Coronavirus I

ging wrote:just throwing this out there into the "numbers debate":

i've read more than a few people (not necessarily here) say that the number of covid19 deaths are no worse than "a bad year for the regular flu".  these folks openly question the accuracy of the number of covid19 deaths (saying they are inflated) but readily accept the number of "regular" flu-related deaths as being accurate.

It's hard to get an accurate count of influenza deaths each year. That's why the WHO lists the average number of worldwide deaths of influenza as between 250,000-500,000. Regardless of it not being very precise that's a lot of people. As of today 274,000 deaths worldwide by COVID-19. The virus hasn't run it's course yet and could come back in late fall. As of now, statistically it might be more accurate to describe it as comparable to an average year of the flu, not a bad year. Of course by the end of the year it could be comparable to a bad year of the flu.

Some positive news for Illinois in that last week the positive testing rate was 17%. This week it was 14%. Let's hope that it's even lower next week.

Well if staying home doesn't work, what do we do now?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/shocking-two-thirds-patients-recently-hospitalized-ny-had-been-staying-n1201421?fbclid=IwAR054T_PKjri4ViyrP__sBS9AnlQKk6jW7NRjNrx9e56vbvX8SzzWJZfc6Y

If you are at risk to covid or fear infection, stay in your home. If not, do not stay in your home. Be responsible for your own safety.  Fear is a great way to motivate (control) people.

How many increased cases/deaths of suicide, domestic violence, child abuse,drug abuse and famine due to stress caused by unemployment and/or lockdown are OK? 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-pandemic-deaths-suicides-drugs-alcohol-75000/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=88214254
https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/05/05/the-worldwide-lockdown-may-be-the-greatest-mistake-in-history-n2568180  

new normal - e learning could be the norm. fewer teachers, administrators, buildings, etc. Might even save taxpayers some money. Drones will invade our privacy to monitor social distancing and maybe more. Whenever a vaccine is approved, vaccine passports will happen. "Papers, please". Rewards will be offered to citizens for snitching on their fellow citizens for breaking covid rules. Ultraviolet lights will be used for disinfecting infrastructure. 

who lies? - i find it hard to believe anything we hear from the media and most politicians. Many of these people professed, on tv, that there was evidence of russia collusion yet under oath said they have not seen any evidence. Some of these same people put General Mike Flynn in a frame for colluding with russians. Many of these people wanted to see our President impeached.

Welp, now we're \"f\"ing-

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/coronavirus-mens-semen-survivors-sexual-transmission-covid-19/#app

Numbers decreasing in Georgia and they opened up a few weeks ago with lots of scrutiny across the board. Tourism increased as well.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-reports-lowest-number-covid-patients-in-a-month

dusty7 wrote:Numbers decreasing in Georgia and they opened up a few weeks ago with lots of scrutiny across the board.  Tourism increased as well.  

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-reports-lowest-number-covid-patients-in-a-month

Surely that can't be. I think they meant to say an explosion in cases.

I mean, the experts said it would be so...

Florida and Georgia combined have 32 million people and Illinois has about 13 million. That said Illinois has more COVID-19 fatalities than those 2 states combined even though those 2 states have been criticized by the medical experts. It's possible that things could still get worse down there in the next 10 days or so as there could be folks just getting exposed who haven't gotten sick yet. If those numbers don't change much in the next week or so then the experts will have been shown to be wrong.
I think weather is having some effect. Warm weather and sunlight is the enemy of the virus. Some Northern states seem to be taking the brunt of this. Our temperatures have been running about 20 degrees below normal here which isn't helpful but that alone doesn't fully explain why our numbers are much higher than most states. Wisconsin has 398 fatalities and Minnesota 558. Illinois has 3349. Sangamon county has 26 fatalities now but 20 of those are from one nursing home. Nationwide about one third of fatalities are from nursing homes.
I still think that politics is playing a significant role in how this is being reported. Two months ago the national unemployment rate was around 3.5%, a historically low number and now it's 14.7%, as bad as the great depression. If a lot of folks don't get back to work soon Trump is screwed. Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with why I'm hearing one excuse after another from medical experts and some Democrats why we're not close to being ready to open the economy.

One thing I thought about last night at work was how you only ever hear how many cases there have been total and how many have died. I mean, some of those cases are potentially 4+ months old now. At some point, they aren't a problem anymore.

But, then you couldn't scare the hell out of people into doing what you want them to.

I found this on my wife's facebook, and this is the type of transparency that we need

Kankakee County Coroner's Office
COVID-19 UPDATE
"As of 12:00 on May 10, 2020, there have been 609 deaths in Kankakee County this year. 34 of these deaths have been linked to Covid-19.  A death is considered Covid-19 related when the primary care physician or coroner includes Covid-19 as the cause of death or a contributing condition to the death on the death certificate. To date, physicians have signed 31 death certificates and the coroner has signed three.

