COVID-19 Thread
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I am olde enough that I tend to be skeptical with both sides of the political spectrum. The problem these days is trying to discern what is true and what is not, no matter the political bias. What I seem to run into is more apparently false/fake info coming from the right than the left. Your info above about the CDC ratcheting down their Covid deaths as an example. And the info from the Armstong article that had subtle slants to it that seemed to change what the CDC director actually said and meant.
Another example was in todays St. Louis Post Dispatch where a local rumor/fake news got started and was reposted from Facebook by MAGA nation about 30,000 times and even picked up by some various networks as true. The rumor was that the superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools was going to pawn shops to buy Chromebooks which were intended for virtual learning classes, but had been taken by parents and pawned instead of letting their kids use them. The City of St. Louis has a large black population so the concept that was implied is fairly obvious. The reality turned out to be much different. St. louis schools don't use Chromebook. High School students recieve Dell laptops and middle and elementary school kids recieve Ipads. No Chromebooks used at all.
30,000 posts of fake news. The info was traced back thru several sources who believed it and posted it to one parent who apparently was sthe original source and they would not comment for the article.
They did find though that in August a school administrator did call around to some pawn shops trying to see if he could track down any mobile devices that had not been turned back in by staff when school was closed down in the Spring from COVID-19.
Staff...not students or parents.
They found one laptop at one pawn shop..No word on whether that staff person who pawned the school property voted Red or Blue.
Messenger: A fake Facebook post about St. Louis schools goes viral with MAGA crowd and racism ensues
Inaccurate post about parents selling Chromebooks receives thousands of shares. It wasn’t true.
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Lol. I’m old enough to remember when busloads of Antifa were coming to various small towns in Iowa to loot because of BLM protests. All over multiple small community Facebook pages. Made it quick and easy to know who all the morons were around town.I am olde enough that I tend to be skeptical with both sides of the political spectrum. The problem these days is trying to discern what is true and what is not, no matter the political bias. What I seem to run into is more apparently false/fake info coming from the right than the left. Your info above about the CDC ratcheting down their Covid deaths as an example. And the info from the Armstong article that had subtle slants to it that seemed to change what the CDC director actually said and meant.
Another example was in todays St. Louis Post Dispatch where a local rumor/fake news got started and was reposted from Facebook by MAGA nation about 30,000 times and even picked up by some various networks as true. The rumor was that the superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools was going to pawn shops to buy Chromebooks which were intended for virtual learning classes, but had been taken by parents and pawned instead of letting their kids use them. The City of St. Louis has a large black population so the concept that was implied is fairly obvious. The reality turned out to be much different. St. louis schools don't use Chromebook. High School students recieve Dell laptops and middle and elementary school kids recieve Ipads. No Chromebooks used at all.
30,000 posts of fake news. The info was traced back thru several sources who believed it and posted it to one parent who apparently was sthe original source and they would not comment for the article.
They did find though that in August a school administrator did call around to some pawn shops trying to see if he could track down any mobile devices that had not been turned back in by staff when school was closed down in the Spring from COVID-19.
Staff...not students or parents.
They found one laptop at one pawn shop..No word on whether that staff person who pawned the school property voted Red or Blue.
Messenger: A fake Facebook post about St. Louis schools goes viral with MAGA crowd and racism ensues
Inaccurate post about parents selling Chromebooks receives thousands of shares. It wasn’t true.www.stltoday.com
All of it! It is just not true except on fringe right wing internet sites.
You cannot find a more qualified and intelligent expert on pandemics than Fauci. Graduated first in his class at Cornell Medical College, and has been a leading researcher for decades, often referenced in medical journals. He has served the U.S. since joining the NIH in 1968.
Fauci has served as a high level advisor under 6 presidents, republican and democrat alike. He's helped guide U.S. and global efforts in dealing with HIV, SARS, Swine Flu, MERS, and Ebola. And now Covid 19. No one has ever questioned his advice.... until our current president.
As far as CDC "rached down" covid death numbers... that is mostly BS propagated by QAnon and a few fringe websites and social media, and retweeted by Trump. If interested in the details:
.
No, the CDC Has Not “Quietly Updated” COVID-19 Death Estimates
An online conspiracy theory retweeted by President Donald Trump misconstrued data regarding the number of people who have died from the coronavirus.www.the-scientist.com
The U.S. has had ~ 190,000 deaths from covid, and most experts say that is likely an undercount. The Univ of Washington Health Institute model (used by the White House Corona task force) predicts the number could be over 400,000 by January, due to seasonality and declining of mask wearing, social distancing, etc.
