptoms as well)?

Yup, caught it from my roommate's ex-boyfriend.  He gave it to both myself and my roommate. 

I didn't follow his symptoms all that closely, but he was definitely under the weather for a couple of weeks (I haven't seen or spoken to him in person since then (a) because he's annoying and (b) because coronavirus). 

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Oh, and sorry to double-post, but:

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, ATLAS!

I hope that everybody has a safe and spectacular day.  Please do take necessary precautions if celebrating with others!

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

If we continue to improve treatment or alter the profile of the infected population such that a 15-20% week-over-week drop in deaths is sustainable, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t take this trade.   It doesn’t matter much what the R of the disease is if almost no one is dying from it.   At that point, everyone will simply get infected and recover until we have achieved herd immunity.  (We’d also want to monitor hospitalizations, but I believe those are still decreasing on aggregate.)

One the other hand, if new cases kept dropping but deaths kept increasing, that would either mean the virus has gotten much more lethal or that we had gotten worse at identifying infections.  I can’t see how either of those would be a good thing.

I had assumed that when you were talking about a 15-20% drop in the fatality rate, that you were talking about a one-time effect. A one time drop such as that (or perhaps more of a drop, perhaps a 30%, 40%, or even 50%) drop would be plausible. However, if what you actually are proposing is that you think there is/will be/will continue a persistent trend of the fatality rate dropping by 20% or so each week, then on the one hand your argument at least makes more sense mathematically. On the other hand though, I would very much question what justifies the notion that such a thing is remotely plausible.

Suppose, just as an example, that the base fatality rate is 0.7%. What happens if that decreases by 20% every week?

The fatality rate each subsequent week will be given by F = .007 * (1 - .2) ^ (t - 1), where F stands for the fatality rate and t stands for the week (starting at t = 1 for the first week with the full fatality rate). If you calculate that out, you get the following fatality rate trend week over week:

Week   Fatality rate
1   0.70%
2   0.56%
3   0.45%
4   0.36%
5   0.29%
6   0.23%
7   0.18%
8   0.15%
9   0.12%
10   0.09%
11   0.08%
12   0.06%
13   0.05%
14   0.04%
15   0.03%
16   0.02%
17   0.02%
18   0.02%
19   0.01%
20   0.01%

So over the course of just 10 weeks, the fatality rate drops to 0.1%, and after another 10 weeks it drops to 0.01%. And as you go through additional weeks, the fatality rate asymptotically approaches zero.

You don't honestly believe that that is a sustainable trend, do you? The only possible way that something like that could be plausible is if we suddenly get some magical miracle treatment that is pretty much 100% effective and drives the fatality rate to 0. But there is no such treatment now, and while it is theoretically possible that we might at some point get one, there is no particular reason I am aware of to think that we necessarily will, much less that we will soon. I would hope that is not an accurate representation of what you are trying to say.

Ask yourself the question, what is actually medically plausible? What seems plausible to me is that the base fatality rate for a representative slice of the population (whether it is about 0.7% or some other number) has had a pretty much one-time reduction by some amount due to: a) semi-effective treatments such as plasma therapy/remdesivir and b) due to doctors gaining basic experience with the virus and it not being entirely new, so they know better things like when to use ventilators and how. Let's be pretty generous and say that reduced the fatality rate by 50% from 0.7% to 0.35% (I would doubt it is really that much, but let's just say it is). Barring more effective treatments arising, there is no reason to suppose that the base fatality rate for a representative population will drop by any more after that.

