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Number of new infections in the USA yesterday:  124,390
Total number of infections n China : 86,212

This week about twice as many Americans will die of Covid than the total death rate of China.

More Americans died of Covid in the time between polls closing and Fox declaring Biden the winner than died on 9/11/2001. 

Yet, as a country we still don’t take it seriously.   

That's still cute you think China has accurate numbers

As accurate as the US numbers. 

Tenshot13, do you believe Japan's numbers are accurate?

The US is basically the worst country in the world when it comes to COVID statistics, but there are several (non-China) countries in Asia that seem to have done an outstanding job fighting the virus.  Do you think all those numbers are misreported?

+1

If we could completely separate politics from Covid then we could have a real discussion. As it is ... I have to believe there is no way many people are being honest about their opinions on Covid.

Self-knowledge is a righteous thing, brother...glad to see you're taking that first step. ;)

It should be about the science, not the politics.

Science says wear masks.

Science says test and contact trace. Not slow the testing down.

Science says minimize contact with others.

Science says provide assistance to states in need not based on what party the governor is from.

Science says cooperate with other countries, not leave the WHO.
 

Science has been back and forth on a few of those. It has also shown that if you contract covid you are 99.5 % chance of surviving. In fact the CDC and WHO show that under the age of 69 you have twice as much of a chance from dying of other things.

Science is NOT static.  The very definition of science includes changing as new evidence becomes available.

Which ones has science been back and forth on? If you're talking about the masks, science has always been the same, wear a mask. What has changed is what was being recommended, but that recommendation was not because of the science it was based on the availability of masks and trying to make sure there were enough of them for those that needed them the most. That's not science saying that, that's logistics saying that.

Pappy has it exactly correct: no medical authorities ever said "masks don't make a difference," and I openly challenge anyone to find a quote of Dr. Fauci (or a similar authority) saying "Medical providers don't need masks."  Back in the spring, we were experiencing widespread shortages of everything from toilet paper to hand soap to canned food, and medical authorities didn't want laymen buying up all the masks.  Medical providers were already having major shortages of PPE.

This is why it is difficult to take conservatives seriously when they claim that Trump always treated the virus as a major threat and not as a trivial hoax: every other time y'all speak, you reflexively keep switching back to "It's not a big deal!" excuses.

"99.5% of people who catch it survive"
"only old people are at serious risk"
"people who die have other pre-existing conditions"
"the flu kills more people"
"the death counts are inflated"
"H1N1 was worse"
"the US has more deaths than other countries because of an unhealthy population"

You can't stop yourselves from habitually minimizing the severity of COVID, even as you insist that Trump and the GOP never minimized the severity of COVID.

Pick a lane.

https://www.independent.co.uk/world/covid19-china-mishandle-pandemic-leaked-documents-b1764276.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/world/covid19-china-mishandle-pandemic-leaked-documents-b1764276.html)

Hmmm, it's almost like someone here predicted this....

Did anyone claim otherwise? China will *always* try to present itself in the most flattering way possible, especially to the rest of the world.

If you are interested, I would suggest finding a more detailed review of the lying. As the article you link notes, "China publicly reported 2,478 new confirmed cases while privately reporting 5,918 new cases". The difference here lies in 3 categories of numbers for possible infections which was a direct result of having very limited (and slow) testing capacity initially. Those three categories were "confirmed positive by testing", "assumed positive by clinical indications" (e.g. fever, dry cough), and "suspected positive" (for other often completely arbitrary reasons). Hardly surprising that China only released the first of those publicly.

Finally, let's just look at your claim at the top of this thread:

"That's still cute you think China has accurate numbers "

Actually, even with the full numbers, the statement you were responding to is still valid, so your snide comments still place you solidly in denial land.

Did anyone claim otherwise?  Yes, the very first post of the thread lol.
Number of new infections in the USA yesterday:  124,390
Total number of infections n China : 86,212

The whole comparison is based off accurate numbers by China.  They aren't accurate.

Also, it seems you decided to not read the rest of the article after your "gotcha" moment.

The documents also showed an undisclosed outbreak of influenza from December 2019 in Hubei province, more severe in Yichang and Xianning than in Wuhan.  

The internal data showed a 2,059 per cent increase over 2018 that had not been previously reported.

They are a mess, they can't accurately report anything it seems.  Or it's intentional...


