'No surprise' we're seeing coronavirus surge in Republican areas

science says that masks work. People don't want to wear them for a variety of reasons. Some want to make a political statement. (when there is noting political about wearing masks for pandemic reasons) Others don't believe in science ( can you believe that in the year 2020??) some still think it is a hoax ( we all know where that came from)Other's resist because No one is going to tell them what to do. ( not exactly mature Some think it makes them less attractive ( think Trump) Not exactly what a leader should do. some don't care one way or antoehr. Kind of a callous indifference. Some just claim to be inconvenienced. Some wold rather believe conspirator theories.

It is very fascinating from a psychological perspective.

 

So how come a pandemic has been so politicized.?? It is a HEALTH crisis that is technically out of control. When HEALTH becomes a political issue , it only compounds the issue as we are seeing. Most countries have been affected. Yet how many of them made it a political issue??..and let it get out of control with mixed messaging. or criticising the experts. Effective leaders do not do that. They value the experts as consultants. and follow their recommendations. If there is a concern, or disagreement they handle it privately and professionally.

 

There was certainly a contagious global panic among political leaders. History will likely show the reaction to be one of the worst and most economically destructive in the history of mankind.

The deaths from starvation caused by lockdowns will have been far more preventable than were the unpreventable deaths by a contagious virus. The world made a big mistake and we're about to pay for it. Paying attention to one disease while ignoring all other threats in the world will take a truly devastating toll on human life and suffering.



https://unglobalcompact.org/take-ac... hunger-could-kill-more-people-than-the-virus

 

History is still in the making. Not sure we can predict what it will say. at this point. The pandemic story is far from over. and it will be rather complicated due to the fact of how it has had a ripple effect on so many other factors insciety. Personal lives, the economy, the political landscape., the healthcare system.......... and pandemic preparedness.It might be hard to predict what the fallout will be as we get control over this. We are living through a remarkable phase in human history. We are actively creating history . On an intellectual level, it is absolutely fascinating.

 

Approximately 50 million people die globally each year. 300,000 deaths a day would equate to 9,000,000 / month. In five months, the death rate globally would double.

Call me skeptical.

 

Of course, Africa with its 1.6 Billion population would get hit worst along with some South American countries which share in being among the poorest in the world. Collateral damage though, eh, as long as it's not in our backyard?

Nabarro with the WHO last week suggested that child malnutrition could more than double next year due to extended economic restrictions due to Covid. "Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.”

 

You should know I would never think that humans lives are collateral damage. I'm worried about government overreach, economic crisis, toll on human's ability to cope with isolation, and the disease itself, all at the same time.

My state of Florida is completely open. I hardly ever see someone without a mask. We are, generically speaking, giving each other lots of personal space. It's entirely possible to open up and not cause cases to get out of control. Our cases will likely start going down, as the temperatures go down, our ability to be outside goes up.

Of course I'm worried about the unintended consequences. I just think this has been handled so poorly, that we can't even agree on masks. That's truly sad, IMO. The entire country should be open. Everyone should be doing their part to keep this as contained as possible, and to reduce all of our viral loads.

 

I'm FL too and being completely open isn't working at all for us and so our state should never be used as an example for re-opening. We have more new cases than most entire countries. The testimonials on maskless sightings I read every day on social are in stark difference to your own experience, you are lucky if your area is committed to masking. My area is about 50/50 overall with better participation at retailers that mandate it for entry, poorer at shops that do not. Not only can we not agree to wear masks, we cant even agree to understand what kind of mask is actually going to do the best job. Neck Gaiters are super popular here and with the exception of the Alyssa Milano style crochet mask they are the absolute worst thing one could wear to contain their spew.

And I strongly disagree with your prediction that FL cases will go down once we enter the cooler holiday season. My prediction is we'll be seeing 15-20k new cases per day for our winter surge. Florida should be prepared to re-engage its lockdowns but of course our Governor has stated on multiple occasions that it will not happen thus ensuring many Floridians will die and justifying his nickname: Ron DeathSantis.

 

Indeed. I've said the same as you're saying over and over. Most of the time, to no avail. I've been called a fearmonger, TLDR (Too Long Didn't Read), a partisan hack (when I'm an independent who abhors both parties), gullible, naive, etc. If the rules of this site permitted it, I'm sure I'd be called a moron, an idiot, an imbecile, etc.

