LA -- Louisiana -- is not SoCal. LA has a population of ~4.5M; if everyone in the state had contracted the virus the fatality rate would be around the number, 0.05%, cited.
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LA -- Louisiana -- is not SoCal. LA has a population of ~4.5M; if everyone in the state had contracted the virus the fatality rate would be around the number, 0.05%, cited.
It's a common tactic to shut down conversation by demanding proof like this. And it never EVER results in the proof-demander changing their mind. I could do a whole college dissertation on it, fully annotated and fully attributed. At this point in the conversation, NOBODY changes their mind.
That's cool, I can live with it. I thank you for the opportunity to sow the seeds of doubt. One day they may still germinate. Even if that day is many years from now, it will have been worth it.
I'll just leave you with this: You have all the same access to all the same information that I do.
I don't have info-researching super powers, so today or tomorrow or next year, you might decide to reconsider. I encourage you to reconsider. I encourage you to approach it with the inquisitiveness of a 5 year old child and the determination of a dog with a favorite toy. If you do, then don't let go of it, ever. Find that truth.
Have a great week and weekend all! Happy Independence Day to all of my compatriots in the US!
I googled a bit more, found a neat bit of news from Missouri. A hair salon there had two hair stylists who tested positive for coronavirus, and they had 140 clients over 8 days in May. Both stylists and all of the clients wore masks, and none of the 140 clients were infected. Seems like an encouraging outcome.
www.cnn.com
Two hairstylists who had coronavirus saw 140 clients. No new infections have been linked to the salon, officials say | CNN
No cases of coronavirus have been linked to two Missouri hairstylists who saw 140 clients last month while symptomatic, county health officials said.
Victoria Gardens cases are pretty bad in that mall 
Apple stock will rise tomorrow and set new highs as more stores shut down.
Apple stock will rise tomorrow and set new highs as more stores shut down.
It's a rare, encouraging outcome!
The story has a lot of gaps, unfortunately, so it's hard to draw any concrete conclusions. But, I'm glad no one got ill. Maybe Apple should give this small business a call for tips.
I certainly won't argue with you about sugar, etc. I'm with you 100% on all that. I wouldn't say my post is full of "doom", but rather realism, something that is sorely lacking today in my opinion. Opening everything up, consequences be damned, seems extremely shortsighted to me. I wouldn't call that "doom". Furthermore, we have no idea what the long-term consequences of having COVID are at this point. Hopefully they are minimal to none. But after reading more than a few articles about healthy athletes like myself in their late 40s nearly dying from it, I'm taking a very cautious approach personally.
It's going to be a very very very long time before I get on an airplane again, go out to a restaurant or bar, or go see a concert. I have no desire to go shopping either. There's no "going back to normal" at this point and the "new normal" is very off-putting to me. I go out to enjoy myself, to socialize, to relax, not to have my temperature taken, be served by people in surgical gear, and be separated from others with sheets of plexiglass. I'd rather just stay home.
You bring up diabetes, heart disease, and lung cancer, all of which are pre-exiting conditions that make COVID much more serious. I hear people say things to the effect that the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions should just stay home and let the rest of us do our thing. Clearly people who say such things have no clue how many people have problematic pre-existing conditions, as you point out. We have an epidemic of diabetes and obesity in this country, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
As I said before, I have no idea what the answer is now. We've let this get so far out of control that it seems impossible to get a grip on it now. I wish we could come together more as a country and do what needs to be done to bring the rate of infection down, but sadly we live in an era where even public health is politicized. Okay, maybe not outright DOOM, but I'm not optimistic about the future.
My guess is your attitude is shared among quite a few people. You and I may disagree about what we should do next, but aversion to this "new normal" is just as strong with me as with you. Sadly, the company I work for (and many, many others) might fail if our collective attitudes continue in this way.
I would wager the COVID hysteria will vanish on November 4. So, at least our holiday plans won't be ruined.
The medical industry is like MS-DOS from the tech industry. I am really surprised they are not able to address this issue with all that money and talent. Solution is not much different than would you would do a 100 years ago.
This is why I think we're screwed at this point. Many of us find this "new normal" very off-putting and the first, most obvious consequence will be a reduction in spending. Last month I cut my discretionary spending considerably and I see myself spending far, far less in the coming months. I was thinking about buying a new vehicle. Nope. I had nearly $10K earmarked for a massive tech upgrade. Nope. Travel? Get on a plane, sleep in a hotel, only eat in restaurants? BIG NOPE.
