CDC Director: Impending Doom

[monsterkitty]

COVID was the third leading cause of death last year.

The leading two, heart disease and cancer, aren't contagious. You can't get either from attending a birthday party, wedding, going to a concert or movie, or eating in a restaurant.

We should be cautious. Especially with the new variants.

 

[dvcgirl67]

I know at least that many, people who died, people hospitalized, long haulers, I had a fever for 2 weeks, my 18 year old for 5 days, my girlfriend went to the hospital for a transfusion, actually at this point almost everyone I know has either had it, been vaccinated, or both. I’m in the NYC area, I figure eventually it will move on from here and take hold elsewhere.

Same here in my part of NJ. And our numbers in NJ are not great right now...at all. 3,464 positive PCR tests last week....this week 4,699. A 35% jump from the previous week is no joke. We count antigen tests separately.....and I didn't include those numbers because some people get the rapid test and if positive...go for the PCR test, so there are some duplicates. But those PCR numbers are real.

As a nation we seem to be spiking in the north....like last year at this time, numbers in the south and west are lower. I'll be interested to see, if after spring/holiday breaks...with many more people on the move and the B117 variant really ramping up....if we see a spike in cases down south like we did last year.

 

[sam_gordon]

Same here in my part of NJ. And our numbers in NJ are not great right now...at all. 3,464 positive PCR tests last week....this week 4,699. A 35% jump from the previous week is no joke. We count antigen tests separately.....and I didn't include those numbers because some people get the rapid test and if positive...go for the PCR test, so there are some duplicates. But those PCR numbers are real.

As a nation we seem to be spiking in the north....like last year at this time, numbers in the south and west are lower. I'll be interested to see, if after spring/holiday breaks...with many more people on the move and the B117 variant really ramping up....if we see a spike in cases down south like we did last year.

How many were tested each week? What's the percentage difference? How's your hospitalization/icu/ventilators count?

I think you need to be careful what you focus on. Sure, your case count went up 35%, but did the number of tests also increase 35%? If so, your case count isn't that worrisome.

 

[Katie Dawn]

On the other side of that are the people who haven't seen anyone die or seriously ill from COVID.
We are all looking at it from our own experiences and points of view. Based on what you wrote I can totally see why you would see the impending doom of the virus. For many of us though we look at the overall numbers and the fact that we haven't seen it personally and come to a different opinion.

Not all of us base our medical opinions on our personal experiences. Not a single person in my circle has been diagnosed with COVID, thankfully. But this situation is far bigger than my individual experience, and I know our individual perceptions can't always be trusted. So the thoughts of medical experts weighs more heavily than my own little story.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Was at work recently and at least right now things seem pretty normal at out facility. That said I have seen it be pure chaos in Summer and never want to see that again.

 

[dvcgirl67]

How many were tested each week? What's the percentage difference? How's your hospitalization/icu/ventilators count?

I think you need to be careful what you focus on. Sure, your case count went up 35%, but did the number of tests also increase 35%? If so, your case count isn't that worrisome.

I know how it works....and I'm not saying that this is going to be anything like last spring, or even worse...this past mega-surge we went through. I don't expect hospitalizations to pile up like we saw last spring...or this past Jan/Feb....but they did plateau, and are again going up. Up 7% over last week. Deaths have come way down...last week we had lost just 50 souls, today...75. So deaths were going down, down....plateaued and now ticking up, hopefully for just a short period of time.

Thankfully vaccines are helping....but we still have seen a sizeable increase in cases, and with that...an uptick in hospitalizations, and yes...even deaths. The good news is that we've hopefully vaccinated the most vulnerable among us, but it shouldn't be lost on anyone that we're once again losing over 1,000 people a day to this virus. And this is why the Director of the CDC is pleading for patience when it comes to masks....etc. It would be lovely to think we're all finished with this virus, but we're not.

 

[DisneyOma]

A virus with a high death rate probably would burn out faster. No one wants that of course not at all. But the fact that the death rate is what it is means the virus can stick around longer as it finds hosts to continue to spread it to, and those hosts can spread it to others and so on. That is actually working against us. I don't at all agree with what the other person is talking about so please don't think me responding with what I'm saying means I agree with them.

Yeah, the black plague was no joke, that's for certain. What I've been hearing from my medical research daughter is that the big concern is that the virus will keep mutating and possibly not be affected by the present vaccines so we'd need to keep on top of the vaccine schedule for everyone on the planet for many, many years. I'm thinking it could get to be part of an annual flu vaccination, but many more people would need to agree to be vaccinated.

 

[KingAugie]

Not all of us base our medical opinions on our personal experiences. Not a single person in my circle has been diagnosed with COVID, thankfully. But this situation is far bigger than my individual experience, and I know our individual perceptions can't always be trusted. So the thoughts of medical experts weighs more heavily than my own little story.