So by now I try less hard, and I get sarcastic too.

The CDC, though, I don't entirely agree with you. I had the utmost respect for the CDC of the past. These days it's been influenced by politics. Shame.

 

I have no side of the aisle.
But it is a fact that in red states people are more dismissive of the virus and less likely to adopt precautions.

 

Fair point on the snow birds, and yes, we are a divided state. I absolutely see near 100% mask compliance, though. (I do admit, however, that we are largely staying at home, and only venturing out when needed.)

 

agree about the CDC. It has allowed itself to become too politicised and as a result has lost credibility. That is truly sad........ as that agency should have remained apolitical, neutral, science based, and a valid source of information as well as direction for handling this current crisis. Hopefully the credibility loss isn't terminal........ and hope they can restore the respectability that should be theris.


(would not worry all that much about the name calling. Those that resort to that show themselves up for who they are. It reflects on them.......not you. ) Civility in general has deteriorated ... sad.

 

I know you're not talking to me, but just FYI, me, I have ALWAYS said that riots and protests are boneheaded and imprudent in the middle of a freaking pandemic and have all the makings of superspreader events, regardless of the cause being protested for. The same applies to political rallies. And to sports. Some of the college football games are getting increasingly high allowed capacity. It's creeping up more and more, in football stadiums. Meanwhile, we're still in the beginning of the fall, we'll still have the election, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve... and high winter, with the flu season on top, to complicate things even more.

This doesn't bode well, at all. Even BEFORE all these upcoming events, and even still in the first few days of the fall, cases are going very much up again. Yesterday we got 71,688 cases! It's getting close to the peak in April, again, and BEFORE all that is coming. Today, a Saturday, which traditionally gets the numbers very much down because Health Departments are closed, we got 54,232 cases!

I keep remembering the Spanish Flu, that came in 3 waves, and the second and third were much worse than the first one.

 

Leadership influence is a big factor.

 

I wouldn't count on a significant increase in deaths along with a spike in cases (associated with doubling the use of tests).

Compare deaths of people 65 years old and up this year (so far) with previous years.

65-74: This year = 437,155; 2018 = 543,788
75-84: This year = 532,277; 2018 = 675,205
Over 85: This year = 659,182; 2018 = 880,280

Total deaths so far this year = 2,203,637; Total deaths in 2019 = 2,855,000

Even though people have certainly died with Covid this year, it is not looking like this year's total mortality is going to be out of the ordinary. One of the epidemiologists with Imperial College of London, Neil Ferguson, said last March that up to 2/3rds of the people who would die from Covid over the next 9 months of 2020 would have died in 2020 from some other cause, if not Covid. Ferguson was on the team which put out that early model predicting up to 2 million U.S. deaths and was one of the main "experts" behind the lockdown push. Yet he knew in March that the virus would primarily kill people who didn't have much longer to live.

People are dying with Covid, but a much smaller number are dying from Covid alone.

 

sigh... another one comparing the SARS-CoV-2, a MUCH more dangerous virus than the influenza virus, with the flu...
Interesting that you say influenza/pneumonia. Do you have any idea of the number of agents that cause pneumonia and have nothing to do with the influenza virus?

Here, a few, among others:

Streptococcus pneumonia (a.k.a. pneumococcus)
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (a.k.a. RSV)
Human Metapneumovirus (a.k.a. HMPV)
Human Parainfluenza Virus (a.ka. HPIV)
Legionnaire's disease
Mycoplasma pneumonia
Pneumocystis carinii
Rhinovirus

So, if you lump together influenza/pneumonia, sure, you'll see higher numbers...

But with the exception of some rare pandemics of some aggressive H1N1 influenza viruses and some other rare strains, the overwhelming majority of flu seasons have a case-fatality rate of 0.1%, much smaller than Covid-19's, and specially, the long term consequences are infinitely more common with Covid-19.

Just look at this, dear. The CDC has calculated the average daily deaths by influenza over the last 31 season. 31 years worth of it. Do you know what's the average peak of daily deaths from influenza? 64.

Now, compare this to the peak of deaths by Covid-19 we saw in April/May: close to 2,900, followed by several weeks of daily deaths above 1,400. WEEKS of it. Compare with the flu's 64!!!! Do you see, erm, a slight difference???

