Maps, science, data & statistics tracking of COVID-19

[Space Lynx]

There is a difference between saying something is possible and believing it actually is what factually happened.

I'm open to the idea, like Dr. Fauci. But there is no evidence to substantiate it yet.

I never said there was any evidence to substantiate, just thought it was interesting how everyone made fun of other people for suggesting it was possible, but Fauci says it and no one makes fun of him, as I said before, just pointing out that groupthink is rather funny sometimes.

 

[thesmokingman]

Hmm, well I have already said multiple times I agree with Fauci, and I agree with him here... most likely it did come from a natural source, but not totally convinced it didn't either, same as the link I gave. I never said it was fact. Not once... like most people you are putting words in my mouth to lessen me.

It seems you are the one without critical thinking skills, if you are disagreeing with Fauci, the 50+ year expert. My guess is it came from an underground food market still where humans be eating stuff they shouldn't be eating, but I have not thrown out the idea it was an accident from the lab either, human hubris can manifest in many different ways, for example when they collected these bats, did they isolate them far away in air tight containment areas? Would these bats taken from far away in different regions ever crossed paths naturally/migratorily or was this lab stuff the only place they were exposed together breathing the same air? Many different bat species, and I already admitted I don't know if they have migratory patterns or not.

Criticize all you want, I find nothing wrong with asking questions, and neither should scientists, that's part of the scientific method...



no one is even talking about weapons here... but ok great way to derail the discussion... lol

This is your problem. You're clueless to Fauci's contradictions. So... was he right in 2020 or 2021?

Dr. Fauci Dismisses Wuhan Lab as Source of Coronavirus, Contradicting Trump

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Fauci said.

www.newsweek.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the scientific face of America's pandemic response, dismissed the theory that coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, contradicting the president and his Secretary of State in an escalating confrontation with China.

"The best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China," Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an exclusive interview with National Geographic published on Monday. "Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species."

 

[Space Lynx]

This is your problem. You're clueless to Fauci's contradictions. So... was he right in 2020 or 2021?

Dr. Fauci Dismisses Wuhan Lab as Source of Coronavirus, Contradicting Trump

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Fauci said.

www.newsweek.com

Unless new evidence or argumentation arrived on Fauci's doorstep to make him change his mind I agree with you, seems like a contradiction, but if he has new information that he has not shared since that 2020 statement, then I disagree with you. This isn't being clueless, it's being objective.

 

[thesmokingman]

Unless new evidence or argumentation arrived on Fauci's doorstep to make him change his mind I agree with you, seems like a contradiction, but if he has new information that he has not shared since that 2020 statement, then I disagree with you. This isn't being clueless, it's being objective.

Where are your facts then?????

 

[dragontamer5788]

may have been a lab accident

You keep focusing on unnatural sources. Which means, you think that COVID19 may have been manufactured. Why would a lab be experimenting / manufacturing a virus?

I mean, that's really the two possibilities: either the virus came from nature ("natural"), or it was created by man ("manufactured" or "unnatural"). If it was manufactured, then it was manufactured for a reason (the most likely reason being bio-weapon). Its not splitting hairs, its the simple implication of the line of reasoning.

I don't believe I'm causing any false-dichotomy here. Natural vs manufactured seems to be a true dichotomy, with no other possibilities. Please let me know if my logic is unsound with any of those steps. That's why I reject the "unnatural" argument, at least for now. There's all sorts of things that just don't add up in my brain. There'd have to be a significant change in the evidence presented (maybe even a discussion for the motivation of "creating" the virus) before I am convinced of "unnatural" origins of COVID19.

--------

The "natural" origins are pretty obvious. COVID19 starts to spread, maybe as early as September 2019 (or even earlier). The Wuhan lab captured the virus and started studying it, because that's literally what it's supposed to be doing. (Especially since SARS wrecked China nearly 15 years ago: so that population would care very much about understanding novel coronavirus diseases) I mean, maybe there's a conspiracy here, but I'm not seeing it. If a conspiracy exists, I'll need a good argument and/or evidence before I change my opinion on the matter.

 

[the54thvoid]

Criticize all you want, I find nothing wrong with asking questions, and neither should scientists, that's part of the scientific method...