Of the 34 deaths, 100% have had previously documented medical history. 38% of the deaths have been under the care of hospice. 53% of the deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities. The average age of the deaths is 79 years old. The youngest decedent was 48 years old and the oldest was 96 years old. There have been 15 males and 19 females. 85% of the deaths have been Caucasian, 12% African American, and 3% Hispanic. Three of the 34 decedents (9%) lived outside Kankakee County, but died in Kankakee County; therefore, by law these are considered a Kankakee County death."

This goes to show that many places, this issue is in long-term care type facilities.  Pritzger states that the workers can spread it to the community so that is why we all need to stay home.  Maybe the testing should be more focused on nursing home and hospital employees rather than the general public.  The facility my grandmother is in down in Champaign had 1 positive case, tested all workers and residents, no other positive cases.  Since this occurred, they are testing workers on a daily basis.  All long-term care facilities should be doing this and I wonder how many actually are.

Also, nurses in many hospitals are getting furloughed and laid off due to the lack of people going to appointments, surgery, etc.  If this as bad as many people are painting it to be, why healthcare workers losing their jobs?

Yesterday we had around 1660 new cases. Today it was 1266. That's the lowest number I've seen in a while. We are on course to go to phase 3 of the Governor's plan on 5/29. The one exception could be the Region that Cook county is in. Honestly I think Cook should be in a Region by itself but that's not how it was done.
The Governor said statewide we're not peaking as soon as they originally thought and he's saying close to mid June for the peak. I have doubts about that. He's basing that on number of hospitalizations. The positive test rate in the Central Illinois region is 6%, the lowest of all regions.

OSUBucks wrote:Yesterday we had around 1660 new cases. Today it was 1266. That's the lowest number I've seen in a while. We are on course to go to phase 3 of the Governor's plan on 5/29. The one exception could be the Region that Cook county is in. Honestly I think Cook should be in a Region by itself but that's not how it was done.
The Governor said statewide we're not peaking as soon as they originally thought and he's saying close to mid June for the peak. I have doubts about that. He's basing that on number of hospitalizations. The positive test rate in the Central Illinois region is 6%, the lowest of all regions.

The "peak" has now moved for 2 months. It will continue to do so. As you have said, this isn't about the virus.

Keep moving the goalposts. Whatever it takes to make Trump look bad.

Oh, and to position yourself for a run in 2024.

Well, I heard a new one last night at work that I don't the think the most fervent anti-Trumper would put stock into- "This whole coronavirus thing is a made up event to help Trump get re-elected."

OSUBucks wrote:Yesterday we had around 1660 new cases. Today it was 1266. That's the lowest number I've seen in a while. We are on course to go to phase 3 of the Governor's plan on 5/29. The one exception could be the Region that Cook county is in. Honestly I think Cook should be in a Region by itself but that's not how it was done.
The Governor said statewide we're not peaking as soon as they originally thought and he's saying close to mid June for the peak. I have doubts about that. He's basing that on number of hospitalizations. The positive test rate in the Central Illinois region is 6%, the lowest of all regions.

Yesterday, Illinois conducted 12,441 tests.  You have to go back to April 25 to find a lower single day test number.   The day before yesterday, 13,653 tests were conducted. That's 3,000 fewer tests than the day before that, and 7,000 tests fewer than two days before.  

It baffles me that people want to focus on positive test rates and daily numbers of new cases as much as they do when the daily numbers of tests are fluctuating as much as they are.  

Positive test rates and numbers of new cases are completely dependent on the numbers of tests conducted.  When you test more people, you will find more cases.  Test fewer people and you will find fewer cases.  It just stands to reason.

The positive test rate will become an important performance metric to measure the progress of the pandemic when the numbers of tests conducted are relatively flat for a decent period of time.  If the positive test rate goes down during a time when the testing numbers are going up, then it could simply be a factor of having a larger numerator and not necessarily an indicator that we are getting over the hump. It makes little sense from a statistical analysis perspective to compare a positive test rate on Day A to that of a couple of days before when 50% fewer people were tested on Day A than a couple of days before!

Also, keep in mind that we were testing relatively few people early on, most of them symptomatic, and that resulted in skewing the positive test rate to a very high level to begin with.  

If the positive test rate goes down after having tested a similar number of people over a statistically significant number of days, then you can take hope.

ramblinman wrote:

OSUBucks wrote:Yesterday we had around 1660 new cases. Today it was 1266. That's the lowest number I've seen in a while. We are on course to go to phase 3 of the Governor's plan on 5/29. The one exception could be the Region that Cook county is in. Honestly I think Cook should be in a Region by itself but that's not how it was done.
The Governor said statewide we're not peaking as soon as they originally thought and he's saying close to mid June for the peak. I have doubts about that. He's basing that on number of hospitalizations. The positive test rate in the Central Illinois region is 6%, the lowest of all regions.

