Inverted_Trough

Free market fundamentalism is dead. Although I don't think Covid killed it. Trump killed it back in 2016. It's actually kind of refreshing to not have to hear about the trickle-down benefits of a capital gains tax cut. Nobody buys that nonsense anymore.

The denominator was much lower in March/April because we were only testing the sickest patients. Lower denominator will always make the mortality rate appear higher. I think treatments have improved but I think most of the decrease in mortality rate is due to us increasing the denominator with more testing.

Sadly, filling a vacant court seat was obviously more important to the Senate. I think even the President wanted a big stimulus (for his re-election chances).

Agreed. Although to be fair, I think Bush or Obama, or even McCain or Romney had they won, would also be better prepared. They actually had governing experience and some level of competency. We can't say the same for the current guy.

Yes, I'm sure we'll have an armed insurrection if people can't dine indoors at Applebees for a couple weeks.

The biggest issue is the failure to lead. Even in such a polarized environment, you'd be surprised how much strong and effective leadership matters when it comes to navigating through a crisis. Unfortunately, Trump has no leadership skills, is a poor communicator, and his management style has always involved chaos and infighting. I blame our political system and ourselves more than him though. After all, we basically hired a reality TV star with no governing experience to be our President. This crisis is too big for him.

If Trump loses, it wouldn't surprise me if Fox News suddenly starts covering the pandemic nonstop throughout 2021. They might actually increase their pandemic coverage.

Over 40k hospitalizations now. Not exactly rounding the corner. Unless there is a dark alley beyond that corner.

Just imagine if we strived for herd immunity. We'll be a country full of zombies in a few years. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771111

Okay, Boomer. My company's productivity skyrocketed once we went to full time telework. Which wasn't surprising to me. Numerous studies have been conducted recently (i.e. during Covid) that showed higher productivity with remote work. That being said, some face-to-face collaboration is valuable. Going into the office once in a while for some team building, face-to-face collaboration, or just a change in scenery, is probably the best overall approach in terms of productivity and engagement. But the idea of requiring your workforce to spend hours per day commuting to a centralized office location, to do the same tasks that - thanks to technology -- can be done at home, is ridiculous. For most office workers, working from home should have been the modus operandi ten years ago. The reason that many companies have been resistant to embrace this is because you still have many baby boomers in executive management positions. They hold onto this belief that "work" is only done if they can physically "see" you in the office. That dogmatic belief is simply based on the nature of office work back in the 1970s and 1980s. Their resistance is cultural, and not based on evidence or the realities of today.

But some people argued that T-cell memory was the reason the virus basically disappeared from NYC and other northern states. I thought that was bunk - the real reason is seasonality. There appears to be a strong seasonal component to this virus. I mentioned back in July how the Southern Hemisphere (and southern latitudes of the US) had most of the cases. As the seasons change in the northern latitudes, cases are now decreasing in Brazil, India and South Africa, but drastically increasing in the northern US as well as Europe. As far as how it relates to being asymptomatic....I'm not sure about that either. I think the amount of viral exposure (viral load) has more to do with whether someone becomes symptomatic. There also appears to be more symptomatic cases right now, compared to back over the summer.

Socializing at the water cooler. Running to the coffee machine five times a day. Stopping by everyone's office to chat with people about their weekend plans. Talking about the football games this weekend. Schmoozing with the boss. Gossiping about co-workers. Half of the day is spent doing those things. The other half of the day is spent commuting to the office so you can do those things.

What happened to T-cell memory? I guess that theory is bunk.

GDP is supposed to grow 30% this quarter though. I think that’s his point. Economy is mostly open now. Definitely not going back to “normal” until next summer though.

Medicine was pretty crappy during the Spanish flu days. You can’t compare IFRs. The IFR of Covid would be > 2.5% had it occurred in 1918

We’ve done all interviews on skype and it’s been fine. Certainly better than face to face with masks on.

Yes, I'm sure that it happens. Health insurance fraud is a big problem in general -- especially Medicare fraud. That was the case before Covid too. My issue is that some people hear about a few cases where this might have occurred, so then they extrapolate this to all cases, and then try to convince everyone that the disease isn't real or it's a hoax. If anything, you could infer from the excess death statistics that we are undercounting a bit. Some countries appear to be undercounting by a lot (e.g. Peru, Mexico, Ecuador)

This is happening all over the country though. Lots of states have travel restrictions from other states. For most of the summer, Florida was requiring all travelers arriving from NY to quarantine for two weeks. Even though NY had much, much fewer Covid cases than Florida did over the summer.

The point of masking is to protect others, not yourself. That point has been stressed over and over. Up to 40% of spread is from asymptomatic carriers who don't realize they are carrying it, hence why masks have been promoted as public health policy. It doesn't offer that much protection to the wearer -- especially if everyone surrounding you is not wearing a mask. If you can find me some documented examples of super spreader events where everyone was wearing a mask throughout the event, that would be more noteworthy.

There has been a 20% increase in deaths this year. Roughly 225,000 more deaths than what would be expected. So basically what you're insinuating is hospitals have conspired across the country to come up with an extra 225,000 death certificates, and marking their causes of death as Covid, to profit from this scheme. I guess funeral homes were also colluding on this scheme. They make a ton of money from cremation and burials, after all. Excess deaths have also been observed throughout the world. Do these financial incentives exist in all of these other countries too? https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries So yes, that's why people who believe this nonsense are immediately deemed dark web conspiracy theorists. Because they are.

So many people don't even wear masks properly. They wear them around their chin like a diaper. My guess is that only 30% of the country wears masks consistently and properly. I haven't heard of a super spreader event where everyone at the event was wearing masks. Pretty much all the super spreader events have been bars, conferences, parties, churches, prisons, meat packing plants, college dorms, etc. You can still get the virus while wearing a mask (especially if others around you are not wearing them), but part of the reason for mask-wearing was to limit super spreader events and keep case counts manageable.

Yes, I trust those dastardly lab coat-wearing individuals (i.e. scientists) instead of charlatans who wear black hoodies and trove the dark web peddling their quackery. I've read through the major studies on HCQ. The only study that showed a benefit was when they combined HCQ with steroids. But we already know that steroids have been helpful for severe cases, and it was likely the steroids that elicited the benefits there as well. HCQ has also been studied as a prophylaxis and its been shown as no better than a placebo. I 'm not against placebos. If a placebo has no side effects, and can make a patient psychologically believe they're getting better - then sure, take it. Just don't peddle it to others as some magic potion

Yes, they refused to administer it because they know it doesn’t work. Most doctors that aren’t quacks know this.

+2200 hospitalizations today in the US. It appears this is the start of the third wave.

If our economy and standard of living is so great, socialism and populism wouldn't be as mainstream as they're becoming now - in both parties. The only people who think our economy is great are MBA types and the investor class. Looks like we've had +2000 hospitalizations over the past two days. Certainly doesn't appear that we're rounding the corner.