However, what has been happening at the same time is that the median age of people who are being newly infected has been going down. This implies that the overall realized fatality rate would drop for the moment for the moment because the proportion of the new cases that are more vulnerable to the virus will have declined. But unless you believe that a lower and lower share of new infections will continue to be old/have pre-existing conditions that make them vulnerable over time (i.e. unless you believe the median age of new cases will continue to drop forever), then eventually if the overall number of new cases continue to rise, then that effect will start to be reversed and the fatality rate will start to rise again. As a matter of math and basic logic, this will have to be the case to some degree, if cases rise indefinitely towards a herd immunity threshold. To illustrate that point, consider that at the limit, if 100% of the population were hypothetically eventually infected, then the median age of people who had been infected would have to be exactly the same as the median age of the population as a whole. And if it were 70% of the population, then there is room for the median age of the population to differ somewhat from the median age of infected people, but there is only so much room for deviation. As you go down to lower and lower percentages of the population who are infected, there is more freedom for deviation in the medium age (that is where we are now). But the more people get infected, the more the general tendency of the median age will be to approach the median age of the total population. And that means that if currently the median age of infections is lower and that is temporarily causing a lower fatality rate, then eventually the median age will start to go back up and the fatality rate will rise. And of course since the overall # of cases will be going up, not only will the fatality rate rise, but also the absolute # of fatalities.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Yup, caught it from my roommate's ex-boyfriend.  He gave it to both myself and my roommate. 

I didn't follow his symptoms all that closely, but he was definitely under the weather for a couple of weeks (I haven't seen or spoken to him in person since then (a) because he's annoying and (b) because coronavirus). 

Just out of curiosity, I hope you are recovering well and feeling much better, but are you aware of any persistent effects that either you or anyone else you know who was infected is still feeling after having recovered? Just wondering due to various news reports that some patients are suffering from longer term/persistent effects if you have noticed anything at all. Of course, some effects (changes to lung tissue etc) may not be easily noticeable even if they are real, given that some asymptomatic patients have shown apparent lung abnormalities/other abnormalities without behaving any differently or knowing that there was any issue.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

If we continue to improve treatment or alter the profile of the infected population such that a 15-20% week-over-week drop in deaths is sustainable, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t take this trade.   It doesn’t matter much what the R of the disease is if almost no one is dying from it.   At that point, everyone will simply get infected and recover until we have achieved herd immunity.  (We’d also want to monitor hospitalizations, but I believe those are still decreasing on aggregate.)

One the other hand, if new cases kept dropping but deaths kept increasing, that would either mean the virus has gotten much more lethal or that we had gotten worse at identifying infections.  I can’t see how either of those would be a good thing.

I had assumed that when you were talking about a 15-20% drop in the fatality rate, that you were talking about a one-time effect. A one time drop such as that (or perhaps more of a drop, perhaps a 30%, 40%, or even 50%) drop would be plausible. However, if what you actually are proposing is that you think there is/will be/will continue a persistent trend of the fatality rate dropping by 20% or so each week, then on the one hand your argument at least makes more sense mathematically. On the other hand though, I would very much question what justifies the notion that such a thing is remotely plausible.

Suppose, just as an example, that the base fatality rate is 0.7%. What happens if that decreases by 20% every week?

The fatality rate each subsequent week will be given by F = .007 * (1 - .2) ^ (t - 1), where F stands for the fatality rate and t stands for the week (starting at t = 1 for the first week with the full fatality rate). If you calculate that out, you get the following fatality rate trend week over week:

Week   Fatality rate
1   0.70%
2   0.56%
3   0.45%
4   0.36%
5   0.29%
6   0.23%
7   0.18%
8   0.15%
9   0.12%
10   0.09%
11   0.08%
12   0.06%
13   0.05%
14   0.04%
15   0.03%
16   0.02%
17   0.02%
18   0.02%
19   0.01%
20   0.01%

So over the course of just 10 weeks, the fatality rate drops to 0.1%, and after another 10 weeks it drops to 0.01%. And as you go through additional weeks, the fatality rate asymptotically approaches zero.

You don't honestly believe that that is a sustainable trend, do you? The only possible way that something like that could be plausible is if we suddenly get some magical miracle treatment that is pretty much 100% effective and drives the fatality rate to 0. But there is no such treatment now, and while it is theoretically possible that we might at some point get one, there is no particular reason I am aware of to think that we necessarily will, much less that we will soon. I would hope that is not an accurate representation of what you are trying to say.

Ask yourself the question, what is actually medically plausible? What seems plausible to me is that the base fatality rate for a representative slice of the population (whether it is about 0.7% or some other number) has had a pretty much one-time reduction by some amount due to: a) semi-effective treatments such as plasma therapy/remdesivir and b) due to doctors gaining basic experience with the virus and it not being entirely new, so they know better things like when to use ventilators and how. Let's be pretty generous and say that reduced the fatality rate by 50% from 0.7% to 0.35% (I would doubt it is really that much, but let's just say it is). Barring more effective treatments arising, there is no reason to suppose that the base fatality rate for a representative population will drop by any more after that.