U.S. coronavirus deaths projected to more than double to 410,000 by January
U.S. deaths from the coronavirus will reach 410,000 by the end of the year, more than double the current death toll, and deaths could soar to 3,000 per day in December, the University of Washington's health institute forecast on Friday.www.reuters.com
Fauci has revealed himself as a self serving guy who’s reveling in the spotlight. From his magazine covers to throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game to his overreaches on thinking he can regulate American society...he’s shown his true colors. All those things plus his last show his credibility is seriously questionable.
As for the Washington model, it’s been horrific from the start. No one buys that number. It makes no sense.
Here is the link the study cited where they claim the WHO stated 0.1% was the IFR:
Paragraph quoted in full:
Not only does it not make a distinction between CFR and IFR, it is using it in the same sentence as the estimated CFR at the time for COVID, so most would likely conclude they are in fact referring to CFR.
Most of what I've seen on the interwebs does in fact seem to point to the seasonal flu CFR being about 0.1%.
So while yes, there was likely unnecessary panic due to some people projecting up to 1% of people dying in the whole world, I haven't really seen any evidence to debunk the underlying claim that COVID is 10x deadlier than the flu.
Past Seasons Estimated Influenza Disease Burden | CDC
These page includes information about the estimated burden of influenza from past seasons, including tables of the estimated influenza disease burden (and 95% credible interval [Cr I]) by age group.
www.cdc.gov
CDC yearly flu estimates since 2010-2011. Deaths divided by "symptomatic illnesses" for most years is about 0.1%. And since you can also be asymptomatic but be infected with the flu, this number would have to be essentially the estimate for CFR, correct?
Fauci and Birx have served on the Gates Foundation leadership council. They are beholden to him and Gates is HEAVILY invested in this whole process. Hell, Gates even controls the fact checkers.
From The Columbia Journalism Review:
Excerpt:
Journalism’s Gates keepers
By Tim Schwab
AUGUST 21, 2020
LAST AUGUST, NPR PROFILED A HARVARD-LED EXPERIMENT to help low-income families find housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty.” According to researchers cited in the article, these children could see $183,000 greater earnings over their lifetimes—a striking forecast for a housing program still in its experimental stage.
If you squint as you read the story, you’ll notice that every quoted expert is connected to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps fund the project. And if you’re really paying attention, you’ll also see the editor’s note at the end of the story, which reveals that NPR itself receives funding from Gates.
NPR’s funding from Gates “was not a factor in why or how we did the story,” reporter Pam Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its grantees.
And that speaks to a larger trend—and ethical issue—with billionaire philanthropists’ bankrolling the news. The Broad Foundation, whose philanthropic agenda includes promoting charter schools, at one point funded part of the LA Times’ reporting on education. Charles Koch has made charitable donations to journalistic institutions such as the Poynter Institute, as well as to news organizations such as the Daily Caller News Foundation, that support his conservative politics. And the Rockefeller Foundation funds Vox’s Future Perfect, a reporting project that examines the world “through the lens of effective altruism”—often looking at philanthropy.
As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.
I recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’s agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’s funding into the fourth estate.
Journalism’s Gates keepers
<p>Last August, NPR profiled a Harvard-led experiment to help low-income families find housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty.” According to researchers cited in the article, these children could see...
www.cjr.org
And you make the jump that something nefarious is going on. Total right wing paranoia.Fauci and Birx have served on the Gates Foundation leadership council. They are beholden to him and Gates is HEAVILY invested in this whole process. Hell, Gates even controls the fact checkers.
From The Columbia Journalism Review:
Excerpt:
Journalism’s Gates keepers
By Tim Schwab
AUGUST 21, 2020
LAST AUGUST, NPR PROFILED A HARVARD-LED EXPERIMENT to help low-income families find housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty.” According to researchers cited in the article, these children could see $183,000 greater earnings over their lifetimes—a striking forecast for a housing program still in its experimental stage.
If you squint as you read the story, you’ll notice that every quoted expert is connected to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps fund the project. And if you’re really paying attention, you’ll also see the editor’s note at the end of the story, which reveals that NPR itself receives funding from Gates.
NPR’s funding from Gates “was not a factor in why or how we did the story,” reporter Pam Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its grantees.
And that speaks to a larger trend—and ethical issue—with billionaire philanthropists’ bankrolling the news. The Broad Foundation, whose philanthropic agenda includes promoting charter schools, at one point funded part of the LA Times’ reporting on education. Charles Koch has made charitable donations to journalistic institutions such as the Poynter Institute, as well as to news organizations such as the Daily Caller News Foundation, that support his conservative politics. And the Rockefeller Foundation funds Vox’s Future Perfect, a reporting project that examines the world “through the lens of effective altruism”—often looking at philanthropy.
As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.
I recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’s agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’s funding into the fourth estate.
