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Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away


InkaUtexas

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Dallas can't even get their shit together with respect to testing data.   There is supposed to be an update on the Dallas County website at 10AM daily (for data received through 8PM the night before) with raw numbers and also at 10AM every Tues/Fri with a more detailed table (number of hospital admissions, ICU admissions, etc.). 

2 Hours + late currently.

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2 hours ago, B00M said:

@JBJ curious what your thoughts are on the UT model of the Austin area, particularly the assumptions. Do you think we are on the 50% social distancing curve? If we are drastically under reporting the actual number of infected, say there are 4 times as many infected as we think.. That only shifts the curves 2 doubling periods (8 days) to the left, correct? 

1) Haven't looked into the UT model yet.  Will do and assumptions are definitely the starting point.

2) We are probably doing better than 50% just looking at how people are behaving.  It may be showing up in the numbers this week as we've had a run of good days, but I don't think enough to call it a trend just yet.

3) If we are under reporting infected, it's a good thing actually.  The way a virus spreads isn't exponential, it is close to a sigmoid:

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRb4M6a3zgDUSQjh4tgTvS

If we are 4x further along the curve than reported cases show, then the transmissivity is less than we think and the growth rate function there at the bottom peaks lower.  The math behind this is kind of hard to explain, but the slope of the sigmoid above flattens which lowers the overall peak of the chart commonly posted.  And because we are saying we are further along than we are, it is shrinking the curve moreso than the usual flattening where it pushes out to a later date.

It also means that hospitalization, intubation, and mortality rates are 1/4 of what we think.

4) Same thing with long incubation periods or large asymptomatic cases.  Most of the media takes that "omg, this is everywhere already" actually point to this being a lesser deal.  I mean if it was everywhere back in February, then it really is flu-like as there have been relatively few severe cases until now.  Adding a million "didn't even know they had it" cases makes this thing look more trivial, not more dangerous.  It kills the narrative of those pushing it.

5) Most of the literature I've looked at avoids using the term "infected" as a category of people. There are exposed people (have the virus but can't spread), and infectious people (have the virus and can spread). If the disease is doubling every 3 days, and the incubation period is 6 days, then there are 4x as many exposed + infectious people as there are infectious people.  But that's just semantics.  There aren't really 4x as many cases.  But I can't be sure that is what is meant when someone says "infected." It's one of those things lost in translation when scientific jargon gets simplified with no further explanation.

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2 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

It has to be ordered by a doctor. And a doctor can’t test you unless you meet a very rigid set of requirements, like recent foreign travel and/coming into direct contact with someone who has already tested positive. 

got it.  so even the drive thru still has to be doctor ordered.  hmm.  I thought they were easing the restrictions so if you had a fever you could get tested(not fucked) in the drive thru.  and they can check your temp there.

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I'm wondering if part of the reason new cases are flattening (but not dropping) is spread within family and multiple generations living together or close by.  Maybe not as much "community" spread as there was but spreading throughout various families.  I know they have also had a major problem with spread at hospitals themselves.

Edited by Skipper
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1 minute ago, dcar00 said:

got it.  so even the drive thru still has to be doctor ordered.  hmm.  I thought they were easing the restrictions so if you had a fever you could get tested(not fucked) in the drive thru.  and they can check your temp there.

Might be different in different states? But still hard in Texas. Lots of people are complaining in the medical community. 

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2 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

I remember the Boston Bomber thread was lit.

Are the kids still saying "lit"?

That was probably my favorite thread on Shaggy. The amount of information being shared to follow the horrific ordeal was crazy. There were links to people live streaming next door to the house where the guy was hiding in the boat. 

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4 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I'm wondering if part of the reason new cases are flattening (but not dropping) is spread within family and multiple generations living together or close by.  Maybe not as much "community" spread as there was but spreading throughout various families.  I know they have also had a major problem with spread at hospitals themselves.

I think a ton of people have already had it

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Just now, dcar00 said:

I'm still holding to my prediction of easing of restrictions April 6th unless you are in a designated hotspot.

Where?  In the U.S.?  All locations?   Honestly, I'll take the over on any location in the US with that date if you are taking bets.

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40 minutes ago, G650 said:

Germany is kicking our dicks in regarding testing.

82 mil folks compared to 350m.  It's an easier population to test just in terms of numbers.  What's the % difference ?

 

Unrelated, how are things down in the Tidewater, being able to keep folks working wise ?

