Coronavirus thread

[Karl Henning]

Romania reported a record 18,863 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, including 273 patients who had been reinfected, as the country trailed in vaccination numbers.

It also recorded 574 deaths, marking the first time that Romania had tallied more than 500 deaths in one day.

In a statement Tuesday, the World Health Organization suggested that the country's low vaccination rate — the second-lowest in the European Union after Bulgaria — needed to be addressed and that it would send a senior expert to the country for consultation.

"An urgent priority is to boost vaccination among vulnerable groups, reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, and relieve pressure on the health system," Heather Papowitz, WHO director for medical crises, natural disasters and conflicts, said in the statement.

Papowitz will visit the country for at least 60 days to advise on the crisis, Romanian media reported.

Only around a third of Romania's population has been fully vaccinated. On Tuesday, the government said that of the 574 patients who had died, 527 had not been vaccinated. Of the 46 who died and had been vaccinated, 43 had co-morbidities.

Despite Romania's low rate of vaccination, the government began to offer doses that were near expiration for sale to other nations this summer, citing lagging domestic demand. Officials blamed the rural population in much of the country, as well as persistent vaccine hesitancy.

[Mirror Image]

The vaccines don't make anyone immortal. They reduce the risk of dying from Covid (by factor of seven I believe). In his case that kind of reduction in the risk just wasn't enough to save him.

Obviously, but my point isn't about the vaccine but rather that he already had a weakened immune system.

[Brahmsian]

And: Junk Science is King in Florida

Miami school says vaccinated students must stay home for 30 days to protect others, citing discredited info

It's a very strange world we live in. Where even with black and white or night and day, we argue over who is right. Common sense and facts seem a secondary consideration. 

[greg]

This cultural war between "right" and "left" is beneficial to the top 1 % because it hides the fact the real war is class war between the bottom 99 % and the top 1 %.

Sums it up 100%.

[71 dB]

Sums it up 100%.

Hah, it does. 

[Holden]

It's a very strange world we live in. Where even with black and white or night and day, we argue over who is right. Common sense and facts seem a secondary consideration. 

The simple way to look at it is to go by the raw data only and ignore any media commentary. That way you have an accurate set of facts and can make your mind up one way or the other. For example - let's take the Covid mortality figures from the US which has one of the supposedly 'worst' records in dealing with the pandemic. I'v

Total cases circa 45,000,000
Total deaths circa 727,000
Percentage of deaths per case = .016%

I would have 16 chances out of 10,000 of dying from Covid if I contracted it. If we put those figures as a percentage of the total US population the figures are minuscule.

Does this change my perspective? It certainly does. I look at figures like that and know that my chances of dying from coronavirus if I catch it are very slim. The fear factor generated by the media is gone (for me) and while I still wouldn't like to get it I'm not too worried if I do. (I actually believe that I had the virus in late January 2020 - long story)

From the beginning, the figures reported should have revolved around deaths and serious illness but our media couldn't pass up the chance to spout bad news about rising cases without qualifying the data. Data like what percentage of cases were asymptomatic or very mild to those where hospitalisation took place all the way up to deaths. I believe that this lack of reporting has influenced our governments decision making process and not in a good way and this pandemic has exposed the way our media manipulates the news to its own ends. I will never trust the media again!

[Daverz]

Total cases circa 45,000,000
Total deaths circa 727,000
Percentage of deaths per case = .016%

Check your math.

[T. D.]

Check your math.

🤣

MAGAmatics!

Hey, the stated figure was only off by 2 orders of mag(A)nitude! 🤣

[71 dB]

Check your math.

1.62 % 

[Karl Henning]

1.62 % 

My impression is that this figure has always been pretty slim.

[T. D.]

1.62 % 

And if you stratify by age group...

[Daverz]

And if you stratify by age group...

Good point.  And there are also the reported long term effects.  It was the report of lingering cognitive effects that had me scheduling my vaccination for the earliest opportunity.  I just can't afford to lose more cognitive ability than I already have.  I've got my Pfizer booster shot scheduled in a couple weeks.

The total death count is almost certainly an undercount as well.   

[SimonNZ]

The simple way to look at it is to go by the raw data only and ignore any media commentary. That way you have an accurate set of facts and can make your mind up one way or the other. For example - let's take the Covid mortality figures from the US which has one of the supposedly 'worst' records in dealing with the pandemic. I'v

Total cases circa 45,000,000
Total deaths circa 727,000
Percentage of deaths per case = .016%

Selective and confirmation-driven use of "raw data" creates exactly the skewed  "commentary" you claim to be wanting to avoid, which most good commentators would bring to your attention.

