Magox

I think it’s clear now that Arizona has seen the worst of it. They should start going down in deaths pretty soon.

More positive news on Texas

I think the preponderance of evidence through the existing data is very supportive of this theory. With that said Texas data continuing to improve I do thoroughly enjoy how Alex crushes mainstream panic porn analysis. He calls them out by name and tags them in his tweets.

More on the “burnout” theory

More Florida news.

One of the great things about this country is that we don’t censor views that we disagree with and that we allow - Oh nevermind, of course freedom of speech no longer exists. Speech largely exists online and big tech have become monopolies that are run by woke radicals and they control content. Dont worry Alfy, Big tech will protect your sensibilities.

Some more glimmers of good news.

Good to see you back.

This is a settled matter. Why is this thread still even going ? This is Only like the hundredth data point and/or study that points to the safety of schools for children and relative risk for teachers. What happened to the leftists, they have become anti science anti data. TDS is a powerful phenomena

Yes, but Florida seems to be behind Texas. The turn they are making appears to be in the earlier stages of their plateau. Texas seems like it may have turned the corner, still need a few more days for that to look definitive. But Arizona definitely looks like it is on the right path. The drop in hospitalizations is pretty precipitous. I just don't get their high positive test rate. It has to be that they are largely testing people who are symptomatic and not some of the sweeps that Florida conducts.

Glimmer of good news for Florida, aside from the positive test rate ticking up. Hope the trend continues.

Arizona is clearly on the downward trend. Very good news.

The potentially good news is that the largest populated cities in all 4 of the largest states have either burnout or are showing signs of reaching that point which is why I think if this theory of burnout is correct that we will be peaking within the next few weeks and hopefully that will prove to be the peak of this second wave. My only concern is that the peak stays at a plateau for an extended period. But if this burnout theory plays out then I don’t believe we will see higher COVID-19 peaks than what we will be seeing at this coming peak.

Even Hospitalizations don’t tell the “true story”. In places that have had high prevalency of the virus some hospitals have reported around 30% of their “COVID-19” hospitalizations as people who were admitted to the hospital for non COVID-19 related reasons. Whatever the COVID-19 Hospitalizations you see have an element of this. Wherever hasn’t been hit at burnout or near burnout levels are at risk. Australia was never really hit so they are vulnerable. Even though Spain was hit hard, most of these new infections are coming from Barcelona which were relatively Miley hit in comparison to Madrid. Alex has been doing great work that the mainstream media sycophants have either been unwilling or incapable of doing. His larger point is an astute one which is that Temporary lock downs only delay the inevitable. Unless you maintain very strict social distancing measures, severe limits on immigration or don’t have some sort of medical biological explanation, the odds that the virus re emerging is somewhat high.

Just more data backing up the herd-like immunity theory that New York city appears to have achieved. You wouldn't recognize science if it Bich slapped you.

Arizona hospital data continues it’s downward trend. I would think that their deaths should be close to peaking and should start declining pretty soon. With that said their high positive test rate is still super high. That doesn’t comport with the hospital data, the only plausible thing I can really think of is who they are testing. Maybe they aren’t conducting nearly as many sweeps as Florida and are primarily testing those showing symptoms. With that said, total confirmed positives are trending lower.

Removing the politics, the correct decision is to open up and protect the most vulnerable. Encourage masks, not large indoor congregations and let’s get it on.

It's not Monday Morning QB'ing when his peers in Florida, Georgia, Texas and other states didn't have that policy that resulted in a much better end result. The MTA was obvious from the very beginning and had lots of criticism, I criticized it myself while it was happening on this board countless times. Let's just be real here, Cuomo mishandled the virus worse than any other governor in the country, the numbers bear that out. I know you aren't a believer in data and tend to follow mainstream news analysis, but you're off once again.

Uhhhh Cuomo had problems of his own making. His Nursing home policies killed thousands and god knows how many people were infected that brought it back into their homes through the MTA. That is a perfect place for transmission of the virus, people sit next to each other for extended periods of time. Hell, they weren't even sanitizing the transportation system nearly as much as they should have been.

Texas and Arizona have a clear downward trend (at this time). However Florida, California and Georgia appear to be plateauing. You can have one day statistical anomalies due to the nature of the testing dumps. But, I do think these states infection rates/prevalency as a whole is on the mend.

