The Observation Deck

pj bennett wrote:All along, medical experts have been saying, that they don't know if those who get infected with covid-19 will suffer any long-term effects. Some may; others might not.

Meanwhile last week, I read an article regarding children in the U.K. getting sick with symptoms resembling Kawasaki disease. (Inflammation in blood vessels. A bit like toxic shock syndrome.)

Then yesterday, I read of 12-15 children hospitalized in New York, exhibiting the same symptoms.
Ages range from 2 - 16 years in age.
I believe, that there is a case in California, as well.

Some of the children are on ventilators. To date, none have died.

Doctors are thinking, that these cases are linked to coronavirus, but they can't be sure.
Let's hope, that these cases are isolated.
Let's hope, that this is not another air-borne disease.

But, if more children do acquire this illness and the numbers begin to bloom, I wonder what the reaction will be?

Much has been speculated on this virus' ability to mutate. Perhaps this is an example.

Dan Alaimo wrote:Simply put:

What is the economic value of a human lfe?

To answer my own question, no economic value can be put on even one human life. And if that means a drastic change in my transportation convenience, I think I could live with that.

FWIW, knowing Bill Call a little and following his writings on the Deck for a long time, I believe he was in full pot-stirring mode here, and did an especially good job of it. He'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Dan, Bill, All

Here is the problem, they simply do not know. Last night I was listening to a couple people talk that had worked with the Obama and Bush presidencies in regards to this particular virus. The bottom line they have ZERO idea what is going on.

Highlights that caught my attention...

The prevalent strain in the USA is a variation of the Italian strain. Which has also mutated in variations that feature, new symptoms, a much younger audience, and all sorts of side effects especially in those that seemed asystematic.

Also in NYC, they have been seeing people that tested positive, then negative for two weeks, testing positive and getting sick again. Their thoughts is that it is becoming adapted to life in North America.

The new "USA strain" seems to be easier to spread as the loads of virus even in those not showing symptoms are 20 times higher than in the Chinese strain. They are now tracking at least 10 variations of the virus.

In the latest figures it would appear new cases are trending down, but they are not, when you pull out NYC, the trend is climbing like a rocket. Remove California, and it is scary how steep the curve is. That means middle America has become the new ground zero.


Today's Chart from NextStrain.org USA strain is in Red

Also if you go to Next Strain maps, and click on to run the animation. You can see it land from Italy, then China, then America explodes and it goes everywhere in the world.

All seem to be of the mindset, we will wear masks forever, as there is no herd immunity forming, anywhere, not even in Sweden where they are social distancing, trying to be smart and have decided on an acceptable death count which that have raised twice already.

Today I woke up with the News that Trump Administration has decided the death numbers are too high so they will recalculate them to a lower figure. This on the heels of everyone stating the American number is low because no one is testing.

Which brings us to the great lie, "more testing is two weeks away..." Said by Trump, Pence, and even DeWine. They have zero complete tests, and all the new stuff shows a 50-50 chance on being accurate or not.

Americans are being asked to suck it up and take on for the team. Residents have now been branded "Our new warriors" as warriors die in battle proudly.

This only gets worse.

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Dan Alaimo wrote:

Dan Alaimo wrote:Simply put:

What is the economic value of a human lfe?

To answer my own question, no economic value can be put on even one human life. And if that means a drastic change in my transportation convenience, I think I could live with that.

FWIW, knowing Bill Call a little and following his writings on the Deck for a long time, I believe he was in full pot-stirring mode here, and did an especially good job of it. He'll correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not just stirring the pot. Just pointing out the obvious fact that locking down country and destroying the economy will kill a lot more people than the virus.

It's always risky to make this kind of post in our highly politicized environment.

Trump ban travel from China. Trump is a racist! No, wait, Trump did not ban travel fast enough! Trump is a murderer!

Trump bands travel from Europe. Trump is xenophobic! No, wait, Trump did not ban travel fast enough! Trump is a murderer!

New York has the highest COVID rate in the world! This proves Cuomo is incompetent!

Governor Cuomo forced nursing homes to accepts infected patients! This proves he is a killer!

https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/cuomo-dou ... ing-homes/


Sometimes political leaders have to make decisions based on the information on hand. They do no have the luxury of knowing what will be discovered 6 months from now. In the case of COVID much of what we were told by experts just wasn't true. In New York most of the COVID cases are appearing in people who are in lock down. Countries and states that have no lock downs have lower rates than some countries and states that have closed down their economies. And of course, there is no evidence that locking down the economy saves any lives over the long term.

The most eager lock down supporters are people who think that a complex modern economy can be micromanaged; that it can be turned on and off by a signed executive order. I suspect that they think that food comes from the grocery store and that electricity comes from that switch on the wall. If you want to close down the economy so NO ONE dies fine. Who plants the crops? Who drills for oil? Who transports the food? Are those people expendable? How many lives are you willing to take just so you can get something to eat?

Way back in 1957 the Asian Flu killed as many as 116,000 Americans even with a vaccine. That's the equivalent to 250,000 deaths today. The governing class did not decide to plunge the world into a permanent economic depression.

Every time you leave the house you take a risk. That was true before COVID and it will be true after COVID. You have every right to lock yourself in the basement. You have no right to ask everyone else to do it.

I can picture it now: General Eisenhower on June 5, 1944, staring at the maps on the wall. He turns slowly to face his subordinates. He looks at them one by one and announces, "We just can't do it. Someone might get hurt".

In New York most of the COVID cases are appearing in people who are in lock down. Countries and states that have no lock downs have lower rates than some countries and states that have closed down their economies.

