Data on the recent true infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID-19 have been difficult to come by. Investigators writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine today have, however, provided us with a solid estimate of the Covid-19 IFR in the state of Indiana for those over the age of 11 years and not living in…
What Is Your Chance of Dying From Covid-19 in Indiana? — The Skeptical Cardiologist
Again, thank you Dr. Pearson. Interesting statistics.
Update 09.05.20
What could be worse than being stuck at home with Mom and Dad for months on end isolated from friends, activities restricted?
Going back to Mom and Dad to be stuck at home for even longer because you got expelled from college AND telling them they just paid for a year of college and housing for nothing.
The students were part of a special one-semester program for first-year students and according to Globe, the prepaid $US 36,500 cost for the semester won’t be refunded. Students won’t be able to take courses from home but are eligible to return in the fall.
11 freshmen at Northeastern were dismissed for violating COVID-19 rules. Their $35,000 tuition won’t be reimbursed. — https://www.businessinsider.com.au/11-northeastern-students-dismissed-breaking-covid-19-rules-party-2020-9
jordanschachtel.substack.com — America’s college students are returning to campus for the Fall semester, and many are finding themselves in an environment that no longer resembles an academic institution, but something closer to a correctional facility for young adults. It’s not just a handful of schools that are pursuing extreme restrictions and punitive measures in the name of “stopping the spread” of the coronavirus, but something that has become a nationwide norm.
Tales from America’s COVID college campuses — https://muckrack.com/jordan-schachtel/articles
College campuses have transformed into some of the most restrictive environments in America. After hearing about these conditions, I sent out a post on social media asking for testimonials from students, parents, and educators. The responses below are some of the many replies I received discussing what students are experiencing in colleges and universities that have allowed for students to return to campus.
Tales from America’s COVID college campuses — https://jordanschachtel.substack.com/p/tales-from-americas-covid-college
From what I can tell Jordan Schachtel is an investigative journalist. If you follow the link in the second quote above you’ll find a bevy of quotes from both students and parents on college life 2020 pandemic edition. What you’ll read is absolutely jaw dropping. A lot of prison analogies…
This is not going well nor will it end well. Online education will become the new operating model for higher education sooner rather than later. See my earlier rant Post Pandemic Changes in Consumer Behavior for Professor Galloway’s opinion. He says it’s simple math.
Funny to think how colleges and universities will succeed now that they all have to focus on education and teaching their students. Not sports. No longer modern day fiefoms that exist solely to enrich the clueless intellectual elites. My Dad always told me the purpose of college was to teach you how to think, not what to think. High time to get back to what a “higher” education should be.
Across the United States, at least 36 states have reported positive cases at colleges and universities, adding more than 8,700 cases to the country’s tally. Almost 6 million infections have been recorded in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
36 states report a total of 8,700 Covid-19 cases at colleges and universities — https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/30/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html
No one could have predicted this…said no one. Clusterf**k at UNC was merely early out of the gate.
East Asian countries were the first to be infected, meaning they had little, if any, time to prepare. And yet many of them are among the countries that have reduced COVID-19 cases to near zero. The difference comes down to attitudes: what role and responsibilities each society attributes to government, and to what extent it expects the community to act as a collective agent of the common good.
In the US, there is a long-standing emphasis on personal freedom. “Small government” is a commonly heard refrain, with many arguing that individuals acting as self-interested participants in markets and in social and political processes will naturally produce positive outcomes. Government intervention – even in the event of a pandemic – infringes on individual rights and, indeed, on the very meaning of being an American. Protests over shelter-in-place orders and mask mandates reflect this view.
Minimizing the Social Cost of COVID-19 — https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/east-asia-covid19-successful-responses-institutional-arrangements-by-andrew-sheng-and-xiao-geng-2020-08
Meanwhile SD reported another triple digit increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases, as 380 new positive tests were recorded Sunday.
Sturgis resident here, the 5 days before the event were much bigger this year than normal because people had the wrong dates and then just kept those reservations instead of switching (or couldn’t switch because the places were full.)… The official count is around 460,000 and I’d say there was another 75-100 thousand the week before.
You Tube comment on a Tectonix video on cell phone migration patterns exiting Sturgis SD
Australia’s 14 day mandatory quarantine rules for overseas travelers are cited as a major reason for the country’s initial success in containing the virus, but unlike other states and territories, Victoria decided to contract private security firms to police them.10 The quarantine inquiry was told that, as a condition of the government’s contracts with the security firms, guards underwent just 30 minutes of online infection control training. There have also been lurid stories in the local media of security staff having sex with the quarantined travelers and claims that guards escorted some travelers on shopping trips despite the infection risks. But it has also been said that security staff were given insufficient supplies of PPE, which was often worn wrongly or for too long, and that there was a lack of medical waste bins in the hotels and insufficient medical oversight.11 As a result, security workers acquired infections from travelers who took it back to family members and other contacts in the community.