No. It's not. And this is exactly where pseudoscience pollutes the exacting nature of science. The scientific method (and the clue is in the word 'method') is to demonstrate a verifiable procedure to reproduce the same result. This is how science works. I suggest experiment 'A' to validate my hypothesis, itself, ideally based on a 'null' hypothesis where I ought to attempt to prove my theory by failing at dispproving it.

Scienctific theory requires a method by which scientists can attempt to replicate the results. After umpteen positive, or negative, results, a theory is established. The strength of that theory may be eroded over time with greater understanding of the matter.

You're not talking about science here. You're discussing opinion. Don't confuse the two. Dr Fauci may be a scientist but his opinion is not scientific unless he can produce a way that others can verify it. And that is the sting. China will do everything to deny an accidental release. All governments do - it's their job to protect their national identity. We will never know (because we'll not be allowed to investigate properly) how the virus was released. So, don't use the term 'science' to describe anything related to how we know what happened. That horse has long gone.

And BTW, here's the stinger. The German (BioNtech) vaccine (produced by Pfizer labs) is the most effective vaccine. It beats the Chinese version. Isn't that amazing? The country that supposedly 'released' the virus doesn't have a 100% effective vaccine. Cue the fucking Twilight zone music.

 

[Space Lynx]

Where are your facts then?????

I never claimed anything in any of my posts? As I said many times, was just pointing out the hypocrisy that occurs with groupthink. It seems to me we are still at square 1 knowing where the virus came from, food markets, lab accident, and possibly even pangolin... I will see there does seem to be some evidence regarding the November 2019 3 Wuhan lab scientists getting sick and being hospitalized... then in December 2019 the Wuhan outbreak, that does seem to be odd timing, but again we both agree its not definitive.

Also, evidence is only the outcome of the scientific method... so instead of criticizing me perhaps instead you should have commented on whether or not my thinking was logical or not? In regards to the bat collection at the Wuhan Lab, is it important for bats collected from various regions to be separated in airtight locations, or could Covid have emerged from multiple species that in past may not have come into contact with each other without human intervention - create a new virus by the mixture of air between them? I simply don't know, perhaps I am even asking the question wrong as I don't know anything about bats or their migratory patterns. This is my point though... so quick to judge, so quick to assume the scientists can account for every single variable... no one human is possible for making sure every single variable is covered in any experimentation, we can do our best true, but its impossible to be absolute as there are simply to many variables at play. Maybe the mask one of them wore one day had a slight snag in it during the manufacturing process, exposing the lab worker more so than normal that day... see what I mean? The supply chain itself is infinite variables.

No. It's not. And this is exactly where pseudoscience pollutes the exacting nature of science. The scientific method (and the clue is in the word 'method') is to demonstrate a verifiable procedure to reproduce the same result. This is how science works. I suggest experiment 'A' to validate my hypothesis, itself, ideally based on a 'null' hypothesis where I ought to attempt to prove my theory by failing at dispproving it.

Scienctific theory requires a method by which scientists can attempt to replicate the results. After umpteen positive, or negative, results, a theory is established. The strength of that theory may be eroded over time with greater understanding of the matter.

You're not talking about science here. You're discussing opinion. Don't confuse the two. Dr Fauci may be a scientist but his opinion is not scientific unless he can produce a way that others can verify it. And that is the sting. China will do everything to deny an accidental release. All governments do - it's their job to protect their national identity. We will never know (because we'll not be allowed to investigate properly) how the virus was released. So, don't use the term 'science' to describe anything related to how we know what happened. That horse has long gone.

And BTW, here's the stinger. The German (BioNtech) vaccine (produced by Pfizer labs) is the most effective vaccine. It beats the Chinese version. Isn't that amazing? The country that supposedly 'released' the virus doesn't have a 100% effective vaccine. Cue the fucking Twilight zone music.

like I said before, I mostly believe the underground food markets as the source for the virus, it just makes logical sense, but like Fauci who has 50+ years of experience, I am not ruling out the possibility of human error.

