Why is covid-19 being downplayed?

From Wejo:

"But it would be good for states to share their testing results and not just positive tests."

Here is state-level data:

http://covidtracking.com/

It is updated several times a day and includes links to state departments of public health web pages as well as to their respective Twitter feeds.

Of course you all probably already bookmarked the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Notably, their data is downloadable from Github and frequently updated if you would like to do additional analysis.

This article linked here is an example of taking that data and comparing the growth curve to other nations (note, I'm not a big Mother Jones fan, but Kevin's analysis is informative nonetheless):

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/update-the-united-states-is-not-a-coronavirus-outlier/

I'm sure there are many quant-oriented readers of Letsrun that could take this data and make some interesting analysis and information.

If any readers have questions, CDC has good resource on how to clean at home and what products are recommended.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/cleaning-disinfection.html

We know the corona virus can stick around for a little while on surfaces, but the picture is still not complete:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf

This article received quite a bit of media coverage. Note it's pre-print, so yet to undergo peer review (not that "peer-review" is necessarily a hallmark of excellence).

If you are a Twitter user, this is a decent list of credible env sci and health professionals you may consider following:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/1233998285779632128

Here you go wejo:

https://denverite.com/2020/03/13/denvers-drive-up-coronavirus-testing-lab-has-moved-to-the-coliseum-and-the-colorado-national-guard-will-staff-it/

Most of the people that are demanding to be tested don’t have COVID. Hospitals are only testing people with particular symptoms, which is why the mortality rate rate is so high. If you are sick, avoid people. If you are severely ill, go to the hospital. If you have a runny nose, don’t bog down the system trying to get a test for a disease with no cure other than your own immune system. What would be interesting to know would be how many of the ten positives would require hospitalization.

JesseIsGarbage wrote:

It's time for LRC to shut down the Corona Bro trolls RIGHT NOW.

Public health is greatly influenced by citizens buying in and complying. Every troll post is another voice that makes all of us unsafe.

LRC, FOR ONCE, BE RESPONSIBLE AND DELETE TROLL POSTS ABOUT COVID-19.

First, I agree that there are most definitely troll posts being posted, and a lot of them, to sue division and divisiveness.

Whether or not the Corona Bro troll posts are shut down, which i grant would be a good idea, I think it behooves all of us to see through them. And it benefits us all for the very reasons you say.

We have to see through their obvious ploy.

Well said, sir. And there are some threads here that i won't even open or won't return to because they are so obviously over the top.

The right wings won't like us to see that in emergencies like this you need a somewhat strong public sector. A good quote from a fellow nurse: You can put people in beds at clinics within the hospital, but it's hard to put sick people in the basement based clinics inside other other people's houses. Italy is paying now for their year of right winged politicans

This is all good information. The only issue I see is that policy changes will not be seen in the statistics for 2-4 weeks due to the latent period of the virus, so the curve fits may not be great predictors.

Great links

I wasn’t sure what aerosols meant and wondered if this might spread different than flu

Found this

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/coronavirus-can-spread-as-an-aerosol.html

Crick wrote:

IMO, The scare and shutdowns have little to do with Trump, right wing, left wing, or any other political factors.

They are based on insurance companies and corporate/ gov’t lawyers covering their arses. They don’t give a flying fig about flattening the hospitalization curves. They are terrified of class action lawsuits for negligent exposure so they are shutting everything down because they can handle a lull in cash flow better than a future incalculable legal battle in our ridiculous US civil court system.

In the meantime, see what a 2 month shutdown in backbone economy and education does to home values, crime rates, and joblessness rates.

oh......so thats why all the other countries are in lockdown ....scared of US legal system?

Yeah Finn, their failing socialized medicine is a Right Wing idea. Stop with politicizing of this and for your part to make it better!

Yes - been watching closely about aerosol behavior of infection. At this time it does not appear that in practical terms there is aerosol transmission of this novel coronavirus. That does not mean it is not possible. But all evidence I have seen points to fomite (touch) and droplet (large particles that fall out quick, within a few feet) transmission.