FALSE

UNTRUE

You will need to provide proof of those statements.

new york is full of italians. it is an epidemic.

the closest comparison in combination of contagiousness and mortality is the 1957-1958 flu pandemic.
A vaccine was developed toward the second half of this. The highest effectiveness rating of the vaccine I have found is 70 percent effective at preventing the 1957-1958 pandemic flu. There must be archival documents all over the place about federal, state, and local responses to this.

One additional difference between the U.S. and Sweden is this. Swedes do not go broke getting medical treatment for modest or more serious illnesses or injuries.

I have faith the American response to this has been as intelligent as it has been to most other issues and events over the last 40 years, and will continue to be for nearly every other issue that arises.

Bridget Conant wrote:

In New York most of the COVID cases are appearing in people who are in lock down. Countries and states that have no lock downs have lower rates than some countries and states that have closed down their economies.

FALSE

UNTRUE

You will need to provide proof of those statements.

There's s lot to respond to in these couple of posts and I'd rather wait until i'm on the computer with better control over the quotes. Meanwhile:
On where the majority of cases are coming from, NY hospitals surveyed Covid admissions on this and the majority were coming from home. This does not measure the people who went home before going to the hospital, something that, if I weren't in a state of dire emergency, which is usually true with the gradual onset of the condition, I would do. It's not necessarily all people on lockdown.
I know there's an answer to the second of Bridget's assertions, but I don't know it offhand.

ryan costa wrote:new york is full of italians. it is an epidemic.

This is the second or third time you've mentioned this. WTF are you talking about?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... tC&ampcf=1

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... f=2WWyrgO6

Bridget here's a citation on the first of Bill's statements that you claim were FALSE. I knew the Daily Mail had it but I've read it elsewhere too. The article questions whether lockdowns are even effective....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -HOME.html

Bill's second assertion is true as well both with respect to countries (e.g. Sweden) and U.S. states. If I run across the citations I'll post those. I'm not going to spend time looking because I know I've seen them both and that Bill is right.

They sold the lockdowns as needed to "flatten the curve" to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Fair enough. But now that it's clear that the hospitals weren't and won't be overwhelmed, they're moving the goalposts. COVID-19 has a 99% survival rate. And we know well who's susceptible and can presumable isolate them.

Tim Liston wrote:Bridget here's a citation on the first of Bill's statements that you claim were FALSE. I knew the Daily Mail had it but I've read it elsewhere too. The article questions whether lockdowns are even effective....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -HOME.html

Bill's second assertion is true as well both with respect to countries (e.g. Sweden) and U.S. states. If I run across the citations I'll post those. I'm not going to spend time looking because I know I've seen them both and that Bill is right.

They sold the lockdowns as needed to "flatten the curve" to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Fair enough. But now that it's clear that the hospitals weren't and won't be overwhelmed, they're moving the goalposts. COVID-19 has a 99% survival rate. And we know well who's susceptible and can presumable isolate them.

Sorry, you lost me at Daily Mail.

When you find a legitimate source, try again

I’m on PUBMed and MedRxiv, BioRxiv, and other legit medical and academic sites, both American and foreign.

I’m not relying on celebrity websites or news services, which all have their own biases.

Whatever Bridget. Google "66% New York were staying at home" (without the quotes), it's in many sources. With direct quotes (and video) to Andrew Cuomo. You know, the governor who released COVID-19 patients from NY hospitals to NY nursing homes....

For example: "We were thinking that maybe we were going to find a higher percentage of essential employees who were getting sick because they were going to work, that these may be nurses, doctors, transit workers,” Cuomo said. “That's not the case, and they were predominantly at home."

And: “This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” Cuomo said during a briefing on Long Island. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.” (I saw where 3% had taken public transportation.)

Are your medical journals disputing Cuomo's statements?

From Wikipedia’s entry on The Daily Mail

The Daily Mail has been widely criticised for its unreliability, as well as printing of sensationalist and inaccurate scare stories of science and medical research,[13][14][15][16][17] and for copyright violations.[18]

As for the “at home” cases, that’s likely a function of asymptomatic spread, which is a huge driver of the epidemic. The younger population which are out working, and/or not being particularly careful to social distance, often return home to family members that have tried to stay home due to age or comorbidities. Close contact within family units was the major source of infection spread in China. Likely the same here. If you don’t feel or look sick you are less likely to think you have it and could pass it on to your family.

Bridget Conant wrote:From Wikipedia’s entry on The Daily Mail

The Daily Mail has been widely criticised for its unreliability, as well as printing of sensationalist and inaccurate scare stories of science and medical research,[13][14][15][16][17] and for copyright violations.[18]

As for the “at home” cases, that’s likely a function of asymptomatic spread, which is a huge driver of the epidemic. The younger population which are out working, and/or not being particularly careful to social distance, often return home to family members that have tried to stay home due to age or comorbidities. Close contact within family units was the major source of infection spread in China. Likely the same here. If you don’t feel or look sick you are less likely to think you have it and could pass it on to your family.

These back to work people crack me up. Here is what they know about COVID-19, highly contagious, period.

They still have no idea how it works, what it does, or what affects it has on anyone you got it. People over it getting it again. Those with no symptoms suddenly getting sick with all sorts of stuff from kidney failure, to rashes and thinning of the skin. They know it causes lesions on the lungs, the kidneys, in the brain. in arteries,

From the Washington Post
Doctors keep discovering new ways the coronavirus attacks the body
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... rc404=true

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Jim, regardless of how you or anyone feels about the appropriateness or efficacy of the lockdowns, I would point out that the off-topic article you cite was commissioned by the one person who has made more money on lockdowns than anybody else on the planet. Bezos has no standing in any discussion of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the current lockdowns, at least not in my opinion.

And to be clear, nobody is disputing that COVID-19 can be horrible, particularly to the elderly and frail. We all know that. Everyone is heartbroken over the toll that it takes on some of us. But once it reached our shores it simply was not preventable.