I said we base our opinions on our experiences and our points of view, so for you that is the medical experts.
I stopped listening to the doom coming from the CDC sometime last year when it was clear that they'd say one thing one week, revise or retract it the next. While they may be considered experts it sure seems like they are playing a guessing game. Besides that, I understand that this is a virus and it will continue to spread, that's what viruses do. The numbers aren't suddenly going to flatline.
We are nowhere near where we were last year, or even just this last December. We are about in the same place we were last July when the CDC was worried we'd have a huge spike after the 4th, and that never really happened. And that was before millions were getting vaccinated. You can listen all you want, I'll still choose to look at the numbers and unless they spike out of control again I'm not going to worry.

 

[penn19]

With over half a million deaths just about every single person in this country knows of someone who has died of COVID. This disease has spared no one from loss. That being said, closing down now appears to be the wrong thing to have done. The states that stayed semi open (Florida and Texas to name 2) are not seeing the large increases in cases as the states that closed down tight (California, Michigan, NY). It is interesting that while Texas claimed to be fully open, when my daughter was on vacation there all businesses still required masks. You can be open and still use some common sense protecting yourself and those around you.

Yes! Us Neanderthals in Texas. I’m in Walmart weekly. I still see everyone wearing a mask. Restaurants also.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

You know not for nothing, I was way uptown (120's) in NY recently and I was surprised how many people were not wearing masks in NYC. Its sad that all some stations seem to do is point out certain states not being responsible. I was really shocked to see how few people were wearing masks, it was outside but I was really shocked. Got out of there as qucik as I could. Has anybody else experianced this or is it me. Maybe just caught a weird time. Where I am its not like that.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

How many were tested each week? What's the percentage difference? How's your hospitalization/icu/ventilators count?

I think you need to be careful what you focus on. Sure, your case count went up 35%, but did the number of tests also increase 35%? If so, your case count isn't that worrisome.

Positive test rate is up 0.8% over last week in New Jersey so it's not just the number of tests:

https://covidactnow.org/us/new_jersey-nj/?s=1723645
I agree that data has to be looked at holistically but every metric is trending the wrong direction right now in the northeastern states.

 

[jlwhitney]

My area for Florida has their first 100% capacity masks only recommended not required event... the county fair which is super popular and expected to have thousands over the 11 days. It is 90% outdoors as is.

I am not worried but I’ll be interested to see how it goes, we go tomorrow.

 

[mjkacmom]

Positive test rate is up 0.8% over last week in New Jersey so it's not just the number of tests:
View attachment 566478
https://covidactnow.org/us/new_jersey-nj/?s=1723645
I agree that data has to be looked at holistically but every metric is trending the wrong direction right now in the northeastern states.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Positive test rate is up 0.8% over last week in New Jersey so it's not just the number of tests:
View attachment 566478
https://covidactnow.org/us/new_jersey-nj/?s=1723645
I agree that data has to be looked at holistically but every metric is trending the wrong direction right now in the northeastern states.

Right....keep hearing it's "kids"....but unfortunately there will be some younger adults with comorbidities...and older adults who didn't get the vaccine yet caught up in this increase in cases.

 

[GAN]

I think you need to be careful what you focus on. Sure, your case count went up 35%, but did the number of tests also increase 35%? If so, your case count isn't that worrisome.

.

I don't see why percentage, tests v. cases, means crap honestly. If you're positive count is up, covid is spreading. You could test 10,000 or 1,000,000 ...you're still up 35%! People get tests for various reasons -work, because they sneezed, whatever. In my opinion, case count is everything and any increase is worrisome -even more so when people are being vaccinated so the number should be level or down. But for sure, hospital bed/ventilator availability would be critically important.

 

[Colleen27]

You mean the person who said that they have been going about their daily life and hasn't contracted or spread COVID to anyone in the last year?
300,000,000 people not infected. I'm sure there are people who have shut down living but I think it's safe to assume that there are many in that 300 million who are doing the same as the OP.

That 300,000,000 figure only holds up if you imagine that every single person who had covid, even those who had no symptoms or who had symptoms back when testing supplies were limited or access restricted to those who had been to China, was tested. That is very obviously not the case. And for most people, it is impossible to say that they haven't had it or spread it because aside from those who are going out of their way to monitor their antibody status, someone who had a mild or asymptomatic case would very likely never know s/he had it and never know if s/he spread it to others.

