EPTWith California, Texas, Florida, and Arizona trending downward, the worst states for the second wave (some, first wave) is passing. Texas medical center, in Houston, just stopped using its surge ICU capacity. Deaths lag cases, even with the current trend towards lower median age in cases, so those are expected to still be high this week.
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
With California, Texas, Florida, and Arizona trending downward, the worst states for the second wave (some, first wave) is passing. Texas medical center, in Houston, just stopped using its surge ICU capacity. Deaths lag cases, even with the current trend towards lower median age in cases, so those are expected to still be high this week. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11834 Posts
On August 04 2020 09:00 Danglars wrote: For better or worse, it was always going to be 50 separate lockdowns. The US is not a centralized republic with some Merkel issuing dicta and a bunch of Germans moving in lockstep with her. The pandemic response was over once Governors started marching in mass protests. Compliance with Health Officials ended somewhere between telling the public that masks don't work before asking they be mandatory and saying dense, protesting crowds were not dangerous gatherings. Suffer through it. Open schools (K-12) in-person with protections for teachers, temp scans, and advising immuno-compromised, diabetic, asthmatic, etc individuals to distance learn. Tailor restrictions to hospital capacity trends (for pete's sake, let's get everyone waiting to schedule "elective" surgeries that can't be indefinitely postponed) and expand surge availability and funding/waivers for hospitals to cope with it. Tell Grandma not to pick her grandkids up from school. I am a bit annoyed of your constant portrayal of germans as some kind of obedient soldier following their supreme leader. We are not living in 1942. We have state governors too. And they were very relevant during the crisis. Our states had (and still have) differences in their reactions, too. It is just that in our case, Merkel and those state governors got together and discussed policy. And exactly zero of our important politicians said that this isn't a problem and we should just ignore it. Thus, we had a reasonable response. And Germans do not mindlessly follow any order the way you describe it, either. Not every country has leaders as incompetent as the US. It seems to me as if a lot of what the US is currently doing is trying to find some way for the gut feeling of their idiotic president to make sense, and twisting and contorting themselves into a shape where their incompetent reaction was actually the only possible. It wasn't. It was bad and incompetent, and that is why you are in the situation you are in right now. The reason is not that you are such cool individualists compared to all the other countries which are just good at obeying orders. It is that you have a party which doesn't believe in facts in power, but it turns out that facts still believe in you. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
On August 04 2020 15:39 Simberto wrote: I am a bit annoyed of your constant portrayal of germans as some kind of obedient soldier following their supreme leader. We are not living in 1942. We have state governors too. And they were very relevant during the crisis. Our states had (and still have) differences in their reactions, too. It is just that in our case, Merkel and those state governors got together and discussed policy. And exactly zero of our important politicians said that this isn't a problem and we should just ignore it. Thus, we had a reasonable response. And Germans do not mindlessly follow any order the way you describe it, either. Not every country has leaders as incompetent as the US. It seems to me as if a lot of what the US is currently doing is trying to find some way for the gut feeling of their idiotic president to make sense, and twisting and contorting themselves into a shape where their incompetent reaction was actually the only possible. It wasn't. It was bad and incompetent, and that is why you are in the situation you are in right now. The reason is not that you are such cool individualists compared to all the other countries which are just good at obeying orders. It is that you have a party which doesn't believe in facts in power, but it turns out that facts still believe in you. The constant insistence that the US's problems is our leaders is not consistent with my experience on the ground, nor the stats as I interpret them. Some of the worst early results came out of places that, in January, the media would have INSISTED are our best governors and mayors. Some of the newer bad results are from places the media INSISTED in April/May had been the smartest. If instead you assess our situation from the POV that we are having one rolling first wave that can't be suppressed because a certain percentage of the population requires illegal or politically unfeasible measures to do so, the situation makes perfect sense. Are German leaders all that much better than those in the Netherlands and Italy who got swamped? I don't really think there is much evidence for that assertion. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11834 Posts
