U.S. to close..

[Dockhead]

And still more awful news from the U.S.:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11...19-coronavirus

Just giving up on contact tracing? WTF?

[goboatingnow]

Interesting Ireland has also had its meagre contact tracing overwhelmed and has admitted its now only of academic use


https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.thej...t2020/%3famp=1

Essentially we now have to do our own contact tracing

[Capn Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

And still more awful news from the U.S.:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11...19-coronavirus

Just giving up on contact tracing? WTF?

Hi Dockhead... speaking as an advanced practice nurse in public health, the notion of
"contact tracing" is neither well understood, and to date has not been effectively used in the United States.

Nowhere in the article are the words "giving up" used; rather they do correctly confirm the above - the past lack of effectiveness, leading to the current overwhelming of the health system, including our puny attempts at tracing

For example even as far back as May:
https://stacker.com/stories/4178/wha...-safely-reopen

At that time it was estimated that good tracing required about 15 tracers/100K in population based on the then current cases. Today, with cases rising dramatically the number needed is far beyond the 15/100K ratio and our capability or commitment to do so. We have never had that commitment.

Consider that incident in S. Korea, whose numbers were then VERY low, and they opened up the entertainment district. One positive person attended four or five nightclubs leading to 80 or so infections, and the clubs were then closed again. To find those 80 required a very fast and thorough tracing using about 64,000 visits and many tests.

From just one case.

At the point we are at now, tracing is completely ineffective and the inadequate personnel and testing may continue for studies, but not for tracing. That horse has left the barn. The only way to regain control is a brief but complete shutdown - or - massive cooperation by the entire public in mask wearing, social distancing, disinfection, and handwashing. The latter seems unlikely, and other solutions will involve deadly compromise.

Today, either would reduce the infections to the point where effective TTQ (test, trace, quarantine) might work again, but only if our current program were quickly expanded (don't hold your breath). But not now....

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I don't think any of this is true. What you are describing is a very unusual system which as far as I know exists only in paliamentary systems of the British Commonwealth.
In MOST democracies outside of the British Commonwealth, perhaps all of them, the cabinet, or "cabinet of ministers", is appointed by the head of government,...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

Hi Dockhead... speaking as an advanced practice nurse in public health, the notion of
"contact tracing" is neither well understood, and to date has not been effectively used in the United States.

Nowhere in the article are the words "giving up" used; rather they do correctly confirm the above - the past lack of effectiveness, leading to the current overwhelming of the health system, including our puny attempts at tracing

For example even as far back as May:
https://stacker.com/stories/4178/wha...-safely-reopen

At that time it was estimated that good tracing required about 15 tracers/100K in population based on the then current cases. Today, with cases rising dramatically the number needed is far beyond our capability or commitment to do so. We have never had that commitment.

Consider that incident in S. Korea, whose numbers were then VERY low, and they opened up the entertainment district. One positive person attended four or five nightclubs leading to 80 or so infections, and the clubs were then closed again. To find those 80 required a very fast and thorough tracing using about 64,000 visits and many tests.

At the point we are at now, tracing is completely ineffective and the inadequate personnel and testing may conntinue for studies, but not for tracing. That horse has left the barn.

OK, thanks -- that does help explain the situation. I always thought that one of the main purposes of lockdowns was to allow time to mobilize for contact tracing, in order to shift to that. I see it's more complicated than that.



Note however that contact tracing is being used to very good effect in many countries. In Finland we are catching 60% of new infections with contact tracing, so isolating that proportion of new cases before they become symptomatic. That really takes a bite out of the R0, doesn't it.



I am aware, however, that the science is not completely clear about the realistic effectiveness of contact tracing: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....23.20160234v2

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

And still more awful news from the U.S.:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11...19-coronavirus

Just giving up on contact tracing? WTF?

Sad to see this finally acknowledged, but realistically, with north of 100k new cases a day, would there be near enough workers to actively trace and identify individual carriers and their movements with enough efficiency to matter? It seems that the best you could hope for is to identify trends about what sort of travel, gatherings or outings were producing the most new infections.

Even in one of Canada's less populous and less-infected regions, the test-trace efforts seem to be a bit of a clusterfumble.

Maybe this is an area where an online self-completed tracing form and "big data" and AI techniques could make a difference, but it's about 11 months too late to be discussing this.

And the second lockdown of the year has been implemented around here. A 4 week lockdown, with 5 weeks to go to Christmas. Brutal. So the lockdown question has become a bit more than academic for me.

[goboatingnow]

I think the criticism of lockdown from the WHO , is quite valid. Lockdowns are supposed to buy time to implement some thing. But now they seem to being used without giving other measures a chance

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I think the criticism of lockdown from the WHO , is quite valid. Lockdowns are supposed to buy time to implement some thing. But now they seem to being used without giving other measures a chance

Yep. Looks like that to me, too.


Did you see this, posted in another thread?





From a study recently published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0#Sec2


If this is true, then national lockdowns are almost the least effective measure we have.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

From a study recently published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0#Sec2

If this is true, then national lockdowns are almost the least effective measure we have.

"Actively communicate with managers" ...srsly?