Actually, even with the full numbers, the statement you were responding to is still valid, so your snide comments still place you solidly in denial land.
My "snide" comments weren't even directed at you Johnny White Knight.  The point of the article is China isn't reporting anything accurately.  Also, what am I solidly in denial about?  Be specific.

china's reporting 4,634 deaths and according to this report, lets even triple that, they'd be sitting at what .. 13000 deaths? in a country 3 times the population of the US ?

wow .. it's shocking to me that we're pointing at china fudging numbers between 83 and 175 deaths in one case or between 2400 and 5600 cases in another and somehow implying "a-ha" when we have almost 275000 deaths

So you're saying China's numbers are mostly accurate then?

I find it equal parts depressing and ridiculous that people are taking time to nitpick the accuracy of another country's COVID statistics instead of concerning yourself with the 275,000 Americans already buried...

  ???  :'(

It's about perspective, I find it very hard to believe that the two countries more populated than the US have significantly lower numbers.  Then, people try to compare those inaccurate numbers to our numbers. 

Let me check with those 275,000 to see how they feel about your beliefs... ;)

You understand I wasn't the one who started comparing China's numbers to the US and that's how this whole thread started right?

First off, if "mostly accurate" is your definition for a 300% difference than .. sure i guess .. triple the amount is mostly accurate.

To your point above. Why is it hard to believe?
We have by far the most incompetent, ineffective leadership on the planet.
It would be incredibly difficult to find a single worse president/prime minister/dear leader with less skill, vision or ability than Trump around the entire globe.

We've had by far the worst time with Covid out of the entire world.

Is it so hard to believe that an authoritarian country like China that values the whole more than individuality could have a much more effective response to a pandemic that can only be tackled as a community and doesn't give a shit about individuality or personal freedom?

Most of the things you posted above are your own shitty opinion.  The last part, yes I find hard to believe even with the most draconian of measures.

MANY of countries have fewer deaths per million inhabitants than the US. In fact, all but a handful of countries with a population of over a million have seen fewer deaths (relatively) than the US.

Are you disputing the accuracy of the numbers from all those countries? Or just China's and India's? In the latter case, who cares? That doesn't change the situation on the ground, nor does it change the fact that pretty much every aspect of it has been mismanaged from day 1.

It's like you guys are just refusing to acknowledge how this thread started.


This is what I am arguing against, comparing our statistics to China's when they have proven time and time again to be corrupt and inaccurate.  If you guys want to keep moving your goalpost on what I should or should not be talking about be my guest.  I'm not going to address it further.

Whatever the specific numbers are, we do know for a fact what the situation would look like if we did nothing. Just look at Northern Italy early on, to use a Western example. The hospitals were absolutely swamped, people were dying in the waiting rooms and hallways, nowhere to stack the dead. Even in the most fervent freedom-loving, anti-government state in the US, that would result in the people DEMANDING action. Even with the actions Italy did take (complete and utter lockdown) 0.1% of the population died. To date, 0.2% of the population of Lombardy (where Milan is) have died, the vast majority during the spring outbreak. The US is at 0.08%. Image twice that over a period of a few weeks instead!

The difference between Italy and the US is that one was caught by surprise, the other chose a deliberate course of (non-)action - and people like you BITCHING about what action has been taken, well, there's no question what things would look like if you got your way. There's plenty of blood on your hands as is.

Treatment is better today, but what happens when hospitals get swamped is that it doesn't matter much anymore, since the majority won't get any treatment, let alone the elevated level of care that leads to the current "low" mortality rates.

Back to the subject of China:

I have some experience with China.  I've been there and my family lived there for a long time.

Firstly, I wouldn't put it past them to manipulate data.  However, in this case, it doesn't surprise me one bit that they'd be uniquely fit to handle a crisis like this. 
People wears masks in China.  Normally...like, on the bus and walking the streets, people are wearing masks in big crowds, in general.  They just have a different view of that kind of stuff already, so wearing a mask when there's an outbreak is a no-brainer.

But also, there really isn't any amount of not complying with their government.  If they mandate a mask in public, believe it -- you're wearing one.  If not, they scoop you up off the street and take you God knows where to be tortured or killed or whatever.  If there is a lockdown, you will not be breaking it.  Trust.

They also have state sanctioned TV, so there is no dissent or alternate opinion.  There are no deniers or anti-maskers.

That's not to say that it's a better way of life, but it's a more effective way of stomping out a pandemic that requires 100% cooperation.

If you want to discount the numbers coming out of China (or Russia), I can't blame you: they are authoritarian dictatorships, and even if their numbers are accurate, they are being achieved with measures (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/26/906206090/china-calls-it-a-wartime-mode-covid-19-lockdown-and-residents-are-protesting) that even the most outspoken anti-COVID posters here would consider excessive (e.g. the gov't sealing people in their homes with metal bars, or requiring people to quarantine in place at work while preventing them from going home to their families).

