Magox

Truth be told, I think it's that people didn't have realistic expectations more so than anything. And I blame our elected leaders, public health officials and the media more than anything. People thought once we "flattened the curve", we could open up the economy do a little bit of contact tracing, people wear masks and violaaa - very few infections. This wasn't communicated properly. The COVID health officials blind spot was always that they viewed COVID in a vacuum and that any public health officials tendency is to err on the side of caution. ALWAYS. And I blame the elected officials for not being up front, which is that infections will rise and there will be more deaths but the cost of our overall public health and the economy also have to be considered and that the government will do everything they can to protect the most vulnerable. And I blame the media for being in the business of not reporting news that is helpful to the public but in the business of getting clicks and drumming up hysteria. It's just a failure all the way across of communicating and setting realistic expectations.

It probably won't. I most likely will increase some from where it bottoms out. My hopes are that it bottoms out lower than where I predicted which was around 500 deaths per day (7 day average). My guess is that wherever it bottoms out, deaths will probably get up to as high as anywhere from 10-50% higher and then begin to head back down again to an even lower low. It's natural that infections will rise as society normalizes. But the notion that we are going to go back to draconian style roll backs is not gonna happen. And if it does, if you think Civil unrest is bad now, holy *****. It's gonna get really ugly and it won't just be leftists but people from the right as well. It won't fly. People who don't realize this either didn't have realistic expectations of the VIRUS or are dishonest frauds. It's only one or the other.

THIS was the REALISTIC WAY that it was supposed to happen. This is what I have been saying for months, protect the most vulnerable and front line workers, that therapeutics and methods of treating people would consistently improve and let's get this show on the road. In other words, a broad acceptance that infections would go higher but since the vast majority of the population is at very little risk of the VIRUS, we could endure this when you factor in the other side of the ledger which is also a public health matter with economic implications. This is the way it was supposed to go. That's why I scoffed at those that suggested that we could just crush the curve and have effective contact tracing to limit it all while we open back up the economy and normalcy to it's populace. I knew it wouldn't work I said as much and you know what else is going to happen? Other states that have opened up will also begin to start seeing increases in infections. It never made sense to me for those that believed that we could flatten the curve and then open back up with few infections. It never registered with me and my instincts on it are playing out. And it's ok. Yes, it sucks the VIRUS got here from CHINA, it sucks. But it is what it is and we have to play the hand we are dealt with. And thankfully, the mortality rates for the vast majority of the population is very low.

This Texas data perfectly corresponds with the Florida data which is that much of the increase in “COVID” hospitalizations are not COVID admissions. Just put on your thinking cap for a second and look at that bottom chart. You see that there is an increase confirmed COVID hospitalizations- the blue line - Look at the green line, those are the total hospitalizations. Notice how the green line isn’t increasing? This indicates that a statistically significant portion of the hospital admissions that are counted as COVID positive did not get admitted because of COVID but for other reasons mirroring the Florida data. If these COVID hospitalizations were almost all due to COVID related reasons you would see the green line increase with a similar net gain as the blue line. In order to not believe this you’d have to believe that hospitalizations due to non COVID are dropping at the same amount if not more than COVID related increases over the exact same time period. And not just for Texas but for Florida as well. Same logic applies for ICU and ventilator usage And when you factor in that deaths haven’t increased, I think it’s pretty apparent that the mortality rate for the average CONFIRMED COVID infected person is dramatically dropping for a while host of reasons.

I've gone to a no tolerance stance of morons, ignore function. . I'm on a tear!

And look at this: Very few of the Emergency room visits are COVID symptom related issues relative to in previous months. The only age group really showing an increase are younger people. Florida so far is handling the issue the way it was realistically intended to have done which was protect the most vulnerable while normalizing society. They just have to hope that the spread doesn’t reach seniors in a significant manner.

I remember telling a couple people here that contact tracing would be nearly impossible for the US to effectively do to root out or essentially stop the spread. The same person I told that young kids are most likely very low emitters of the virus and the same person I said that many Americans won’t wear a mask no matter who tells them after they tried asserting that since Koreans do so we could to. Theoretically yes but in practice that’s a pipe dream. In any case this is a very interesting tidbit: This says two things, that there are a lot of people who have the virus in that particular area and that a statistically significant portion of the COVID hospitalizations are not for COVID related reasons. These people are asymptomatic You’re an idiot

We will have a much better idea over the next couple weeks. But if the reporting is correct the average age of the people getting infected are much younger than before, there are a lot of asymptotic positives, surveillance testing and contact tracing is way up, hospitals and doctors are better equipped to treat patients and it’s possible that the virus is mutating and getting weaker (that was said today by DeSantis and by many others). If deaths go up some and not a big spike then the trade off Is worth it. Overall public health and the economy are in the other side of the ledger and that is a huge consideration.

