On 6/16/2021 at 3:54 PM, Hoosier said:

Not sure if reporting lags after Memorial Day are playing a role, but there are some signs of slowing declines in case numbers nationally in recent days.  Whether it's actually happening or it's just a mirage, you'd expect this at some point as you'd otherwise eventually get to 0 cases on a straight linear decline.  14 days left for our resident doctor's prediction to pan out.  

10,938 - if he was doing daily updates we'd probably dip below 10k on Monday or Tuesday next week.

It's down to 12,639 today on Worldometers so a rough estimate on the 50 states would be to subtract 1500-1700 from worldometers.

Average vaccinations have also bounced up quite a bit in the last couple weeks too, probably not enough to get to 70% by July 4th but it'll be close.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

Daily average up to 1.36 mil from 936k 2 weeks ago.

On 6/16/2021 at 3:54 PM, Hoosier said:

Not sure if reporting lags after Memorial Day are playing a role, but there are some signs of slowing declines in case numbers nationally in recent days.  Whether it's actually happening or it's just a mirage, you'd expect this at some point as you'd otherwise eventually get to 0 cases on a straight linear decline.  14 days left for our resident doctor's prediction to pan out.  

I thought we'd get to 10k by tomorrow but looks like it'll probably be some time next week because it looks like the pace of the decline has leveled off in some areas. Without the daily twitter updates and with the holiday lag it's hard to tell for sure. The lawyer craig weekly numbers will come out tomorrow and I think they'll probably be 11k-12k. Worldometers is down below 13k for the first time so we're still gradually getting there...

As you mentioned it doesn't decline linearly, it follows exponential decay or half lives. 50% decline from 30K is  lot - down by 15k but 50% of 15k is only 7.5k and then 3.75k so it'll naturally level off at some point.

8 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

The thing that gets me is that the guy left the store, went back in and started shooting.  Just leave and go somewhere else if you're that upset.

It's unbelievable that the person chose to ruin his life and another person's life over something so trivial. Incredibly sad.

It's like these road rage incidents, these people must have barely any control over their emotions or feel nearly no value in their own life and in others' lives. 

2 hours ago, Stormheartgypsy said:

I'm curious how people feel (if this thread hasn't closed) about the Delta variant being the possible "new" dominant compared to the UK variant.

The more transmissible variants will always eventually become the dominant strain, it's just a matter of time.  That's just evolutionary biology, the hand wringing about each variant is a little tiresome for me tbh. More a question of how much of an impact it'll have which depends on the level of immunity present. 

We probably have more than 60% population immunity from vax and prior infection in most places which will significantly keep things contained. 

On 6/9/2021 at 9:38 AM, schoeppeya said:

Have a feeling it wont end well for the hospital, considering location.

We'll see, I think the hospital is gong to win this one, the law is on their side. 

In first federal ruling on vaccine mandates, judge sides with Houston hospital, dismissing claims from staff resisters

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/7672997002

Vaccine mandates are coming.  I'm curious how this will resolve itself especially with the Texas governor putting in place policies that effectively enable anti-vax individuals.

178 health care workers suspended from Houston Methodist hospital system for refusing COVID-19 vaccination

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/7616446002

Important to note that this is 178 out of 25,000 employees. 

4 hours ago, winterwx21 said:

The article you posted admits that ED is usually a symptom of an underlying problem. So people that have an underlying condition like high blood pressure or heart disease, of course are going to be at higher risk of developing ED from Covid. But this would not be much of a concern for people that have great artery health due to being on a serious exercise program. Get your arteries in great shape through exercise, and you don't have to worry too much about Covid causing erectile dysfunction. Jonger has stated that he's a fitness nut, so why would you even post this to him? I know you're a doctor. As a doctor you do realize that Covid poses much lower risk to athletes that are in great shape from exercise, correct? Sometimes I wonder the way you post.

If rather not take my chances. Risk is lower for young healthy people obviously but the vaccine risk is basically nil. So when it comes to deciding on getting the vaccine vs even a miniscule risk of ED or all the other bad things covid can do,  it's a no brainer for me.

On 6/5/2021 at 7:10 AM, Jonger said:

Look up the effects of low testosterone and insulin sensitivity. There's a direct link between obesity, lower testosterone levels and insulin sensitivity. 

This plays into the COVID outlook for patients.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210527/lower-testosterone-in-men-tied-to-severe-covid-cases

And overall, the vast majority – 89% -- of the COVID-19-infected men, including those with mild disease, showed testosterone levels below what’s considered to be the normal range when they were admitted to hospital. The men in the current study with severe COVID-19 had average blood levels of testosterone of just 53 ng/dL when they entered hospital. Any testosterone level of 250 ng/dL or below is considered ‘low’ in adult men.By day 3 of hospitalization, their average testosterone levels dropped even further -- to only 19 ng/dL.