However, what has been happening at the same time is that the median age of people who are being newly infected has been going down. This implies that the overall realized fatality rate would drop for the moment for the moment because the proportion of the new cases that are more vulnerable to the virus will have declined. But unless you believe that a lower and lower share of new infections will continue to be old/have pre-existing conditions that make them vulnerable over time (i.e. unless you believe the median age of new cases will continue to drop forever), then eventually if the overall number of new cases continue to rise, then that effect will start to be reversed and the fatality rate will start to rise again. As a matter of math and basic logic, this will have to be the case to some degree, if cases rise indefinitely towards a herd immunity threshold. To illustrate that point, consider that at the limit, if 100% of the population were hypothetically eventually infected, then the median age of people who had been infected would have to be exactly the same as the median age of the population as a whole. And if it were 70% of the population, then there is room for the median age of the population to differ somewhat from the median age of infected people, but there is only so much room for deviation. As you go down to lower and lower percentages of the population who are infected, there is more freedom for deviation in the medium age (that is where we are now). But the more people get infected, the more the general tendency of the median age will be to approach the median age of the total population. And that means that if currently the median age of infections is lower and that is temporarily causing a lower fatality rate, then eventually the median age will start to go back up and the fatality rate will rise. And of course since the overall # of cases will be going up, not only will the fatality rate rise, but also the absolute # of fatalities.

I never said a 20% drop in “fatality rate”.  I said a 20% “drop in deaths”, i.e. total number of daily deaths.  I don’t know why this would be an implausible long-term trend, given that this is exactly what we have been seeing very consistently for almost two months now.  (It’s probably more like 15% per week over that time frame.)

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I never said a 20% drop in “fatality rate”.  I said a 20% “drop in deaths”, i.e. total number of daily deaths.  I don’t know why this would be an implausible long-term trend, given that this is exactly what we have been seeing very consistently for almost two months now.  (It’s probably more like 15% per week over that time frame.)

I was assuming, to be charitable to you, that when you said a 20% drop in deaths, you meant fatality rate, not merely in the raw number of cases.

What we were discussing is what would happen if cases are rising, which they have been recently (along with hospitalizations and the positivity rate, where we have data in the problem states). If you don't think that the fatality rate will continue to decrease indefinitely, it is more difficult to get a persistent long term drop in deaths, not less.

https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1274472380941791233

Deaths apparently lag by ~28 days or so:

https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1274473854849609728

What has been happening up until now is that we have had cases declining, and medical treatment improving somewhat (should be pretty much a one-time effect of starting to use Remdesivir/Plasma treatment/doctors learning the basics of what to do), and the median age of infection dropping. Those things have combined to lower the # of deaths we have observed over time.

Now, however, cases are starting to go up. If they continue to go up, the raw number of fatalities are going to start also going up with a lag, unless something happens to cause the the fatality rate to decline further such that the effect of the fatality rate on the total # of deaths exceeds the effect . Logically, there are two possible ways that the fatality rate could hypothetically go down further - due to new/more effective medical treatments on top of plasma etc, or due to the median age of people who are infected going down even further. As far as I can see, while it is possible that new/better medical treatments could appear tomorrow, there is no reason to expect that. And while the median age of new cases could continue to trend down for a short time, it won't continue to do so indefinitely if cases are rising, simply because at some point there will be fewer young people left to infect, and the remaining new infections will be older simply because the "low hanging fruit" of easily-infected youngs will already have been infected.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Yup, caught it from my roommate's ex-boyfriend.  He gave it to both myself and my roommate. 

I didn't follow his symptoms all that closely, but he was definitely under the weather for a couple of weeks (I haven't seen or spoken to him in person since then (a) because he's annoying and (b) because coronavirus). 

Just out of curiosity, I hope you are recovering well and feeling much better, but are you aware of any persistent effects that either you or anyone else you know who was infected is still feeling after having recovered? Just wondering due to various news reports that some patients are suffering from longer term/persistent effects if you have noticed anything at all. Of course, some effects (changes to lung tissue etc) may not be easily noticeable even if they are real, given that some asymptomatic patients have shown apparent lung abnormalities/other abnormalities without behaving any differently or knowing that there was any issue.