With over half a million deaths just about every single person in this country knows of someone who has died of COVID. This disease has spared no one from loss. That being said, closing down now appears to be the wrong thing to have done. The states that stayed semi open (Florida and Texas to name 2) are not seeing the large increases in cases as the states that closed down tight (California, Michigan, NY). It is interesting that while Texas claimed to be fully open, when my daughter was on vacation there all businesses still required masks. You can be open and still use some common sense protecting yourself and those around you.

This was discussed early on too, back when some of us were pointing out the absurdity of "two weeks to stop the spread" and other such marketing nonsense. The whole idea of flattening the curve was to spread cases out over a longer time horizon to protect our medical system from collapse, not to prevent them entirely. Unless the closure could last until vaccination efforts ramped up enough to approach herd immunity, the virus was bound to be out there just waiting for whatever restrictions were implemented to be relaxed.

But I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it was the wrong thing to do. There's a clear pattern in cumulative case rates, with the open states topping the list and those that took more precautions having fewer, and if the current data trends hold up, that difference is likely to add up to a significant number of lives saved in states like mine where cases are surging again but deaths have remained flat (probably because the majority of those in age groups with the highest risk of death are vaccinated). FL and TX look better than MI right now, at this moment in time, but they've both had over 2000 more cases per 100K than we have since the start of the pandemic, and they had those cases when everyone was still vulnerable to the most severe impacts of the virus.

 

[Colleen27]

So I heard an interesting (and somewhat reassuring) take on Michigan's dismal numbers from a friend who works at a hospital in the area. She said that the number of covid patients is increasing fast... but that they're generally younger and not as sick as those that were being admitted during our fall spike. Fewer of them are needing ICU level care, and far fewer are ending up on ventilators. Her feeling is that the threshold for hospital admission is lower now - that some of the patients being admitted now would have been sent home and told to self-monitor in Nov. or Dec. - because of two factors: the fact that there is room to admit them where there wasn't before because older/sicker patients needed the beds more, and the fact that there are treatment options available that can only be administered on an in-patient basis that didn't exist or weren't as available 5-6 months ago. And I can tell by talking to her that she genuinely feels like things aren't as bad as they were. In the fall, she absolutely radiated stress and burnout. Now she seems like her normal self, busy but not overwhelmed or at her breaking point.

 

[KingAugie]

That 300,000,000 figure only holds up if you imagine that every single person who had covid, even those who had no symptoms or who had symptoms back when testing supplies were limited or access restricted to those who had been to China, was tested. That is very obviously not the case. And for most people, it is impossible to say that they haven't had it or spread it because aside from those who are going out of their way to monitor their antibody status, someone who had a mild or asymptomatic case would very likely never know s/he had it and never know if s/he spread it to others.

Yes, in a previous post I specifically mentioned 300 million who didn't have it, had mild enough case that they didn't bother getting tested, or they had no symptoms at all and didn't know they were infected.
I didn't feel the need to repeat that in the post of mine you quoted but I should have.
That is still a large enough number of people who were "fine" whether they had it or not. That's the number that is important to me.
And the pp I was speaking about in that post has clarified that they never had COVID and therefore never spread it.

 

[jlwhitney]

So I heard an interesting (and somewhat reassuring) take on Michigan's dismal numbers from a friend who works at a hospital in the area. She said that the number of covid patients is increasing fast... but that they're generally younger and not as sick as those that were being admitted during our fall spike. Fewer of them are needing ICU level care, and far fewer are ending up on ventilators. Her feeling is that the threshold for hospital admission is lower now - that some of the patients being admitted now would have been sent home and told to self-monitor in Nov. or Dec. - because of two factors: the fact that there is room to admit them where there wasn't before because older/sicker patients needed the beds more, and the fact that there are treatment options available that can only be administered on an in-patient basis that didn't exist or weren't as available 5-6 months ago. And I can tell by talking to her that she genuinely feels like things aren't as bad as they were. In the fall, she absolutely radiated stress and burnout. Now she seems like her normal self, busy but not overwhelmed or at her breaking point.

But didn't someone say that MI had younger and sicker than in the fall in the hospital, or was that something in the news....

 

[Colleen27]

But didn't someone say that MI had younger and sicker than in the fall in the hospital, or was that something in the news....

The news has been all over a report about an 800% increase in the number of 40-somethings hospitalized and a 633% increase in hospitalizations of 30-somethings. Which did alarm me at first, until I tried to dig further into the data and found out that they don't release raw numbers. So that increase could be going from 1 to 8 40-something patients or 100 to 800 or anything in between. It is hard to glean any significance from the rate of increase without the additional context of overall prevalence. And if they're hospitalizing less-sick patients, as my friend said, that would at least partially account for why the profile of hospitalized patients is getting younger (and make the rate-of-increase numbers even more difficult to contextualize because "sick enough to be hospitalized" wouldn't have a consistent definition across the entire span of time).