Things don't seem so bad now because the government is propping everything up. That can't continue. Nor can we afford to see 100,000+ new infections per day. Even if the mortality rate is low, there are other "costs" to consider. We can't afford to have that many people out of work for weeks, maybe months, at a time. Even if hospitals can handle the case load, the expenses incurred will be astronomical, which will lead to people not paying their rent or mortgage, going bankrupt, etc.
At this point, the opportunity to be proactive has passed. I imagine we'll continue to see reactive measures like Apple closing stores when cases rise in any given area. The same goes for states easing and then tightening restrictions. This is the new normal unfortunately. Had we instituted a proper lockdown across the country and, more importantly, had the public taken it seriously and considered the greater good over their selfish interests, we wouldn't have the highest infection rate in the world today. Other countries got it under control. We should have been able to as well.
I'm cynical...but not quite THAT cynical. But we shall see. One thing's for sure, nothing surprises me anymore. Personally I think we'll still be battling COVID. At that point we'll also have the flu thrown into the mix just to keep things interesting.
This primarily seems to be happening in the US where this issue has become politicized to the nth degree. Up here in Canada not so much.
No way. First off, this virus isn’t limited to the United States so our election cycles are irrelevant. Secondly, given the spread of this virus, I think this virus is going to be around quite awhile. Certainly well into next year. Think of wearing masks NEXT summer too. It’s a possibility unfortunately. And the economic hardship is only beginning.
The same thing can be said about the flu. I have had the flu before and just dealt with it, therefore it was not reported in any way. What if covid is 20x? 50x? 2x? What if everyone on the planet has already had it at some point? What if the numbers are falsely too high? All these what ifs what ifs what ifs. From the REPORTED cases to the REPORTED deaths, there is a 4.8% death rate. You are basically stating it could be ANY percentage. It could be 4.0 too. It could be 5%.
You don't deal with "what ifs" with statistics. This is like saying what if the flu has more cases than what is reported each year. You can apply this to ANY statistics, all those what if scenarios. But that is not how things work in the world of statistical analysis. You take the data you have and provide statistics based on it. You do not mess with the data and report a statistical analysis. You need to take a course on this, as no business will higher you for analyzing stats if you do not report accurate information and the reason you provide is "well what if its this?"
I wish folks would show a bit of respect for the 125,000+ Americans who have died from this virus. I bet some of them had loved ones who miss them badly.
May you have the courage to show more humanity in the real world than you do hiding behind your anonymous profile in these comments.
I agree. Do people actually think this is some "small" issue? It is not just the United States that is experiencing these issues you know. What does November have to do with Brazil, Russia, India, UK and others that are the top tier countries that are suffering?
Right now, our interest rate is zero from the Federal Reserve. So, we might be able to continue to borrow without harming ourselves like in years past. The alternative is a whole new definition of the word "depression".
Obviously there is a lot of suffering! I think it's horrible what has happened. NickName99 is jumping to the wrong conclusion due to the absence of my sentiments.
Who is currently benefiting the most from the virus?
Sorry, but it matters...tremendously, particularly with relatively small numbers. Until you start getting more data, you can’t draw conclusions with early data. Flu has billions of cases, so the analysis is different.
Yes, 4.8% is utterly meaningless without more info. Sure, it is what it is...but it’s also junk data...of which there is a ton. Pound it all you want...means nothing, especially if you look deeper. Who is dying, why are they dying, how is it being reported, is it reliable, etc. Analytics go so much deeper than a numerator and denominator, but it makes for bad TV and poor headlines.
And I’m not saying it could “basically be any percentage.” Im saying it’s definitely below 4.8%.
Anyone can report 4.8%....thats not the deep analytics part, lol. You aren’t hired to do division of 2 garbage numbers. That’s not analysis.
I manage an analytics team for a Fortune 10 company.
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You should be a headline writer. “Texas hospitals filling up.” And you post an article that doesn’t even say more than ONE hospital is completely full or that it is full because of Covid19 patients. Texas has literally hundreds of hospitals, many I can confirm are NOT full. I could post a similar headline. “Texas hospitals have plenty of room” and give one example of a hospital with plenty of room. Same exact logic.That’s not true for all areas:
Arizona highest number of daily covid deaths just reported.
