Texas hospitals are running out of drugs, beds, ventilators and even staff

[Stoic]

That's because most Atheists don't really believe their own philosophy.

Atheists don't have just one philosophy, and you likely don't understand enough to say what any of us believe.

[oxmixmudd]

I'm trying to have a decent conversation with you ...

You were? How about that. That is just so rare you know.

[mikewhitney]

Thanks.


I believe it's to distinguish it from "total deaths". You can also think of it as "deaths per day".


Sorry, I figured the Covid Tracking Project was easy enough to find.


The actual number of deaths is still pretty small for Texas, but rising pretty quickly. And the number of hospitalizations is already enough to strain hospital capacity, and still going up rapidly.


One thing about this disease (and diseases in general) is that it doesn't hit every place equally at every time.

They have had 3561 deaths attributed to coronavirus out of a population of 29 million (census.gov/quickfacts/TX) which gives 0.012% percent deaths (percent of population). The flu season was 0.027 in around the 2017 -2018 flu season --80,000 out of a population of 330Million Americans (statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/ ). So, Texas is below the severe flu season levels with the coronavirus. If the virus were so much worse than the flu, it should have caused more deaths at a quicker rate.

I have to remind people that the number of cases is meaningless. If you find 2000 people with positive results after testing 2500 people, you would have had 2000 fewer cases if you simply did not test people. The other thing is that we don't know how many of those people would have tested negative a month earlier. So a worthwhile process would show how many of these transitioned to from a negative status to a positive status.

If you see Cow Poke's observations, the hospitals around him are not busy. I think the only places have some full hospitals are those rural counties which are only designed to handle simpler surgeries and hospital stays.

[Stoic]

They have had 3561 deaths attributed to coronavirus out of a population of 29 million (census.gov/quickfacts/TX) which gives 0.012% percent deaths (percent of population). The flu season was 0.027 in around the 2017 -2018 flu season --80,000 out of a population of 330Million Americans (statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/ ). So, Texas is below the severe flu season levels with the coronavirus. If the virus were so much worse than the flu, it should have caused more deaths at a quicker rate.

The response to the coronavirus has been different than the response to the flu, fortunately. If we treated it like we treat the flu, the death toll would be much, much higher. But social distancing and masks are pretty effective, when you can get the public to cooperate.

I have to remind people that the number of cases is meaningless. If you find 2000 people with positive results after testing 2500 people, you would have had 2000 fewer cases if you simply did not test people.

Yeah, if you don't test, you don't get coronavirus cases. You just get people hospitalized and/or dying for some unknown reason.

The other thing is that we don't know how many of those people would have tested negative a month earlier. So a worthwhile process would show how many of these transitioned to from a negative status to a positive status.

Unless you tested them a month earlier, you'll never know. But I wouldn't say that's a valid criticism.

If you see Cow Poke's observations, the hospitals around him are not busy. I think the only places have some full hospitals are those rural counties which are only designed to handle simpler surgeries and hospital stays.

Unless you go to the ICU, I wouldn't expect the hospital to look busy.

[mikewhitney]

The response to the coronavirus has been different than the response to the flu, fortunately. If we treated it like we treat the flu, the death toll would be much, much higher. But social distancing and masks are pretty effective, when you can get the public to cooperate.


Yeah, if you don't test, you don't get coronavirus cases. You just get people hospitalized and/or dying for some unknown reason.


Unless you tested them a month earlier, you'll never know. But I wouldn't say that's a valid criticism.


Unless you go to the ICU, I wouldn't expect the hospital to look busy.

Nothing shows fearsome levels.

Nothing proves that social distancing or masks have done anything. Actually I showed for Dallas County that the apparent covid death rate remained the same whether people were quarantined, wearing masks, not wearing masks or celebrating holidays.

Partly what I am saying is that we cannot measure anything by cases (positive test results). We just know that the death rate has remained low in Texas and is not likely to magically change.

As far as hospital loading, you should probably expect 1000 regular beds taken for 40 ICU cases. But all this can be avoided by early treatment with hydrochloroquine protocols or Pulmicort. So deaths should not be happening any longer at a high rate.

