Do you suppose he thinks testing causes cases of the disease? I'm serious. He made that comment with a straight face.
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Do you suppose he thinks testing causes cases of the disease? I'm serious. He made that comment with a straight face.
Are we finally at the point that we can say most politicians are idiots and only think about control? I can only name a few that are not.
I can’t believe I am actually defending Trump, but he is half right. Cases only exist to everyone when they are reported.... Nobody really believed China eradicated this thing after a few weeks, they just quit reporting tests. He is likely making an implication on reported testing and it’s importance based on the context of the conversation. My guess is he regurgitates phrases and statements blurted out in meetings with his advisors and just happens to leave out an important word or two. So in this instance when asked why the US has so many cases and other countries don’t, he is simply saying if we stopped (reporting) tests we wouldn’t have any cases on the websites and organizations that count them, not actual cases. He is not eloquent by any stretch and one day will blurt out that he wants to make love to a schoolboy.
Meanwhile, while the MSM is going crazy over new reported cases, which largely are a product of more testing, the US on June 14 & 15 had its lowest 2 day death count since early March.
But yeah. Don't report that. Just keep up the fear Mongering over reopening. The selective reporting on this by ABC & NBC especially is just ludicrous.
Uh (1) you don't know if the increase in cases is the "product of more testing". More tests are certainly likely to mean more cases, but you need to look at other indicators (such as the percent positive) to have a better sense as to why cases are rising. And (2) as you have always said, deaths are a lagging indicator. Unless lethality rates fall, more cases now means more deaths later.
I know we're not doing well here in SC since the re-opening started.
In the 21 days since Memorial Day, our testings per day are down 24%, but our cases per day are up 252%.
This is a great device to track how your own state is doing at this point with cases, etc.
You can slide the bar to see changes over different time frames.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...ction-testing/
Some positive news, the two COVID19 positive hair stylist in Missouri that saw 140 clients resulted in no new cases (after extensive contact tracing). Both the hair dressers and the clients wore masks, so some anecdotal evidence that masks seem to limit transmission.
http://https://www.businessinsider.c...nfected-2020-6
The steroid treatment study out of England seems to be good news. Upping survival rates by a third in serious cases would be huge.
Here's the relevant text of the Tweet (emphasis mine) when he had more time to consider his words (LOL). You know what he was trying to say. And it was dumb, but not as dumb as the quote makes it sound.
"Without testing, or weak testing, we would be showing almost no cases."
Just for fun (I'm still not fully back to work!) I thought I'd do some analysis to check Trump's statement. I took the last month's worth of testing and cases from the COVID Tracking Project website for Arizona. I used Arizona because it's been under scrutiny for increasing cases lately, plus the website rated their data reporting an "A+". For each day I calculated a %change from the prior day in #tests, and #cases. I then created a scatter plot of the daily testing & new cases %change with a linear regression line.
This shows that amount of testing predicted cases in a positive relationship with a slope of y=1.39x+.12, with a linear regression fit test (R^2)=0.67. Trump may be on to something.
Pence sez 20,000 new cases a day is a "cause for celebration" . Think I'll pop open another Fat Tire.
But, uh, 1) you have shown nothing to refute my statement and almost every expert I've heard has said that my statement is correct, 1B) Tell me how many of these new cases actually show symptoms and are actually going to a hospital. If they don't then it's an empty stat.
2) I have NEVER said that deaths are a "lagging indicator". I guess we'll see if there are lagging deaths from the huge Brooklyn Gay Rights Rally of a few days ago. That assembly can happen in DeBlubbio's world but people can't go to church or go to a playground.
By the way, lethality rates ARE falling.
Maaaaybe they’ll flame out soon but there are many states that which we should be paying close attention. Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas to name a few. I don’t read any news articles about these places, simply watching data. The lagging deaths have started to appear in some of these places. It’s not a linear correlation but on the surface there appears to be some trouble in these areas. Major hospital flooding trouble? Probably not in most places, but with professional sports starting up in Florida soon you can bet on more attention to that area. The data still overwhelmingly supports the importance of masking/distancing/hygiene.
See the link in PaulXU's post 2167 for data suggesting that there are other factors (besides more testing) driving up the case numbers. Who are these "experts" you are referring to? And don't tell me that it's Pence. He's just trying to spin the numbers for political effect as his phone call to Republican governors so aptly demonstrates. What a great leader he is...truly with the country's welfare at heart.
Good news for sports fans... PGA seems to be containing things nicely.
“The total of 954 tests over two weeks includes the 98 players, caddies and family members who boarded chartered flights from Dallas on Monday to travel to Hilton Head for the second event on the PGA Tour's revised schedule after a 13-week shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. Those who traveled to South Carolina on their own were required to take a test on-site.“
Widespread testing continues to be the way to prevent eruptions in every environment.
