I'm sorry, but your anecdotal evidence does not contradict the facts and you have presented nothing to counter my points. Deaths are in fact down 90% since the April peak in the US. Deaths are the ONLY metric that can be measured consistently over the past several months - and don't need to be normalized for # of tests. Asymptomatic people were not being tested in March/April. Now they are. So a vast number of the "new cases" are being detected because we have dramatically expanded the testing population. These asymptomatic cases are among the young - i.e. Rockets-player ages - and NOT cause for concern because the recovery rate is almost 100%. We are NOT seeing an increase in cases, but rather an increase in cases detected. The number of undetected cases in March/April was huge. Anyone that tells you that the virus is spreading, when deaths are dropping like a rock, is ignoring the sample size of the population being tested and dramatically underestimating case counts from the Spring. If total cases (unknown + known) is rising (again, very doubtful), then it's a very mild strain that has an IFR lower than many other viruses that we live with. Hospitals expanded and contract COVID and ICU space as needed. The director of Houston's COVID response said this on CNBC this morning. We are NOT running out of hospital space in Houston - the level of alarm is totally unwarranted according to the CEOs of Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, St Luke's and Texas Childrens. They see plenty of space and can expand further. See story below. https://justthenews.com/politics-po...t-counting-every-covid-positive-hospital-case And claiming expert status because "you work at a hospital" is a very disingenuous thing to do. Almost like a stolen valor type of dishonesty. Are you purporting to be a doctor? If you are, then why not say it? If you are not a doctor, and work at a hospital in some lesser capacity, then you are being very dishonest to claim expert status simply because of your daily proximity to a hospital. That's actually shameful.
What Thabo is saying seems to be true. A friend of mine is in Houston sports media and alluded to me that a certain Rockets player had Covid about 10 days ago, right before Thabo left. I guess that makes sense now. What shocks me is that it hasn't been reported.
If they haven't been social distancing, quarantined and wearing mask, then it's very irresponsible of them. Of all people, these athletes have the means to stay home and quarantine. They are not like how some people have to go out and work during the pandemic or they lose their job.
People treat this medical info like it's not medical information. HIPAA is still an actual thing . But this info isn't surprising.
Even if COVID-19 is not fatal to an individual... it can cause lasting damage... just like tearing an Achilles may permanently rob someone of their explosiveness, COVID-19 can ruin someone's quality of life for quite a bit...
How about this. I am a doctor. You're wrong. Full stop. You don't often have doctors going around saying "trust me I'm a doctor" because we don't feel the need to brag about our credentials or what we do every day. Also, many of us can get in trouble for speaking up about the situation if it potentially paints our work environment in a negative light. So, people are often careful about what they say and whether it can be identifiable to them or the institution they work for. I work for one of the medical schools in town and my significant other works in critical care in one of the ICU's. The CEO's of these hospitals are saying what they need to to quell panic and anxiety and it's a half-truth when looking at the situation inside the hospital itself. Yes, the hospital systems have built flexibility into their hospital beds and ICU availability for the surge of covid. Yes, many ICU beds are not full of covid they are full of other cases. So yes, a CEO can come out and say "yeah, we have more space if we need it." It would be bad business for them to say "WE'RE ****ED. DEFINITELY CAN'T TAKE CARE OF YOU. RUN AWAY VERY FAST." The community would remember that and it would hurt their bottom line. Methodist wants to label itself a premier health institution in the country. The CEO would look bad if they said they can't handle this. However, one hospital in the TMC started accepting patients from another hospital which became overloaded. That second hospital then had to stop taking in ones from outside because they themselves started to fill up. Harris Health System has started to transfer patients to other hospitals and regions because of capacity concerns (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/houston-hospital-transferring-coronavirus-patients/). Family who are physicians who work in other hospitals and facilities around the city are still running into pushback from administration for testing because of the facilities wanting to say they don't have cases in their hospitals. If you want better data, go to the TMC website and you can find bed space availability: https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/overview-of-tmc-icu-bed-capacity-and-occupancy/ . This will show you why CEO's can say they have space because there still is surge space. So everything is fine right? Total hoax. Numbers coming down? Not really. Here are daily ICU admissions: https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/total-tmc-covid-19-positive-patients-in-icu-beds/ . Here are ICU and med/surg admissions: https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-upd...9-positive-patients-icu-med-surg-in-hospital/ . Those trends are bad. This is not just "catching more asymptomatic to mild cases with better testing." This is more admissions of more acutely ill individuals. Deaths are not a 100% accurate metric. People are often not dying from "coronavirus." They are dying from complications arising from coronavirus. To give an easier example, say someone got shot in the chest. They could die from blood loss, they could die from shock, they could survive initially but have brain damage due to lack of blood flow and end up on a ventilator and die 3 months later from an infection. The cause of death could be listed as gunshot wound, acute hemorrhage, shock, or sepsis. If they called it sepsis, probably wouldn't end up as a death from gun violence...but the only reason they got septic in the first place is because they were shot. The death rate also does not take into consideration the delays in treatment of other conditions that lead to mortality - aka that person who didn't go to the hospital with crushing chest pain because of fear of contracting covid who dies from a heart attack. The person who was getting a research protocol chemotherapy treatment which was interrupted and so on. The IFR for influenza is typically less than <0.1. Even with the numbers of your initial graph (0.26) that would place covid at 2.5x worse than influenza. What other common viruses are out there that are so deadly compared to coronavirus that people don't get worried about? We had massively undertested and there was a huge undetected case burden before. Agreed. That does not mean this is going away or that we are just finding all of these mild cases. Cite your sources please.
