The coronavirus spread updated in real time

[_EAllusion]

I've read a few rankings of pandemic preparedness or capacity to cope with a pandemic that were developed prior to COVID. They all put America at the top. First, reading that is utterly depressing knowing how it turned out. Second, I don't think those rankings really took into account how broken American culture is and how that affects our status on paper. The latter point probably goes for similar kinds of rankings that don't take into account American politics like it should.

[_Gadianton]

Another right-wing friend of mine has been including me on his email distro where he imparts his wisdom to family and friends. According to him, the pandemic is only 10% real and the rest is hype in order for government to finalize its stranglehold on society. He says they are just chalking up dead bodies to CV without even testing them. He says both he and his friend had it (neither tested), and it's bad but not that bad, and people need to quit living in fear.

I actually don't know if he's a Trump supporter or not, I've never heard him mention names. He's a disciple of skousen and ETB.

[_EAllusion]

If a person's conspiratorial thinking only goes as far as "they're just counting any death as COVID" they should have to explain why there are so many more deaths than normal. Hell of a coincidence that as a deadly pandemic rips through society some other unknown factor is causing people to die at way higher rates than normal even as other causes of death like traffic accidents reduce due to social changes. Aren't they even a little curious what that might be then?

I can see a universe where the conspiracy thinking evolves into the idea that the government is killing off people en masse and using COVID as a cover. I suspect the reason that isn't already happening is because the kind of people who get into these kind of conspiracies are also the kind of people who like Donald Trump and they wouldn't implicate him.

[_Gadianton]

Well, there are all kinds of questions I could ask him, but I don't get into it, if I visit him again one day I might bring up a couple things, but as you know, it's pointless.

re deaths: the numbers are made up. fake death certificates. the pictures are fake. and if the numbers are real and the pictures are real, then the government is killing older people in homes (for a start) in a secret program. (he already believes there have been government programs responsible for more impossible things than that, such as a chair that connects a person's consciousness to some place on mars for remote viewing)

Oh, he's not dumb by the way, had a pretty interesting science scholarship at one time (usual problem; world revolves around his need to feel important). He's made horrible life choices though. And he does have skin in the game. His mother, his most ardent disciple, is in her 70s and has saved him innumerable times. He also has family members with underlying health conditions. So get the family together as often as possible under his bold leadership, affirming their freedom based his his understanding of the scriptures and speculative thought.

[_MeDotOrg]

When there is a conflict between Public Health and Personal Freedom, the tiebreaker goes to the virus. If it were possible for anyone to take their chances with the virus ALONE, I would say good luck and godspeed. The problem is that it that we DON'T live in a vacuum. When you take your chances with the virus, you endanger not only yourself but anyone with whom you come in contact. If you contract the virus and are hospitalized, you endanger health workers and your illness consumes resources that are in desperately short supply.

I think there is some quixotic hope that we can somehow 'push through' this early opening, that after a flurry of early deaths that things will settle down, and the economy will be humming by the end of the year. We know from experience, not only with this virus but from a century of epidemiological study that second waves are deadlier that the first wave. Does anyone think that this virus gives a crap about personal freedom?

My sister's political views are center-right. At the beginning of April, she forwarded what she thought was a 'happy thoughts' post about the virus: Give us a little more time and we will be doing much better.

That was about 80,000 deaths ago.

[_Gunnar]

https://mobile.Twitter.com/rafalab

Nicholas Kristof
@NickKristof
·
May 13
So what's the undercount on #covid19 in the US? I worked with
@Harvard
statistician
@rafalab
to calculate the excess deaths, and it seems that in the US more than 100,000 Americans have ALREADY died from the coronavirus. Here's our count:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/opin ... 2SZsojoiwc

tl;dr - Ajax is wrong again. He's gleefully buried in conspiratard Conservative totally-not-fake-news sources because they all read like the Enquirer.

- Doc

Unfortunately, like his idol Trump, Ajax is constitutionally incapable of even considering the possibility that he might be mistaken about anything.

[_Gunnar]

Cool tracking map from Nat Geo
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... 4E3A4DE500

Great link! If you liked that one, you will probably also find this one informative:
https://247wallst.com/special-report/20 ... t-now-2/2/

[_Gunnar]

deleted post

[_Res Ipsa]

Here’s what I think is an interesting modeling effort. It’sa standard SEIR (Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, Removed) epidemiology model with a machine learning overlay. It has some simple assumptions about relaxing and imposing social distancing, and has been pretty accurate. The input is daily new deaths, and the A.I. learns as it goes. https://covid19-projections.com/#view-projections

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Brazil is getting hit hard:

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/amer ... past-20000

The interesting bit from the article:

“Brazil has now recorded more than 310,000 cases, with experts saying a lack of testing means the real figures are probably much higher.

...

The death toll - the sixth highest worldwide - has doubled in just 11 days, according to ministry data.“

20,000 dead and rising rapidly. The US hit 94,000+ today. It’ll be... morbidly interesting to observe how many lives are claimed by an inevitable second wave as we open up the economy again.

- Doc