I can't believe it's end of june, and ppl still need to explain masks can help. Does anybody think this is even a convo in Korea or Taiwan? Gee I wonder how they're making out. Amazing what a society can do when the masses are on the same page, respect elders and actually gaf abt medical advice.

JFC. This has got to be trolling and/or pure ignorance that has no place in this thread. There is a great deal of information available on how masks can help slow the spread of the virus that I suggest you become familiar with in your free time.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I know I posted this graph a few days ago, but that upward trend looks really bad. It's growing exponentially. Either way more people started getting tested in the last week or so, or something else has happened to cause this. The deaths are coming down though.

There is another alternative explanation, involving more efficient use of false positives.

FYP.

Also to be fair, the U.S. education system isn't all that great. Particularly in the sciences. Most people are now educated via Facebook and Youtube.

Apparently I'm not sharp enough today to figure out what you're getting at.

I hardly have words. They're letting people line up like that as they wait for medical help/testing? I mean, what in the actual ****???

Making sure that if you hadn't gotten it yet..

This is people lined up to get tested. I’m not sure what it is supposed to show except that a lot of people are getting tested.

You go to the Emergency Room to get tested?
Maybe that is the case, I thought it was people very sick and going to the ER.

I thought I'd explained it adequately in my second and third paragraphs. :/
You kind of have to think of the US as being made up of two countries. The shape of the graphs for the Northeast (NY, NJ, IL etc) is very similar to the shape of the graphs of most EU countries and the UK, because the local outbreak was "out of control" in those locations prior to the lockdown. All those places got around 5% of the total population infected fairly rapidly, partly due to "super-spreading", and many northeastern US and Western European cities had a 15-20% attack rate, or even higher.
Meanwhile, states like California and Texas did not have huge amounts of their populations infected when the shelter in place orders occurred. They have graphs that were initially "flattened" (for various reasons and due to various methods, plus random luck), like those of Germany, Portugal or Greece (or Ukraine and Moldova). Many southern and western states had <1% infected in late April.
Coming out of "lockdown" has meant there are more susceptible people in those places, leading to exponential growth (driven by "super-spreaders" that were initially "protected") in Cali, Arizona, Texas, Florida etc, while places like NYC and Chicago are already way past their peaks.
When you combine the graphs of NY (early peak) with California (delayed peak), you get the curious shape of the one for the US as a whole.

In graphical form....
Here's the graph of a state or country that is a bit late in implementing social distancing. Super-spreading is rife prior to the lockdown. (This is NY's graph, but it's basically the same shape as the one for UK, Italy, Belgium, Spain, or even Sweden).


Here's the initially "flattened" graph of a state or country that implements lockdown before the spread is out of control, but has a problem when lockdown is relaxed. (This is California's graph, but it's basically the same shape as the graphs for Ukraine and Moldova).


When you have a country (or continent) with some areas that had a timely lockdown, and some that were a bit too late, you get an overall graph with this shape:

^This graph^ is for the US, obviously, but if you put all European countries together, not just the EU, and adjusted for their populations, it would have a somewhat similar profile.

My point is that unless your area/country has had at least 5% infected, you're unlikely to have had your peak, and you're at risk of exponential growth in daily cases. Many places in the US (especially in the northeast) have passed 5%. But California, Florida, Texas and Arizona are among the populous states that apparently have not yet reached that point.

It shows that people aren’t socially distancing while waiting to get tested and a lot of them aren’t even wearing a mask. You might want to do both of those things if you suspect to be positive.

Ok, but we’ve seen lots of examples of people not socially distancing for the last two months. The vast majority of these people are wearing masks, and it is outdoors, so the risk really isn’t that high relative to a lot of other scenarios we’ve seen.

What this really shows is a lot of people lined up for the free asymptomatic testing that urgent care centers are now offering. This is a good thing! Two months ago, it was almost impossible for an otherwise healthy person to get a testing, and now this is clearly no longer true.

