45catfan

What is your definition of bad? Really curious.

I wouldn't jump the gun yet. Testing is being done more and more. As a result there are more cases being discovered. That doesn't necessarily mean the virus is is spreading uncontrollably again. Only 7% of occupied hospital beds are currently being used for COVID-19 patients and still a 1/3 of hospital beds are completely vacant.

Satellite images from Whunan area hospitals show major uptick in vehicles from early September to October. Why would these hospitals see so many more patients and require extra staff? That's not cold and flu season yet. You have to wonder if the Chinese government sat on this for a couple of months? If so, then this virus was here in December, not January and likely the 'bad flu' that swept through my work mid-December was this coronavirus. Symptoms were very much in line with Covid-19. Satellites Images Show Whunan Hospitals Much Busier In October.

That sucks. I hope they are both better now.

So the WHO got it wrong again? That wouldn't shock me. They've been chasing their tail the entire time with this thing. If they put enough narratives out there, one of them is bound to be correct.

WHO are you? Really, the WHO that initially said this wasn't bad, to crap--the whole world is in dire straits, is now saying asymptomatic people ARE NOT VECTORS! Wow, so this whole time we closed off the economy to healthy people was a farce. Ugh. Asymptomatic People are VERY Unlikely to Spread COVID-19

Of course they did: Legal Shield for Nursing Homes Deaths

Are you aware of any class action lawsuits against him for the nursing homes disaster? I can't for the life of me understand why you would house positive patients with an elderly population, many of whom have multiple health issues? I know why they said it was done, to free up hospital beds, but creating triage centers (which they did after it was too late) was the obvious choice to begin with.

So a south Pacific island country with the population of 4.8 million (rough 3x that of Hawaii) was able to get their COVID-19 under control before a country of 328 million...the 3rd most populace country in the world?

Exactly. Remember coronavirus wasn't a complete unknown, bio-labs had been studying this family of viruses for a while. Somebody should have said, look this could become an issue if infected in the human population. Let's create a test kit, make a initial number of, say 1 million, and have the knowledge to mass produce more if this ever became an issue in the future.

As testing capacity increases in SC, the death rate continues to drop even as positive cases increases. I hypothesized this while back. In SC, we are now at 3.8% mortality rate even going by scrupulous calculation of confirmed positive tests only. As we all know by now, there are a lot more people that contracted this virus that were not tested, have not been and will not get tested (past, present and future). Again, my gut feeling is once all the dust settles down the road and scientists delve into the data producing HONEST and UNBIASED results, the true mortality rate in America will be around 1%. Still very high compared even a really, really, really bad flu season, but not the death sentence it was made out to be initially.

Whether intended or unintended, new cases of the virus will continue. Some think short of total heard immunity, continued transmission is on the knife's edge of a pending calamity. The acceptability factor and more importantly the responsibility of future transmissions will be an ongoing debate. I doubt you are going to find many individuals that are exactly on the same page. You have the continued lock down folks, fully open up folks and a wide spectrum of opinions somewhere between.

Kinda getting off topic. With COVID-19 (or anything else) just explore the information and make a decision based of it. That's all you can do. We have plenty of data now associated with this virus for people to make those informed decisions. However, if they want to just read headlines and go off media sound bites, then they can remain in semi-permanent lock down indefinitely. Media and social unrest are bed partners...normalcy is doesn't drive up viewership and lacks ample click-bait opportunities.

Most people live in an echo chamber only wanting to hear things that reinforce their current beliefs. Politicians are very good about reaffirming those beliefs by pandering to them in return for votes. It couldn't be more evident by everything going on.

I completely understand, but to most people it's worth the risk now. People have weighed their options and to those that have excepted the risk, it's their choice. For those that still want to shelter in place, that's their right as well. I understand it's not a pleasant death, but most deaths aren't. I imagine lung cancer patients experience a similar unpleasant experience. That said, most were smokers and knew the dangers. Inform, inform, inform, take precautions and move on. People die all over the country every day, many for unnatural causes. We can't 'baby-proof' the populace of America until every one of us dies of a natural death at a ripe old age.

I see what you are saying, but people remember the original estimates of 1 to 2.2 million deaths. Granted it was a projection, but way off base. You have to understand the unintended consequences of badly projected numbers. People understand that original death rate was grossly overestimated and also are seeing that if they are under 60 and healthy, the chances of them dying if caught is infinitely small. Should they still be concerned for their fellow man and take precautions? Sure, but don't expect them to feel they need to shelter in place any longer either.

That's the reason some people are throwing caution to the wind now, they don't see the dire numbers that were originally projected. Was it intentional to help necessitate and enforce the lock down or just bad data? I suppose a little of both. As has been stated numerous times now, the lock down was to slow the initial spread so the health care system wouldn't get overwhelmed. It didn't and outside of certain hot spots (NYC) may never would have even without the lock down. To the average person, the information was about as scary as the coming into contact with an AIDS patient in the early 1980s...people were scared to sit on public toilet seats because they thought they could catch it. Did that mean AIDS wasn't to be taken seriously? No, it definitely needed to be, however the information at the time was not accurate. All this to say, the data and information has to match to give the public the correct idea of what the real impact of the disease is. The information about the most susceptible demographic has been correct along...the elderly and/or those with compromised immune systems. The data, however, was very incorrect...especially the death rate.

"Perfectly healthy 'feeling' people are not getting tested to a large extent." I acknowledge some healthy feeling people are getting tested, but I feel it's very low number overall. If you had to throw a percentage out there, what would it be? My guess is some small number well under 1% of the population and even most of those are mandated by someone else (work related, elective surgeries, etc...).

Still most people getting tested is because they think they need to (possible contraction or symptomatic). Perfectly healthy 'feeling' people are not getting tested to a large extent. I know of two people that got tested recently only because they thought they may have caught it. Both ended up negative, but the point is they were concerned enough to go. I have yet to talk to anyone that has taken a test that has felt fine this entire time.

Especially younger, healthy people. The thought is if they are going to get, might as well get it out of the way and if they don't get it...fantastic! You saw that during spring break for college students when the mortality models were much more grim than they are now.

I agree, it has largely stayed on course. It's verged off the road a few times with political mud slinging and managed to get back on track, but it's been mostly on topic directly relating COVID-19. Trust me, if it had permanently went down that rabbit hole, I would have seen myself out of the thread. You can't have rational discussions with ideologues.

The positive test rates in SC are similar to NC between 9%-10%. As things here are nearly completely opened up, I will be watching the numbers closely over the next couple of weeks. No doubt there will be a spike in positive cases, it's a given, but the domino effect is what I will looking in depth at.

Draft micros are a small fortune at BOA. Like $12 or $13 dollars if I remember correctly. That's the reason you tailgate folks. Catch a buzz and fill up your stomach before you walk to the stadium.

No wonder you guys had a record day two ago with 19,000 tests! Holy cow! Now there is some concern that the next day topped it with only about 14,000 tests.

Complimentary bottles of water only? No exchange of money and only a handful of vendors needed to distribute them.