The Donald Tests Positive for COVID

@sh76 said
I trust this is self-evident, but this is a massive boon for Trump's re-election chances.

Most likely scenario:

In two weeks, he'll have a whole ceremony in the Rose Garden where he and Melania exit quarantine and he'll announce that just like he and Melania did, the country as a whole is beating COVID. That will also take a bite out of the silly narrative that cases, in a ...[text shortened]... t position that COVID isn't worth shutting the economy down over.

The schadenfreude is premature.

I had the same quandary when Bolsanaro took covid. Whilst I wouldn’t actively wish anyone any harm for political reasons it might save some lives if he suffers to some degree. A spell in the ICU certainly got our PM Boris taking it a lot more seriously.
He’s doesn’t smoke or drink and we are talking the best of medical care in the known universe so I’m guessing Pence will not have to abandon his spiritual domain for the temporal one.

@kevcvs57 said
I had the same quandary when Bolsanaro took covid. Whilst I wouldn’t actively wish anyone any harm for political reasons it might save some lives if he suffers to some degree. A spell in the ICU certainly got our PM Boris taking it a lot more seriously.
He’s doesn’t smoke or drink and we are talking the best of medical care in the known universe so I’m guessing Pence will not have to abandon his spiritual domain for the temporal one.

When Johnson got it, the understanding of COVID and how to treat it was at a small fraction of what it is today.

Edit: Perhaps this deserves another thread, but I think the Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment (currently in Phase 3 trials) and perhaps similar MAB treatments currently being tested by other companies, is going to reduce COVID to the status of a flu within 3-6 months.

@sh76 said
They could also be giving him Remdesivir, Dexamethasone, Regeneron's new monoclonal antibody treatment, convalescent plasma and any number of treatments that hospitals now use.

Then he could say he took none of them or just hydroxychloroquine. Nobody will be able to prove otherwise and doctors have to keep this info confidential.

Quite so. There is no question he'll be okay, he has access to country's best doctors and treatments. The problem is that his recovery may bring the end of social distancing and masks. Trump's already been saying that COVID "affects virtually nobody". This will just bolster his claim.

I predict a rise in conspiracy theories similar to people who claim Sandy Hook was a hoax. Trump supporters will claim that the numbers of people dying from COVID are made up and that the media invented the crisis.

@sh76 said
I trust this is self-evident, but this is a massive boon for Trump's re-election chances.

Most likely scenario:

In two weeks, he'll have a whole ceremony in the Rose Garden where he and Melania exit quarantine and he'll announce that just like he and Melania did, the country as a whole is beating COVID. That will also take a bite out of the silly narrative that cases, in a ...[text shortened]... t position that COVID isn't worth shutting the economy down over.

The schadenfreude is premature.

Spot on.

@vivify said
Quite so. There is no question he'll be okay, he has access to country's best doctors and treatments. The problem is that his recovery may bring the end of social distancing and masks. Trump's already been saying that COVID "affects virtually nobody". This will just bolster his claim.

I predict a rise in conspiracy theories similar to people who claim Sandy Hook was a ...[text shortened]... laim that the numbers of people dying from COVID are made up and that the media invented the crisis.

My area is now now going through a second COVID wave. We got clobbered the first time and now we're going through a serious spike again. It's becoming easier to count my friends and relatives who have NOT gotten COVID than those who have.

I have zero doubt that the virus is weakening, treatments are getting better or both. The former could be because more population immunity is causing viral loads to decrease or because of natural attenuation. I don't know. My brother's whole family got it about a week and a half ago. 4 asymptomatic; 1 with cold symptoms and 1 (pregnant woman) with sustained weakness. My 62 year old mother in law has it - practically asymptomatic (some minor cold symptoms last week for 2 or 3 days). Another close relative is currently in the hospital with COVID double pneumonia, but he's older and has every comorbidity in the book (obesity, diabetes, major circulatory problems, etc.). Thankfully, he is also doing well. The hospitals are really becoming good at fighting COVID.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful. I haven't been inside a public building without a mask since early March and I take every reasonable precaution I can. But this disease seems clearly headed for flu-land and it's halfway there IMHO.

@sh76 said
I trust this is self-evident, but this is a massive boon for Trump's re-election chances.

Most likely scenario:

In two weeks, he'll have a whole ceremony in the Rose Garden where he and Melania exit quarantine and he'll announce that just like he and Melania did, the country as a whole is beating COVID. That will also take a bite out of the silly narrative that cases, in a ...[text shortened]... t position that COVID isn't worth shutting the economy down over.

The schadenfreude is premature.

You're exactly wrong (as you have been consistently wrong about almost everything relating to COVID); anything that focuses the electorate on the pandemic is bad for Trump.

@no1marauder said
You're exactly wrong (as you have been consistently wrong about almost everything relating to COVID); anything that focuses the electorate on the pandemic is bad for Trump.

LMAO.

Let me guess.

The IFR is still 1.25%. Right?

@sh76 said
My area is now now going through a second COVID wave. We got clobbered the first time and now we're going through a serious spike again. It's becoming easier to count my friends and relatives who have NOT gotten COVID than those who have.

I have zero doubt that the virus is weakening, treatments are getting better or both. The former could be because more population immunity ...[text shortened]... le precaution I can. But this disease seems clearly headed for flu-land and it's halfway there IMHO.

Could you please inform the almost 1000 people who are dying each day of COVID this? Apparently they haven't got the memo.

@sh76 said
LMAO.

Let me guess.

The IFR is still 1.25%. Right?

Probably not; never said it would be 6 months in.

You really don't want your April-May posts on this subject pulled back up, do you?

@no1marauder said
Could you please inform the almost 1000 people who are dying each day of COVID this? Apparently they haven't got the memo.

Old and vulnerable people die of infectious diseases, no1.

Hospitalizations, deaths and illnesses from infectious respiratory diseases are not that far above average for this time of year.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

@no1marauder said
Could you please inform the almost 1000 people who are dying each day of COVID this? Apparently they haven't got the memo.

I guess you didn't get the memo that only 6% of the reported Covid deaths are from Covid alone, and that 94% of the deaths had other contributing factors.

@dood111 said
I guess you didn't get the memo that only 6% of the reported Covid deaths are from Covid alone, and that 94% of the deaths had other contributing factors.

There's no such memo.

@no1marauder said
Probably not; never said it would be 6 months in.

You really don't want your April-May posts on this subject pulled back up, do you?

Go ahead. I never said I was sure the Stanford study was right. I cited it, perhaps optimistically. And I was very cautious about the IHME model. I never predicted that it would be right.

Anyway, the over-all IFR was probably never more than about 0.6 or 0.7 except for some isolated cases where the hospital systems were strained and where people live on top of each other with enormous viral loads.

Now, the over-all IFR is no higher than 0.3%. For healthy people under 50, it's something like 0.02%

COVID is extremely contagious and is very efficient and spreading. When lots of people get it, some are going to die from it. But the risk to most individuals is miniscule.

@sh76 said
Old and vulnerable people die of infectious diseases, no1.

Hospitalizations, deaths and illnesses from infectious respiratory diseases are not that far above average for this time of year.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

Hi, Eladar how ya been?

This type of argument has aged poorly.

@dood111 said
I guess you didn't get the memo that only 6% of the reported Covid deaths are from Covid alone, and that 94% of the deaths had other contributing factors.

That one isn't true.

Most of those 94% might have said something like COVID, ARDS or COVID, Pneumonia or COVID, blood clot. In all cases, the COVID might have caused or made the other condition more likely.