Anyone following what’s happening in the United States?

[Redolent]

A lesson in how not to reopen.

20 states are seeing significant increases. Some like Arizona, Florida, California and Texas are breaking records of positive cases and covid hospitalizations. ICUs almost full in Texas. Indoor-dining restaurants and bars have been open for a month or so in some of these states. This is still the first wave for them ...

Will be interesting to see if they lock down some states again. It seems inevitable for Arizona (26% of those who had a Coronavirus test today were positive, which is insane).

Info from NYT:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

@Langsdestiny

I am astounded at the fact that people think politics affected Brazil and USA but not here. It is not a coincidence that brazil usa and britain have handled this situation badly. The similarity of the leadership of those 3 countries is obvious.

Right wing populism/libertarianism has proved a disaster when it comes to what's needed during a pandemic.

I will concede that re the rest of the world v the uk i dont know, and they may well be worse, however the reason i posted was so many saying that the uk was doing better or as well as other european countriesand this is not largely true.
The link has excess deaths for many other countries so is useful for discussion.

@annabel85

The sharp recent increase in cases are in “red” Trump states, not where the protests have tended to take place.

Surely the point of comparing different countries is not to see who is 'winning' but to work out what works so we can all win as a planet?

Countries that have only had a few cases so far, including many countries in Africa, may not have a 'peak' if they continue to be able to spot outbreaks early and contain them quickly. Many low and middle income countries have a head start on us because they already have a lot of expertise in case finding, contact tracing, isolation etc. from dealing with ebola, polio, measles ...

[quote Derbygerbil]@annabel85

The sharp recent increase in cases are in “red” Trump states, not where the protests have tended to take place.[/quote]
Don't get me wrong it's mostly on Trump anyway.

Another daily high for cases in Florida. 12.36% positive for new cases. Six days ago it 4.36%.

I wonder if they’re going to go ahead with the planned reopening of Disney World next month. All signs are that they’re not shutting anything down.

At the end of this, we'll be nowhere near the top of deaths. Nowhere near.
We'll be middle of the pack - our result will be - could have done better (bad things - PPE, testing at start, care homes), could have done worse (good things - ppe good now, testing excellent now, clinical trials excellent, vaccine hopefully excellent TBC)

I agree with this. We've made many mistakes, particularly in the early days but the government have transformed the testing and the trial set up is world-leading.

I'm finding this page of CDC data (American Center for Disease Control) very useful - gets updated every day.

91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?fbclid=IwAR30qEvzq11I78qY5WyPOXUOtjUmZdzQL3d-k9gtDLrG6SMyl5EwD0lWmmU

Third graph down is rates per million of population, probably the best handle you can get for comparing data across countries (pace the usual considerations about differences in recording, whether it's hospital deaths or hospital+carehomes, or hospital+carehomes+community).

You can use the tabs to switch highlighted country, and also switch between confirmed cases, death rate and cumulative mortality (last of these is pretty terrifying).

The fourth graph down is US by state, which is also extremely interesting - basically the eastern seaboard has been absolutely hammered, and a few big population centres, but much of the middle of the country (low population density, no really big international transport hubs) has been relatively lightly affected.

Looking more closely at the US by state on the CDC data site
91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?fbclid=IwAR30qEvzq11I78qY5WyPOXUOtjUmZdzQL3d-k9gtDLrG6SMyl5EwD0lWmmU
a lot of the states which were going through hell a month or so back (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts) are now getting things under control but the cases are growing exponentially in states like Arizona, Arkanasas, North Carolina, etc.

ooh... thanks for the 91-divoc link.
Were people talking about Arizona?
USA states are almost 50:50 split betw Dem & Rep governors right now.
Those 10 fastest rising states, cases in last 4 weeks, adjusted for population (cases per 1 million people), governor affiliation:
Dem: LA
Rep: AL, AR, AZ, FL, NC, SC, TN, TX, UT

@cathyandclare

*At the end of this, we'll be nowhere near the top of deaths. Nowhere near. We'll be middle of the pack - our result will be - could have done better (bad things - PPE, testing at start, care homes), could have done worse (good things - ppe good now, testing excellent now, clinical trials excellent, vaccine hopefully excellent TBC)*

I agree with this. We've made many mistakes, particularly in the early days but the government have transformed the testing and the trial set up is world-leading.

By far the worst three are UK, Brazil and US. In sheer numbers Brazil and US are well out on top and we have contained it better than those countries by not being complete idiots. However, we are a little island, these are two of the biggest and most populated countries. Behind us it's other European countries like Italy and Spain who have got rates right down.

India and Mexico look ominous but the death rate in India is still 9 per million of population and very low overall.