Important info to be gathering, but considering how many places enacted lockdowns as a late, last resort move... The places that implemented a strict lockdown quickly did pretty good. If this assessment doesn't take the timing into account, then it's not that definitive.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

... From a study recently published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0#Sec2
If this is true, then national lockdowns are almost the least effective measure we have.

That's NOT at all how I read the study.

“Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide COVID-19 government interventions”
~ by Nils Haug et al

“... Our results indicate that a suitable combination of NPIs* is necessary to curb the spread of the virus. Less disruptive and costly NPIs can be as effective as more intrusive, drastic, ones (for example, a national lockdown). Using country-specific ‘what-if’ scenarios, we assess how the effectiveness of NPIs depends on the local context such as timing of their adoption, opening the way for forecasting the effectiveness of future interventions ...

... We showed that the most effective measures include closing and restricting most places where people gather in smaller or larger numbers for extended periods of time (businesses, bars, schools and so on). However, we also find several highly effective measures that are less intrusive. These include land border restrictions, governmental support to vulnerable populations and risk-communication strategies. We strongly recommend that governments and other stakeholders first consider the adoption of such NPIs, tailored to the local context, should infection numbers surge (or surge a second time), before choosing the most intrusive options. Less drastic measures may also foster better compliance from the population...”

➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s415...=deeplink#Sec2

* NPIs = Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“... Our results indicate that a suitable combination of NPIs* is necessary to curb the spread of the virus. Less disruptive and costly NPIs can be as effective as more intrusive, drastic, ones (for example, a national lockdown). Using country-specific ‘what-if’ scenarios, we assess how the effectiveness of NPIs depends on the local context such as timing of their adoption, opening the way for forecasting the effectiveness of future interventions ...

Yes. I imagine the definitive studies will be done in 6 to 12 months, assuming the vaccines do their work and the pandemic is essentially over at that point. The most useful approach might be to work backwards: for each country, look at their overall infection/death rate over the whole pandemic, assign a relative sucess/fail grade, then look at the combination of factors (initial infection vectors, pandemic preparedness, degree of proactivity, the measures employed, speed and thoroughness of execution, resulting compliance). Hopefully, it will become apparent what combination of the above factors made the most difference, and from that it will become clear that there is a mindset and a basic pandemic plan and toolkit that produces the best outcome with the least collateral harm. Of course many countries won't like what they hear, and excuses will rain down.

I don't know that we will ever get to a conclusive assessment of individual measures in isolation. We can't even pin down what is a 'lockdown', anyway.

[SalingSue]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

They are indeed, and in the U.S. we are seeing horrifying effects of the politicization of truth. This is absolutely horrifying:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...r-when-we-win/

"In 2018, after two years of media spinning tales about shady Russian infiltrators in our government, 67 percent of Democrats believed that Putin’s gremlins had bored into our voting machines and altered the outcome to put Donald Trump in the White House. [!!!] Today, 91 percent of Democrats believe the 2020 election was 'free and fair.' Does this mean Trump, unlike Barack Obama, was able to stop the Russians from 'interfering' in our democracy? Why, one wonders, would this alleged fascist do such a thing? . . .

" . . . There is no credible evidence Barack Obama is a foreigner. There is no credible evidence that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. . . there is no credible evidence that widespread cheating gave Joe Biden the presidency this year. It’s . . . clear that large numbers of partisans on both sides only believe elections are free and fair when they win."

It's only one step from that, to people simply not accepting the results of elections. A democracy can't exist under such conditions.

I agree with all but the last part, I posted a link showing people older than any human who had voted, the chance of that occurring is near zero. Voter fraud is a very real thing, the only question is has it been enough of a issue to actually change anything.


Also the US isn’t a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic

Originally Posted by Dockhead

And still more awful news from the U.S.:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11...19-coronavirus

Just giving up on contact tracing? WTF?

Good.

We need to stop this mass hysteria and get back to life, otherwise these draconian “laws” will go the way of draconian stupid 9/11 laws and never go away.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

I agree with all but the last part, I posted a link showing people older than any human who had voted, the chance of that occurring is near zero.

That list hasn't been shown to say what you claim it says. Has anyone followed up, to establish that those votes weren't from living, legit voters?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

I agree with all but the last part, I posted a link showing people older than any human who had voted, the chance of that occurring is near zero. Voter fraud is a very real thing, the only question is has it been enough of a issue to actually change anything.


Also the US isn’t a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic

Many countries , in fact most are , just like the US , with various “ varieties “ of democracy. But we use the generic term “ democracy “ to mean countries where one person one vote is used in some manner to formulate governments

In that regard we can quite rightly call the US a democracy , ( even if right now I’m not so sure )

Hence nit picking the term and parroting “ constitutional republic “ is ridiculous

Ireland for example is a constitutional republic and a democracy even though we have a complex multi seat proportional transferable voting system.

In every election there will be spoiled votes and a very limited amount of planned premeditated voter fraud.

Nobody has presented evidence of legal quality that backs up any claim to systemic or materially relevant fraud in the recent election , in fact it has been described as the safest ever.

Trump lost , that’s the reality , I see he’s beginning to accept that. Let’s move on , mr Biden will be president, nothing more to see here

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Trump lost , that’s the reality , I see he’s beginning to accept that. Let’s move on , mr Biden will be president, nothing more to see here

Can you provide a cite for this?