Journalism’s Gates keepers
<p>Last August, NPR profiled a Harvard-led experiment to help low-income families find housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty.” According to researchers cited in the article, these children could see...
Your credibility is seriously questionable. Self-serving? More like self-sacrificing. Sounds like you're jealous.
The "Washington model" is the one we voted for, for better or for worse. It worked poorly, and then Trump made it much worse. Just "hate'in on the guvermint" gets you where?
What a lame reply! If there are $$$$billions at stake, you can be 1,000% certain something nefarious is going on.
This is a great example of where conspiracy theories start with a grain of truth and then take them into ridiculous territory. Yes, Bill Gate's level of involvement is concerning, but not because he's trying to take over the world with a fake virus, but because no single person should have the power and influence over public health decisions he has because of his wealth. It's undemocratic and inefficient.
What do you think is actually going on and what do you think the motive is?
I guess we would know more if debate was allowed. I am alarmed that he sat around the dinner table with his folks (dad ran Planned Parenthood and they were committed to eugenics) and discussed an over-populated world. His vaccine program in Africa and India is abominable. He's controlling the narrative from both sides. That's troubling.
This stuff is not helping your cause.
Also, you didn't answer the question. What is Bill Gates doing with Covid and what is the motivation?
I'm just a schmuck on a message board, like you. I don't need to establish "credibility" in this area. How self-sacrificing was Fauci when he did a cover shoot for Instyle magazine? He's enjoying the relevancy and the celebirty.
Also, the "Washington" reference was to the The Univ of Washington Health Institute model, not DC. It's been shown to not be rooted in reality.
And that's an argument? You have to show that there's a conspiracy. I'm not saying that every person involved is a saint, but that's no less true of this than every organization, religion, and corporation in America. Even if 5G has the potential for harm, it's difficult to attribute this to some huge gloabl conspiracy. And the anti-vaxers? Ridiculous. This is the Kennedy that went off the deep end. His whole family disowns him now.
Please stop posting the conspiracy theories here. All you do is undermine confidence in our ability to deal with a very tricky period in our nations history, but maybe that's the point, isn't it Ivan?
"Revealed himself as a self serving guy who's reveling in the spotlight." "Overreaches on thinking he can regulate American society......he's shown his true colors. All those things plus his last show his credibility is seriously questionable."
Are you talking about Trump or Fauci?
Yea, magazine covers and first pitches. How cruel and self absorbed can a guy be. Who does he think he is? He must think there is a Pandemic going on or something.
Guess he must deserve the death threats he gets after all.
Not sure about the death threats for his wife and family though.
"Revealed himself as a self serving guy who's reveling in the spotlight." "Overreaches on thinking he can regulate American society......he's shown his true colors. All those things plus his last show his credibility is seriously questionable."
Are you talking about Trump or Fauci?
Yea, magazine covers and first pitches. How cruel and self absorbed can a guy be. Who does he think he is? He must think there is a Pandemic going on or something.
Guess he must deserve the death threats he gets after all.
Not sure about the death threats for his wife and family though.
Where did I say he deserves death threats? Where did you get that from? And you know exactly who I was talking about so why Trump this up?
You have a guy who's telling people to stay home and not frequent businesses yet he's doing photo shoots, throwing out first pitches, trying to dictate American behavior (not his job), and overall reveling in the spotlight. There's something not right about that.
That is absolutely false right wing propaganda. That conspiracy theory has been debunked years ago.
You are correct! Why would any medical expert go out of his way to convince our US population to do things that would save thousands of lives. How dare he do that!
No, of course you didn't say he deserved death threats. Saw a TV interview couple weeks ago and at the end the interviewer asked him if he was still getting death threats. He said yes, but it doesn't bother him. Goes with being out in public. But he didn't like his wife and family getting death threats.
That's how crazy people are.......giving out death threats because he is trying to do his job as a health official. And threatening his wife and kids. Bunch of cowards out on the loose it looks like to me.
Fauci says "serious threats" have been made against him and his wife and daughters
"I mean, really? Is this the United States of America?" Fauci said.
www.cbsnews.com
and it's not just Fauci, it's public health officials across the country getting death threats, threats of hanging. Sheeeesh. Armed protesters showing up at their homes.
An 'alarming' exodus: public health officials fighting coronavirus depart amid growing threats, nonstop work
A Kaiser Health News/Associated Press review finds at least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April.
www.usatoday.com
He's getting death threats, has a security detail assigned to protect him and you think he's a bad guy because he's doing photo shoots, throwing out first pitches, trying to control American behavior, whatever that means, and revelling in the spotlight. Oh yeah, he should go to Hell for sure for all those crimes.