We are past the mysterious phase. Now we have data of things that work.

[shunyadragon]

Nothing shows fearsome levels.

Nothing proves that social distancing or masks have done anything. Actually I showed for Dallas County that the apparent covid death rate remained the same whether people were quarantined, wearing masks, not wearing masks or celebrating holidays.

Partly what I am saying is that we cannot measure anything by cases (positive test results). We just know that the death rate has remained low in Texas and is not likely to magically change.

Selective citing biased figures of one city county or region does justify your agenda against science, but I am sure it makes you feel superior. The Covid-19 pandemic is a world pandemic based on the fatality rate when compared to other pandemics pandemics.

It is obvious your are anti-science on this issue as well as others.

[mikewhitney]

Selective citing biased figures of one city county or region does justify your agenda against science, but I am sure it makes you feel superior.

I'm sorry. Science without data is pretty stupid. I provide data. I guess you have not been able to put the pieces together. That is what I'm here to help you with.

The news can tell you how scary things are in a city or county. When we look at the data, things are not scary. They are normal levels of deaths to flu/influenza.

If you want to present data and calculations for areas where cases are rising, that would be great. You can show how those numbers are worse than normal flu seasons. We can decide whether you did the calculations properly. This would then become more like a scientific discussion.

[mikewhitney]

Selective citing biased figures of one city county or region does justify your agenda against science, but I am sure it makes you feel superior. The Covid-19 pandemic is a world pandemic based on the fatality rate when compared to other pandemics pandemics.

It is obvious your are anti-science on this issue as well as others.

I see you edited the response since I posted.

If there is a technical reason to call it a pandemic and it makes you feel happy, go ahead and call it that. I'm checking the scary news stories to see if the situation described is as bad as they say. I keep on finding that the death rate is less than the mid-upper end of flu seasons. I have to make certain assumptions but I am close enough to show there has been no basis for panic. There might be a pandemic but there is no epidemic in these instances that we have examined. (It sure has spread slowly in Texas. This is 4 months into it and we are not seeing people dying on the streets, as was promised. It just looks like flu season.)

You were supposed to show that either the June or July deaths had gone up proportionately to the number of positive cases. This would help make your case.

[mikewhitney]

I am not searching each state or county for statistics. However, when people post an article that is talking about a big outbreak, I go and calculate the actual numbers from statistics that are specific to those areas. If these places are newsworthy due to outbreaks, they should be showing significant numbers of deaths -- if not the same week, then within a month. I have not found the predictions to be accurate. If the deaths stay under the yearly flu death rates, then that place was improperly anticipated to be a scary outbreak. If the scary outbreaks only went as far as NYC, NJ and DC, then we have gone beyond the country's pandemic.

[Stoic]

Nothing shows fearsome levels.

Nothing proves that social distancing or masks have done anything. Actually I showed for Dallas County that the apparent covid death rate remained the same whether people were quarantined, wearing masks, not wearing masks or celebrating holidays.

Partly what I am saying is that we cannot measure anything by cases (positive test results). We just know that the death rate has remained low in Texas and is not likely to magically change.

Nothing magical about it. If the number of people who get it keeps going up, the number of people who die from it will also keep going up, barring some sort of cure.

And the death rate is already going up, dramatically.

As far as hospital loading, you should probably expect 1000 regular beds taken for 40 ICU cases. But all this can be avoided by early treatment with hydrochloroquine protocols or Pulmicort. So deaths should not be happening any longer at a high rate.

Pulmicort is somewhat helpful (hydroxychloroquine not so much), but it won't keep everyone from dying.

We are past the mysterious phase. Now we have data of things that work.

Even with the things that work, people still die.

[Stoic]

I am not searching each state or county for statistics. However, when people post an article that is talking about a big outbreak, I go and calculate the actual numbers from statistics that are specific to those areas. If these places are newsworthy due to outbreaks, they should be showing significant numbers of deaths -- if not the same week, then within a month. I have not found the predictions to be accurate. If the deaths stay under the yearly flu death rates, then that place was improperly anticipated to be a scary outbreak. If the scary outbreaks only went as far as NYC, NJ and DC, then we have gone beyond the country's pandemic.