Arizona COVID-19 update: Nearly 4,900 new cases, 88 more deaths reported, shattering daily records
On the day Vice President Mike Pence is set to visit Arizona, the state reported nearly 5,000 new COVID-19 cases and 88 deaths, the highest numbers so far.www.azcentral.com
Texas hospitals are filling up.
Internal messages reveal crisis at Houston hospitals as coronavirus cases surge
Texas was one of the first states in the nation to ease social distancing mandates. In Houston, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has quadrupled since Memorial Day. “It’s time to be alarmed,” one expert said.www.texastribune.org
And again, daily case numbers compared to prior months are utterly meaningless if testing has increased or more people are going for testing. The number itself really means nothing.
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Again, this is an attempt for an argument ender by some forced guilt trip.
Of course we all care about human life. But the discussion can continue And you aren’t insensitive to want to discuss more.
What if for the sake of argument, 75% of the deaths were people over 85 years old and people with preexisting conditions? Or what if 50% of the “covid deaths” were people who died WITH Covid and not FROM Covid? What are other dangerous viruses we deal with on the daily? What are other preventative measures we can take to extend human life? How are people harming their bodies and jeopardizing public health with the choices they make? Is Covid19 the most important thing in public health, or just the most talked about one? Those are reasonable questions.
Death can’t be legislated or written out of society. I can rattle off a bunch of other stuff that kills people and no one cries for them, because the media didn’t tell you to care.
I think the people arguing against the severity are just trying to keep people from losing perspective.
Look dude, this is real. No flat earthers Here. We agree with precautions but we also need to maintain perspective and encourage a little more objectivity versus panic and headlines. Again, flu killed over 61,000 and no one wore a mask for them or even discussed it. Sure, this is twice that, but where is their justice? 61,000 is not a small number either.
If all we want to do is save human life, we got a hell of a lot to start cancelling And legislating to do. Let’s start with banning sugar and corn syrup. Then we will ban cigarettes. Then alcohol. Then animal fat. Then cars. Then air travel.
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And where is all of this money that we're borrowing coming from? Thin air?
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You're comparing last year's entire flu season to several months of COVID so far. Also, the CDC flu death total is actually a range of 24,000 to 62,000 for the 2019/2020 flu season. You're right, though. These aren't small numbers. Which is even more reason for people to get on board with masks, social distancing, and other precautions. If the official COVID death toll is to be believed, we've already had between 2x and 6x the number of deaths from COVID as from flu. COVID cases are surging. We're reporting new daily highs almost daily. If this keeps up, the deaths from COVID versus the flu in the same one year period will be 10x or more.
I wish people would stop comparing COVID to the flu. It's clearly more serious and more contagious. Constantly comparing it to the flu seems like an effort to normalize things, minimize concern and convince people that "it's no worse than the flu (so why should I care)".
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Apparently not! Probably because most protesters were wearing masks and were outside.
Research Determines Protests Did Not Cause Spike In Coronavirus Cases
Surprisingly, research suggests that protests actually may have led to increased social distancing.
www.forbes.com
Wrong. Death rates in the Bay Area have been increasing again since around Jun 4 (new cases have increased from the third week of May). This disproves the theory that the increase in number of cases is due to more testing.
Oh, yes? How do you explain the huge increase in new cases in the U.S.?
Others have refuted that number. But just look at plots of monthly death rate vs. average of previous years. The sudden spike this years is as high as >20 standard deviations in some countries. I will repeat that again: The spike in deaths is >20 standard deviations high. That is a MAJOR catastrophe with giant economic impact, in case you haven't noticed.
It seems that it's worth reminding people and politicians that this is still a problem, and before thinking of reopening, maybe take a look at the curve.
@CerebralX, it looks like your cerebellum wasn't working when you typed your post.
What IS terrifying, not just looks, is the number of deaths in the US. What IS terrifying is the number of infected people in the US. Unlike *any* other country, except Brazil perhaps. What IS terrifying are posts like yours, in spite of all the evidence. Still not enough? WOW! This is exactly why the virus has spread so much in the US. Because of politicians and people who have underestimated the danger and still underestimate it. Like YOU! Take your responsibility for spreading total nonsense.
So what’s gone wrong? I mean, imagine a scale, on a plate all the beautiful things that you have listed ... what's on the other plate so heavy as to bring everything down?