But I think this video has been widely circulated because people believe it shows something much different than it actually does.

You may never have noticed a proliferation of "urgent care" providers, typically located in strip mall shopping centers, which are not full fledged "emergency rooms" attached to hospitals. They are quite useful in delivery of basic medical care, some tests, writing rx, and referring patients to more fully functioning medical providers, either practicing physicians or hospitals.

In Nevada at least, some of these offer walk-in testing for Covid.

I will be quoting this, tyvm

Asian countries are so much better equipped to handle a pandemic. Group mentality wins the day. Being individualistic is a losing strategy.

And we are losing big time. From start to whenever this ends, we aren’t very good at managing a pandemic.

Yes, they are outdoors, and most are wearing masks, so that's good. But you still have many people standing shoulder to shoulder, some not wearing masks, and it's a collection of people that I would expect have many among them with reason to believe they could have Covid.

But the amazing thing, to me, is where it's happening. If there would be anywhere I'd expect there to be *some* kind of risk mitigation, it would be at a clinic.

Our daughter recently was told she should get tested, because she had come down with a sore throat and headache. She went to the local hospital, drives up, and they give her a slip that gives her a number to call. She parks, calls, they ask her questions about symptoms, and then call her in once they're ready for her.

Now, it could be (and probably is) that these test sites and ours are serving different purposes and thus have different clientele. But regardless, it just seems like there should be a little better way than what's in that video.

And what do people believe it shows? I think most see the people shoulder-to-shoulder, and that is indeed what it shows.

This is a much more succinct way of saying what I was trying to express earlier. I don't think there's a more individualistic country than the US (not that the country is unable to ever come together, but there is an extremely strong belief in individual rights) - sometimes that's a strength, and sometimes a weakness.

A friend of mine came in contact with someone that subsequently tested positive. He just got tested and tested positive. The contact was at a home game.

so has the traditional/live WSOP been replaced by this online ggpoker event? i'm confused by the website.

As of right now, the plan is to hold a WSOP in Las Vegas in late Fall. Nobody knows if that's going to happen or not. Other stuff like the NYC Marathon that was supposed to happen in early November has already been canceled.

Our kid was home from school all of last week because he had a running nose last Monday and was sent home. They said that's probably going to be the policy for the rest of the year. That's gonna suck big time for parents who don't work from home, especially single moms/dads.

Where is your kid attending school? I was not aware that was happening anywhere.

I actually signed up for the same. I go in on Friday. Not sure what it will show (e.g. I could theoretically test negative that day but contract the virus on my next trip to the grocery store), but I'll save you a longer story and just say I want to be able to show it for a different reason.

Indeed, I would imagine some of the uptick in cases comes from people getting tested as requirements for returning to work, or taking part in activities (e.g. teams starting football practice). We're finally testing a large segment of the population who couldn't get tested two months ago.

Still looking forward to a reliable SARS-COV2 antibody test. I inquired about that a week ago. No one has a test that isolates the antigen for this disease, so if you have had any coronavirus (e.g. the OG SARS-COV or even the basic KHU1), you would like test positive.

Okay, back to the reason I came here. If anyone wants to play at Stones, they clearly care about your safety. No mention of requiring PPE on your crotch, though: https://www.stonesgamblinghall.com/safety

The Roche Elecsys serological COVID-19 antibody test has >99% sensitivity and >99% specificity, as confirmed by independent third party evaluation at NYU School of Medicine. If you can find a place that uses it and want to know your antibody status, this is the most reliable and sensitive test going. It tests for the presence of two distinct antibodies, one reactive with the spike protein of SARS-CoV2 recognizing a domain unique to that particular coronavirus strain only, and a second reactive with a conserved domain on another viral envelope protein common to all coronavirus family members. Both antibodies need to be present in serum for the test to be considered positive.

Have you asked your local Red Cross about the antibody test? I got one automatically when I donated blood two weeks ago. I believe this is a nationwide program.