Because of the way teams give out medical information, I assume that players must agree to release some information in their contracts. However, I also assume coronavirus must be excluded because infections are.
When you linked the site you did, you lost all credibility. It's a place that parrots Republican talking points rather than one that reports actual facts. We are now one of the "**** hole countries" your boy Trump was railing against. No country would let us in because people like you are utterly selfish and willfully ignorant. I'll go with the guy who may or may not be a doctor.
This Covid shiiii is getting annoying. At first, I didn’t mind quarantine but man it’s gotten to point where its getting depressing. Hopefully, there’s a silver lining to this. I think all of us have learned that society as robust as it seemed is actually quite delicate. Hopefully, we all get the opportunity to actively cherish it when things back to normal.
You're obviously entitled to your own opinion, but you are no expert. You obviously have trust issues, so any evidence from "experts" will fly against what you believe. We get it, you're bored of the "lockdown" and you need entertainment. Buddy, the data is FAR from clear -- even though I actually align with you, to an extent, in that the focus on positive numbers is sensationalized. However by focusing on death rate (which lags behind positive spike rate), you are choosing to dismiss other potential symptoms that can have long-lasting affects. What do you even mean by "recovery" rate? Are people with lingering lung issues considered "recovered" to you? Young athletes may be little risk categories, but it's fair to consider the long-term health and well-being of an athlete if their lung capacity is permanently or semi-permanently diminished. This, of course, doesn't factor in these otherwise healthy individuals being carriers to their older family members -- largely in some minority communities that are at a far greater risk of developing debilitating symptoms. You're sick of the hype. You think everyone is a sheep and you take solace in being a contrarian. You do you. Here's the reality: even if your questionable sources are 10000% correct, the country isn't suddenly going back to normal. You know what would've helped getting back to normal? If the self-centered ideologists of this country would have worn a damn mask and maintain their physical distance in a vigilant manner -- you know, like most every other country in Europe or Asia. Numbers would have gone down and we wouldn't be having this pointless discussion on a basketball forum about whether you think you're smarter than health experts.
Does anyone else always feel dumber watching people on social media debate statistics or epidemiology?
This thread doesn’t need to be derailed. I will only say that I am endless surprised by the amount of entitled people that believe their opinion on virology or the opinion of another lay person is superior to the opinions of real experts that have spent decades studying and learning about viruses. The level of ignorance is appalling, and even when the opinions and in some cases truths of experts prove to be accurate these same entitled lay people just double down on their flawed opinions. No one would allow a business owner or a lawyer or plumber or day trader do open heart surgery on them... so don’t let them control the narrative on this virus.
So, the league is trying to hide the facts by basically instituting a gag order on teams and players. The thinking must be "Oh, we will wait till their all in Orlando before we tell them how bad it is". This is Manfred level manipulation. Thought the NBA was better than this.
…because I don't feel the need to credential myself to a stranger on the internet? Pretty sure I kept my response to you quite fair, without any sort of personal attack or accusation, yet you reply calling my response dishonest, disingenuous, shameful? I am an attending physician. And quite frankly, that shouldn't matter. RNs, PAs, NPs, RRTs, CNAs - none of my friends and colleagues working the covid units are "lesser" than myself, to use your words. In fact, my NP wife (who has spent considerably more time in her covid unit than I have in mine and has attended numerous TMC townhall meetings regarding surge plans) is far more qualified than I am to speak on the pandemic and rapid response infrastructure of the med center. …and all of my colleagues working the frontlines, regardless of position, are far more qualified to speak on the state of the pandemic than you and Google medical degree. If you want disingenuous, simply look at your posting of national daily deaths and claiming a 90% decrease while neglecting to mention that New York accounted for at least 40% of the deaths in April and now only accounts for approximately 6%... Whereas Texas daily deaths from April until now have pretty much remained the same. Every statement you've made is overly simplistic and agenda-driven, period. I'm not wasting any more time attempting to resolve your cognitive dissonance and derailing this thread. Have a nice day.
