Reacher

I understand your viewpoint is shaped by the news locally. It is refreshing to see the updates from people across the country to get a broader perspective. Texas has not had a month with new daily cases in excess of 100/million. I'd say TX was not hit "pretty hard" . Pretty hard is NY, NJ, AZ. Yes, big cities get hit harder so Houston is likely worse. Chart above shows roughly half the states have been hit harder than where TX is currently. You said you failed to see any good news which I took as pessimistic. I wasn't talking about TX, but rather the median age of those diagnosed dropping. With the media bombarding everyone with the negatives, I'm trying to stay on the positive side. It helps that my state is on the other side of the curve.

You can see from the chart above that TX cases are growing from low levels and many states are much worse off. In IL, we are on the other end of the curve (not sure how). Like those in NY, NJ and elsewhere, we had our peak earlier. You can choose the pessimistic view but don't fault me for thinking that more younger people being diagnosed is good news. These are people who were out spreading undetected before and now our testing has reached levels to identify more of these people. Combined with better treatment regimens, I don't see deaths spiking as much as it did earlier when more of the elderly were being hit, we are now catching it earlier, and Drs and hospitals have a couple months history to guide them.

I heard that somewhere the median age of those being diagnosed is now 32. The younger people being diagnosed are mostly asymptomatic and obviously not at as great of a risk of dying which helps to explain why cases can be going up and deaths down. Personally, I think this is good news as we are now identifying more people- not just the ones that show up with symptoms.

Anyone paddle board? Took mine out for a bit yesterday. Was a bit rusty. Need to get my balance back.

My neighbor has one but rarely uses it. I thought about it too, but realized I can just take my indoors one out since I use wifi and not cable. I'm at my lake house in MI now. They have quiet hours until noon and after 7pm. Works good. No noisy boats to wake you up and quiet time for the fishermen and kayakers.

Some Dr put this out- When it comes to the COVID-19 event, we have been experiencing a serious case of tunnel vision. As we focus on the day to day increase of COVID-19 things could look pretty grim, but as we take a step back and look at the comparative total mortality here in the US, things aren’t much worse than a bad seasonal flu, like that last seen in 2017-18. If you take the New York City region out of the mix, the rest of the country is cumulatively well within the expected mortality. The estimated death toll from COVID-19 is on track to exceed 120,000 US deaths in the next few weeks. Yet, the majority of COVID-19 related deaths have been concentrated in the New York/New England region which to date includes nearly 50 percent of all COVID-19 deaths nationwide; the hospitals in this region were strained but not overwhelmed in the middle of April. The coronavirus’ effect on New York City has been especially telling if you examine the departure from expected cumulative mortality trends over the last four years in the CDC fluseason cycle. We avoid looking at the COVID-19 counts, and rather focus on total mortality (by all causes) since this perspective avoids the diagnostic uncertainty of determining the exact cause of death, and does not rely on sampling problems associated with COVID-19 testing or potentially inflated death estimates from the virus. The NYC/NJ contributions to total mortality have been so high that if they are removed from the current total mortality and replaced with levels proportional to those found in the rest of the US, the current total US death toll would be equivalent to the death toll from the 2018 seasonal flu. Even including the NYC/NJ mortality, throughout the entire US, the CDC seasonal cumulative total mortality (death by all causes) for the week 30 of the 2019-2020 flu season is 1,750,703, contrasted with the nearest ‘moderately bad’ CDC flu season of 2017-18 which came in at 1,711,357 total deaths at the same point (week 30) two years earlier. This constitutes a 39k mortality increase, most of which can be accounted for by the New York City area. If the annual mortality inflation of 2 percent per annum is taken into account, total mortality for the current flu season will be marginally beyond the normal expected increase, but well within increases that have been seen in previous flu seasons. Apart from the New England region, there appear no evident effects/deviations from the main expected increase line for states that locked down early and with more stringent requirements, compared to those who had few lockdown restrictions (e.g., AR, IA, NB, SD, ND, WY.) States who opened sooner, (e.g., FL, TX, and GA) are all similarly situated somewhat beneath the prediction line. By this metric, there is little obvious difference across the entire country except for the Northeast. The relative impact on total mortality of the COVID-19 event in the New York City region was in a class by itself… NYC is so far outside the mortality space of the other regions that it inhabited a different mortality universe altogether. It is well known that New Jersey experienced a high level of excess mortality, by a factor of 8 times its own expected increase, but yet it was still far below NYC, which is over 6 times greater than anywhere in the country. The NYC mortality outcome is a strong indicator that powerful additional hazards were operating in New York City region, and it also suggests that the actions by the government on confinement contributed to this “perfect storm.” One of the documented government actions that appears to be a major factor is the forced admission of COVID positive patients into high risk facilities with extreme confinement regimens. Much of the COVID-19 fear was sustained by media repetition and focus on daily and weekly COVID-19 infection rates and putative COVID-19 mortality that spiked in April. Daily and weekly mortality changes are quite variable, and the COVID-19 mortality estimates are partially confounded with total mortality, whereas cumulative weekly estimates of total mortality are highly regular. The growth pattern for COVID-19 mortality was shown day after day, but it was never placed within the context of the total cumulative mortality, and this gave rise to the impression that all the COVID-19 deaths were in fact directly caused by the disease, along with an additional false impression that the COVID-19 mortality was pushing the total mortality well above average for the year. These impressions turn out to be false.