BioNTech saved the day I agree, not sure what your point with that was, I have said that for awhile now. /shrug

I admitted several times I was discussing opinion... again not sure what your point was here.

edit: I think you misread the posts and focused on @dragontamer5788 post... Fauci on May 11 and, previous CDC director who most made fun of, suggested it was lab accident... no one said anything about the need for your twilight zone music comment. but mmk

 

[dragontamer5788]

It seems to me we are still at square 1 knowing where the virus came from, food markets, lab accident, and possibly even pangolin

Life is full of uncertainty. No one knows anything, we just work off of the best information available. The best information changes, and even self-contradicts itself as time goes on. No biggie, we change our views as new evidence comes up.

EDIT: And proposing new theories can be helpful, but only if there's evidence for those new theories. Just shooting into the dark turns into a "Texas Sharpshooter" fallacy. If you throw out enough guesses, eventually you're right but for the wrong reasons.

 

[dragontamer5788]

edit: I think you misread the posts and focused on @dragontamer5788 post... Fauci on May 11 and, previous CDC director who most made fun of, suggested it was lab accident... no one said anything about the need for your twilight zone music comment. but mmk

Wuhan Lab Helped Chinese Army in Secret Project to Find Animal Viruses

Despite its repeated denials, revelations are coming out the Chinese government has been working on a secret military project for 9 years to find and research animal viruses, according to documents obtained by the U.K.'s Daily Mail on Sunday....

www.newsmax.com

Are you unaware of the current political environment? Its not hard to find people talking about this "secret government army project" crap. This is the stuff my coworkers talk about, my sister's husband's family talks about, etc. etc. I'm not trying to be overtly political here or anything, but it helps to establish a baseline.

This "bioweapon" theory is pretty strong as a political undercurrent. Lots and lots of people are talking about it, and I don't think it has any legs to stand on.

 

[Space Lynx]

Life is full of uncertainty. No one knows anything, we just work off of the best information available. The best information changes, and even self-contradicts itself as time goes on. No biggie, we change our views as new evidence comes up.

EDIT: And proposing new theories can be helpful, but only if there's evidence for those new theories. Just shooting into the dark turns into a "Texas Sharpshooter" fallacy. If you throw out enough guesses, eventually you're right but for the wrong reasons.

Agreed, perhaps that means we shouldn't make fun of former CDC directors who agree with Fauci.

Wuhan Lab Helped Chinese Army in Secret Project to Find Animal Viruses

Despite its repeated denials, revelations are coming out the Chinese government has been working on a secret military project for 9 years to find and research animal viruses, according to documents obtained by the U.K.'s Daily Mail on Sunday....

www.newsmax.com

Are you unaware of the current political environment? Its not hard to find people talking about this "secret government army project" crap.

I have never read Newsmax once in my life and I'm not clicking that link, everyone knows its propaganda site... perhaps you shouldn't be giving them free advertising? I link a CNN site with Fauci agreeing with former CDC director everyone else made fun of for suggesting the same thing, and you post an article from this site to dictate something to me? Whatever that is... not sure it's on topic but you do you man. LOL

 

[dragontamer5788]

everyone knows its propaganda site

I interact with people who believe in it all the time in my day-to-day life. We all have different social circles. Please consider the viewpoint from my side of things: I can hear my coworkers discussing Newsmax around the office. I can hear my sister's husband + his family talking about these points on a regular basis. I have uncles and cousins... and even my own mother discusses points that come from this sphere (not necessarily Newsmax in particular: but Shapiro, Drudge Report, Fox, Tucker, etc. etc.). Its important that I keep up with those arguments so that I know what the hell my own social circle is coming from.

It doesn't mean I believe in what they say. It just means that I'm aware of the arguments being presented. If you don't have to deal with people who fall for this propaganda crap in your life, then sure, maybe you don't have to care. But its something that comes up somewhat regularly in my social life.

 

[Space Lynx]

I interact with people who believe in it all the time in my day-to-day life. We all have different social circles. Please consider the viewpoint from my side of things: I can hear my coworkers discussing Newsmax around the office. I can hear my sister's husband + his family talking about these points on a regular basis. I have uncles and cousins... and even my own mother discusses points that come from this sphere (not necessarily Newsmax in particular: but Shapiro, Drudge Report, Fox, Tucker, etc. etc.). Its important that I keep up with those arguments so that I know what the hell my own social circle is coming from.

It doesn't mean I believe in what they say. It just means that I'm aware of the arguments being presented. If you don't have to deal with people who fall for this propaganda crap in your life, then sure, maybe you don't have to care. But its something that comes up somewhat regularly in my social life.

