Covfefe-19 The 12th Part: The Only Thing Worse Than This New Board Is TrumpVirus2020

[Swansong]

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coro...dsu-story.html

Oh Florida. Releasing case numbers tied to schools is absolutely not a violation of either HIPAA or Florida law. They just don't want this information public because it makes them look bad and makes DeSantis - who's running neck and neck with Kemp for the "Dumbest Governor in the Country" title - look like an even bigger dope than he is.

In fact, most states are requiring this information be released for contact tracing purposes. It is asinine to me that they're doing this.

[Swansong]

I hate to do this, but PCR tests are incredibly accurate in general. We've been performing them for a very long time, and the naso-pharyngeal swab that's used is exactly the same as the one used in any number of other URI tests. The issue, typically, is whether the sample was collected properly, and the overwhelming majority of false responses are false negatives caused by the clinician not getting a proper swab.

Abbott Labs had a quick test early on that Trump was crowing about that turned out to be incredibly inaccurate but even they've fixed most of their problems.



And now that I've sprung the too-clever-by-half trap, let's see what comes of it...

[Jeb2020]

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coro...dsu-story.html

Oh Florida. Releasing case numbers tied to schools is absolutely not a violation of either HIPAA or Florida law. They just don't want this information public because it makes them look bad and makes DeSantis - who's running neck and neck with Kemp for the "Dumbest Governor in the Country" title - look like an even bigger dope than he is.

In fact, most states are requiring this information be released for contact tracing purposes. It is asinine to me that they're doing this.

Hi expert, what good does it do to send contract tracers on a wild goose chase when the PCR test scooping up people (by very large amounts) who aren't sick, don't have an active infection and are not contagious?

Sounds like more of this. Imagine contact tracing these folks, could you paint a more wasteful picture of time, resources and context?


Also Expert, why are hospitalizations going down? But cases are going up?

[Jeb2020]

I hate to do this, but PCR tests are incredibly accurate in general. We've been performing them for a very long time, and the naso-pharyngeal swab that's used is exactly the same as the one used in any number of other URI tests. The issue, typically, is whether the sample was collected properly, and the overwhelming majority of false responses are false negatives caused by the clinician not getting a proper swab.

Abbott Labs had a quick test early on that Trump was crowing about that turned out to be incredibly inaccurate but even they've fixed most of their problems.



And now that I've sprung the too-clever-by-half trap, let's see what comes of it...

Thoughts?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/h...s-testing.html

So you are telling me that the test isn't to sensitive? Are you aware of what Cycle Count, CT countries in Europe are using? I do but you won't like my answer, it will of course be misinformation or bot material.

One solution would be to adjust the cycle threshold used now to decide that a patient is infected. Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37. This means that you are positive for the coronavirus if the test process required up to 40 cycles, or 37, to detect the virus.

Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, Dr. Mina said.

Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.

A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35, she added. Dr. Mina said he would set the figure at 30, or even less. Those changes would mean the amount of genetic material in a patient’s sample would have to be 100-fold to 1,000-fold that of the current standard for the test to return a positive result — at least, one worth acting on.

Can you share your expertise, what would happen if one Country was using a CT of 30 while another was using a CT of 40. Sorry if this is a question you don't like and is Ban worthy to you.

Speaking of misinformation, COVID is the worst disease to hit mankind in a century. This is not true why are you lying?

[Swansong]

Like I said. There's the disingenuously and sloppily laid "trap".

[Jeb2020]

Like I said. There's the disingenuously and sloppily laid "trap".

Exactly the response I anticipated. A perfectly reasonable topic to discuss. But it is not comfortable given your position so try to discredit and call it a day.

Your sensitivity to discussion is an issue and keeps you from being a legitimate source of information and advice.

[Jeb2020]

Hawaii has had very strict rules in place more so than most States and they are an island.

Viruses burnout or seasonally subside, just like they always have. Your mask does nothing.

[Swansong]

It's as if cause and effect are confused, misunderstood, or just flat out misrepresented.

I'm not going to engage with a liar.

[rufus]

I can't speak for others, but I'll give you credit, you nailed that last bit big-time.

All the rest was your usual monotonous, "Bubble"-licious, stupor-inducing BS ...

And yet, you responded.

[Jeb2020]

It's as if cause and effect are confused, misunderstood, or just flat out misrepresented.

I'm not going to engage with a liar.

Why do places with very strict rules and parameters in place have almost identical curves to places with lax rules or almost none at all?

[Swansong]

I apologize to everyone for engaging with the troll. If only the board worked properly we could all put trollbot on ignore.

[First Time, Long Time]

Ah yes. Jeb...the medical expert with no degree or work in it.
The man who should look in a mirror everytime he posts as all of his attacks on people are perfect descriptions of himself.
Board...where the hell are you to either fix ignore or ban this lying POS?

[Chuck Murray]

For any open-minded thinkers left in the Faculty Lounge (perhaps swansong?) ... BTW it's the 4th such outbreak in just over a century, and I lived through the last one ... here's something to ponder:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...owns-a-mistake

Were the lockdowns a mistake?

Michael Barone, Washington Examiner

Were the lockdowns a mistake? To that nagging question, the answer increasingly seems to be yes.

Certainly, they were a novelty. As novelist Lionel Shriver writes, “We’ve never before responded to a contagion by closing down whole countries.” As I noted in May, the 1957-58 Asian flu killed between 75,000 and 116,000 people in the United States, between 0.04% and 0.07% of the nation’s population then. The 1968-69 Hong Kong flu killed about 100,000, 0.05% of the population.