On August 04 2020 15:55 cLutZ wrote: The constant insistence that the US's problems is our leaders is not consistent with my experience on the ground, nor the stats as I interpret them. Some of the worst early results came out of places that, in January, the media would have INSISTED are our best governors and mayors. Some of the newer bad results are from places the media INSISTED in April/May had been the smartest. If instead you assess our situation from the POV that we are having one rolling first wave that can't be suppressed because a certain percentage of the population requires illegal or politically unfeasible measures to do so, the situation makes perfect sense. Are German leaders all that much better than those in the Netherlands and Italy who got swamped? I don't really think there is much evidence for that assertion. Don't know about the netherlands exactly, but with regards to italy we mostly had the big advantage of time. We could see what happened in italy, and react to it. Italy was the first, so they didn't know what they were getting into. | ||
zatic
Zurich15365 Posts
On August 04 2020 15:39 Simberto wrote: I am a bit annoyed of your constant portrayal of germans as some kind of obedient soldier following their supreme leader. We are not living in 1942. We have state governors too. And they were very relevant during the crisis. Our states had (and still have) differences in their reactions, too. It is just that in our case, Merkel and those state governors got together and discussed policy. And exactly zero of our important politicians said that this isn't a problem and we should just ignore it. Thus, we had a reasonable response. And Germans do not mindlessly follow any order the way you describe it, either. Not every country has leaders as incompetent as the US. It seems to me as if a lot of what the US is currently doing is trying to find some way for the gut feeling of their idiotic president to make sense, and twisting and contorting themselves into a shape where their incompetent reaction was actually the only possible. It wasn't. It was bad and incompetent, and that is why you are in the situation you are in right now. The reason is not that you are such cool individualists compared to all the other countries which are just good at obeying orders. It is that you have a party which doesn't believe in facts in power, but it turns out that facts still believe in you. To make this more explicit: Virtually every bit of Covid related policy in Germany was fully in the jurisdiction of the states. Lockdown, school closures, mask wearing, hospital operations, distancing, closing business, which businesses to close, limitations to public / private gatherings, the list goes on is and was all state government policy. Short of declaring a national emergency (which they didn't) Merkel and the federal government didn't and couldn't issue anything binding even if they wanted. The only bit that is federal business are foreign relations: Closing the borders and issuing travel warnings / bans against high risk countries. It is obviously not visible that much from the outside, but Germany is a strongly federated republic with strong state rights, and not centralized at all. It becomes apparent exactly in Merkel's speeches regarding the pandemic, where she is asking and imploring people to be sensible but never issued policy - unless that policy was jointly agreed upon by all state governments. And this agreement has been and still is a very difficult process in Germany. Germany also has highly impacted, densely populated states and comparatively less impacted, less populated states, with expected policy differences. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
On August 04 2020 16:02 Simberto wrote: Don't know about the netherlands exactly, but with regards to italy we mostly had the big advantage of time. We could see what happened in italy, and react to it. Italy was the first, so they didn't know what they were getting into. The idea that Italy REALLY got caught off guard is inconsistent with the facts developed on my twitter, forum, and reddit followings back in Jan/Feb. Granted, the things I follow are irregular and contain both mainstream and non-mainstream sources (having even minimal trust in the mainstreamers them being slow easily cost me a 100% stock market profit, easily), but why should we expect a national leader to have worse information than and advice than random IDW twitter and then say, "well now those advisors are actually doing good?" No, that's not a system that works. You reward prediction not hindsight. For instance, here's a prediction I'd make: If a place has not yet been hit hard by C19 in the US, it cannot open without a significant wave occurring unless it has a low violent crime rate, or has a very high youth rate that disguised the first wave. | ||
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Furikawari
France2522 Posts
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
On August 04 2020 16:31 Furikawari wrote: Having reliable informations enabling state wise decisions is different from folllowing some randos on the web. Sure, but there was still a massive wealth transfer as a result. People and institutions that were in the mainstream lost money, people outside the mainstream gained. Why have intelligence services if they aren't as good? If you are trying to say some national health services were not great, I'd be on board. The US has a problem there with our mainstream epidemiologists seemingly being 1-2 months behind. But those are not political appointees by and large. And they basically are uniform across the west. Replace Dr. Fauci with Dr. Thomas Steffen (who I think is the equivalent non-political appointee) and I don't think the US does better, because they seemed to have bought the same ideas early on, and continue to now. | ||
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Broetchenholer
Germany1961 Posts
Also, love the argument, blm is protesting in the streets, let's cough on grandma. Is everything in the US partisan? Why isn't at least death a non controversial issue? If the US is crashing the world economy because your social safety net is not able to break the fall of your consumerism, I am going to be so disappointed in you! | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