Perhaps instead of worrying about this stuff, you should instead hone yourself so you can counter any argument they make, as I have done here in the last few pages of posts. You yourself took me out of context, and I informed you with basic logic how you were off-topic, and it seems that you agreed.

 

[dragontamer5788]

you should instead hone yourself so you can counter any argument they make,

These people don't work off of logic. I love my mother, but no. Its not worth discussing things seriously with her. Its also socially unacceptable to insert myself into the arguments / shit-talking my coworkers do. Just because they're loud doesn't mean its an open-invitation for me to walk up and "ummm actually" them.

Its life. I sit and I listen. I understand. If anyone wants to discuss things with me, I'll talk to them, using my understanding of general politics to estimate their viewpoint. If I'm wrong with the initial estimate, that's fine, it will be discovered as the discussion progresses. But honestly, most people who are talking about "unnatural" origins of COVID19 are in fact, moving towards "bioweapon" conspiracy theories. That's why I jumped in that direction.

If you're just saying "Oh, it may have popped up in that food market in Wuhan", that's not really a big deal, and that's a reasonable viewpoint to have. But I suggest that you don't use words that are similar to other people's words if you don't want to be confused with them in the future.

EDIT: The main useful bit about keeping up with the right-wing nutjob talk, is that when idiotic propaganda comes out of my Mother's mouth, I won't overreact to it. I'd have heard it before from the original propaganda sites, and will be better able to hold my composure. As such, we have a more natural discussion (especially because my Mom isn't a right-wing nut. She doesn't constantly talk about right-wing propaganda. Its just thrown in there as a side comment every now and then). In contrast, if I keep myself ignorant about this stuff, then I overreact and am tempted to correct my Mom on those tangents.

 

[Space Lynx]

But I suggest that you don't use words that are similar to other people's words if you don't want to be confused with them in the future.

I never used similar words to them... I used similar words to Fauci... but mmk

 

[claes]

It’s more that you’re beating the drum so hard. Fauci, PR specialist that he is, would probably just say “I don’t know because we don’t have absolute certainty due to the geopolitical landscape and lack of scrutiny/transparency as to the origin” rather than play skeptic, as many with geopolitical objectives are currently doing on their respective ideological mediums.

 

[Space Lynx]

It’s more that you’re beating the drum so hard. Fauci, PR specialist that he is, would probably just say “I don’t know because we don’t have absolute certainty due to the geopolitical landscape and lack of scrutiny/transparency as to the origin” rather than play skeptic, as many with geopolitical objectives are currently doing on their respective ideological mediums.

Did you not watch the video in the link I provided twice where Fauci talks about this on May 11th? You are just assuming you know what he said in that video?

I'm beating the drum so hard because of this very reason, so many assumptions, so much tribalism... I wonder what would have happened if the former CDC Director said the lab accident possibility and Fauci backed it up with what he said in that video May 11th. I wonder if so many people would have still made fun of that CDC Director so much? Interesting to contemplate... that's all I was trying to highlight.

 

[SaLaDiN666]

The origin of the virus is not known. The animal zero hasn't been found, the market is not confirmed as the source of the virus, the only thing which is confirmed that there were a few infected people around.

If that market was underground, a closed area without circulating air, the likely possibility is that simply infected people/spreaders visited it and others got infected. If there really was the animal zero, the people who regularly sell there and spend plenty of time, would get infected en masse. That didn't happen.

Secondly, with current technology, we have no way of knowing if the naturally developed virus was manipulated or not. Anyone telling the opposite is simply lying.

 

[LFaWolf]

I interact with people who believe in it all the time in my day-to-day life. We all have different social circles. Please consider the viewpoint from my side of things: I can hear my coworkers discussing Newsmax around the office. I can hear my sister's husband + his family talking about these points on a regular basis. I have uncles and cousins... and even my own mother discusses points that come from this sphere (not necessarily Newsmax in particular: but Shapiro, Drudge Report, Fox, Tucker, etc. etc.). Its important that I keep up with those arguments so that I know what the hell my own social circle is coming from.

It doesn't mean I believe in what they say. It just means that I'm aware of the arguments being presented. If you don't have to deal with people who fall for this propaganda crap in your life, then sure, maybe you don't have to care. But its something that comes up somewhat regularly in my social life.

