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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday / Wednesday, May 5-6

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday / Wednesday, May 5-6

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Extracts from a (long) thread on testing. Would be happier to agree if Mr. Slavitt was a medical professional, but he’s certainly not wrong that testing needs to be drastically upscaled…

Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    JAFD

    Greetings from New Jersey, fellow jackals !

    Shopping expedition yesterday, report on:

    Still no masks at Walgreens, but CVS had them behind counter, two per customer, two bucks each.

    Supermarket produce and egg prices down from last week, seemed pretty well stocked, plenty of store-brand TP. Had yeast, 1″x1″x3″ blocks, store’s labels, $3. Might surmise that local bakery, if no one going out for fresh rolls, pasteries, every day, selling off extra supply. But plain white sugar – only 20-pound bags in stock.

    Feel well pollinated this morn, nose running like Ron Delany.

    Hope y’all are staying healthy, happy and hydrated !

  2. 2.

    p.a.

    I can understand trump wanting to open the economy up: he’s an idiot. But the lamprey around him are nothing if not survivors; I just can’t believe they have a political death wish. So, I wonder if we see more jumping ship? The other alternative, which I consider more likely, is vote suppression/caging/intimidation on a scale like the South during the ‘Redeemer’ era.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers: 45 new cases, of which 44 are local infections and one is an imported case, i.e.Ā  Malaysian infected abroad; total 6,428 cases. 135 patients recovered; total recovered 4,702 (73.15% of diagnosed cases). One death, total 107. Of 1,619 active cases, 22 are in ICU and nine of those are on respiratory aid. Case fatality rate (deaths divided by sum of deaths and recoveries) 2.22%.

  5. 5.

    satby

    @p.a.: It’s going to be option 2. The trial run was the WS primary.

    And the Republicans are feeling emboldened because they think their brainwashed base will dodge the worst of the pandemic while it takes out the voters likely to vote Democratic.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    According to these projections:

    Now: 1,750 deaths per day.
    June 1: 3,000 deaths per day.

    Now: 25,000 new cases per day.
    June 1: 200,000 new cases per day.

    I went out for the first time since Misery *reopened* yesterday. From what I saw? It’s gonna get ugly here in the hinterlands. Mask usage went from 60-70% to about 25%. Stopped to pick up a sandwich for Mrs OHB from Subway. None of the employees were masked. Turned around and left. About the only good thing is my wife was supposed to go back to work this week but her company said, “Nope, not yet.” She is now on IMTE pay (3/4). Still having a hard time believing this is a corporation in America.

    *reopened*- that’s a funny way to say lifted the few restrictions imposed.

  7. 7.

    satby

    A friend in Ireland reading the potential 3k deaths per day news, urged his friends here to flee the country. But other countries won’t admit Americans, probably, until there’s proof of vaccine like they require for yellow fever in some countries.Ā  Once travel does start up again. From world leaders to pariahs in four years.

  8. 8.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: Agree it’s going to get bad in red states, just a matter of time. The lily whites don’t believe it will affect them. The county I live in has mandated mask usage for everyone in stores and enclosed spaces, but a few of the “real American” farmers at the farmers market were still refusing to wear them yesterday, in spite of the head of the health department’s direct and in person threat to shut down the market on Saturday. One of them is the farmer directly across from me (a good 15 feet away), who continued to refuse in spite of pleas by the president of the market board. So I had a friend call and complain to the health department. I hope they do get shut down for the next few days. It will be the only thing that convinces them.

    It’s nuts that people are such assholes.Ā  And from a business standpoint, why would anyone buy food from someone showing such contempt for health regulations?

  10. 10.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @p.a.: But the lamprey around him are nothing if not survivors

    They are all in the same information bubble as Trump.Ā  Consider how anyone on Wallstreet who warned a crashed was coming in 2006-7 was ignored, forced to shut up or marginalized.Ā  They want believe this will just go away by June, the Right Wing media and their fake scientists tell them what they want to hear so they are fat, happy and dumb.

  12. 12.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    As at 3:00pm on 6 May 2020, a total of 6,875 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 97 deaths and 5,984 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    Over the past week, there has been an average of 19 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.

    Only 2 of 8 States/Territories reported new cases today. These were NSW and Victoria.

    Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 64% have recent international travel history, including over 1,200 cases associated with cruise ships.

    The overall proportion of cases under investigation in each state and territory is relatively low, indicating that public health actions, including case identification and contact tracing, is occurring in a timely manner.

    To date, over 688,000 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 1.0% have been positive.

    My state, South Australia,has not had a new case in 14 days and has only 2 active cases (hospitalised, not in ICU, not ventilated)

  13. 13.

    New Deal democrat

    Nate Silver raised a very valid criticism about the ā€œtake NY out of the numbersā€ metric: testing has gone up over 50% nationwide outside of NY over the last 2 weeks, but cases nationwide outside of NY found by those tests are only up 8%. In other words, weā€™re ā€œpenalizingā€ States for doing increased testing, and so finding more cases.

    We know weā€™ve been missing a lot of infections due to not testing enough. If the number of increased infections are only 50% of the rate we had been finding them before the increased testing, then the ā€œtrueā€ nationwide ex-NY cases are down something like 20%.

  15. 15.

    New Deal democrat

    @satby:

    In Indiana as a whole, in the last week new cases are up 30%.

    But testing has gone up over 40%.

    So, are new cases really up, or has Indiana just gotten better at finding them?

  16. 16.

    Sloane Ranger

    Media reporting that UK death toll now at 30,000

    The Great has finally been put back into Great Britain. We now have the greatest number of COVID deaths in Europe!