Did you know that covid infection has been associated with an increased risk of erectile dysfunction? 

Still rather test your luck by not getting the vaccine?

"Just a few days of sniffles"... and a floppy 

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/yes-covid-19-can-cause-erectile-dysfunction/

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Just so you all know and have some time to mentally prepare (lol), I will be closing this thread sometime this month.  We were in an exceptional situation, and on balance, I think it was a useful thread to have here.  I know some people disagree, and that's fine.  I want to thank everyone who made substantive contributions over the past 15 months.  This will be something that we remember for a long time.  

See, the 10k bet wouldn't matter,  I knew the thread would die this summer. No doubt in my mind we go sub 10k by July 1, only question is will the thread still be open. 

26 minutes ago, MacChump said:

not getting vaccinated because fat people

what a thread

He's the kind of person that needs a lottery ticket or similar incentive,  completely unable to parse out the relative risks and benefits involved. 

Also no consideration for others,  even if he individually may be low risk,  getting the vaccine so that be doesn't accidentally pass it on to someone else doesn't appear to be in the equation.

If nothing else jonger, please get vaccinated so that I can get a free beer on July 4th.

7 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

What bothered me in the emails is spreaders being almost exclusively symptomatic. My entire family was so worried about hanging out with each other strictly because of this notion. How many viruses spread asymptotically vs symptomatically? He knew this in the beginning and kept saying how its extremely common for it to spread each way when that wasn't true.

Another issue I have is that he knew there was a potential of it being lab made, or accidentally escaped from the lab very early and hid that notion until just recently.

Here is a link to all his emails

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20793561/leopold-nih-foia-anthony-fauci-emails.pdf

I'm not entirely sure I understand your first concern.  He seemed to be pretty cautious throughout the crisis about how easily it can be spread. There were lots of debates and confusion about symptomatic vs asymptomatic spread early on and persisting through most of 2020. He admitted publicly multiple times that this virus ended up being far worse than he initially expected. There is tons of asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread of this virus, it's one of the big challenges in containing it. 

On the second point, he still thinks it's more likely animal to human.  I can understand the frustration especially since the lab origin was heavily politicized. There was a scientific push possibly with some questionable motives to push the animal to human origin.  You can see some suspicious stuff in the links I posted. I'm still not convinced,  I'm also not sure if fauci is the one to blame and think the conservative media frenzy on the emails is a huge overreaction.

6 hours ago, Jonger said:

I would say that American obesity was 10X the factor in deaths than the president.

The top death per 100,000 countries are mostly top 10 most obese.

This matters.

I'm not going to argue that obesity is a risk factor for bad outcomes in covid but your presentation of the data here is ridiculous and not even close to factual.

1. Your top 10 deaths are not ranked per capita as you claim look at India 12 per 100k vs US 170 per 100k. 

2. Your top 10 most obese  countries has no source, where are you pulling that list from? 

The rate of obesity in India is 3.90% how are they 3rd on your list????? They are among the least obese countries in the world on a per capita basis.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-obese-countries

Edit: in fact many of the most obese countries in the world - Samoa and Marshall islands had no covid cases. 

In terms if large non island nations that are most obese per capita.

From worldometers

US #1 with 36% obese is 18th in covid deaths per capita

Saudi Arabia #2 with 35% obese is 111th in covid deaths per capita

Turkey #3 with 32% obese is 74th in covid deaths per capita

Egypt #4 with 32% obese is 124th in covid deaths per capita

I could go on but you get the point.  This looks like a huge #JongerFail

4 minutes ago, Jonger said:

100+ years and we're still battling the Spanish Flu.

How many mutations do we have of COVID already? I'm not telling people to avoid the vaccine, I'm pro-science.... but, thinking we're going to globally eradicate covid and its variants isn't realistic.

We have a vaccine that protects against Spanish flu in addition to the more harmful flu variants that have emerged. We may soon have a global flu vaccine that comes close to eradicating flu. I think we have a chance to keep covid as a minor virus going forward with a global effort. I think r are making moves in the right direction. I'm glad to hear you're not anti vaccine, I take back the knuckle dragger comment.

Just now, winterwx21 said:

Do you know why your buddy James didn't get the vaccine? I know he was overweight and had big health problems. Very sad what happened to him. Obviously it's critical for higher risk people to get the vaccine. Of course a 31 year old that's in great shape wouldn't be at risk of dying,  but for those younger people that are at higher risk it's extremely important to get the vaccine.

I don't know why,  I know from his fb posts a few years back that he liked Trump but I can only speculate. 

40 minutes ago, Jonger said:

There's nothing stopping mutations and new variants, just have to accept that life comes with risk. My best bud just got Covid last week. Stuffy nose and a sinus headache that lasted 3 days. 