Covid-19 in Australia: most infected health workers in Victoria’s second wave acquired virus at work — BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3350 (Published 27 August 2020) — Citation: BMJ 2020;370:m3350
A vocal minority argues that Covid-19 is not much worse than the influenza we ignore every winter, so both mandatory lockdowns and voluntary precautions have been unnecessary.
A glance at the data gives that argument a veneer of plausibility. The UK has suffered about 65,000 excess deaths during the first wave of the pandemic, and 25,000-30,000 excess deaths are attributed to flu in England alone during bad flu seasons. Is the disparity so great that the country needed to grind to a halt?
The flaw in the argument is clear: Covid was “only” twice as bad as a bad flu season because we took extreme measures to contain it. The effectiveness of the lockdown is being used as an argument that the lockdown was unnecessary. It is frustrating, but that is the nature of a self-defeating prophecy in a politicised environment.
Rats, mazes, and the power of self-fulfilling prophecies https://timharford.com/2020/08/rats-mazes-and-the-power-of-self-fulfilling-prophecies/
At issue are a set of guidelines released on Monday that say that people without symptoms who have come into contact with someone with Covid-19 do not necessarily need to be tested. Earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had said that “testing was recommended” for the same group.
The modified guidelines sparked a significant backlash. The absence of evidence supporting the change puzzled public health experts. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that the guidelines would not be adopted in California; in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called them “indefensible.” And Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters that he was undergoing surgery when the guidelines were approved last week — contradicting Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health, who said Fauci and others on the task force had approved the final version.
CDC director attempts to clarify controversial Covid-19 testing guidelines https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/27/redfield-clarify-controversial-testing-guidelines/?utm_campaign=rss
CDC attempts to explain guidelines they never developed. Dr. Fauci didn’t sign off on the new guidelines. Hmm…
According to various estimates, between 20 and 45 percent of the people who get Covid-19 — and possibly more, according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — sail through a coronavirus infection without realizing they ever had it. No fever or chills. No loss of smell or taste. No breathing difficulties. They don’t feel a thing.
Cite this: Emily Laber-Warren. Why Do Some People Weather Coronavirus Infection Unscathed? – Medscape – Aug 25, 2020. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/936288?src=rss#vp_1
Here’s the key: What is more important than a perfect test is one that turns positive during the time period in which an individual can spread the virus to others—and that’s, purportedly, what these cheap tests do well. Generally, disease transmission in COVID-19 is believed to begin early—several days before one becomes symptomatic. Viral load levels peak early and then they gradually decline, with an individual unlikely to be infectious approximately eight to 10 days after showing symptoms.
Though efficacy needs to be better proven, these antigen tests are efficient at detecting virus at high viral loads. When they are used frequently during this period of infectivity, Mina believes their sensitivity and performance would far exceed that of a single PCR test. At any rate, Mina and his colleagues have demonstrated in their statistical models thatpublic health surveillance depends much more on frequency of testing and rapid reporting of results than it does on the comparative sensitivity of the tests themselves.
‘Instant Coffee’ COVID-19 Tests Could Be the Answer to Reopening the U.S. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/instant-coffee-covid-19-tests-could-be-the-answer-to-reopening-the-u-s/
Comparing PCR testing, the nasal swab vs. antigen testing which is much less expensive and produces rapid results, these tests are both commonly offered in Oklahoma. The difference in the tests is the sensitivity in the tests. The big difference between PCR and antigen is overall antigen tests are less sensitive. You can have confidence in a rapid antigen test if it says you are positive, but let’s say you are symptomatic and you go in for a test because you think you may have COVID-19 and they do an antigen test and you get a negative test — you should remember that 20% or more of antigen tests come back as negative. So there is high predictive value for positive.
OU Medicine chief explains why you should trust a positive result from a rapid COVID-19 test https://oklahoman.com/article/5669756/ou-medicine-chief-explains-why-you-should-trust-a-positive-result-from-a-rapid-covid-19-test
Click on the link for the NEJM Journal Watch weekly update. NO paywalls on any of the links in this article. (paywalls bother me)
https://www.jwatch.org/fw116961/2020/08/22/latest-covid-19-news-week-ending-aug-22
Meanwhile in Harrah, Oklahoma…
The corned beef became an unexpected, additional source of sadness: The flavors I love have become associated with the bitterness of closing down. I can only taste the sourness of worry. I can only smell the rottenness of having to furlough six people who depended on the pub for a paycheck. Years of enjoyment have boiled down to a few long months of anxiety, endless discussions about to close or stay open—and if we can reopen safely, how we will survive.
We own an Irish Pub in Harrah, Oklahoma. When Covid-19 hit, we had to eat our own corned beef and potatoes for weeks. https://thecounter.org/covid-19-essay-irish-pub-harrah-oklahoma-corned-beef-potatoes/
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