About those COVID Tests

[_MeDotOrg]

As said, this is preliminary data. The sampling was from people responding to a Facebook ad:

Because volunteers were disproportionately white and female, relative to the county’s demographics, the team’s data scientists had to make statistical adjustments. Those imbalances were addressed by giving less computational “weight” to white women. Latino and Asian volunteers, who were underrepresented, got greater “weight.”

So there is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of variables within the conclusions. But these numbers will not bring comfort for anyone looking for reasons to drop social distancing. At the very least the numbers suggest that caution and large scale testing is necessary prior to going back to work.

[_EAllusion]

I think you're seeing people draw something close to the opposite conclusion from the prelim prevalence studies showing high rates of infection. If a lot more people are infected with no serious disease than previously thought (by an order of magnitude or more), that both means the disease isn't nearly as dangerous as believed and that herd immunity is further along. The studies are quite optimistic in that regard.

The authors of the Stanford study have written anti-lockdown op-eds prior to this pre-print in support of that idea.

I think it's important to urge caution because the sampling methodologies used leave a lot to be desired. The biology sources I prefer are treating it as scandalously bad. Let's take these findings with a grain of salt for now.

[_EAllusion]

Before sub "it's just the flu, bro" genius jumps in, it's worth noting that a greater % of New York City 's entire population has already died in the official COVID tally than the flu mortality rate. And I'm a touch skeptical that 100% of NYC has been infected.

[_Dr Exiled]

Does anyone know anything about what Abbott labs are claiming with their 5 minute test? Sure seems like good news if this can be rolled out and if the population can be tested. The fear of the unknown has been driving this thing for too long.

https://www.abbott.com/corpnewsroom/pro ... nutes.html

[_canpakes]

Interesting story in the Times today about a fellow who was all in with Fox about how overblown the entire coronavirus hype is. He’s dead now, from COVID-19 ...

...

On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail for Spain on a cruise, flying first to Florida. His adult children — Kevin, Eddie and Kristen Mider — suggested that the impending doom of the coronavirus made this a bad idea. Joe Joyce was 74, a nonsmoker, healthy; four years after he opened his bar he stopped drinking completely. He didn’t see the problem.

“He watched Fox, and believed it was under control,’’ Kristen told me.

Early in March Sean Hannity went on air proclaiming that he didn’t like the way that the American people were getting scared “unnecessarily.’’ He saw it all, he said, “as like, let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.”

Eventually, Fox changed course and took the virus more seriously, but the Joyces were long gone by then. On March 14, they returned to New York from Barcelona, and the next day, before bars and restaurants were forced to close in the city, Joe Joyce went to work at JJ Bubbles for the last time.

He and his wife then headed to their house in New Hampshire. Their children were checking in from New York and New Jersey, and on March 27, when Kristen got off the phone with her father, she called an ambulance. He was wheezing. His oxygen level turned out to be a dangerously low 70 percent. On April 9, he died of Covid-19. The following day, Artie Nelson, one of his longtime bartenders at JJ Bubbles, and also in his 70s, died of the virus as well.

It is possible, of course, that Joe Joyce did not contract the coronavirus on a trip to Spain, where almost 20,000 have died from complications related to it. Although the combination of being on a cruise ship — a proven petri dish for infections — and visiting a country with a full-blown outbreak is hard to ignore. But there was a way he might have avoided the trip, his daughter speculated. “If Trump had gone on TV with a mask on and said, ‘Hey this is serious,’ I don’t think he would have gone.”

When her father began to feel sick, he resisted getting tested. “He didn’t think that he could have it,” Kristen said, “because he wasn’t 100 percent confident that it was a thing.”

Seven days before he was admitted to the hospital, Joe and Kristen had an argument about the emerging public health crisis, which Kristen described as the only dispute she ever had with her father that she wished she hadn’t won. “He said, ‘Don’t you think this is fishy? Do you know anyone who has it? Do you know anyone who has died from it?’ And I said, ‘Dad, I don’t know anyone now, but give me a week and I bet I will.’”

[_Dr Exiled]

Interesting story in the Times today about a fellow who was all in with Fox about how overblown the entire coronavirus hype is. He’s dead now, from COVID-19 ...

...

On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail for Spain on a cruise, flying first to Florida. His adult children — Kevin, Eddie and Kristen Mider — suggested that the impending doom of the coronavirus made this a bad idea. Joe Joyce was 74, a nonsmoker, healthy; four years after he opened his bar he stopped drinking completely. He didn’t see the problem.

“He watched Fox, and believed it was under control,’’ Kristen told me.