More studies are happening that will provide greater understanding for this possible mode of transmission.

To contrast "droplet" and true aerosol transmission, take the case of Amoy Gardens from the 2003 SARS outbreak. That is an example of aerosol transmission. Totally different scale and spread of smaller particles which were transported longer distances at sufficient concentrations to still be infectious. Not like "droplet" spread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoy_Gardens

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16696450

I'm very impressed with the people arguing for the facts here and bringing scientific backup.

On the other hand, I'm shocked at the right wing trolls that are allowed to spread disinformation in this thread and downplay a threat to our global health.

LRC is a haven for right wing fanaticism. Other websites don't stand for this. One day the spotlight will be shown on the toxicity here and the owners will wish they had done more to stamp out the trolling.

It's ok, when the parents of these right wingers get coronavirus and choke to death alone on their own phlegm, they will cry tears of sweet karma.

Vote in people who put the economy over human life = this is what you get.

Fannybaws the II wrote:

I'm hearing now that we are proposing a full societal shutdown. Great, cool - for people of privilege like me who earn 6 figures and can "work from home" this is awesome - paid holidays basically. What about less fortunate people who don't have this luxury. People in the service industry who rely on human interaction (tips) for their living? This is where your flawed numbers create situations of unnecessary panic that have impacts on people that are really serious.

This is exactly why shutting it down will never work. people at my office are already treating it like a vacation (in some cases literally traveling). People losing their incomes will only agree to that for so long. Draconian quarantine measures, if instituted, will only cause people to hide their illness to the best of their abilities. People also are making insane choices due to panic. example: “oh no people are going to kill me with their germs! Let me go to the grocery and be around 2000 people sneezing on the mangos and take the rest of them so I can throw them out in 3 weeks when they’re rotten!”

Love that state tracking data. The most liberal states are NOT reporting the negative test results - only the positive. Any trick to skew the results!

No reason to doubt the death statistics! I'm sure they're accurate.

Looking at the stats, I would say that Germany and South Korea probably paint the most realistic numbers in terms of the mortality of this virus as they seem to have tested the largest swath of the population. As even though they have a high number of cases , their death rate is considerably lower.

+1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0NhA4oBGuc

seattle prattle wrote:

Clearly, the reason it is downplayed is to further Trump and the belief that the economy and wall street are just fine. So he can get re-elected.

It's obvious.

He is creating fake news by failing to acknowledge the truth. And he is doing so at the our risk. Let alone the glaring lack of leadership displayed by Trump.

Joplas wrote:

All the people downplaying Covid-19 are attention seeking trolls. Ignore them.

You can't possibly watch what is going on in Italy, Iran, Korea etc and think that it couldn't happen in an American city.

Well...have you been watching what is going on in Russia? 63 cases - no deaths & no critical/serious cases. Not a small country by any stretch of the imagination - 144 mil.

Also, very low numbers in India - a country of over 1 Billion people!

ferblerbled wrote:

+1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0NhA4oBGuc

seattle prattle wrote:

Clearly, the reason it is downplayed is to further Trump and the belief that the economy and wall street are just fine. So he can get re-elected.

It's obvious.

He is creating fake news by failing to acknowledge the truth. And he is doing so at the our risk. Let alone the glaring lack of leadership displayed by Trump.

Wow.

That video is crazy in how clearly it shows the insanity of that media company.

JesseIsGarbage wrote:

It's time for LRC to shut down the Corona Bro trolls RIGHT NOW.

Public health is greatly influenced by citizens buying in and complying. Every troll post is another voice that makes all of us unsafe.

LRC, FOR ONCE, BE RESPONSIBLE AND DELETE TROLL POSTS ABOUT COVID-19.

Facts are not troll posts.

Fact: As of this post there have been 69 deaths in the US from the coronavirus.

Fact: As of this post, there have been 22,000 deaths in the US from the flu.

People keep saying that the coronavirus is more deadly than the flu

22,000 is more than 69

That's a fact, not a troll.

+1