Deaths continue to trend lower at a healthy clip. 7 day moving average now at 528. 500 is where I pegged it would bottom out with an optimistic scenario of 300 but too many infections I believe for that to happen. But the deaths are trending in the right direction.

He is an excellent communicator and would be very difficult for the Democrats to demonize him

Tim Scott - an impressive man.

I largely agree with this. Which is why Trump needs to retire sleepy joe with Weak Joe Biden. You can associate Biden’s incoherencies and diminishing mental state with the radical left wing. How? By making it clear that a vote for Joe is not a vote for Joe Biden but his radical left wing handlers. That if you vote for him you are voting for AOC to run his energy policy and then list all the wacky things in the green new deal. Then you forcefully make the case that Joe won’t stand up to the left wing mob. That he won’t stand up to defund the police and tearing down of statues and cancel culture. That he is too weak to stand up against them. That is how you tie the two together. But you are right about the Trump fatigue. It’s real. And then you have Trump who continues to be his own worst enemy.

Deaths continuing to trend lower. This puts the 7 day moving average at around 580

And for Texas edition

There are many reasons why Trump is losing right now. It can be turned around, the question is does he have the discipline to do it? Biden is nowhere near as unlikable as Hillary in the view of most people, so if he hopes to win he has to define him. “Sleepy Joe” ain’t cutting it. But here is a reason as to why he is losing: Not sure if you guys watched the townhall with Hannity, Trump was asked why he should have a second term. And here is a Biden take on Trump, this was surprisingly coherent. The main problem for Trump is his ego. He seems to always bring it back to himself. Trump has gone from + 10 to - 22 - a net change of 32 points in one month. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting_odds/2020_president/ I don't know what will happen over the course over the next few months, if he were to win the dynamics of the race will have to change.

Considering that this is from the beginning till now and my belief based off the means of the antibody tests that it was closer to x 15-20. X 10 seems like a safe bet. That is the lowball CDC estimate.

Gottlieb is a bit of a sensationalist. Makes sense, he’s interviewed by all the mainstream outlets and the mainstream outlets are ghoulish and he knows what their viewers want.

Banned? Permanently?

That’s odd but welcome news

Deaths continue to trend lower. My guess about a month ago was that it would bottom out at 500, we are now right at 600. Florida and Texas began their upward ascent in cases about 15 days ago. This coming week should be telling. So far so good.

Another interesting tidbit

@Gene Frenkle is going to need to conduct his own testing to believe these stories. And so much for That ridiculous hypothesis that was promoted earlier. Except the red counties did much better from the get go

It's preposterous on all levels. I've seen plenty of data showing that economic activity is much higher in the sunbelt states than in the Northeastern region. John Authers let's just say has an economic left wing viewpoint. I've read plenty of his work and he cherry picked data to support his thesis. The idea of comparing Norway/Sweden and picking one data from the previous week which had to do with week over week data to support his thesis is laughable. You know how long it would take to "kill the virus" to such low levels to where it wouldn't spread? States like Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and the Northeastern states are all going to have increased cases over the coming months. New York may not see as bad of an increase because they have already reached a level of herd immunity. The right approach is to protect the most vulnerable at all costs, practice common sense measures and lets get the show on the road. Here are some of his political beauties that he has written: As the country burns, Trump gives up Economy can't reopen until more testing and contact tracing That was two months ago - establishing his viewpoint - If we would have followed his advice, we would be in a much deeper hole today than we are today. The golden rule is dying of COVID Talk about false dichotomies. These hacks have no memory or shame. lol Markets can't ignore an event this Extreme This was an article that I remembered reading when the price of oil went negative. Basically he was making the case that everyone should be scared and that this would portend to other negative consequences. He was wrong. Reopening the economy is about ethics Just shows you how committed he was to slowly reopening. Meaning that he is committed to finding faults with the parts of the economy that have reopened. Trump vaunted the rally now he owns the collapse How should the markets respond with a Trump presidency This was written before Trump stepped into office. Let's just say that he was wrong on his predictions. lol Trump doesn't understand currency wars Here is the takeaway from this author, his predictions have been wildly off on the stock market and that he is an economic left wing viewpoint. In other words, his views are trash.