But this doesn't explain India.

India is not a communist dictatorship; they're a pretty standard liberal democracy.  India has over four times the population of the US, in less than one-third of the land area, for a population density that's over twelve times higher than the US.  Our GDP is EIGHT times more than India's.

And yet India has less than half as many COVID deaths as the US.
How is that even possible?

The leadership in our country has been criminally incompetent.

India's low death rate has nothing to do with leadership.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/explaining-indias-extraordinarily-low-death-rate-from-covid-19/ (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/explaining-indias-extraordinarily-low-death-rate-from-covid-19/)

That's just the first one I came across, there are many more articles explaining why.

Do you think it's fair to say that it has NOTHING to do with leadership?

I can understanding thinking it's a combination of factors.  But surely, you must recognize that we are doing very, very little to combat this virus and there isn't a consistent narrative about how to work together to do anything about it.  In fact, there is widespread denial, refusal of safety compliance, etc.  That is pretty uniquely a US problem.

From the article:

Two months have passed. My optimistic projections have come true across the world. In fact, my 30 May estimates were pessimistic. The pandemic has turned out to be more than 100 times less lethal than Spanish flu. It is also largely over in Europe, including in Belgium, Sweden and the UK. It is close to the end in the US, with multiple scientific projections that the final death toll in USA will be around 165-175 thousand.

Yeah, he hit the nail on the head on that one.

As for India's handling, they did lock down the large parts of the country very severely early on (March), which. This lockdown was in place (and even expanded) until May when things started to open up again. That saw a massive spike in infections (and deaths), the vast majority of which occurred after the article you link to was written. Severe regional lockdowns got the infection under control much like the US saw after the early summer spike.

What happens in India the coming months will depend entirely on how they handle restrictions. There are still more restrictions in place than in most US states, despite seeing far fewer new cases and an essentially static situation.

That said, I have more faith in the US healthcare system being able to handle a massive spike in cases than in the Indian.

It's worth noting in the Indian situation that the initial lockdowns were massively skewed both economically and in terms of efficacy. The economic hardship was proportionately borne by the poor, while lockdowns did relatively little to curb the spread in the poorer regions of Mumbai and New Delhi. There is simply no practical way to prevent transmission when people live in the conditions that exist in those areas.

Of course it has to do with leadership, but there is plenty of blame to go around to state leaders and shouldn't all be on Trump.  Also comparably, a lot of other European countries (U.K., France have about the same death rate, Italy was worse) are doing roughly the same as the U.S. percentage wise, they have less people though so everyone focuses on "200k".  Could it have been handled better?  Of course, especially by Trump, but I think there are a lot of complicated factors that people choose to ignore because they have an "orange man bad" agenda.

Absolutely.

Trump does set the narrative with the bully pulpit.  I don't expect Trump to legislate our way out of that.  All of the legislation part is gonna come from local/state officials.  But he should set the example that the people would then follow.  Trump has been disasterous for this pandemic, there is no consistent message and when there is one, it's of denial of seriousness.

Florida is in terrible shape, too.  Our governor has basically said that we're doing nothing statewide.  Any restrictions are coming at the county level and, if anything, are being fought by the state.

Where I live, it's not so bad.  In general, people do what they're supposed to.  When I go places, sometimes I'll see one person without a mask on indoors and it's a pretty shocking sight because you're just not used to it.  But I do have neighbors that are having parties full of people like there's nothing happening.

Of course it isn't all on Trump. It also falls on every GOP politician that was so afraid that Trump would twitter-attack them for disagreeing with him that they said nothing at all and let it happen.

I think that any chance of anyone having a full understanding of the facts about COVID was lost the minute that the politicians (of either party) got involved. 

I would have a whole lot easier time accepting the "either party" part of that statement if you could just show me one example of a Dem governor or congressman that referred to the COVID as "a hoax."

Go ahead...I can wait.  ;)

Oh I wasn't implying that any Dem governors or congressmen have referred to it as a "hoax".   I just meant that both sides have politicized the entire thing and as soon as any topic becomes politicized, facts take a back seat to "agenda".   Not saying that they throw facts completely out of the conversation, but facts become secondary to political agenda.  Granted I am jaded after spending the last 15 years dealing with politicians on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.  Politicians care about their poll numbers first.  If the good of the country is also involved then that is fine, but facts and what is best for the country are at best secondary and most often tertiary or even worse. 