And this is encouraging as well if those can continue to decline. Next week should be very telling.

On one hand it’s good to see that positivity rate go down, which still to this date the best metric available to gauge prevalency but the hospitalizations have slightly gone up two days in a row. The deaths won’t begin to go down until the hospitalizations do. I’m guessing it will start going down soon provided the positive test rates keep going down.

Hmmm

More signs of Florida beginning to peak.

Mask studies are largely useless. Too many variables that affect outcomes involve humans and the efficacy of how they wear them couple that with realistic compliance and quality of masks, forget about it. Studies when it comes to masks can only show you what IS THEORETICALLY possible. But not what IS realistic. Kinda like studies that show what your brain is capable of if we applied all of our brain, even though reality is that no one will ever apply all of their brain and only a fraction of it. Not apples to apples but I think you get the idea. To properly have this discussion we have to understand how the virus is transmitted. The virus is transmitted largely in settings where you will be in close contact with infected people for sustained periods of time (10 minutes +). It thrives in enclosed settings and even more so places with poor ventilation. Contact tracers and hospital administrators report consistently that over 75% of people that contract the virus actually contract it inside their own homes. The rest of them contract it wherever you will be in close contact with an infected person for a sustained period of time. Transportation, churches, close office settings, meat plants, prisons, protests, packed bars/restaurants etc. All these places are places you can be with someone the same someone who is infected over a sustained time period. Think of your typical trip outside of your home to the grocery store or wherever. How often are you next to the same person for 10 straight minutes or more? Not that often unless you are in one of the settings I described above. Which means that casual contact whether you wear a mask or not is not going to have a statistically significant impact. A rule of thumb that I have pretty much always lived by which is an old Mark Twain quote “Figures don’t lie but liars do figure”. Which is when it comes to analysis, verifiable data is your best baseline to work off. What does the data show? The data shows that places that have been hit the worst already had relatively high mask compliance. Los Angeles has had mask mandates for well over a month and they are one of the highest hit cities. New York had high mask compliance back in mid March. How do I know? I was there from the 16th-20th of March and NY was already a ghost town and everyone I saw was wearing masks yet they continued to spiral out of control. Miami has been at high mask compliance relatively speaking for 4 straight months. Same with Northern Italy, Paris, Brussels, Newark and the list goes on. Take a look at this heat map from The NY Times who has the highest compliance of mask usage. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/17/upshot/coronavirus-face-mask-map.html Time and time again, places with the highest mask compliance we’re not able to contain the virus. That’s a verifiable statement. I am not advocating for people not to wear masks, I think people’s fear and anxiety is a real thing even though I often times don’t believe it’s rooted in reality but it’s real and out of respect for them and the possibility that maybe I could infect them, I wear the mask when I go out and know will be in contact with others. For me it’s not a matter of “do masks work?” It’s a convoluted question and it’s not the right question to ask. The question should be: considering the makeup of our society and realistic compliance expectations, how effective can masks be? The answer really just depends on a variety of variables, variables that studies can’t possibly factor in. If a city already has an outbreak, forget about it, it will only help on the margins until the virus burns out. That reality has borne out time and time again. My hunch and common sense says that the setting that it helps with more so than anywhere else are in the settings I described above and in cities that have low prevalency. Sort of helps tilt the R-naught “effect” in the right direction. In other words just makes it more difficult to find a host to infect. Another question is why is it that the Nords who are viewed by many to be one of the most intelligent people on the planet, do not wear masks? Sweden, Norway and Finland all have a below 10% compliance rate which is the lowest in the planet. I have googled up what their public epidemiologists say and basically it’s stuff like this: ”Based on the current epidemiological situation, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health considers that there is no scientific basis for recommending general use or non-medical face masks in the general population." “We are aware that this type of protection, which won't be medical face masks, would be of very variable quality," she said. "And so they might lead people to not give the same attention to the other advice that we have, such as keeping distance and staying home if you are sick." This is basically the answer that each one of those countries say. Norway has said if they were to experience a more drastic outbreak they would reconsider but they have abstained from advocating for it. Keep in mind these people are thought to be home of some of the best microbiologists in the world. Again, I think masks help more than not but the data says a lot and any analysis that does not take the actual outcomes into heavy consideration is working off a faulty baseline.