On August 04 2020 17:11 Broetchenholer wrote: Could you explain what the crime rate has to do with covid, clutz? Also, love the argument, blm is protesting in the streets, let's cough on grandma. Is everything in the US partisan? Why isn't at least death a non controversial issue? If the US is crashing the world economy because your social safety net is not able to break the fall of your consumerism, I am going to be so disappointed in you! Crime rate is just used as a proxy for noncompliance with best practices and risky behavior. We don't have good statistics for "essential workers who actually wear masks properly" and "people who go to parties in the middle of a pandemic", but those stats seem to be similar to the stats of "people who are likely to speed" and "people who are likely to jack a 7/11". And at least with the former, my personal experience mirrors the crime stats. | ||
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Neneu
Norway492 Posts
On August 04 2020 17:37 cLutZ wrote: Crime rate is just used as a proxy for noncompliance with best practices and risky behavior. We don't have good statistics for "essential workers who actually wear masks properly" and "people who go to parties in the middle of a pandemic", but those stats seem to be similar to the stats of "people who are likely to speed" and "people who are likely to jack a 7/11". And at least with the former, my personal experience mirrors the crime stats. What about those places with a very high crime rate where the criminal gangs are enforcing a stricter policy than the government? | ||
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Broetchenholer
Germany1961 Posts
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
On August 04 2020 08:32 JimmiC wrote: That makes sense. It says that Florida has 6195 ICU beds in the state. And I added it up (only one try) and there was only a little over 1000 left. So approximately 5100 are in use. I guess the only thing that we don't know is what is typical? There's a ton we don't know. There are many different types of ICUs. Medical ICU, Neuro ICU, Surgical ICU, Cardiac ICU, Trauma ICU, Burn ICU. Who knows how those #s break down and how many of the beds left are on which of the floors. I can't imagine a world where they would be treating COVID patients in a Burn ICU but I could see them being treated in any of those other ICUs. In a perfect world those other ICUs would be left to focus on the stuff they are supposed to focus on, e.g. strokes, heart attacks, car crashes, etc. Neurologists, cardiologists, trauma surgeons etc. may not be the best at managing patients with chronic medical problems and COVID-19. We also don't know if any of these hospitals are able to scale up their ICU capacity to meet demand should they need to. I think outside of having boots on the ground in the hospitals it's nearly impossible to tell how good or bad things. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On August 04 2020 17:11 Broetchenholer wrote: Could you explain what the crime rate has to do with covid, clutz? Also, love the argument, blm is protesting in the streets, let's cough on grandma. Is everything in the US partisan? Why isn't at least death a non controversial issue? If the US is crashing the world economy because your social safety net is not able to break the fall of your consumerism, I am going to be so disappointed in you! To wit, the same folks claiming that the BLM protests are making them disobey public health and safety guidelines were the same ones who were flagrantly breaking them before. It's the same group that was already being aggressive, dangerous, and selfish about their health and others in a pandemic. They just latched onto a convenient excuse, even if it comes off as a racist one. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 04 2020 22:41 JimmiC wrote: I hope they know, from my understanding a big portion of why hopitals share this info is too know where they need to shift resources and how much. Florida just spent a bunch to try to get outside medical help for their over burdened staff and more ppe. Maybe I am wrong but I think a big purpose behind making it public is to try to scare people into compliance with some of the orders. @danglars can you please site your sources on the states getting it under control? I'm not reading those stories. Sources are the state dashboards, and I google them fresh every time. See my previous posts, since this is just the continuation of a trend I already posted about. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 04 2020 23:38 JimmiC wrote: Well then it might be time to reassess your evaluations of the data. Because it was not that long ago you were posting sure infections were high but deaths were low, and before that how infections were not coming. There might be pockets of improvement but overall in most southern and some western states it is getting worse. And there are even smaller states that on a percapita basis are going to over take those states doing the worst. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/03/898656250/mississippi-on-track-to-become-no-1-state-for-new-cases-of-coronavirus-per-capit The new second wave came with a much lower median age of infection, so I thought the deaths would not be as severe as the first wave. I was wrong. This isn’t cause to ignore fantastic news in positivity rates, daily new cases, or hospitalizations. Neither should this be taken to mean there’s no danger with quick re-openings. I cited exactly which states I was talking about, so diverting to other ones can start a new subject that you can post your concerns. | ||
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