Just a little bit of wheezing here and there, but nothing egregiously worrisome. 

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I never said a 20% drop in “fatality rate”.  I said a 20% “drop in deaths”, i.e. total number of daily deaths.  I don’t know why this would be an implausible long-term trend, given that this is exactly what we have been seeing very consistently for almost two months now.  (It’s probably more like 15% per week over that time frame.)

I was assuming, to be charitable to you, that when you said a 20% drop in deaths, you meant fatality rate, not merely in the raw number of cases.

What we were discussing is what would happen if cases are rising, which they have been recently (along with hospitalizations and the positivity rate, where we have data in the problem states). If you don't think that the fatality rate will continue to decrease indefinitely, it is more difficult to get a persistent long term drop in deaths, not less.

https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1274472380941791233

Deaths apparently lag by ~28 days or so:

https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1274473854849609728

What has been happening up until now is that we have had cases declining, and medical treatment improving somewhat (should be pretty much a one-time effect of starting to use Remdesivir/Plasma treatment/doctors learning the basics of what to do), and the median age of infection dropping. Those things have combined to lower the # of deaths we have observed over time.

Now, however, cases are starting to go up. If they continue to go up, the raw number of fatalities are going to start also going up with a lag, unless something happens to cause the the fatality rate to decline further such that the effect of the fatality rate on the total # of deaths exceeds the effect . Logically, there are two possible ways that the fatality rate could hypothetically go down further - due to new/more effective medical treatments on top of plasma etc, or due to the median age of people who are infected going down even further. As far as I can see, while it is possible that new/better medical treatments could appear tomorrow, there is no reason to expect that. And while the median age of new cases could continue to trend down for a short time, it won't continue to do so indefinitely if cases are rising, simply because at some point there will be fewer young people left to infect, and the remaining new infections will be older simply because the "low hanging fruit" of easily-infected youngs will already have been infected.

I actually do think the fatality rate will continue to drop.  Our treatments are getting better over time, not worse.  There also seem to be other factors beside treatments that are leading to a lower fatality rate, and it is difficult to break down which factor is contributing how much, or how these other factors will change over time.  But it seems very plausible to me that within a few months, we may have a combination of treatments that cures 90% of cases that would have resulted in deaths back in March.

And while you can say that at an anecdotal, individual level, death tends to lag 28 days from symptom onset, there is almost no evidence for this sort of lag in the aggregate data.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

In early April, New York was reporting almost 10,000 cases per day and almost 1000 deaths per day at the same time.
Over the last few days, Florida is reporting about 4,000 cases per day and 40 deaths.

That is a tenfold decrease in CFR.  

There are likely many factors that have led to this trend.  But it is real and it has been progressing steadily for two months.  People have been expecting it to suddenly reverse itself for at least six weeks, but it has just kept going.   Testing keeps increasing, treatments keep getting better, it seems the infected population keeps getting younger.   Why would any of these trends reverse now?

(I suppose there is a possibility of the virus mutating to a less lethal and more contagious strain, though this factor seems impossible to predict.)  

[Omega21]

Yup, caught it from my roommate's ex-boyfriend.  He gave it to both myself and my roommate. 

I didn't follow his symptoms all that closely, but he was definitely under the weather for a couple of weeks (I haven't seen or spoken to him in person since then (a) because he's annoying and (b) because coronavirus). 

Just out of curiosity, I hope you are recovering well and feeling much better, but are you aware of any persistent effects that either you or anyone else you know who was infected is still feeling after having recovered? Just wondering due to various news reports that some patients are suffering from longer term/persistent effects if you have noticed anything at all. Of course, some effects (changes to lung tissue etc) may not be easily noticeable even if they are real, given that some asymptomatic patients have shown apparent lung abnormalities/other abnormalities without behaving any differently or knowing that there was any issue.

Just a little bit of wheezing here and there, but nothing egregiously worrisome. 

I also read the virus is harmful to male reproductive health and hormone production

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41585-020-0319-7

[HillGoose]

I hope to God that they don't shut everything down again or I'm gonna be pissed.

