LONDON — Britain’s confirmed tally of hospital deaths among people with the coronavirus has topped 20,000, making it the fifth country to reach the grim milestone.
I keep insisting… our leaders should grow a vagina…
From the ever prescient Onion, a month ago
From CNN’s Live Updates -
There are at least 906,551 coronavirus cases in the US
There are at least 906,551 cases of coronavirus and 52,042 deaths in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.
As states begin to include “probable deaths” in their counts, so will the university. In the upcoming days, these changes may show as surges of deaths in the United States.
The totals includes cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases and those in the US military, veterans hospitals and federal prisons.
With the people who are asymptomatic and those who had symptoms but couldn’t get tested (like my daughter), I think that the number is much higher.
I actually know two people that had all the symptoms, but the hospital told them to stay home, neither one was tested for coronavirus.
My wife is involved in contact tracing, interviewing by phone folks who tested positive for Covid-19 in the county where she works.
Almost all of them talk about friends, family, co-workers, etc. who all presented symptoms, but weren’t tested, so they weren’t “counted”.
Only bright side is that those un-counted were able to shake it off. Not sure how they’ll fare in the second wave, though?
Yes, which is why the number of cases is, for many purposes, not a reliable indicator.
Sad to say, one has to look at the number of deaths.
Yes, but…
Though, to New York’s credit, they are starting to count these people.
It’s hard to do over the top humor in the Trump era…
Friend who lives in the UK says the country’s response has been hampered by Boris Johnson’s near-death experience. He is apparently terrified of interacting with people now, and won’t re-take the reins of leadership at a moment when they need him most. But ordinary Brits are rallying to stay isolated, care about each other and support the nation’s care providers. It’s just hearsay, but for their sakes I’d like it to be true.
ETA: just found this https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-appeal-sees-over-170000-brits-sign-up-to-help-national-health-service
The poor Onion – satire one month, documentary the next.
Sad news for sure but not wholly unexpected. We’re not out of the woods yet and maybe not for a long while.
Well, it’s not for nothing that it comes in layers.
No kidding.
As for the US, here’s an excerpt from a soon-to-be-published paper:
Obviously, that last sentence is the punch-line.
Here’s how the authors compare the strength of quarantines imposed:
(Incidentally, the authors are at MIT.)
We really have no idea how many people have been infected because of the lack of testing, but we also don’t really know the number dead for various reasons. Not counting nursing home victims, for example, or people who may have died at home with Covid as a comorbidity but weren’t tested either.
So do two undercounts give you an accurate mortality rate? No, that can’t be presumed.
I’m supposed to trust a Census to people unable to count straight because they care more about “their numbers”?
We also don’t know that having had COVID confers immunity from it. They don’t know if you can be infected again - so much for the idea of herd immunity.
Then trump’s a co-author!
For us nerds, do you have a doi for the paper or full reference?
It’s funny, isn’t it, how no MIT person is “brilliant” … except his uncle?
And of course, were that uncle still alive, Trump wouldn’t take any advice from him, either.
But since you bring it up, I should specify:
Not yet published.
Were that uncle still alive, he wouldn’t be taking any advise from his nephew Donald either.
Not the best fit for this topic but laughs fit anywhere.