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I doubt the quarantine gets lifted until the end of April and potentially through May. Will be interesting if these social distancing and not strict quarantine actually doesn’t overwhelm the hospitals in areas like Texas, Denver, LA, etc where there wasn’t quite the panic as Washington or NYC beforehand. 

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This isn't good news - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/27/822407626/mystery-in-wuhan-recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-negative-then-positive

 

Quote

A spate of mysterious second-time infections is calling into question the accuracy of COVID-19 diagnostic tools even as China prepares to lift quarantine measures to allow residents to leave the epicenter of its outbreak next month. It's also raising concerns of a possible second wave of cases.

From March 18-22, the Chinese city of Wuhan reported no new cases of the virus through domestic transmission — that is, infection passed on from one person to another. The achievement was seen as a turning point in efforts to contain the virus, which has infected more than 80,000 people in China. Wuhan was particularly hard-hit, with more than half of all confirmed cases in the country.

But some Wuhan residents who had tested positive earlier and then recovered from the disease are testing positive for the virus a second time. Based on data from several quarantine facilities in the city, which house patients for further observation after their discharge from hospitals, about 5%-10% of patients pronounced "recovered" have tested positive again.

Some of those who retested positive appear to be asymptomatic carriers — those who carry the virus and are possibly infectious but do not exhibit any of the illness's associated symptoms — suggesting that the outbreak in Wuhan is not close to being over.

NPR has spoken by phone or exchanged text messages with four individuals in Wuhan who are part of this group of individuals testing positive a second time in March. All four said they had been sickened with the virus and tested positive, then were released from medical care in recent weeks after their condition improved and they tested negative.

Two of them are front-line doctors who were sickened after treating patients in their Wuhan hospitals. The other two are Wuhan residents. They all requested anonymity when speaking with NPR because those who have challenged the government's handling of the outbreak have been detained.

One of the Wuhan residents who spoke to NPR exhibited severe symptoms during their first round of illness and was eventually hospitalized. The second resident displayed only mild symptoms at first and was quarantined in one of more than a dozen makeshift treatment centers erected in Wuhan during the peak of the outbreak.

But when both were tested a second time for the coronavirus on Sunday, March 22, as a precondition for seeking medical care for unrelated health issues, they tested positive for the coronavirus even though they exhibited none of the typical symptoms, such as a fever or dry cough. The time from their recovery and release to the retest ranged from a few days to a few weeks.

Could that second positive test mean a second round of infection? Virologists think it is unlikely that a COVID-19 patient could be re-infected so quickly after recovery but caution that it is too soon to know.

Under its newest COVID-19 prevention guidelines, China does not include in its overall daily count for total and for new cases those who retest positive after being released from medical care. China also does not include asymptomatic cases in case counts.

"I have no idea why the authorities choose not to count [asymptomatic] cases in the official case count. I am baffled," said one of the Wuhan doctors who had a second positive test after recovering.

These four people are now being isolated under medical observation. It is unclear whether they are infectious and why they tested positive after their earlier negative test.

It is possible they were first given a false negative test result, which can happen if the swab used to collect samples of the virus misses bits of the virus. Dr. Li Wenliang, a whistleblowing doctor who later died of the virus himself in February, tested negative for the coronavirus several times before being accurately diagnosed.

In February, Wang Chen, a director at the state-run Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, estimated that the nucleic acid tests used in China were accurate at identifying positive cases of the coronavirus only 30%-50% of the time.

Another theory is that, because the test amplifies tiny bits of DNA, residual virus from the initial infection could have falsely resulted in that second positive reading.

"There are false positives with these types of tests," Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, told NPR by email. Shaman recently co-authored a modeling study showing that transmission by individuals who did not exhibit any symptoms was a driver of the Wuhan outbreak.

How real is China's recovery?

On Tuesday, Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital, said it would relax lockdown measures that have now been in place for more than two months and begin letting residents leave cities the following day. Wuhan said it would begin lifting its quarantine measures and letting residents leave two weeks later, on April 8.

To leave Wuhan, residents must first test negative for the coronavirus, according to municipal authorities. Such screenings will identify some remaining asymptomatic virus carriers. But the high rate of false negatives that Chinese doctors have cited means many with the virus could pass undetected.

Last Thursday, Wuhan reported for the first time since the outbreak began that it had no new cases of the virus from the day before — a milestone in China's virus containment efforts. The city reported a zero rise in new cases for the following four days.

Assessing asymptomatic carriers

But Caixin, an independent Chinese news outlet, reported earlier this week that Wuhan hospitals were continuing to see new cases of asymptomatic virus carriers, citing a health official who said he had seen up to a dozen such cases a day.