Let those of us who don't give a sh**t take our chances. Possibly getting covid comes with the territory and we all know it.

The people who are so worried should just stay in their house. The Stasi aren't going to come to your house and force you to go to Red Lobster, damn.

[It’s so Joever]

I hope to God that they don't shut everything down again or I'm gonna be pissed.

Let those of us who don't give a sh**t take our chances. Possibly getting covid comes with the territory and we all know it.

The people who are so worried should just stay in their house. The Stasi aren't going to come to your house and force you to go to Red Lobster, damn.

Honestly there should be a deliberate infection program for people like you. If you want, you will  be deliberately infected but will be placed under house arrest (to prevent spread) as long as you test positive. Afterwards, you are free to do whatever you want no matter how many cases there are. The caveat is that you will be denied any medical assistance if needed. You will be in your home no matter how sick you get.

[HillGoose]

I hope to God that they don't shut everything down again or I'm gonna be pissed.

Let those of us who don't give a sh**t take our chances. Possibly getting covid comes with the territory and we all know it.

The people who are so worried should just stay in their house. The Stasi aren't going to come to your house and force you to go to Red Lobster, damn.

Honestly there should be a deliberate infection program for people like you. If you want, you will  be deliberately infected but will be placed under house arrest (to prevent spread) as long as you test positive. Afterwards, you are free to do whatever you want no matter how many cases there are. The caveat is that you will be denied any medical assistance if needed. You will be in your home no matter how sick you get.

I'd be good with that tbh. I have weak lungs so I'm somebody who could probably be really in danger from covid but it's not like anybody cares. I can't allow myself to be stagnant.

[Omega21]

I hope to God that they don't shut everything down again or I'm gonna be pissed.

Let those of us who don't give a sh**t take our chances. Possibly getting covid comes with the territory and we all know it.

The people who are so worried should just stay in their house. The Stasi aren't going to come to your house and force you to go to Red Lobster, damn.

Honestly there should be a deliberate infection program for people like you. If you want, you will  be deliberately infected but will be placed under house arrest (to prevent spread) as long as you test positive. Afterwards, you are free to do whatever you want no matter how many cases there are. The caveat is that you will be denied any medical assistance if needed. You will be in your home no matter how sick you get.

I'd be good with that tbh. I have weak lungs so I'm somebody who could probably be really in danger from covid but it's not like anybody cares. I can't allow myself to be stagnant.

The American 24/7 Hustle culture has really hit peak insanity.

I don't like putting s**t on hold either, but damn, saying you'd rather die than lose a couple of months of work is beyond me...

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I hope to God that they don't shut everything down again or I'm gonna be pissed.

Let those of us who don't give a sh**t take our chances. Possibly getting covid comes with the territory and we all know it.

The people who are so worried should just stay in their house. The Stasi aren't going to come to your house and force you to go to Red Lobster, damn.

Honestly there should be a deliberate infection program for people like you. If you want, you will  be deliberately infected but will be placed under house arrest (to prevent spread) as long as you test positive. Afterwards, you are free to do whatever you want no matter how many cases there are. The caveat is that you will be denied any medical assistance if needed. You will be in your home no matter how sick you get.

I'd be good with that tbh. I have weak lungs so I'm somebody who could probably be really in danger from covid but it's not like anybody cares. I can't allow myself to be stagnant.

The American 24/7 Hustle culture has really hit peak insanity.

I don't like putting s**t on hold either, but damn, saying you'd rather die than lose a couple of months of work is beyond me...

The analogy I've come to think of is that I think it's absurd that you are told to seek shelter for distant lightning.  Sure, a thunderstorm in the distance marginally increases your risk of getting struck, but the point of life is not simply to maximize the number of years you are physically alive.  At a certain point, the reward of actually living your life outweighs the marginal increase in risk.  Don't get me wrong- I want to live a long life, but that's not the only thing that I want.

Plus, I know that, if I were to die today, I would be going to Heaven.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

If I die, I die.

There's no point shutting down society and ruining younger people's lives just to save a 47-year-old man like me who won't be around much longer anyway.

Now, because of the lockdowns, life is pretty much over for anyone in America between 18 and 45.