panthers55

Nothing the CDC says carries any weight as long as politicians not doctors are making the decisions. Those states are out of control and there is no flattening going on. Arizona ICUs in over 150 hospitals are full.

They are using Brazil because they have so many cases. The drug companies are working with the government but they aren't the government and are mainly US companies

Instead just get the virus? Seems the worse it can do is infect you which is inevitable if you do nothing.

Just saw CBS this morning. Their resident medical expert was cautiously hopeful that a huge study in Brazil has resulted in a vaccine that is effective in producing antibodies. Now they are seeing if it creates immunity and for how long. Anyway he and others are optimistic we could have a vaccine sometime this fall. Really hopeful news.

My wife's parents live in one of the senior retirement communities near Orlando and they are on lockdown. A few members of the staff and community tested positive despite their precautions. It is really getting bad in Florida with so many retired people living there who are all vulnerable.

Yes they are. Honestly hard are designed to encourage socializing and close contact. Just about every state that had opened bars have closed them again or thinking about it as cases have soared.

Yes slow it down until hopefully we find a vaccine that works. We have already created dozens of vaccines. Now we have to see if they work and how long they provide protection if any. It isn't inevitable at this time that everyone will get it or that you can't get it more than once. We just don't know yet.

I am sure the protests will spike cases as well. Two wrongs don't make a right. And who cares about China's cases unless you are trying to deflect from the 125,000 dead already and hospitals filling up.

The testing data doesn't impact the hospitalization rates which are also rising. So no increased testing doesn't account for the total increase in cases and hospitalizations. Another lie by this government to sit back while people keep dying in an attempt to save the election in November. The latest example of politics over human life.

It seems clear that while you can argue the numbers and get out of it what you are looking for, the bottom line is as long as the cases and number of hospitalizations keeps rising so will people dying. Whether it ends up to be a death rate of 1% or lower isn't as important as keeping the hospitals from being overwhelmed like in New York which is what drove the death toll higher. Right now the ICU use rate for Arizona is 88% and going higher. There is no rational argument you can make for not wearing masks and practicing social distancing. No matter the number differences and let's be real here, this administration wants the country and the economy open to win reelection and they will fudge numbers and willingingly let people die to further their political agenda. With politicians running the numbers instead of scientists my trust in the CDC and this government is nil. So we can either wait until we get overwhelmed again or do the responsible thing as we go. You would think we would learn from our mistakes instead of continuing to do it over and over again.

That is what people tell themselves to justify their behavior or make the risk more palatable to venture out as an essential worker often for low wages. There are more cases here than anywhere else because as a nation we are impulsive. We are ,risk takers who gets easily bored and have little patience. Truth is that it wouldn't be the inevitable result that you would get the virus if we had acted sooner in the beginning and with more patience before opening up. In epidemiology terms days and weeks can make huge differences. It has never been about not opening up until there is a vaccine. That extreme argument is being spouted to justify the continued folly of errors that are made by the government daily. It has always been about opening responsibly based on scientific data instead of intuition and hope. Covid 19 has killed more folks than all of our wars in the last 40 years. And we are still in phase 1 which is the beginning not the end. You can think what you want but I know history will be on my side on this one and Covid 19 is no joke and it ain't the flu.

There is medication to help with that confused thinking.

The issue with schools isn't kids getting sick but being the vector to spread it to teachers, and their own families. As you note, multigenerational homes are becoming very common these days and the spread from schools reopening would be huge. And kids playing at home and using online instruction is fine as long as someone can take care of them. Parents who both work struggle to manage the kids at home unless one or both can also work from home

The question has never been baby proofing the populace. Opening up has never been in question either. Pitting the choice as one of two extremes is a popular way to justify ignoring government guidelines and going head long down a course that we already saw what happened. It was always about how to open to maximize safety while allowing for the data to guide our decisions. Science over economics instead of the other way around. No one is against reopening as long as it governed by reason and by listening to the experts who make these kind of events their life's work.

It isn't just worrying about dying but also getting seriously sick which I am told is like suffocating slowly. As someone who scuba dives I have had that feeling a few times. I can't imagine feeling that way for days. And that is 20% of all people including folks of all ages.

Projection rates are simply predictions about future numbers using current or previous data. The scary data was simply an extrapolation that if all 380 million Americans got the virus and the death rate was 1% then it would be 3-4 million dead or until we developed Herd immunity. As we got more information and saw that the rate was lower we revised our numbers down. The present projection of 130,000 by August is based on many people social distancing and continued caution. But those numbers could also rise drastically as well if people just ignore the very things that have controlled the virus from getting out of hand in thr first place.