Responding to inquiries about how the city was counting asymptomatic cases, Wuhan's health commission said Monday that it is quarantining new asymptomatic patients in specialized wards for 14 days. Such patients would be included in new daily case counts if they develop symptoms during that time, authorities said.

"Based on available World Health Organization data, new infections are mainly transmitted by patients who have developed symptoms. Hence [asymptomatic cases] may not be the main source of transmission," the commission said.

A researcher at China's health commission told reporters Tuesday that asymptomatic carriers "would not cause the spread" of the virus. Zunyou Wu, the researcher, explained this was because the authorities were isolating people who had close contact with confirmed patients. Wu did not explain how they would identify asymptomatic carriers who had no close contact with confirmed patients.

Addressing growing public concern of asymptomatic patients, China's Premier Li Keqiang urged during Thursday's senior-level government meeting that "relevant departments must ... truthfully, timely, and openly" answer questions, such as whether these patients are infectious and how the course of the outbreak may change.

Research suggests that the spread can be caused by asymptomatic carriers. Studies of patients from Wuhan and other Chinese cities who were diagnosed early in the outbreak suggest that asymptomatic carriers of the virus can infect those they have close contact with, such as family members.

"In terms of those who retested positive, the official party line is that they have not been proven to be infectious. That is not the same as saying they are not infectious," one of the Wuhan doctors who tested positive twice told NPR. He is now isolated and under medical observation. "If they really are not infectious," the doctor said, "then there would be no need to take them back to the hospitals again."

Geoff Brumfiel contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.

 

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Just now, Skipper said:

Where?  In the U.S.?  All locations?   Honestly, I'll take the over on any location in the US with that date if you are taking bets.

Fair enough.  Certain US states and cities and  I said unless you are in a designated hot spot.  not really a forum gambler(insert Kenny Rogers joke here)

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Just now, dcar00 said:

Fair enough.  Certain US states and cities and  I said unless you are in a designated hot spot.  not really a forum gambler(insert Kenny Rogers joke here)

I don't think any major city will be in a position to ease restrictions by then simply because I don't see any city that has  (i) a mass testing infrastructure that gives confidence we actually know the current rate of infection in any location and ability to contact trace (i.e., I think city leaders will need to be confident the curve has been flattened significantly) and  (ii) surplus hospital space, PPE, ventilators, etc, to handle any future spike.   I predicted 4/20 about 10 days ago but I'm starting to back off of it because we haven't made enough progress, or even really identified a plan, to open things back up from an infrastructure perspective.  We're still moving way too slow and now having to focus a ton of energy on blocking and tackling what is in front of us rather than planning.

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This isn't good news - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/27/822407626/mystery-in-wuhan-recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-negative-then-positive
 