(sarc) Come up with something more substantial and then you might have something.I trumped it up, as you say, because everything you accused Fauci of fits The President even better. I thought it was funny. And I thought your complaints against Fauci were petty. Just. That. Simple.
I guess I'll have to take your word for it. You sound like a NYT reporter...unnamed sources and all.
You ignore the stellar reputation Fauci has built up over decades, serving 6 different presidents. No previous president had any trouble listening to him or following his advice.... until our current one. Fauci was, and is widely respected in the medical field.
I imagine if you go to talk to any of the medical experts in virology, infectious diseases and epidemiology at the U of Iowa, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, U Minn, ... virtually any place with a highly respected medical center, they would agree with most everything Fauci says. Those who don't are generally outside the mainstream, and some are genuine clowns. By focusing on "throwing out the first pitch" or being "on a magazine cover", you are obsessing about complete trivia.
No model forecasting the future is perfect. Models generally make a series of forecasts, based on how communities respond, and there is no way of knowing that. So there are typically a range of numbers. Is there some model that you think does a superior job?
Btw, if the Washington model has been so horrific, you might want to refresh your memory of Trump's predictions.
Except like many his focus is “stopping” a virus with an incredibly low IFR, consequences be damned. There’s a reason we have never let scientists run the world.
One is a “trusted” model and being used as supporting evidence in this very thread. But it’s predictions have never been rooted in reality. The other prediction you mention (Trump) are the rantings of a egotistical, maniacal, buffoon. Given how far off both predictions have been, do you really want to put the Washington model in the same category as Trump? Interesting strategy.
I also find it interesting that you and your boy Kwood both went Trump on me when a) politics don’t belong in a pandemic and b) you won’t find me defending our embarrassment of a president. I did not vote for him in 2016 nor will I this time. It’s too bad this is what we are left with to lead us.
It's embarrassing to watch what you and Thom have become.No, of course you didn't say he deserved death threats. Saw a TV interview couple weeks ago and at the end the interviewer asked him if he was still getting death threats. He said yes, but it doesn't bother him. Goes with being out in public. But he didn't like his wife and family getting death threats.
That's how crazy people are.......giving out death threats because he is trying to do his job as a health official. And threatening his wife and kids. Bunch of cowards out on the loose it looks like to me.
Fauci says "serious threats" have been made against him and his wife and daughters
"I mean, really? Is this the United States of America?" Fauci said.
and it's not just Fauci, it's public health officials across the country getting death threats, threats of hanging. Sheeeesh. Armed protesters showing up at their homes.
An 'alarming' exodus: public health officials fighting coronavirus depart amid growing threats, nonstop work
A Kaiser Health News/Associated Press review finds at least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April.www.usatoday.com
He's getting death threats, has a security detail assigned to protect him and you think he's a bad guy because he's doing photo shoots, throwing out first pitches, trying to control American behavior, whatever that means, and revelling in the spotlight. Oh yeah, he should go to Hell for sure for all those crimes.
I trumped it up, as you say, because everything you accused Fauci of fits The President even better. I thought it was funny. And I thought your complaints against Fauci were petty. Just. That. Simple.
We have been hearing wait for next month since this began. How long is it going to take to see the massive number of deaths in Iowa now that we are number 1 in cases?
You should be embarrassed to complain about two wise men who do not believe in right wing conspiracy theories.
The world needs sheep too, along with the far right, to keep everything in balance. Everyone seems to know, understand, and play their role well, no matter what subject or material is presented to them.
Are you just talking about Iowa? Nationally and in Iowa, there already was a “second wave” of deaths, which for the most part does seem to be coming back down now.
In terms of cases, it looks like Iowa had 2 big days, likely driven by colleges and maybe schools, and has since dropped back down to similar numbers as previously. IMO I wouldn’t be expecting another rise in deaths in Iowa in the immediate future.
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The IHME (Univ of Washington) model is used by the White House, and in general, their models have, if anything, been rosier than some of the others, but nothing disconnected from reality. They produce many different projections based on different mitigation measures taken by any given country, and who can know which ones and how well they will be carried out? So I'm a little mystified what your beef with IHME is.... anything specific?
As far as not mixing politics with a pandemic.... your criticism would be valid under most any other president. But given the debacle the U.S. has experienced in dealing with covid due to Trump's complete mishandling, it's hard to separate the two. They are intimately related.
No need to be overly dramatic. Iowa experienced an initial rise in covid cases in Apr through early May, followed by rising death counts. Things leveled off and even dropped in early summer. Since then, and with the start of school, cases have spiked upward. Deaths have ticked up slightly, but remember, there is always a lag in deaths.
Hopefully, with better treatments now, plus many of the newer cases tend to be younger folks (students and young adults), the death numbers won't rise much more.
recent graphs of covid case #'s and death #'s for Iowa:
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