StrangeSox

NYC has added 3,700+ deaths to their COVID totals today. These are not lab-confirmed but likely COVID deaths. They've been seeing big spikes in "coronary events," deaths at home etc. that weren't being officially classified since they didn't get a formal test. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html New York City, already a world epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, sharply increased its death toll by more than 3,700 victims on Tuesday, after officials said they were now including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it. The new figures, released by the city’s Health Department, drove up the number of people killed in New York City to more than 10,000, and appeared to increase the overall United States death count by 17 percent to more than 26,000. [...] The revised death toll renewed focus on shortcomings in testing that have hamstrung city and state officials since the beginning of the outbreak. A limited number of tests have been available, and until now, only deaths where a person had tested positive were counted among those killed by the virus in New York. But for weeks, the Health Department also had been recording additional deaths tied to the virus, according to two people briefed on the matter. Those cases involved people who were presumed to have been infected because of their symptoms and medical history. [..] Epidemiologists who study such events said a complete account would include an analysis of the number of so-called excess deaths caused by the coronavirus, comparing the number of New Yorkers who died of all causes during the outbreak with the number of people who die during the same time period in an average year. Those deaths, not caused by the disease but by other factors, can be connected to the outbreak, epidemiologists said, in part because of the way it overwhelmed the normal health care system. City health officials have been gathering data on “excess deaths” as well, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions at the department. It was not clear when those figures would be released.

Our institutions are failing us when we need them most.

Need to watch for tomorrow's numbers anyway. We've been seeing weekend and Monday dips followed by heavy Tuesday reports. But ultimately we are still far, far short of where we need to be with testing anyway.

From a former soxtalker

Absolute disaster of democracy in Wisconsin

Speaking of OtM, here's a good 20 minute segment on the origins of the HCQ hyping in the press https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/how-hydroxychloroquine-became-thing President Trump has continued to push the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for Covid-19, even though scientists say more research is needed to prove that it is safe and effective. But how'd we get here in the first place? Julia Carrie Wong is a reporter for The Guardian who has traced how a misleading, flawed study from France has become a widely-cited piece of evidence by media personalities on Fox and elsewhere. In this podcast extra, she explains what's deeply wrong with the study's conclusions and what happened when it got to be featured prominently by Trump's preferred television network. Wong talks to Bob about what's so appealing about the hydroxychloroquine narrative and why the administration might be so attracted to it.

All cable news is harmful trash. Add propublica to the list of solid investigative journalistic outlets. On the Media is really good weekly media criticism too!

Sports shutting down was definitely the "oh crap, this thing is serious" moment for a lot of people.

to lighten the mood a bit:

This is from San Antonio

In some potentially positive news, there's some researching going into an old tuberculous vaccine called "BCG" that's been administered in different ways in different populations around the world. It's not perfect, but there does seem to be some pretty good correlation with populations who received the vaccine in childhood having much better outcomes and populations who received it in adulthood having better outcomes. Unfortunately for most of us, what appears to be the most helpful variant wasn't given in the US. It's the one given largely in Warsaw Pact and eastern countries. Some background links: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/health/tuberculosis-bcg-vaccine-coronavirus/index.html https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/09/world/science-health-world/fewer-coronavirus-deaths-seen-countries-mandate-tuberculosis-vaccine/ a more technical paper on it: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.20053272v1 Here's a map of the different BCG vaccine types given in countries, but researches are digging down into whether the vaccine was mandatory or not and at what times.

That's a big concern for sure. We have such a disjointed and staggered approach and outbreaks. NYC gets this under control, loosens a bit, then people from other hotspots come pouring back in and they have to start all over again.

Really bad news if this holds true Basically no let up until a vaccine is widely available.

Ah, I've missed that, sorry!

They're doing furloughs not commutations of sentences.

It's based on dna tracing of the virus so I think they're fairly confident on the NYC origins

It's also believed that it came to the US from Europe via vacation and business travelers rather than directly from Asia. The federal government promised millions of tests almost a month ago. Instead:

Pritzker already signed an order, as have multiple other states (think California set all bail to $0 in most cases?)

This certainly doesn't help:

It seems like the Feds are outbidding for or outright seizing medical equipment ordered by the states and then doling it out as political favors where they deem helpful

So far none of the political leaders in our country have shown an interest in these sorts of mechanisms or in safeguarding our elections and our right to vote come November.