To your point, most testing stats report the number of tests administered which is the not the same as individuals tested. Because people who test positive are often tested regularly until they are negative and then sometimes tested again. So one person could be tested 4 times and counts in both categories. But it would be 4 tests and one person. That means that increased testing doesn't necessarily account for all the increases in positive tests unless we change how to account for everything instead of lumping them together to show a large testing aggregate number.

We didn't produce vaccines for SARs 1 because it largely went away, didn't infect that many and economically it wasn't lucrative. For the Corona there was billions in seed money spread out over the whole world and billions more for whoever delivers an effective vaccine. Plus 10 years in medical research is a lifetime. They have already developed the vaccine. In fact there are a few different types. A few are traditional formulations of weakened or dead viruses while others are based on RNA strands of virus material which also work to create antibodies. This in addition to the studies using antibodies from recovered folks to directly pass them on to healthy people. The time needed is mostly spent in human trials making sure it works and doesn't infect healthy people causing exactly what is it designed to prevent. It appears that these are being shortened and modified for speed. So yes it is only a matter of time which is the point. I have a small business and I have been impacted personally. That doesn't mean I abandon any concern because it caused me economic hardship.. That is the point. We have more cases and people dying than any other country because of a me first screw the rest attitude you are endorsing. And it didn't, and doesn't have to be that way. But you are not alone. As a population we are impulsive, impatient and self-absorbed. But that hardly should be seen as affirmation of of the ideals that founded this country. The idea that what I want is the most important thing, and that I earned it and don't owe anybody anything is a fairly new concept in our country. It has really been since the 80s that this had taken off as more and more people gained wealth. Prior to that the emphasis was on what you could do to serve others rather than serve yourself. As you watch the protests consider that your dismissive attitudes about the elderly and medically fragile are not that different from the attitudes of those dismissing the concerns of minorities. An attitude suggesting that this is the way it is so let's just move on and if people die, that is their problem not mine.

That is one approach. The wrong one. The right one is continue to push for more tests and more contact tracking and refuse to participate until it is safe. You can open up all the restaurants you want. If people don't frequent them, it sends a clear message. The other one will hopefully be delivered in November.

And if that were happening across the country then this could be contained and managed but it isn't, even though the guidelines the government put out said to do exactly this. One week after they came out they were ignored in a rush to open back up. We screwed up the first time through the country and are on a path to do it again

Again if this were only about you then that would be fine. But it isnt. And we aren't talking about forever, maybe 6- 9 months before we have a vaccine. And the GDP in the second quarter is expected to go down 2%. Truth is many sectors are not that hurting and a lot of those unemployed made more on unemployment than they did working. Outbreaks do occur, but a huge part of the problem is not learning from our experience, being prepared, or folks like you who only care about themselves. There is a path to open the economy and keep people safe but it isn't the one we have taken or the one you suggest. All of the goveremts own guidelines for opening up were tossed away a week after they were distributed.

Yep the next few weeks will tell us a lot.

And they brought the Corona back with them and caused many of the outbreaks 2 or 3 weeks later throughout the country especially since many didn't know they had it. The highest number of positive tests were between the ages of 18 and 44 when I last checked and the asymptomatic folks are primarily responsible for spreading it. So yeah it might not kill you but young folks are most likely to be the Covid 19 version of Typhoid Mary. So yeah I agree with you.

Totally disagree. The point of social distancing was to keep what happened in Italy and New York from happening in the rest of the country. It was always about not overwhelming the hospitals which would have pushed the death rate from below 1% to closer to 3 or 4 %. And social distancing has done that. The attitude if not caring about anyone but yourself is a big reason why we have more cases than any other country. The whole I don't care anymore and I'll take my chances is a selfish attitude and reflects the current me versus we attitude which is huge part of the problem in this country. The fact many others are being selfish and self absorbed is hardly an adequate justification. So if I handed you a bag of m&Ms and said 3 were poisoned, would you be the first to eat one or would you let other guys eat them until 3 of them died and then eat with no worries?

People forget that with asymptomatic cases being up to 50% and another 30% being mild, it takes roughly 2 weeks for someone to get seriously sick and a few more days to die so honestly we will see a spike between now and 2 weeks from now accounting for the memorial day weekend. The protest spike won't be really seen for 2-3 weeks.