224,282 people dead, and counting. Likely at least ten time more (which would be 2,242,820 people) will have to deal with severe and permanent organ damage like a weak heart predisposed to heart failure down the road, or a fibrotic lung with permanent shortness of breath.

And counting, I said. Easily we can get to 400,000 dead when it's all said and done. Pray tell, outside of the huge special pandemics like the one in 1917-18, when have you seen the flu killing 400,000 people??? Just looking at the last 10 years, there was an outlier with 61,000, and another outlier with 12,000. Most were about 30K to 40K. At least ten times less. Seems like over the last three decades the average for the flu was about 20K, so, that's 20 times less. Which is consistent with the flu killing 0.1% and Covid-19 1%. If you look at confirmed cases, about 3% for Covid-19.

Not only the IFR is at least ten times worse for Covid-19, but the death toll is not the whole story.

The flu is almost exclusively a respiratory illness, while Covid-19 is primarily an endothelial illness, therefore it attacks not only the lungs, but also the heart, the brain, the kidneys, the liver, and the coagulation system, and it tends to cause cytokine storms and disseminated intravascular coagulation, and large blood clots causing pulmonary embolism, strokes, and blocked circulation in limbs even leading to amputations. Good luck finding flu cases with all that.

Sorry, but anybody still trying to compare Covid-19 with the flu simply doesn't know what he/she is saying.

I'm frankly sick and tired of people who still make this boneheaded comparison. Not even Trump fails to realize that the SARS-CoV-2 is much worse than the influenza virus. Trump has said so several times, in his interviews with Bob Woodward, and in his press briefing. He called the virus "vicious" (his exact word). He said in all words it's much worse than the flu. So why are his followers still trying to insist with this silly and misinformed comparison?

Sure, now, with his electoral chances sinking, and opinion polls showing the majority of the population giving him low marks for his management of the pandemic, he is again trying to minimize everything and saying "don't fear it." Yeah, sure. We shouldn't fear an endothelial disease that goes everywhere and in many cases damages several vital organs!

You know, you want to think of it as similar to the flu, be my guest. Go out, be marry, ditch the mask, don't worry about social distancing. After all, who fears the little Chinese flu, right? Your idol said there's nothing to fear. I doubt that if you catch it, you will find or will be able to afford the advanced experimental treatments that the president got (paid by us, taxpayers, from the same system he contributes so little to, paying no taxes in 10 of the last 15 years, and $750 in two recent ones), but hey, who cares, there's nothing to fear, right?

Me, I'll continue to protect myself and my family.

 

I used Influenza/Pneumonia because that is how the CDC lists those two on the Top 10 causes of death. They list them together as one cause (see below).

It is also not unreasonable to point out that people who get the flu or other respiratory illnesses also have lingering and debilitating long-term or permanent side effects. That comparison is not the same as saying that Covid is Influenza. However, there are legitimate reasons to compare respiratory diseases.

 

~ The red states will never catch up to New York - even if they are all combined !

 

It's lovely when people engage in a long argumentation to prove a point, think they've proven it, but end up proving the opposite point, LOL.

So, let's look at your excess death numbers.

So, we had 2,203,637 so far, right? Over 10 months and a half. So, let's extrapolate that to a full year. We divide by 10.5 and multiply the result by 12. We get to a total, and then we subtract this total from the total 2019 deaths, right?

How many do we get?

335,577 excess deaths!!!!

And you think it's not big deal? LOL.

Dear, we have had so far 224,282 confirmed deaths by Covid-19. So, using the same method, 256,322 extrapolated to a full year (and it's not over, yet).

Your numbers actually show that it's been even worse than the official count!!! (Some of these may be collateral damage due to other conditions being neglected).

In what bizarro world 335,577 excess deaths are not a big deal???

And do realize that it's far from over. We don't know what the final tally will be.

------------

About multiple diagnoses in death certificates for people who died from Covid-19:

Obviously you're not familiar with how death certificates are written. Part I talks about the sequence of disease-events that lead to the death (the last line of part I will read "Covid-19" and the lines on top will read the sequence caused by the virus, such as cytokine storm, leading to disseminated intravascular coagulation, leading to multiple organ failure, or for another patient, viral pneumonia leading to severe pulmonary fibrosis leading to respiratory insufficiency leading to cardiopulmonary arrest, and so forth. The disease that killed the patient is the one written on the last line of Part I. That is, Covid-19.