Why not look at Harris County again?

During a typical flu year, they might have 6 deaths a day (per one of your posts in another thread).

Now, the 7 day rolling average for covid-19 is 15 deaths a day, and climbing rapidly.

[mikewhitney]

Why not look at Harris County again?

During a typical flu year, they might have 6 deaths a day (per one of your posts in another thread).

Now, the 7 day rolling average for covid-19 is 15 deaths a day, and climbing rapidly.

There really is not a trend established yet. It is not solid to find a trend in a 2 week period. The chart is at https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavi...state/2335449/
DallasDeathsJuly16.jpg

It sounds like the chart you were talking about. We'll see what happens here.

There were 477 deaths in Dallas County so far. (Jul 16) Note that we have now shifted to the Dallas County totals
https://www.dallascounty.org/Assets/...ary-071420.pdf

This count of deaths appears on page 8
ConfirmedDallasCountyDeathsJul16.jpg

If there are 15 deaths per day for 18 more days, then the higher flu season number of deaths would be reached in 5 months instead of 6. The big observation I had somewhere was that the rate of deaths had remained quite steady across the four months independent of whether people wore masks, were quarantined or were celebrating holidays.

We have the treatments that have been successful for many recoveries -- the hydrochloroquine/zinc/azithromycin and the Pulmicort. Hopefully doctors and hospitals will treat people with these so we can keep the deaths down.

That dallascounty.org document gives a breakdown based on different ethnic groups. That breakdown may be useful to indicate where we need more precautions -- but we still don't have enough details on this. The data shows 91 deaths of whites and 101 deaths of Hispanics. There are a lot more "count of cases" for Hispanics, but this may be due to more testing of that group. The number of cases really is useless.

[mikewhitney]

Nothing magical about it. If the number of people who get it keeps going up, the number of people who die from it will also keep going up, barring some sort of cure.

And the death rate is already going up, dramatically.

Pulmicort is somewhat helpful (hydroxychloroquine not so much), but it won't keep everyone from dying.

Even with the things that work, people still die.

We don't know how long this will be a problem. It has not exceeded the bad-flu-season numbers yet. Also, we just have less than 6 months of obvious history in the states. This virus will likely go away just as others have come and gone. We don't really have reason to think this is some super-virus. It certainly has not harmed as many people as we originally feared. Nothing has been drastic subsequent to the cuomovirus stuff in NYC , MD, NJ and DC.

Hydrochloroquine protocols have been used with great success by various doctors. Pulmicort was reported to be completely by a doctor (with, I think, 2000 patients). The key is to get this treatment upon early signs of the illness. I would trust either treatment if I had suspicions of having covid-19.

I was looking further at the dallas county pdf. The number of deaths have been pretty much aligned to the ethnic groups based on the proportions to population. (see page 5 of https://www.dallascounty.org/Assets/...ary-071420.pdf )

The evidence still supports a reopening of the economy. If people are still concerned, they can still take the current precautions.

[Roy]

Nothing shows fearsome levels.

Nothing proves that social distancing or masks have done anything. Actually I showed for Dallas County that the apparent covid death rate remained the same whether people were quarantined, wearing masks, not wearing masks or celebrating holidays.

Partly what I am saying is that we cannot measure anything by cases (positive test results). We just know that the death rate has remained low in Texas and is not likely to magically change.

The reported covid death rate in Texas has trebled in the last two weeks.

[Roy]

Why not look at Harris County again?

During a typical flu year, they might have 6 deaths a day (per one of your posts in another thread).

Now, the 7 day rolling average for covid-19 is 15 deaths a day, and climbing rapidly.

There really is not a trend established yet. It is not solid to find a trend in a 2 week period. The chart is at https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavi...state/2335449/
DallasDeathsJuly16.jpg

It sounds like the chart you were talking about.

It obviously isn't, since Stoic was talking about Harris county, which is the Houston area, not Dallas.

You really are a despicable pile of faeces.