A spate of mysterious second-time infections is calling into question the accuracy of COVID-19 diagnostic tools even as China prepares to lift quarantine measures to allow residents to leave the epicenter of its outbreak next month. It's also raising concerns of a possible second wave of cases.
From March 18-22, the Chinese city of Wuhan reported no new cases of the virus through domestic transmission — that is, infection passed on from one person to another. The achievement was seen as a turning point in efforts to contain the virus, which has infected more than 80,000 people in China. Wuhan was particularly hard-hit, with more than half of all confirmed cases in the country.
But some Wuhan residents who had tested positive earlier and then recovered from the disease are testing positive for the virus a second time. Based on data from several quarantine facilities in the city, which house patients for further observation after their discharge from hospitals, about 5%-10% of patients pronounced "recovered" have tested positive again.
Some of those who retested positive appear to be asymptomatic carriers — those who carry the virus and are possibly infectious but do not exhibit any of the illness's associated symptoms — suggesting that the outbreak in Wuhan is not close to being over.
NPR has spoken by phone or exchanged text messages with four individuals in Wuhan who are part of this group of individuals testing positive a second time in March. All four said they had been sickened with the virus and tested positive, then were released from medical care in recent weeks after their condition improved and they tested negative.
Two of them are front-line doctors who were sickened after treating patients in their Wuhan hospitals. The other two are Wuhan residents. They all requested anonymity when speaking with NPR because those who have challenged the government's handling of the outbreak have been detained.
One of the Wuhan residents who spoke to NPR exhibited severe symptoms during their first round of illness and was eventually hospitalized. The second resident displayed only mild symptoms at first and was quarantined in one of more than a dozen makeshift treatment centers erected in Wuhan during the peak of the outbreak.
But when both were tested a second time for the coronavirus on Sunday, March 22, as a precondition for seeking medical care for unrelated health issues, they tested positive for the coronavirus even though they exhibited none of the typical symptoms, such as a fever or dry cough. The time from their recovery and release to the retest ranged from a few days to a few weeks.
Could that second positive test mean a second round of infection? Virologists think it is unlikely that a COVID-19 patient could be re-infected so quickly after recovery but caution that it is too soon to know.
Under its newest COVID-19 prevention guidelines, China does not include in its overall daily count for total and for new cases those who retest positive after being released from medical care. China also does not include asymptomatic cases in case counts.
"I have no idea why the authorities choose not to count [asymptomatic] cases in the official case count. I am baffled," said one of the Wuhan doctors who had a second positive test after recovering.
These four people are now being isolated under medical observation. It is unclear whether they are infectious and why they tested positive after their earlier negative test.
It is possible they were first given a false negative test result, which can happen if the swab used to collect samples of the virus misses bits of the virus. Dr. Li Wenliang, a whistleblowing doctor who later died of the virus himself in February, tested negative for the coronavirus several times before being accurately diagnosed.
In February, Wang Chen, a director at the state-run Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, estimated that the nucleic acid tests used in China were accurate at identifying positive cases of the coronavirus only 30%-50% of the time.
Another theory is that, because the test amplifies tiny bits of DNA, residual virus from the initial infection could have falsely resulted in that second positive reading.
"There are false positives with these types of tests," Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, told NPR by email. Shaman recently co-authored a modeling study showing that transmission by individuals who did not exhibit any symptoms was a driver of the Wuhan outbreak.
How real is China's recovery?
On Tuesday, Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital, said it would relax lockdown measures that have now been in place for more than two months and begin letting residents leave cities the following day. Wuhan said it would begin lifting its quarantine measures and letting residents leave two weeks later, on April 8.
To leave Wuhan, residents must first test negative for the coronavirus, according to municipal authorities. Such screenings will identify some remaining asymptomatic virus carriers. But the high rate of false negatives that Chinese doctors have cited means many with the virus could pass undetected.
Last Thursday, Wuhan reported for the first time since the outbreak began that it had no new cases of the virus from the day before — a milestone in China's virus containment efforts. The city reported a zero rise in new cases for the following four days.
Assessing asymptomatic carriers
But Caixin, an independent Chinese news outlet, reported earlier this week that Wuhan hospitals were continuing to see new cases of asymptomatic virus carriers, citing a health official who said he had seen up to a dozen such cases a day.
Responding to inquiries about how the city was counting asymptomatic cases, Wuhan's health commission said Monday that it is quarantining new asymptomatic patients in specialized wards for 14 days. Such patients would be included in new daily case counts if they develop symptoms during that time, authorities said.
"Based on available World Health Organization data, new infections are mainly transmitted by patients who have developed symptoms. Hence [asymptomatic cases] may not be the main source of transmission," the commission said.
A researcher at China's health commission told reporters Tuesday that asymptomatic carriers "would not cause the spread" of the virus. Zunyou Wu, the researcher, explained this was because the authorities were isolating people who had close contact with confirmed patients. Wu did not explain how they would identify asymptomatic carriers who had no close contact with confirmed patients.
Addressing growing public concern of asymptomatic patients, China's Premier Li Keqiang urged during Thursday's senior-level government meeting that "relevant departments must ... truthfully, timely, and openly" answer questions, such as whether these patients are infectious and how the course of the outbreak may change.
Research suggests that the spread can be caused by asymptomatic carriers. Studies of patients from Wuhan and other Chinese cities who were diagnosed early in the outbreak suggest that asymptomatic carriers of the virus can infect those they have close contact with, such as family members.
"In terms of those who retested positive, the official party line is that they have not been proven to be infectious. That is not the same as saying they are not infectious," one of the Wuhan doctors who tested positive twice told NPR. He is now isolated and under medical observation. "If they really are not infectious," the doctor said, "then there would be no need to take them back to the hospitals again."
Geoff Brumfiel contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
 

Were they using the same inaccurate Chinese tests mentioned earlier in this thread?
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Wait, $5 EACH!?!?!? - https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-39-million-n95-medical-masks-stockpile-us-hospitals-union-2020-3

 

Quote

A union representing healthcare workers on Thursday said it had located 39 million N95 masks and was connecting their supplier to healthcare facilities and state and local governments to protect those treating coronavirus patients.