Part II will have other conditions that may have predisposed the patient to a severe case of Covid-19 but in themselves can't cause disseminated intravascular coagulation, can't cause pulmonary fibrosis, etc., therefore are contributory but not causal (meaning, people may have lived much longer with them if they hadn't caught the virus), such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, COPD, cancer, etc., etc., etc.

Now, stop and think.

The overwhelming majority of people in the United States die in old age. Car crashes, drug overdoes, gun shots, etc., are significant causes of death that hit some people who were healthy before they were killed this way, but still, the overwhelming majority of dead people die of cancer, heart disease, etc., in their older years.

Do you think that it is common for a senior person to have only ONE disease? No!!! The VAST MAJORITY have more than one disease. We call this situation, co-morbidity.

So, THE VAST MAJORITY OF ALL DEATH CERTIFICATES WRITTEN IN AMERICA FOR ANY CAUSE, ALSO have multiple diseases listed in Part II.

So, for the VAST MAJORITY of deaths, people die with diseases, but a much smaller number are dying from that disease alone.

Covid-19 is no different.

I've written literally thousands of death certificates. With the exception of say, a young and fully healthy person who dies of a gunshot wound, I very rarely leave Part II a blank.

This excuse that people who die of Covid-19 have co-morbidities therefore, no big deal, is one of the lamest excuses I've ever heard, and betrays a lack of familiarity with how death certificates are written and what they mean.

 

Don't be so certain. There will be more waves. Winter is coming. This is not over yet. I don't exclude that Texas and Florida eventually will catch up, in case we don't get lucky with the vaccines - say, they stall like the AstraZeneca one and the Johnson & Johnson one due to adverse events, approval lingers, and they take another year to reach the full population.

 

Yes, I know. But take out the other causes of pneumonia, and you'll see your number of deaths by influenza dropping significantly.

Oh, no, no no. Other respiratory illnesses may also have lingering and debilitating long-term or permanent sequelae (not side effects; side effect is what you get when you take a medication), but they do IN MUCH MUCH MUCH SMALLER PROPORTION THAN COVID-19!!!

How many people you know that got the flu and came out of it with permanent pulmonary fibrosis and lifelong shortness of breath? Or a stroke? Or chronic myocarditis with a potential to lead to heart failure? Or renal insufficiency? Or cognitive impairment? Or amputated limbs?

Maybe 1%?

Well, dear, with Covid-19, it's been happening to at least 10%, if not 20%.

See a slight difference?

Actually comparing Covid-19 to the flu is a very silly comparison.

It was valid when we didn't have a good understanding of Covid-19. It seemed like just a respiratory illness, at first, with a tendency to cause SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). So we even named the virus this way, and started treating it like we treated SARS and MERS. Let's intubate!

Oops. It turns out that the disease is VASTLY different. It's primarily an endothelial disease, not a pulmonary one. So, the damaged pulmonary small vessels started leaking massively when we started the invasive ventilation. Oops. People died like flies. And then we noticed the cytokine storm and the damage to all the other organs. Oops.

THIS HAS VERY LITTLE IN COMMON WITH THE FLU. It starts with some similar symptoms (fever, malaise, muscle aches, cough - like many other infections) but then it evolves VERY DIFFERENTLY.

Nowadays we classify Covid-19 as an endothelial illness, not a respiratory illness. It happens to hit the lungs very hard because the lungs have so many micro-vessels... but it hits the heart just as hard, and many other organs, unlike the flu.

Hey, a hint that it's so different: Give Tamiflu to a Covid-19 patient. Oops. Doesn't do a thing.

Please drop forever this silly comparison with the flu. They are vastly different and Covid-19 is much more serious.

 

what I don't get is, Trump says vaccine will be released in a few week, why not just wait those few weeks, not like were talking years

it's almost like Republicans don't trust Trump anymore

 

Off topic for a moment: but I detect a medical background in your writings. I am retired from a Nursing background.

 

Couldn't help myself. I'm a bad person.

 

No one should trust Trump. Full Stop. Hee has not idea of what it takes to develop a vaccine. In his instant gratification world........he thinks it can be done immediately. There is NO WAY he can promise a vaccine by a certain date. It is not only foolish to do so , it is irresponsible.

A wiser source is Dr. Fauci . or someone similar with a background in communicable diseases.