We'll have to see how this plays out but doesn't sound good- https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3089476/there-may-be-no-immunity-against-covid-19-new-wuhan-study?utm_source=copy_link&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3089476

Some perspective on the increase in cases in Texas. Comparatively, they are in pretty good shape vs the rest of the US. "According to Worldometers, 3,338 people have died of COVID-19 in the state as of Wednesday, or 72 per million, which places the Lone Star State in 42nd place among the 50 states, well below the national per capita rate of 362 COVID-19 deaths per million, and far behind New York, the state with the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate, where 1,596 people per million have died of COVID-19."

Some charts for you to digest-

I have found this to be true.

Post a pic in the Landscaping thread when complete

Wow! That's a powerful video.

How many days will it take for that to turn into a ripe tomato?

That was the Drs conclusion, not mine. I dictated my response while driving so it may not have read the best. Makes sense to me. If deaths and hospital usage are declining, I'd say we are heading in the right direction regardless of the number of cases. It does make sense cases will increase as states reopen. As long as the healthcare system can handle it, I agree we need to reopen as fast as possible and let individuals and businesses be creative in how they protect themselves and their employees. Can't say I disagree with any of that. I stated earlier, Dr Mike Rozien, Oprahs Dr and the Director of the Cleveland Clinic, thinks it's quite possible that lives lost due to economic reasons and the lack of routine healthcare will surpass the lives lost from the virus itself. This virus will be affecting us for years- whether or not it weakens, comes back stronger, or whatever else might happen.

I just heard a doctor on the radio saying not to mind the number of cases being reported. What is important is are these severe cases and the cases requiring hospitalizations and eventually hospitalization and eventual death. Quite possible more people are being tested leading to asymptomatic people being diagnosed and younger and healthier people. We know these are not a problem. WHO just said asymptomatic people are unlikely to be transmitters.

I am bombarded by news and when I see a COVID article, I bring it here to share. You are making this more than it is. I have no agenda to push, I hope the virus goes away but I have no idea what will happen. Let's reserve judgement and see what happens. Many people had thoughts early on that have proved wrong. Let the story evolve. Like many, I have an interest and am always looking to learn. I feel like you are attacking me and @5foulsfor some unknown reason. The data clearly shows not as many hospital beds are in use (except for a few outliers like MD) which is what i was referring to when i said we are "better than a week ago and much better than history." so if you want to argue that point, show me where you see hospitals being overrun. Anecdotally, my local hospital has 80 negative pressure rooms and used 78 at their peak. Last week they were at 28 ( I just had my annual physical and that is per my Dr who is on staff there) so that echoes what the chart shows. In case you are interested, the chart was provided by the investment firm Natixis for their advisors. Your opinion is the virus is not going away. Great. Believe it or not, I have no idea if it will. I'm not sure how you can be so certain, but I'm not going to say you are not entitled to your own opinion. I have brought forward articles /research that show it may be changing. People can form their own opinions. Maybe that will all be proven false just like the hydrochloroquine study was.

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/satellite-data-suggests-coronavirus-hit-china-earlier-researchers-71123270

You are comparing apples to oranges. While cases may be rising, hospital bed use was clearly declining. Perhaps the new cases aren't as severe? Perhaps we are catching them earlier? Treating better? I'm not the expert, you can draw your own conclusions. Just pointing out that new cases are not the same as hospital bed use. We wanted to get ahead of the curve and not strain our healthcare resources. It looks like, for the most part, we achieved that.

What is your blood type? https://www.zerohedge.com/health/researchers-uncover-which-blood-type-most-resistant-covid-19-and-another-malaria-link

Economic factors may cost more lives lost than COVID. Did you know alcohol sales taxes are up 25% in some areas? And on the health side, this is rather sobering- From Dr Scott Atlas- "Here are the examples of missed health care on which we base our calculations: Emergency stroke evaluations are down 40 percent. Of the 650,000 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in the United States, an estimated half are missing their treatments. Of the 150,000 new cancer cases typically discovered each month in the U.S., most – as elsewhere in the world – are not being diagnosed, and two-thirds to three-fourths of routine cancer screenings are not happening because of shutdown policies and fear among the population. Nearly 85 percent fewer living-donor transplants are occurring now, compared to the same period last year. In addition, more than half of childhood vaccinations are not being performed, setting up the potential of a massive future health disaster."

Chart that shows range of hospital beds being used and how except for MD and a few cases, we are better than a week ago and much better than history.

While the countries that were hit earlier are recovering, there are those countries that got hit later and are still in trouble. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/it-s-covid-code-red-in-latin-america-with-no-signs-of-peaking

More and more people coming out saying the virus is weakening. Not as many people getting it and, for those who do, it is not as severe. Italy, Spain, multiple US Drs... Not just some lone Dr anymore. https://asunow.asu.edu/20200505-asu-scientific-team-finds-new-unique-mutation-coronavirus-study