Dr. Deborah Birx calls out North Dakota for poor mask use during pandemic
"North Dakota currently has the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases per capita in the U.S… In the most recent task force report, dated Oct. 18, the state also had the highest rate of cases in the country.
An ABC News analysis found that the daily rate of positivity and current hospitalizations in North Dakota have increased over the past two weeks.
On Tuesday, the state health department reported 896 new cases, for a daily positivity rate of 14.82%. The rolling 14-day positivity rate was 10.9% – more than double the rate that health experts recommend.
North Dakota saw a 39.9% increase in week-to-week new cases on Oct. 20, according to an Oct. 26 Health and Human Services memo obtained by ABC News. The state also surpassed 1,000 daily new cases for the first time on Oct. 20, the memo said. The state’s growing caseload has created a backlog, increasing the time it takes to notify people who have tested positive from 24 hours to 72 hours, according to HHS.
But it does matter whether it is true. And it is true – he does not have that authority.
He does have the authority to make a proclamation, issue guidance, etc. In the same way that the federal CDC can issue guidance and the states’ own CDCs follow suit or at least do something similar.
I don’t blame him for not using the authority that he does not have. I blame him for setting a poor example, for promoting bullshitomycin and other unproven remedies, and for questioning, mocking, and outright ignoring doctors and scientists.
He’s supposed to be working for us, for the doctors and people, not against us.
It’s terrible having power-hungry dolts running the country. In case you didn’t know, Kushner is Trump’s son-in-law with zero experience in government, science, medicine, foreign relations, or even community organizing. He and the Trumps see the world as something to dominate and serve them.
I assume on account of the virus other participants here might be using Instacart, which is nationwide. On account of this, as also as OP, I say please feel free to report here your Instacart experiences as I am about to do.
It was a good experience and I was treated well.
My Instacart shopper made an error in my order for oranges. The wrong size oranges were delivered, too small. I telephoned the Instacart senior citizen help line and received a lot of help:
They allowed me to keep the small oranges for free. They arranged for the proper oranges, the ones I actually had ordered, to be delivered pronto and also for free.
That is pretty darn good customer support in my view. Both of my Instacart experiences so far have been good. I will be using their services again.
Also I am slowly learning “the ropes” on the Instacart website. There is quite a lot to master. It’s all good. You just have to learn.
ETA
Just to clarify, there was no delivery charge for the second delivery. Of course I had to pay for the oranges which I originally had ordered.
Trump simply decided “Hey, I can do that as well as any of those career political hacks.” And then he went ahead and did in fact do it, with no prior experience. Even if it’s not how you want it to be done.
Seniors and people in private health-insurance plans are among those who won’t be charged for getting a coronavirus vaccine under a Trump administration rule designed to ensure that as many people as possible get vaccinated once a shot becomes available.
The free vaccines were stipulated in the Cares Act, whether they are in or out of network. The federal government is paying for the cost of the vaccines.
Doctors, nurses and other providers will be reimbursed for administering a vaccine to people who lack insurance, based on the Cares Act. Providers will be reimbursed about $17 for the first vaccine and $28 for the second dose. The amount increases for the second dose in part because providers may have to do more outreach and awareness counseling to get people to come in twice.
This is another case of “insurance is awesome!” rearing it’s ugly head. Why does it have to go through insurance? If doctors are going to be reimbursed by the government directly for some patients anyways, why arent they just excluding insurance companies and have doctors submit for direct reimbursement for everyone? The funding is coming out of the same government account regardless.
Campaign contributions and congressional self-dealing while holding stocks in the insurance companies. They have to funnel employee and government funds to the price-colluding insurance companies. Just like the huge money funnel set up by Bush with part D. It’s also why somehow a public option (which is different than Medicare for all) is “socialism”. Choice is bad, lock in everyone with whoever their employer picks at whatever rates they offer and allow no other option.
I think they’re talking more about the logistics of who will get paid and how on the provider end, rather than the patient side where it will be free regardless. The part about having higher reimbursement for the second dose of those vaccines that need them was good thinking.
Didn’t see mention of testing availability, but that seems like it’s related to the caveats they listed.
In March, no one could be tested. That means obviously the case fatality rate should drop if you get more testing. Hospitalization seems trickier because it’s not obvious what drives the decisions of who is admitted as a patient at a given time.
If you go by IHME estimates, in March they estimate there were about 8.5 infections per confirmed infection (case). In July, they estimate around 2.3 infections per confirmed infection (case).
Just based on testing availability, if their estimates are reasonable… The case fatality rate would be expected to drop to around 27% of where it was earlier in the year – with everything else being equal.
The paper you linked says it dropped to ~30%. So it’s almost perfectly in line with just the expectation based on testing availability.
They’re talking about death rate of hospitalized covid positive cases, so testing doesn’t have much to do with it.
We analyzed monthly mortality rates for admissions between March 1 and August 31, 2020, in a single health system in New York City. Outcomes were obtained as of October 8, 2020. We included all hospitalizations of people 18 years and older with laboratory-confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection identified during the hospitalization or in the prior 2 weeks…
If you want to get the odds from that that you die from covid, prior to needing hospitalization, then you need to make various assumptions about how many cases there were then vs now, etc. this is just saying your odds of dying if you need to go to the hospital for covid are down by 75%+ from what they were in March/April.
It still does, because the rules for who was tested change. If only severe cases get access to a test, then the fatality ratio of that subset would be higher. Similarly, when hospitals are at capacity, that means they will only admit the most severe cases, which would have the worst outcome probabilities.
Looking at just deaths removes this factor, assuming overall infection can still be estimated.
Yes, that’s exactly what I just said… It needs some assumptions to be made. I pulled up the IHME estimates for infections versus confirmed infections and relied on the White House’s preferred model to make those assumptions… They are roughly in line with an expected case fatality ratio dropping to under 30% of in March, using IHME’s estimated infections.