I'm not going to get into the motives of what these hospital officials are saying. I assume their facts are correct. Why is Gov Abbott pausing the reopening and elective surgeries? Simple, there are lots of infections and new hospitalizations so he wants to try to get that under control and he wants to make sure that he doesn't have a PR crisis of not having hospitalization capacity to treat all patients. If you see even the hospitals are saying that the people who are being hospitalized are younger, healthier and staying in for shorter time periods. This all seems to align with what we have been hearing from the governors as well. My view on this has been clear all along, protect the most vulnerable and lets get the economy and peoples lives going again, with the understanding that the infections were going to rise. Of course my view is not how Governors are communicating this with their constituents because they don't want to fully level with them. I would, even though on the surface it's not politically palatable. The hopes was that the virus would have a seasonal component to it, it doesn't appear that is the case. Which is unfortunate, no respite. With that said, under the scenario that I was advocating for and that the reality is that this does not appear to have a seasonal component to it, things are going about as well as I would have thought. That the seniors appear to be the ones who are being most protected and that is reflected in the census of demographic data and fatality counts we have been getting. Hospitals are in great position to withstand these surges. Medical professionals are better equipped with more experience and better proven methods to treat their patients. Testing is increasing dramatically. Surveillance testing is being conducted to target specific areas. I just wish there was more granular data on who exactly is testing positive. How many are coming from people requesting tests (which would indicate more community spread), or through contact tracing or through targeted surveillance testing. Right now, it's all anecdotes. Pretty much everything that I was thinking would happen has been happening aside from the Hopes that it would be seasonal. But even then, I predicted that the contact tracing wouldn't be effective because the true baseline of the infected count was way too high for that to be effective. That turned out to be true. I predicted that the death count would go down and bottom out to around 500, it's down to 609 (7 day moving average) and still trending lower. It may get down there or not, but it's close. In other words, I didn't expect to see us have some very low number knowing that the US's strategy to reopen was more aggressive than other countries and that we have more autonomous geographical zones than other countries which makes it more of a challenge in that regards. I said that I expected that the hospitals would be well positioned to handle any surges, so far that seems to be the case aside from some dishonest reporting from the media. I predicted months ago that the true IFR rate would be somewhere between .25%-.5%, and with all the studies that appears to be well within that range, even the CDC yesterday came out with something yesterday that indicated that to be the case with the asymptomatic people. I had strong assumptions based off early studies that children were low emitters of the virus and there have been countless studies and governmental bodies that are confirming this with their statements. I just wish that we had political leaders that would completely level with us. By basically saying - It sucks that this virus came to us from China, but it is what it is. There will be people who will die from the virus but that the risks of staying shut down or severely restricted poses larger risks both on a public health and economic standpoint than the virus itself. That we know who this virus affects most and that we will do everything we possibly can to protect the most vulnerable and those who are working on the front lines. The people who are most affected are people over 70 with multiple comorbidities. If you aren't in this category the risk of you dying is very low. As we open up the economy, we will see an increase of infections and there will be more hospitalizations but we fully expect that the vast majority of those who are hospitalized will survive. But whatever, politicians will do what they do.

All that talk panic porn regarding the Houston hospitals being at critical capacity was a complete distortion and misinterpretation of what the hospitals were actually saying. —-Healthcare CEOs of the Texas Medical Center said Thursday that a letter that was sent out to the community Wednesday regarding the hospital system's "increasingly stretched" ICU capacity level was "misinterpreted" and stressed the pandemic is not eclipsing hospital capabilities to care for COVID-19 positive patients as well as other patients. Following reports that TMC had reached 97 percent capacity, Dr. Marc Boom, Houston Methodist president and CEO, said ICU capacity percentages in the 80s or 90s is "completely normal."—— “We have the ability to go far higher than that in terms of the ICU beds we can utilize for COVID-19 patients," Boom said during a press conference. "...We have PPE (personal protection equipment) we have the capability, (and) we have learned enormous amounts about caring for people with COVID-19." “The reality is all of us have the ability to significantly expand capacity on a day to day, week to week, month to month basis," Lawson said.” Boom said overall, hospitals are seeing younger COVID-19 patients, who stay for a shorter period of time, and fewer deaths. Thanks to active surveillance programs and quick turnaround testing times, Boom and Mark Wallace, Texas Children’s Hospital president and CEO, said a "relatively low number" of hospital employees have tested positive for the virus. Texas Children's started accepting adult COVID-19 positive patients this week and is currently operating at a 74 percent ICU occupancy, Wallace said. ——— The national media is a broken institution