The current death toll of 185,000 is 0.055% of the current population. It will go higher, but it’s about the same magnitude as those two flu outbreaks and less deadly for those under 65. Yet, there were no statewide lockdowns, no massive school closings, no closed office buildings and factories, restaurants, and museums. No one even considered shutting down Woodstock.

Why are attitudes so different today? Perhaps we have greater confidence in the government’s effectiveness. If public policy can affect climate change, it can stamp out a virus.

Plus, we’re much more risk-averse. Children aren’t allowed to walk to school, jungle gyms have vanished from playgrounds, and college students are shielded from microaggressions. We have a “safetyism mindset”, as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff write in The Coddling of the American Mind, under which “many aspects of students’ lives needed to be carefully regulated by adults, and it was far better to overreact to potential risks and threats than to underreact.”

So, the news of the coronavirus killing dozens and overloading hospitals in Bergamo, Italy, triggered a flight to safety and restriction. Many people stopped going to restaurants and shops even before the lockdowns were ordered in March and April. The exaggerated projections of some epidemiologists, with a professional interest in forecasting pandemics, triggered demands that governments act.

The legitimate fears that hospitals would be overwhelmed apparently explain the (in retrospect, deadly) orders of the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan requiring elderly care facilities to admit coronavirus-infected patients. And the original purpose to “flatten the curve” segued into “stamp out the virus”.

But the apparent success in this venture by a few nations that enjoy some degree of geographic isolation (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand) could never be replicated in a continent-sized and globalized nation such as the U.S.

Governors imposing continued lockdowns claimed to be “following the science.” But they followed it in only one dimension — that of reducing the immediate number of COVID-19 cases. There was no care taken for other dimensions of life — for example, the lockdowns also prevented cancer screenings, heart attack treatments, and substance abuse counseling, whose absence resulted in a large but hard-to-estimate number of deaths. What Haidt and Lukianoff call “vindictive protectiveness” turned out to be not very protective after all.

Examples of "vindictive protectiveness" include the shaming of beachgoers (even though outdoor virus spread is minimal), the extension of school close-downs (even though few children get or transmit the infection), the closing down of gardening aisles in superstores, and the banning of church services (even when inevitably noisy and crowded demonstrations for politically favored causes are given the green light).

The new thinking on lockdowns, as Greg Ip reported in the Wall Street Journal last week, is that “they’re overly blunt and costly.” That supports President Trump’s mid-April statement that "a prolonged lockdown combined with a forced economic depression would inflict an immense and wide-ranging toll on public health.”

For many, that economic damage has been absolute or nearly so. Restaurants and small businesses have been closed forever, even before the last three months of “mostly peaceful” urban rioting. Losses have been concentrated on those with low incomes and little wealth, whereas the lockdowns have added tens of billions to the net worths of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Attitudes on lockdowns are highly correlated with partisan politics. Democrats tend to be more risk-averse and want lockdowns continued until there’s a vaccine. Republicans are less risk-averse and want most restrictions lifted.

As a result, since governors and mayors make these decisions, it’s heavily Democratic central cities (New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco) whose civic fabric is being rent and cultural capital is left in ruins, with much less devastation in the exurbs and the countryside.

This fouling-your-own-nest extends to voting. Many more Democrats than Republicans want to vote by mail, even though the risk of voter error or non-counting of their vote is higher than for those, most of them Republicans, who want to vote in person.

The anti-lockdown blogger (and former New York Times reporter) Alex Berenson makes a powerful case that lockdowns delayed rather than prevented infections and that current plunging hospitalization and death rates suggest we’re approaching herd immunity, where the virus fades out for lack of new targets.

There are old lessons here, ready to be relearned. Governments can sometimes channel, but never entirely control, nature. There is no way to eliminate risk entirely. Attempts to reduce one risk may increase others. Amid uncertainty, people make mistakes. Like, maybe, the lockdowns.

[Jeb2020]

Ah yes. Jeb...the medical expert with no degree or work in it.
The man who should look in a mirror everytime he posts as all of his attacks on people are perfect descriptions of himself.
Board...where the hell are you to either fix ignore or ban this lying POS?

What would happen if one Country was using a PCR test with a CT of 30 while another was using a CT of 40?

In your opinion what should the CT be? Or does it not matter?

[Swansong]

No, it's absolutely not the 4th such outbreak in a century. There's so much wrong with that article it's frightening, but I guess that's what I should expect from that rag. Second, when you bold that much it just looks like a ransom note. Stop it.

You are comparing death counts from COVID (which is far from over and has had far more of a response/reaction than any this dishonest article mention), which is only 6 months old in the US, to pandemic that lasted a couple of years. And we already have more deaths from COVID than any of them, even accounting for the significant undercounting issues.


Also, saying that no health maintenance took place in this time is a total fabrication. How do I know? Because I work in in healthcare. I've been managing the system our outpatient practices use. I talk to our clinical staff every day. I implemented telemedicine, allowing doctors to see their patients, allowing us to go fully remote for the first time in history so that those very same health maintenance issues could be treated. Yes, elective procedures were delayed, but counseling, cancer treatment and many other outpatient treatment absolutely happened. I have no idea what "heart attack treatments" means, but I'd wager that neither does the articles author. In fact, when I discussed getting our oncology departments set up with telemedicine, our chief oncologist said yes however they were still seeing patients in clinic, with precautions, and so long as safety was maintained she saw no reason to stop.


Calling Alex Berensen anything other than an anti-science zealot further disqualifies your thesis.

Do better. This article is nonsense.