Yesterday, Illinois conducted 12,441 tests.  You have to go back to April 25 to find a lower single day test number.   The day before yesterday, 13,653 tests were conducted. That's 3,000 fewer tests than the day before that, and 7,000 tests fewer than two days before.  

It baffles me that people want to focus on positive test rates and daily numbers of new cases as much as they do when the daily numbers of tests are fluctuating as much as they are.  

Positive test rates and numbers of new cases are completely dependent on the numbers of tests conducted.  When you test more people, you will find more cases.  Test fewer people and you will find fewer cases.  It just stands to reason.

The positive test rate will become an important performance metric to measure the progress of the pandemic when the numbers of tests conducted are relatively flat for a decent period of time.  If the positive test rate goes down during a time when the testing numbers are going up, then it could simply be a factor of having a larger numerator and not necessarily an indicator that we are getting over the hump.  It makes little sense from a statistical analysis perspective to compare a positive test rate on Day A to that of a couple of days before when 50% fewer people were tested on Day A than a couple of days before!  

Also, keep in mind that we were testing relatively few people early on, most of them symptomatic, and that resulted in skewing the positive test rate to a very high level to begin with.  

If the positive test rate goes down after having tested a similar number of people over a statistically significant number of days, then you can take hope.

I figured that you'd come on here and pour cold water on our recent positive news.

OSUBucks wrote:I figured that you'd come on here and pour cold water on our recent positive news.

The basis for what you think is positive news is not grounded in solid statistical analysis. None of that is to say that the news is negative or that things are getting worse. Only that it isn't as positive as you think it is based on the performance metric you are choosing to use.

ramblinman wrote:
It baffles me that people want to focus on positive test rates and daily numbers of new cases as much as they do when the daily numbers of tests are fluctuating as much as they are.  

When that is the metric used by our fine governor as to when people can go about living their lives, that is what they're going to talk about.

Does anyone on here personally know anyone that has tested positive for coronavirus?

I have known 3 people who have tested positive

#1 - 56 year old front line worker, symptoms went away in 7 days, he was all good after day 14

#2 - 37 year old male, tested positive after being exposed, only symptom was some mild leg and lower back pain, tested negative 72 hours later after symptoms went away.

#3 - 29 pregnant female who was going to have C-section, asymptomatic and tested positive, tested negative 24 hours later

Head Idiot wrote:Does anyone on here personally know anyone that has tested positive for coronavirus?

Three in the town I live in that I know of.  All were fine and tested negative after 14 day quarantine.  In fact, no one knew any of them had it until they posted on social media after completing their quarantines.  One of the three never showed any symptoms according to what she posted.  The other two shared they experienced very mild symptoms.  I believe my county is listed as 18 positive cases with 10 fully recovered.  I don't believe any deaths.

Head Idiot wrote:Does anyone on here personally know anyone that has tested positive for coronavirus?

My sister. They lost her first test she took at a drive up clinic. Went somewhere else the following week and was confirmed.

Head Idiot wrote:Does anyone on here personally know anyone that has tested positive for coronavirus?

yes, a teacher i work with and her husband.

and a couple(husband and wife) from beardstown.

mc140 wrote:

Head Idiot wrote:Does anyone on here personally know anyone that has tested positive for coronavirus?

My sister. They lost her first test she took at a drive up clinic. Went somewhere else the following week and was confirmed.

net wrote:

Head Idiot wrote:Does anyone on here personally know anyone that has tested positive for coronavirus?

yes, a teacher i work with and her husband.

and a couple(husband and wife) from beardstown.

Were their symptoms bad or did they even notice.

The Doctor my wife used to work for who recently retired has a mother who's about 90 and she got the virus but has fully recovered.
Today was a bad day with 192 deaths (our highest so far) and 1677 new cases. 13,668 test reported in last 24 hours which is an increase. Most of the deaths continue to be in Cook County.

OSUBucks wrote:The Doctor my wife used to work for who recently retired has a mother who's about 90 and she got the virus but has fully recovered.
Today was a bad day with 192 deaths (our highest so far) and 1677 new cases. 13,668 test reported in last 24 hours which is an increase. Most of the deaths continue to be in Cook County.

What stats are you looking at? According to the Illinois Department of Public Health website, there were 17,668 tests reported today, and that is down from 29,266 tests reported yesterday.

Two out of the top three days for deaths in Illinois have come in the past two days.

BTW, yesterday was the largest day by far for number of tests reported. It was also the largest day by far in terms of the number of new cases reported. What we want to start seeing is the number of new cases going down while the number of tests are either going up or remaining stable.