Stopping transmission of the virus stops the mutations and reduces the chance for an escape variant. The vaccines stop transmission, this has been conclusively proven in the real world. You dont need to drag your knuckles here, human ingenuity has given us the tools to win this fight. 

Globally we're at 35 million vaccinations per day,  we're 9 months away from 75% immunized globally.

I agree life comes with risk but it's just plain stupidity to purposely increase risk when you have an easy way to mitigate the risk. 

My buddy James from New England caught covid a few weeks ago, he was 31 years old, he suffered overwhelming multi organ failure and died. He didn't have to die. 

36 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Not that it makes a huge difference, but whose numbers are we using to call the drop below 10k -- the twitter guy or worldometers?  I think the latter includes cases from US territories.

Lawyer Craig on twitter but I bet worldometers will also go below 10k shortly afterwards 

I didn't think the 7 day average would be below 15k cases on June 2nd though I think some of that is an artifact of the holiday weekend.  I bet it will stall for the next week and then dip below 10k the week of the 14th although I'd love to be wrong and have cases just continue to drop sharply. 

50 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

So what’s up with fauci emails to wuhan lab leaders? Did he get caught? 

I haven't seen anything too concerning about his emails but may not be up to speed on everything. 

Having said that the lab leak concern is definitely increasing in likelihood based on the information I'm reading.  Unfortunately I doubt there will be a smoking gun because much has been destroyed or covered up by China plus the soule to find reliable information is especially difficult. 

Here are some articles I've found to be interesting. 

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke-wuhan-lab-story-embarrassed-media-1596958

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

2 hours ago, Jonger said:

That's essentially all it is.

Anyhow....vaccines are legit ways to irradiate human pathogens, but this is pretty much as dangerous as any seasonal flu.

Just like the flu except 3-4x more transmissible and 10x more lethal.  Otherwise,  same same. Good point Jonger.

2 hours ago, TimB84 said:

 My point is, nearly everyone would like life to get back to some semblance of normal at some point. Yeah, some of us (including me) would love to work mostly from home forever or not have people halfway up our ass in every public place we go to, but for me personally, people refusing to get vaccinated are prolonging the amount of time until I get to travel internationally again and prolonging the time I have to worry about the virus mutating into some form that my vaccine isn’t resistant against. So yeah, just as healthy people are resentful of overweight people, vaccinated people have just as much of a reason to be resentful of unvaccinated people. The logic is the same.

More of a reason to be resentful.  Getting vaccinated is a much easier life change than changing from an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one. 

In the former you need to take a short amount of your day, endure a minor pain in the arm and maybe a couple days of feeling yucky. In the latter it's often an every day struggle and often comes with a lifetime of baggage for why someone has become unhealthy that needs to change. 

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Do you think we can get the average under 5k at some point this summer or is that too optimistic with a chunk of people not getting vaccinated and so much of a return to pre-pandemic behaviors/travel/mobility?  

I'm pretty optimistic that we'll get below 5,000. It's obviously not going to be eradicated and I'm not sure how low we'll get, if I had to guess I think it will probably nadir somewhere around a 7 day average of 1,500-2,000 cases per day this summer and then rise a bit in late summer/early fall. 

I wonder when the case counts will stop being tracked on a regular basis.

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

This "I have an immune system" argument seems like a common one from people against the covid vaccine.  It's like yeah, obviously you do have an immune system, but what if it's not as great as you think it is?

It's a little ironic,  the vaccines work precisely because medical science has developed an understanding of the biology of the immune system and has found ways to utilize the immune system to protect against pathogens without having a person chance getting the full effects of the illnesses caused by the pathogens. 

These my immune system is great should think about how things were just 200 years ago when small pox, polio, measles and other deadly viruses were running rampant. 

Sub 10k 7 day average case count by July 1st is still on track.  We are at just one 20k cases and continue to cut cases in half approximately every 3 weeks or faster. I'm thinking we go below 10k cases around June 18th.

39 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

That is beyond devastating.  

So hard not to break down after reading that

Gut wrenching, I feel so bad for his sister and their whole family.

Just want to add my condolences,  his posts were always a highlight when I lived in Boston,  it didn't matter if it was a chance for something tropical or snow he was always optimistic to the bitter end and extremely enthusiastic for everyone even if he was stuck in the pouring rain while everyone else was getting buried. 

RIP James

1 hour ago, Sidewinder said:

 

There were 8 cases of Bell's in Moderna and Pfizer clinical trials, 4 in each. 

I don't doubt that some people get bell's palsy from the vaccine but it wouldn't be hours after the shot. One of my colleagues published a case of bell's most likely from the vaccine. 

Bell's palsy also isn't that rare so you have to compare to baseline rates.  It's also a condition that usually recovers fully or nearly fully in most people.