Outside of those few who do all have huge populations the death rate is currently low everywhere else. This is with UK still in lockdown though with schools and pubs, restaurants, gyms and technically 2 metre rule still in place for social distancing and a ban on any mass gatherings.

We are third in the world for deaths per million, behind the USA and Brazil.

That's only because we missed at least 10,000 deaths through lack of community testing. If you compare excess deaths (the most accurate measure) we are number 1 baby.

Boris did promise he'd make the UK world beating- man of his word.

@sashagabadon

Of course i am talking about now, i don't know the future anymore than you do.
One positive for many developing countries is they have much younger populations and lower life expectancies (not a positive!) so Cv may not hit them quite so badly in terms of mortality and thankfully, they may have access the steroidal treatment, developed here in the UK :)

Our excess deaths is certainly extremely high, especially in care homes, presumably because so little testing was done early on?

However, i agree that CV is not yet finished with us just yet, so in 12/24 months the picture may look v different.

At the end of this, we'll be nowhere near the top of deaths. Nowhere near.
We'll be middle of the pack - our result will be - could have done better (bad things - PPE, testing at start, care homes), could have done worse (good things - ppe good now, testing excellent now, clinical trials excellent, vaccine hopefully excellent TBC)

Have your credentials been established somewhere upthread, my blood pressure cannot be wading through this BS to check. I'm thinking not a chance in hell.

We've made many mistakes, particularly in the early days but the government have transformed the testing and the trial set up is world-leading

We don't know what our testing is because they won't tell us, loads of fiddling to get to 100k per day and then it dropped off to the high 10ks, results are still taking up to a week to be sent out.

Agree the Recovery Trial is excellent but many countries have done this too, work is being done around the world.

I don't think our response to coronavirus has been great, but nevertheless I'm very grateful to not live in America.

Venn diagram:

Countries that shouted at WHO to 'declare a pandemic' throughout February and early March, even though WHO already declared a PHEIC at the end of January.

Countries that have paid fuck all attention to anything happening beyond their own borders, except for keeping some sort of bullshit score card to show they have not failed as badly as some other country.

Perfect circle. You know who you are.

We should all be demanding that our politicians grow the fuck up and co-operate with other countries' politicians, regardless of politics and regardless of who's 'winning'.

Either we all win or none of us do.

@0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h

*At the end of this, we'll be nowhere near the top of deaths. Nowhere near. We'll be middle of the pack - our result will be - could have done better (bad things - PPE, testing at start, care homes), could have done worse (good things - ppe good now, testing excellent now, clinical trials excellent, vaccine hopefully excellent TBC)*

Have your credentials been established somewhere upthread, my blood pressure cannot be wading through this BS to check. I'm thinking not a chance in hell.

Why do my "credentials" need to be established? What are your credentials? I am a poster on an internet forum and i am entitled to my opinion and it is as valid as yours. I work for the nhs in a v large hospital trust with multiple hospitals and i have seen the covid response first hand. We get daily emails from hospital management with daily updates and they have regular webinars to update all us staff I have had 4 covid tests. I have had an antibody test I am on the oxford vaccine trial. I have 2 x school age children, one working in a supermarket as a keyworker as her school closed I have a sister in the met police and another is a london school teacher I have elderly parents, one that is shielding I know 5 people that have died of covid and loads that have had it and recovered I watch the daily briefings and read alot about it

I am entitled to my opinion and i take a balanced view of whats good and whats bad

@jasjas1973

We've made many mistakes, particularly in the early days but the government have transformed the testing and the trial set up is world-leading

We don't know what our testing is because they won't tell us, loads of fiddling to get to 100k per day and then it dropped off to the high 10ks, results are still taking up to a week to be sent out.

Agree the Recovery Trial is excellent but many countries have done this too, work is being done around the world.

Surely daily numbers are less important than the fact if you need a test you can get one same day. Capacity is now massive for testing. Our hospital does testing and you can get tested same day and the result is emailed in 24 hours. That is pretty good in my opinion

Folk in the UK seem to think that the UK is doing well for some reason. Why is this? From an outside view the UK is doing terribly

You must be new to mumsnet

ha ha, who me? I've been here since 2004!

Well i've been here since 2003 and mumsnetters continuously put down the uk. I'm just trying to restore abit of balance

sashaI used to live in the UK, but haven't done for 20 years. I am so glad I don't now, even though all my family still do.

The virus situation has been handled awfully. Borders should have been shut in February....but I suppose that's a different argument.

@FunnysInLaJardin

sashaI used to live in the UK, but haven't done for 20 years. I am so glad I don't now, even though all my family still do.

The virus situation has been handled awfully. Borders should have been shut in February....but I suppose that's a different argument.

That is certainly an argument to be had Start a new thread and i'll join in!