Early in March Sean Hannity went on air proclaiming that he didn’t like the way that the American people were getting scared “unnecessarily.’’ He saw it all, he said, “as like, let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.”

Eventually, Fox changed course and took the virus more seriously, but the Joyces were long gone by then. On March 14, they returned to New York from Barcelona, and the next day, before bars and restaurants were forced to close in the city, Joe Joyce went to work at JJ Bubbles for the last time.

He and his wife then headed to their house in New Hampshire. Their children were checking in from New York and New Jersey, and on March 27, when Kristen got off the phone with her father, she called an ambulance. He was wheezing. His oxygen level turned out to be a dangerously low 70 percent. On April 9, he died of Covid-19. The following day, Artie Nelson, one of his longtime bartenders at JJ Bubbles, and also in his 70s, died of the virus as well.

It is possible, of course, that Joe Joyce did not contract the coronavirus on a trip to Spain, where almost 20,000 have died from complications related to it. Although the combination of being on a cruise ship — a proven petri dish for infections — and visiting a country with a full-blown outbreak is hard to ignore. But there was a way he might have avoided the trip, his daughter speculated. “If Trump had gone on TV with a mask on and said, ‘Hey this is serious,’ I don’t think he would have gone.”

When her father began to feel sick, he resisted getting tested. “He didn’t think that he could have it,” Kristen said, “because he wasn’t 100 percent confident that it was a thing.”

Seven days before he was admitted to the hospital, Joe and Kristen had an argument about the emerging public health crisis, which Kristen described as the only dispute she ever had with her father that she wished she hadn’t won. “He said, ‘Don’t you think this is fishy? Do you know anyone who has it? Do you know anyone who has died from it?’ And I said, ‘Dad, I don’t know anyone now, but give me a week and I bet I will.’”

This is why I don't listen to the mainstream media any longer, too much improper use of anecdotes and implying that they equal the whole. Fox for Trump and N.Y. Times for Biden. They should be required to tell the audience with each story that they are sponsored by this or that campaign. It's sad this guy had to die from this. Also, anyone not taking this virus seriously should have their head examined and hopefully the governors will make wise, apolitical decisions regarding opening up the economies that Trump and his re-election campaign so desperately want to have happen.

[_Icarus]

Interesting story in the Times today about a fellow who was all in with Fox about how overblown the entire coronavirus hype is. He’s dead now, from COVID-19 ...

This is why I don't listen to the mainstream media any longer, too much improper use of anecdotes and implying that they equal the whole. Fox for Trump and N.Y. Times for Biden. They should be required to tell the audience with each story that they are sponsored by this or that campaign. It's sad this guy had to die from this. Also, anyone not taking this virus seriously should have their head examined and hopefully the governors will make wise, apolitical decisions regarding opening up the economies that Trump and his re-election campaign so desperately want to have happen.

I'm really sick and damned tired of people like you trying to constantly equate both sides. There is no comparison to the NYT reporting on a story that can save lives and FOX News reporting fake news that actually kills people.

[_canpakes]

This is why I don't listen to the mainstream media any longer, too much improper use of anecdotes and implying that they equal the whole.

Exiled -

For any story, you can probably find an ‘A’ side, and a ‘B’ side, and likely a few others in the mix. By the very definition of that dichotomy, it would be that one side may contain more of the truth than the other.

Your responsibility, as a both a citizen and consumer of anecdote, is to take both sides and wrangle the truth out of the whole.

Once you decide that this is too much trouble for you, and that neither side holds value for you because you must work to suss out the facts, then you have abdicated your responsibility, and the folks who have contributed most greatly to the lie - rather than the truth - have won. Your decision, in this case, is exactly the goal that they’re seeking.

[_Dr Exiled]

How about getting the news from alternative sources online? There are some good ones like realclearpolitcs, the hill, alternet, truthout, grayzone, zerohedge, consortium news etc. One needs to realize that they all still have an agenda but one can learn how to sift through the garbage.

[_Dr Exiled]

This is why I don't listen to the mainstream media any longer, too much improper use of anecdotes and implying that they equal the whole. Fox for Trump and N.Y. Times for Biden. They should be required to tell the audience with each story that they are sponsored by this or that campaign. It's sad this guy had to die from this. Also, anyone not taking this virus seriously should have their head examined and hopefully the governors will make wise, apolitical decisions regarding opening up the economies that Trump and his re-election campaign so desperately want to have happen.

I'm really sick and ____ tired of people like you trying to constantly equate both sides. There is no comparison to the New York Times reporting on a story that can save lives and FOX News reporting fake news that actually kills people.

Feel free to put me on ignore.