There is considerably more data you need to be aware of before you can so blithely brush off the pandemic as mere fearmongering and that you personally (never mid the people you infect or the overwhelmed healthcare systems) are safe.

[amw]

The total death count is almost certainly an undercount as well.   

As per https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=cumulative-deaths&tab=trend, total excess deaths in the USA attributable to SARS-CoV-2 are about 840,000 as of the present moment. Most of the undercount occurred in the first few months of the pandemic. (e.g. New York eventually acknowledged an additional 12,000 unreported deaths this year, most of which occurred in March-May 2020.)

Not counted are additional excess deaths from other causes due to widespread structural failures of healthcare systems across the world. For example, overcrowding of emergency rooms and ICUs has led to things like cancer patients dying while awaiting treatment, patients in ambulances dying during excessively long handover periods (as long as 11 hours in one UK hospital), etc. As such, almost anyone who has needed medical care—particularly emergency or intensive care—within the last year and a half has been affected in some way by the pandemic, leading to further excess deaths; it's not merely the people who died or became seriously ill as a result of direct infection with the virus. All-cause excess mortality can be seen to have spiked in almost every country at various times.

[Spotted Horses]

The simple way to look at it is to go by the raw data only and ignore any media commentary. That way you have an accurate set of facts and can make your mind up one way or the other. For example - let's take the Covid mortality figures from the US which has one of the supposedly 'worst' records in dealing with the pandemic. I'v

Total cases circa 45,000,000
Total deaths circa 727,000
Percentage of deaths per case = .016%

I would have 16 chances out of 10,000 of dying from Covid if I contracted it. If we put those figures as a percentage of the total US population the figures are minuscule.

As was pointed out, you calculated the fraction, not the percentage. A fraction of 0.016 is 16 deaths per 1,000. And by the way, 0.016% (which is incorrect) would have been 16 deaths per 100,000, not 16 deaths per 10,000.

Maybe you should leave the calculations to the epidemiologists.

As per https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=cumulative-deaths&tab=trend, total excess deaths in the USA attributable to SARS-CoV-2 are about 840,000 as of the present moment. ...

I think deaths are undercounted but cases are undercounted more. There are many asymptomatic cases or cases with very mild symptoms for which the person never was tested. The number that the epidemiologists have consistently come up with is 0.7% fatality (in advanced countries), doing their best the account for biases in data collection. I tend to believe that number. That means if you contract covid-19 your chance of dying is 1 in 140. Probably the more deadly variants are tending to push that up and more effective treatments are pushing it down.

[krummholz]

Total cases circa 45,000,000
Total deaths circa 727,000
Percentage of deaths per case = .016%

That's .016 or 1.6%, not .016%.

[Holden]

Check your math.

I knew that was going to come up and am happy to be corrected.

[71 dB]

I knew that was going to come up and am happy to be corrected.

Having a basic understanding of math/numbers such as percentages is one aspect of (scientific) literacy. It is important to be able to put things in perspective, understanding the scale of things.

[MusicTurner]

Cases finally going up here in DK, passing the 1000/daily mark, with experts maintaining prospects of 4000/daily around Christmas as a culmination and maybe 200 hospitalizations, but they're still saying that the sickness will be much less fatal and serious than in the earlier stages of the pandemic. Masks might be re-introduced, for example in schools.

For unvaccinated, they say it's a choice only between getting the infection at some time in the nearer future, with related risks, or getting the vaccine, with less risks.
85% of people older than 12 years, and 76.2 % of the total population, have had their vaccines.

[71 dB]

Cases finally going up here in DK, passing the 1000/daily mark, with experts maintaining prospects of 4000/daily around Christmas as a culmination and maybe 200 hospitalizations, but they're still saying that the sickness will be much less fatal and serious than in the earlier stages of the pandemic. Masks might be re-introduced, for example in schools.

For unvaccinated, they say it's a choice only between getting the infection at some time in the nearer future, with related risks, or getting the vaccine, with less risks.
85% of people older than 12 years, and 76.2 % of the total population, have had their vaccines.

Since Denmark and Finland are very similar size countries, comparing the numbers is pretty easy:

In Finland we have on average about 750 cases/day at the moment. In hospitals we have 208 covid patients of which 30+ are in intensive care. 77 % of patients in hospitals are unvaccinated. At this point we have 1133 corona deaths.

Twice vaccinated: 76 % of people older than 12 and 67 % of the whole population. Vaccine hesitancy has been stronger than expected. Especially young adults and immigrants have been lazy taking the vaccine. One theory for this laziness is that this pandemic has been relatively easy in Finland (mild restrictions) and it hasn't caused as much damage as in many other countries such as Italy and that's why younger adults don't take this seriously. Corona passport was introduced last Saturday and it might increase the interest of getting the vaccines.