good ol' boy selling the easy-peasy killing of captive animals for Macho Man Great White Hunters
Uvalde hunting ranch owner stands by controversial toilet paper-burning video
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Uvalde-hunting-ranch-owner-stands-by-15153947.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=emai l&utm_campaign=mysa_morningheadlines&utm_content=n ews&stn=nf
Why Germany’s coronavirus death rate is so much lower than other countries’ rates
BERLIN —
For weeks, virologists here have been asked a persistent question: Why, compared to other countries, are so few of the Germans who are diagnosed with the coronavirus dying?
In Italy, 9.5 percent of the people who have tested positive for the virus have suc bed to covid-19, according to data compiled at Johns Hopkins University. In France, the rate is 4.3 percent. But in Germany, it’s 0.4 percent.
The biggest reason for the difference, infectious disease experts say, is Germany’s work in the early days of its outbreak to track, test and contain infection clusters. That means Germany has a truer picture of the size of its outbreak than places that test only the obviously symptomatic, most seriously ill or highest-risk patients.
“At the beginning, when we had relatively few cases, when it came to finding them and isolating them, we did quite well in Germany,” said Reinhard Busse, head of the department of health care management at the Berlin University of Technology. “That’s the major reason.”
Other factors, such as the age of those infected and the timing of Germany’s outbreak, also play a role in the differing death rates. But testing widely has been key. Germany, with 31,150 cases at midday Tuesday, appeared to have a larger outbreak than France, with 20,149. But the higher death rate in France implies there were more undiagnosed cases there. France’s outbreak could be larger than Germany’s.
Initially, at least, the country’s health authorities tracked infection clusters meticulously. When an individual tested positive, they used contact tracing to find other people with whom they had been in touch and then tested and quarantined them, which broke infection chains.
Christian Drosten, a virologist at the Charité hospital in Berlin, said he’s “firmly convinced” that Germany’s high diagnostic capacity had “secured us an extreme lead . . . in the detection of the epidemic.”
But he cautioned against complacency, and said the death rate would increase: “We are no exception.”
Epidemiologists say it’s important to look at Germany’s outbreak in two distinct phases. As community spread became prevalent, infection chains in some cases became impossible to trace. Some doctors said they had no choice but to send people seeking tests back home to call jammed coronavirus hotlines because they lacked protective equipment to conduct them safely.
With cases growing exponentially, health authorities have moved on to ordering social distancing and banning mass events. Federal states have restricted gatherings outside the home to a maximum of two people.
South Korea, which has been praised as a model for responding to the outbreak, has a death rate of 1.2 percent. Busse credits Germany’s lower rate to timing.
“In South Korea, there’s been a longer duration of infections, so we can’t really compare,” he said. “We have lots of newly positive cases. They didn’t have the chance to die yet.”
Busse said Germany is more comparable to Norway. The Scandinavian country is at a similar point in its outbreak, it’s also worked to test and contain cases, and it also has a death rate of 0.4 percent.
Whether Germany’s distancing measures will “flatten the curve” is not yet clear. Lothar Wieler, president of the federal agency responsible for disease control, was hopeful Monday that a period of exponential growth might be slowing, but cautioned that it was too early to say, given fluctuations in data. He said the picture should be clearer by Wednesday.
Germany’s initial testing criteria were no wider than Italy’s. People were tested if they had symptoms and had been to a risk area, or if they had contact with a confirmed case. But many initial cases had clear links to overseas travel.
The guidelines have since been expanded and testing has been boosted in recent weeks. The number tested jumped from 35,000 in the first week of March to 100,000 in the second, according to Germany’s medical association. The estimates don’t include tests conducted inside hospitals.
Epidemiologist Karl Lauterbach, a member of the German parliament, noted that the German outbreak started with large numbers of young people — “people who came back from holidays.”
The young have fared better with the coronavirus than the elderly. Italy’s initial outbreak struck at the heart of an aging population. Lauterbach said he expected Germany’s death rate to rise as more vulnerable segments of society are infected.
Because testing is not universal, and many people with the coronavirus might never be diagnosed, a true death rate is impossible to ascertain. But experts say the rate is likely to be significantly higher in countries such as Spain and Italy, where care is collapsing.
