and, if the republicans have their way, there will be state bankruptcies resulting in decisions to ensure that states can only spend their money in certain ways. ( see also: flint michigan. )
they have to lose the senate next month or things will continue to be bad for the real economy for a long long time
Are all of these due to covid? No, almost certainly not. Are a lot of them? Yes. How many others are due to inability or unwillingness to access healthcare? We will honestly never know, but my guess is a lot of the non-directly covid deaths are still covid adjacent, or by-catch as I have termed it before. This essentially says that we have way too many people dead who should not be.
Ugh. A few weeks ago Philly’s cases were in the 80’s and the positivity rate was 1.8.
This is going to blow up big time.
“ Tracking COVID-19
At a glance (vs. a week ago)
Pennsylvania: cases ↑, positivity rate ↑
Philadelphia: cases ⇔, positivity rate ⇔
Pennsylvania’s rolling average is 1,461 new cases/day, 9% higher than a week ago. There have been 185k total positives out of 2.34M tests taken. Statewide positivity rate is averaging 4.4%, up eight-tenths of a point from a week ago. [health.pa.gov]
Philadelphia is averaging 198 new cases/day (2% higher than a week ago) out of 4,000 daily tests. The average positivity rate is 4.8%, same as a week ago. Over the past 30 days, positive cases were 41% unknown race/ethnicity, along with 18% African American, 22% white, 12% Hispanic, 3% Asian.”
Some is shift in demographics of the infected, but even in the elderly mortality rate has dropped dramatically. Use of dexamethasone, improved knowledge of the mechanisms of illness, anticoagulation all play a part in this. Masks certainly play a role as well, and easily the most cost-effective intervention on the list, but sadly also the most controversial (for stupid reasons, but…)
Very true and the study is just one health system. But controlling for age and comorbidies still showed a drop in all categories averaging 18%, according to the article. Even the eldest.
I’ll take my hope where I can find it
All that controversy is the governments fault. In countries where government mandated mask wearing at the start of pandemic (like Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) there wasn’t much controversy. It also wasn’t a partisan issue - Polish government is right wing, and obviously left and neoliberals also supported the idea. While recently we had some covidiot protests (mostly from typical antivaxxers), the attendance was pathetic
Sadly recently governments ideas got divorced from reality, with disastrous results:
First they reopened everything during summer vacations, but the rise in cases was surprisingly small due to mandatory masks, so it was a success. They as vacations ended they reopened schools and refused to acknowledge that children spread disease (they say that people are just getting infected on the streets, despite lack of evidence). Now it seems that either a second lockdown or a total humanitarian disaster is likely.
The NPR story didn’t discuss it, but I wonder if the virus is also starting to evolve to become less deadly? It’s happened with many other viruses in the past- the evolutionary pressure for any virus is to multiply, not necessarily to kill.
Obviously we need to treat this thing as if it’s as deadly as ever, but survival-friendly viral evolution is something we can hope for, anyway!
A Brazilian volunteer who participated in the vaccine tests developed by the University of Oxford died yesterday; the lab does not say whether he got the vaccine or a placebo.
Mr. João Pedro Feitosa was 28 years old, a recently graduated doctor and a resident of Rio de Janeiro.
There’s no selective pressure for it to do so currently: by the time it kills sometime, they’re already little use to it. I think it would take many waves for there to be any emergent value to keeping the host alive after the initial contagious period.
I think it’s pretty clear that a virus that can spread from an asymptomatic individual has an advantage over one that can only be spread by someone who is visibly ill and coughing, especially in an environment where people are very wary about interacting with anyone who doesn’t look well. And the longer that someone is asymptomatic, the longer they can spread the virus. While the virus may not “care“ what happens to its host once the host is done spreading, it’s not a stretch to think that someone who gets very ill very quickly is more likely to die than someone who takes longer to develop any symptoms.
But it’s all speculation for now, as far as I know. Unless someone has been tracking the molecular evolution of the virus in real time like that article suggests.
A senator of the Brazilian Republic, who was against social distancing and lockdowns, just died of Covid. Rest in peace. This virus is such a terrible thing.
Ye gods, really sorry to hear. I’ve been following via The Irish Times and Independent.ie. (Btw if you have a solid recommendation re an Irish newspaper you like, please let me know.)
You’re not kidding about the seesaw–what I sense having read those papers is akin to whiplash.