    Meanwhile BoJo tells the HoC that Care Home deaths are down. To coin a Churchilian phrase this is a “terminalogical inexactitude.”

    People voted for Boris because of his sunny optimism, look where it’s got us.

  17. 17.

    Jinchi

    Now: 1,750 deaths per day.
    June 1: 3,000 deaths per day.

    Now: 25,000 new cases per day.
    June 1: 200,000 new cases per day

    That’s simultaneously horrifying and puzzlingly optimistic. 8 times as many people will be diagnozed per day, but the death rate will not even double?

    Are these predictions assuming a significant rampup in testing? Because that’s a completely different question from the one they seem to be addressing.

  18. 18.

    Jinchi

    @New Deal democrat: Better testing would almost certainly make the (confirmed deaths/confirmed cases) drop because it would imply we’re testing more people who don’t have serious symptoms.

    The rule of thumb I’ve seen is that if the number of confirmed cases is greater than 10% of the number of tests performed, then they are severely underestimating the extent of the pandemic.

    In the US overall, we’re at about 15% right now.

  19. 19.

    JAFD

    Mr. Spurgeon at WQXR informs us that today is National Nurses’ Day, and this week marks the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale,

    So, to all nurses, and especially to the ones of the Emergency Room and Cardiac Care Center of University Hospital of New Jersey, many many thanks !

  20. 20.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Glad I’m in Springfield, the officials here aren’t irresponsible like Parsons is. The restrictions are still relatively severe. We couldn’t reopen our pub because we put a pencil to it and realized we’d only be able to have 12 people in at any one time. No pool playing, no live music, no karaoke, no charity poker players, no one could sit at the bar. None of our employees would want to come back to work under those conditions anyway. We figure we won’t be able to reopen until we can have 50 people in at a time, although if they say 25 at the end of the month we might try it. I hate that we’re still closed, but I understand why. I’m afraid Misery is going to have a spike in a month or sooner.

  21. 21.

    New Deal democrat

    @Jinchi: The ā€œconfirmed deaths/confirmed casesā€ percentage nationwide for the past week is 1,809/27,454 per day, or about 7%.

  22. 22.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t know about Mexico, but I’m in Toronto and Canada has closed the US border for “non-essential travel.” I don’t know how strictly they’re interpreting that, but in my experience Canada is pretty no-nonsense at the border.

    In Ontario, last I heard we’re supposed to self-isolate for 14 days if coming from outside the province. Doug Ford, the slightly smarter brother of late crack-smoking Toronto mayor Rob Ford, is the Premier of Ontario but to my pleasant surprise appears to have actually listened to his advisors. At least so far.

  23. 23.

    Wyrm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: They (quite correctly I suspect) think that by late June/July people will be accepting 2,000-3,000 dead a day as the new normal.

    I feel sick on a daily basis thinking about how 1) badly the Federal Government screwed this up and 2) the “American Exceptionalism” that makes it impossible for us to develop the robust public health system that would have saved tens of thousands of lives.

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: I went out for the first time since Misery *reopened* yesterday. From what I saw? Itā€™s gonna get ugly here in the hinterlands. Mask usage went from 60-70% to about 25%. Stopped to pick up a sandwich for Mrs OHB from Subway. None of the employees were masked. Turned around and left.

    Lack of any personal precautions will turn them into NYC. Sure, they don’t crowd into elevators and public transport every day. But they all shop at the same, few, places.

  25. 25.

    different-church-lady

    Oh. Okay, then I just have to wait until next year to have income once again. Thanks Trump!

  26. 26.

    bluefoot

    @Obvious Russian Troll: It’s pretty strict at the US-Canada border.Ā  As far as I know, they’re only letting truck drivers across.Ā  Even in early March, my cousin in Toronto couldn’t cross the border to come see my mother before she died.

  27. 27.

    MoCA Ace

    It it so damn depressing to see how we continue to bone the COVID19 response but I have accepted that we will see upwards of 250,000 deaths before the election darkens our doorstep.Ā  Our only hope was the republicans removing the orange menace and that is not. going. to. happen.Ā  I think their long-ish range plan is to ride this out until the election is too close to enact universal vote-by-mail, while hoping the urban areas and blue states bear the brunt of the deaths.Ā  It’s all about the election.

    Here in Wisconsin, yesterday Justice Rebecca Bradley said that one person enacting stay-at-home orders was “the very definition of tyranny”.Ā  We are so fucked.

    When they overturn Wisconsin’s safer at home order Governor Evers needs to be in front of the cameras loudly proclaiming that the republican legislature now owns this shit… with each and every new republican-vetted order he signs he needs to emphasize (with TV ads) that he wants additional protections but this is all he could get out of the republicans.Ā  I would say veto their rules but that would make him the bad guy.

  28. 28.

    Bill Arnold

    @satby:

    but a few of the ā€œreal Americanā€ farmers at the farmers market were still refusing to wear them yesterday, in spite of the head of the health departmentā€™s direct and in person threat to shut down the market on Saturday.

    Since you at least have a mask order (I do to, NYS), it is possible to economically punish those violating it by boycotting them, vocally, and in local media/websites if possible.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    @New Deal democrat: There is a lot of noise in the US numbers, especially just after the weekend.

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#news says the US had 24,798 new confirmed cases and 2,350 new deaths yesterday (5/5).Ā  We’ve been at 25,000 +/- 5,000 cases and 2,000 +/- 750 or so deaths per day for what seems like a long time and I don’t see consistent evidence of it dropping yet.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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