I hate to just poo-poo the "both sides" thing, but I really gotta.

The left isn't politicizing this, as far as I can tell.  Our understanding of things is changing and thus, our response seems to be changing.  Like, at first the CDC essentially lied about the importance of masks, because they needed them in healthcare providers' hands, we had an over-importance of clean hands/gloves when this seems to be more aerosol-based.  And we're getting better at treatment and tracking.

The middle and left seem to be pretty much on the same page....wear masks in public, distance when possible, avoid gatherings outside of your immediate bubble, shutdown some services as numbers spike.  It's just following the science, not politics.

It's the fringe of the right...and I wouldn't even call it conservatives, but whatever Trumpism/libertarian amalgam that is decrying freedom withering or outright denying the efficacy of masks or the virus itself.  That's the political line.  We know what it takes to combat this.  It's just that the hardcore Trumpers are measurably less-likely to comply with what's needed.


In my neighborhood, there are three houses that pretty regularly have big gatherings...tons of cars, no masks.  All of them fly Trump flags.

You could be right, Dave.  I'm admittedly coming into the discussion as being pretty much biased against all politicians just because of my own experiences with them. I have found most of them to be such loathsome and selfish individuals that it makes it hard for me to believe anything that comes out of any of them.   

I think a lot gets lumped into not believing the science. Many people who refuse to wear them believe the "science" but also think the hype is overgrown by certain media outlets and that less than 1/2 percent doesn't justify ruining millions of peoples lives and shutting down. It's no secret if you reported just on how many people survived covid that many people would have a more positive outlook.

Do you apply that flawed logic to everything? 

Lets get rid of DUI laws, the vast majority of people who drive home from a bar drunk don’t kill anyone.

In my town of 15827 people, yesterday 15826 of them did not need an ambulance and all 15827 of them did not have a house fire.   Should we get of the ambulance and fire trucks. 

Most smokers don’t die of lung cancer, therefore banning 4 year olds from buying cigarettes is stupid. 

Odds are if I don’t look both ways I can still cross the street without being hit.

 

I think you're ridiculous but is this one true?

Only 10% to 15% of smokers get lung cancer.

But don't forget other smoking-related problems like heart disease, stroke or emphysema

With Covid we only count the people who die of the disease immediately, but not the 20 year old who survived Covid with 20% lung capacity who will die at age 30 from shoveling snow.

True, and that is a good point because we may not know the full effect of Covid for many years.  But unfortunately with Covid we also count people who die "with" Covid as Covid deaths even if the underlying condition of diabetes, coronary disease, etc. is the main reason they died.  And therein lies the problem with the number of deaths attributed to Covid.  By no means am I saying that Covid is not a terrible problem and I'm not denying that a huge number of people die as a direct result of Covid.  But a lot of people fail to recognize the difference between "dying WITH Covid" and "dying FROM Covid".   Again, I am not downplaying the horrible number of people who truly are dying because of Covid.  But just like with everything, as long as there is money to be made from the misery of others, people are going to play shenanigans with numbers. 

By this logic nobody has ever died from AIDS. they died with aids .. but never from aids.

Others have already explained some of the problems here, but this outdated article from July - after India had previously imposed strict lockdowns - reads like fairy tale denialism.  The author does not, for a single moment, appear to consider the ramifications of the claim "Vitamin D significantly reduces the spread of COVID"; he just throws it out there to distract from the notable success of India's early lockdowns, in exactly the same way that he invents a convenient "resistance due to the common cold" that Indians supposedly have.  (I wonder why Brazil, another large developing nation in the tropics, does not seem to enjoy the same protection as India?)

Furthermore, the fact that we are comparing ourselves to a developing country like India (and losing!) is itself an embarrassingly low bar.  The real question should be why we aren't doing BETTER (in deaths per million) than other economically strong democracies like Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada, and Australia?  Since when has America been reduced to this "Technically, we're not the worst" excuse-making?

Nope.  That isn't even remotely what I said.  I said that there is a difference between "died WITH Covid" and "died FROM Covid".     

Maybe you just missed the part where I said "I'm not denying that a huge number of people die as a direct result of Covid."

Maternity leave
ending  slavery
Use of death penalty
equal opportunity  for women
treatment of indignant peoples
treatment of refugees
number of imprisoned persons
gun deaths
civil rights
Line of thinking was also used to justify treatment of Japanese American citizens in WWII

This is not new.  The fact that one other country does it worse or just as bad as us is used as justification (particularly by the right) to justify resistance to change.