The masks will be distributed in California and New York, according to a copy of the Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West's statement posted by the labor reporter Noam Scheiber.

Noam Scheiber@noamscheiber

Wow, this seems like big news from the folks in big labor.

3,638

12:08 PM - Mar 26, 2020

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1,292 people are talking about this

The stockpile of masks is far larger than the roughly 12 million N95 masks in the US government's stockpile as of earlier this month.

The masks will cost $5 each, according to the union's statement posted by the NPR investigative reporter Tim Mak. In the statement, the union said it had "no financial interest in the transactions."

Tim Mak✔@timkmak

 · 22h

They are selling them at $5 per mask. https://twitter.com/noamscheiber/status/1243223251670753282 …

Noam Scheiber@noamscheiber

Wow, this seems like big news from the folks in big labor.

Tim Mak✔@timkmak

Here's the parts of the press release where the SEIU lays out that they'll be selling the masks they've located for $5, and who they've already lined up sales to:

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The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

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Damn Oklahoma, hopefully this doesn’t blow up like Washington State

https://www.news9.com/story/41939636/2nd-norman-nursing-home-resident-dies-from-coronavirus-mayor-says

Second to die from that nursing home, and that county is swinging well above their weight class (albeit they have Norman within the county) - prior to today’ big jump, they had 39 cases (out of 250 cases)  and 3 deaths (out of 7)

edit: they picked up 70+ new cases so far today.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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Just now, Hate said:

 

Were they using the same inaccurate Chinese tests mentioned earlier in this thread?

Probably.  I'm guessing false positives, but worthwhile to keep an eye on.  It also goes on in the article to say that the China is not counting asymptomatic cases in their official case count.

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4 minutes ago, JesusSweatDuck said:

Third such article I have read in past 24 hours calling into question the accuracy of Chinese test kits. I won't even pretend to understand how testing works (or how some tests are done rapidly while others need to go to a lab for results) but I would imagine false positives are about as bad as not testing at all. 

I can't help but think about this person when I hear rapid test kits.

elizabeth holmes theranos GIF

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13 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

I'm still holding to my prediction of easing of restrictions April 6th unless you are in a designated hotspot.

We should maintain it until after Easter.   Because we don’t need a shitload of folks hitting up Easter services, thinking the worst is over.   

Edited by atomheartbevo
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35 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Read the new Texas Monthly article about the HEB decade old preparation planning exactly for this pandemic situation.

it is a long read, but extremely impressive. Those people should be running FEMA and the CDC.

We're expecting a busier than usual hurricane season this year. Give it a few months, and they might be.

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9 minutes ago, JesusSweatDuck said:

Fuck. I really hope and pray that it's just a matter that they have shitty test kits like they sent to Spain, Czechia, and Turkey, and not that this thing can actually lie dormant and flare up again.

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1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

We should maintain it until after Easter.   Because we don’t need a shitload of folks hitting up Easter services, thinking the worst is over.   

Chatter we are hearing in San Marcos is May 1 for schools. Businesses could ease before then but all social activities remain banned until May 1. 

Guess we all celebrate May Day this year? 

May-Day.jpg?zoom=2&resize=635,375&ssl=1

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2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

We should maintain it until after Easter.   Because we don’t need a shitload of folks hitting up Easter services, thinking the worst is over.   

Yeah I think that 4/13 is more likely for a large chunk of the population.  And that's one of the major reasons.

 

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It has to be ordered by a doctor. And a doctor can’t test you unless you meet a very rigid set of requirements, like recent foreign travel and/coming into direct contact with someone who has already tested positive. 


I’m with Baylor I’m Houston and my doc told me yesterday that if I get symptomatic to call him and he’d order a test.
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Dallas bi-weekly detailed info finally out:   https://www.dallascounty.org/Assets/uploads/docs/hhs/2019-nCoV/COVID-19 DCHHS Summary_032720.pdf

I guess the good news is flu season appears to be just about over.   

Our testing still sucks (some anecodatal a relatively quick turnaround at hospital but major delay for results at dr. offices and testing locations).  So number of positives doesn't really tell us anything at this point.  But the hospitalization trend isn't good (but not surprising).

So from Tues to Fri (as of 8PM night before), hospital admissions went from 61 to 111, ICU went from 21 to 40,  ventilation went from 9 to 23 and deaths from 5 to 7.  Until we get testing figured out, I think this is the data to pay attention to.

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away


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