That was funny. Guy complaining about social media as he's filming himself for a twitter broadcast.
I suspect we'll be debating our country's response to the virus for a long time. Pretty sure on top of the list will be questions around whether a nationally coordinated response would have been more effective, vs. states being asked to lead.
However, at this point we need to start being realistic. I would think that's critical to finally coming out of the woods.
So, I wish the president would try that. Instead of this:
Whatever the correct description is, it is NOT minuscule.Quote:
"If you look, the numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was. It's dying out," Trump said yesterday
https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/di...729680c9bc.png
Paul -
However, can we all agree that the number of CV-19 deaths and ICU numbers are most important? As we all know, the vast majority of infected folks survive.
I think all data is important, since there is still so much to learn about the disease and how to manage it.
I agree that hospitalizations and ICUs numbers are critically important in making sure that our healthcare system is not overran. This clearly should be one of the top priorities as having available hospital beds will undoubtedly produce better outcomes. Further, these numbers are little more clear cut and cannot be easily manipulated.
I think the total number of daily cases is important in judging if the disease is really subsiding or not. Sure the more you test, the more positives you are going to see. And if you are a bad faith actor you can suppress your numbers by reducing the amount of testing. But without these numbers it is hard to judge the transmission rates and where the hot sports currently are. Better data could lead to more targeted responses and relaxation of policies.
I'm finding 2020 problematic.
It would be super helpful to get some real information on what is happening, so each of us could decide for ourselves the level of risk we are dealing with. I'm talking here about (perhaps daily) updated information as to who is getting sick (demographics), who is getting sick enough to be hospitalized(demographics), who is dying (demographics), as well as who is testing positive but asymptomatic (demographics). in other words, something more than just total numbers.
For example, I am above 65 and therefore in an at-risk group. However I am healthy, with no underlying health problems, and exercise quite vigorously with no problems. How safe is it for me to go out to a restaurant if I socially distance? Can I get together with friends at home if I am pretty sure that they are "safe"? If it turned out that (say) 90+% of people who are sick enough to be hospitalized, or (say) 95+% of people who are dying turn out to be either in long-term care, are incarcerated, or have underlying health issues, the risk to me doing any of these things seems pretty minimal and so I might do such activities.
We need such guidance to move forward with our lives. We need both the federal and state/local governments to provide such data as it becomes increasingly better understood what it implies for each of us. Yet what are we getting from Washington? Crickets. And frankly not much better locally. But it's at the federal level where the problem is most glaring.
And that is on our "commander in chief" who just today said that testing is over-rated and that mask wearing is a political act that actually increases the likelihood of getting sick. Here's what it says in the article from WaPo:
"President Trump called coronavirus testing “overrated” and suggested in a Wall Street Journal interview that some people wear masks not as a health precaution but to signal their disapproval of him. He also continued to defend his handling of the pandemic.
“I personally think testing is overrated, even though I created the greatest testing machine in history,” Trump said Wednesday during an Oval Office interview with the Journal. The paper reported that Trump cited more testing as the reason there are more confirmed cases. “In many ways, it makes us look bad,” he said.
Trump also criticized the way people wear masks and implied that wearing one makes a person more likely to be infected.
“They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth,” Trump said. “And then they don’t know how they caught it?”
Trump’s claims that new cases are simply the result of more testing and his dismissal of facial coverings contradict health experts.
The rate of new coronavirus cases in at least 14 states — most of which had previously low rates of infection — is increasing faster than the increase in the average number of tests, The Post has reported.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines continue to advise people to wear masks or some kind of face covering to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The president has repeatedly dismissed masks as politically correct and unnecessary and refused to wear one publicly even when it was required — moves that have raised the ire of even some fellow Republicans.
At Trump’s indoor campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday, his first since the start of the U.S. outbreak, attendees will be given masks but will not be required to wear them."
Here's all I need to know about masks:
New York has 20 million people, and 24,000 deaths from the virus.
Taiwan has 24 million people, and 7 deaths.
Everybody in Taiwan from day 1 wore a mask.
For some reason this strikes me as an example of how messed up we all are.Quote:
He used his platform to belittle testing, which public health experts say is required to contain the outbreak. Because the strategy reveals what the president characterized as trivial cases, his direction was to curtail it. “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down,’” he said, as the audience cheered.
The president instructs his people to slow the testing for a deadly virus...putting American lives at risk.
And other Americans cheer that, as if it is a good thing.
There is something really wrong with that.
Somehow we've got to do a little better.
The EU has 100 million more people that we do, and their new case count is down below 5,000.
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asse...arge-tease.jpg