With more intensive care beds and ventilators than most other European nations and early measures to prevent the spread of the virus, Lauterbach said, he didn’t see Germany turning into Italy or Spain. Still, he has been advocating for wider restrictions.
“I think with all things considered, Germany will do reasonably well in this first round of a long fight,” he said.
Chris Mooney in Washington and Luisa Beck in Berlin contributed to this report.
Loveday Morris is The Washington Post's Berlin bureau chief. She was previously based in Jerusalem, Baghdad and Beirut for The Post.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
© 1996-2020 The Washington Post
Decimating the entire "royal" family would be just
Glad the dems pushed back and didn’t rubber stamp that bill McConnell brought up a few days ago. Seems like they got some good concessions. Particularly the oversight on the fed’s slush fund.
I knew whatever bill was drawn up would me. They're using 2018 numbers, where I was well above the cutoff. I left my employer of 6 years in 2019 for 7 months, before getting a job recently but ran through my nest egg. So I sm under the cutoff for 2019 but oh well.
“I regret to say we’re going to have to let a few million of you die in order to protect the S&P500”
regret?
they don't need (or have) no steekin' regret
Capitalism amassing Capital has priority over all life
"For the average American the best way to tell if you have covid-19 is to cough in a rich person’s face and wait for their test results."
wait is Jim Acosta d niga that got the Rona?
he is not on CNN anymore
In UK police will have green light to detain anyone suspected of being corona infected
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ergency-powers
Today is 25 March
my skimpy online cart at HEB for earliest available time slot?
curbside pickup April 7
ok, can't wait that long,
so what about delivery to my house? April 3
One thing coronavirus will accomplish will be opening everyone's eyes to just exactly how unprepared anyone is for anything like this.
Can you not just go to HEB and shop for yourself?
Have you tried instacart personal shopping service.
This, I have been going to HEB several times a week to get what I need for a few days.
As prime age + comorbidity for covid-19 killing, I'll have to.
I will try walmart's curbside later.
I expect all the grocery delivery services are booked up.
HEB owns Favor, but Favor can't deliver me until 3 April?
And as many of their shoppers are old people trying to make some beer money (avg gross under $10/hour) and as SA's infected numbers explode, I expect the older shoppers will be safe and stop driving, as I did with Favor.
My last Favor run was to an HEB with no curbside, so I had to queue to get in and find all the stuff myself. That was for me GAMEOVER with Favor.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 03-25-2020 at 10:10 AM.
I think a bottleneck for HEB/Favor is the number of HEB employees makes available to collect the stuff for pickup or delivery.
Your Favor driver took you to HEB and then made you go inside to shop?
I checked the instacart app. They’ll deliver within 5 hrs. Haven’t used it yet, have a pick up I scheduled that was almost 2 weeks out. I’ll be using instacart from now on. Shopping at multiple stores, H-E-B, Costco, Walmart, drug stores, etc. Don’t know what price or mark ups are.
Good article, thanks for posting. My thinking is transitioning to implementing a Logan's Run policy of quarantining those at risk (immunocompromised, over 65, etc...) and slowly letting those who are younger and in good health to return to normal life. We can't sustain the measures currently in place, whether socially, psychologically, and especially economically. Keeping the cohort at the greatest risk under quarantene allows for a build up of health care infrastructure to deal with the inevitable influx of patients for when they come back to normal as well. Is it harsh? Maybe. But it's for their own good.
The math is imprecise and fuzzy at best. But it's a logical conclusion. Part of the terror of COVID is asymptomatic spread. You can't have asymptomatic spread and argue that the death rate is accurate. Everything we know about the virus establishes that the death rate is overstated. The only issue, as you say, is determining what order of magnitude it has been overstated.
the binary "dead or not" ignores after effects of victims who get very sick but survive.
covid-19 takes 2 - 8 weeks to kill
victims on respirators have 50% mortality.
Repugs, Trash, rightwingnutjobs, the oligarchy propaganda, downplaying the risks and saying everybody get out and go back to work are self-servingly, criminally negligent.
You were a Favor driver?
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