You have my sympathy to be surrounded by so many Qs. Stay strong. my friend, and don't let them influence your thinking.

 

[the54thvoid]

This has gone way off base.

Maps, science, data, and stats. That's this thread.

The Lounge thread should satisfy the vagueness of supposition and opinion. Post deletions will follow if they're not on topic.

 

[dragontamer5788]

You have my sympathy to be surrounded by so many Qs. Stay strong. my friend, and don't let them influence your thinking.

I've got a proper response to this over in the other thread.

But to bring us back to topic:

Here in my state, we've gone from ~20,000 first dose administrations/day to ~8000. I know these statistics slow down over the weekend (so today's Monday stats are depressed: people prefer to get vaccinated during the weekday). So I'll give it a few more days before concluding... but...

We're slowing down our vaccination rate at this point. A slowdown was always going to occur as the "lazy" people and eventually "anti-vaxxers" are left.

As you can see, the highest vaccination rate was a month ago. We've been on the decline since then: fewer and fewer people are going into the vaccination centers. Granted, we're past the "50%" mark (over 50% of people who can be vaccinated are vaccinated). But this is why things like COVID19 vaccine lotteries are beginning to be a thing: we need to encourage this last 30% of people to get vaccinated: the sooner the better.

 

[HTC]

Here are Portugal's updated numbers this week.



The pics are, in order, last day updated numbers and every day since then until yesterday's numbers (click for full picture), and the below numbers are current totals, week totals and daily averaged this week:

- 22515 active cases --- 240 more --- 34 more per day
- 805692 recovered --- 2792 more --- 399 more per day
- 17017 fatalities --- 10 more --- 1 more per day
- 845224 confirmed infected --- 3042 more --- 435 more per day

- 11431364 tests taken --- 298355 more --- 37294 more per day but was last updated May 23rd and it includes antigen tests as well
- 4941964 vaccinated --- 4559467 more --- last updated yesterday but that corresponds to 3413468 1st doses + 1528496 2nd doses
- 220 hospitalized --- 25 less --- 4 less per day
- 58 in ICU --- 18 less --- 3 less per day

The main report wasn't published on Tuesday, so i had to use the situation report instead.

Week fatalities dropped VS last week and we also had TWO more days with zero fatalities: the week average has dropped below 10 for the 8th consecutive week. New cases increased a bit and the R number increased to 1.03 on average. Roughly 34% of Portugal's population has received the vaccine's 1st dose and roughly 15% have received both doses.

The fact that the R number is over 1 worries me but, because almost all of those most vulnerable have @ least 1 dose of the vaccine, both hospitalization and ICU numbers have been steadily declining.

 

[R-T-B]

this was about how people last year and even recently were making fun of the CDC director for suggesting covid may have been a lab accident,

I mean I still make fun of them in the way I make fun of people who believe in Aliens.

I don't rule out the possibility Aliens might be real, but believing some of the crap they believe is happening without evidence is comical.

There's no danger in not ruling something out. There is a danger in making a leap of faith without evidence. Many are doing that latter.

 

[Tatty_Two]

The fact that the R number is over 1 worries me but, because almost all of those most vulnerable have @ least 1 dose of the vaccine, both hospitalization and ICU numbers have been steadily declining.

Assuming you have opened your borders to more than just us Brits (rumour has it there is near to 250,000 of us on holiday in Portugal currently) I think it is likely that your R number will increase, some say that as vaccination programs progress R numbers will have less meaning in so much that like the common influenza strains nobody is interested in who has caught the flu and is unwell, things only become significant if they get hospitalised or die, but obviously we are not there yet.

 

[HTC]

Assuming you have opened your borders to more than just us Brits (rumour has it there is near to 250,000 of us on holiday in Portugal currently) I think it is likely that your R number will increase, some say that as vaccination programs progress R numbers will have less meaning in so much that like the common influenza strains nobody is interested in who has caught the flu and is unwell, things only become significant if they get hospitalised or die, but obviously we are not there yet.

Except it has been increasing since before the borders were open: about 2 or 3 days before, actually.

We suspect it's because of the football title celebrations where ... obviously ... most of those celebrating ignored the social distancing and masking rules.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Shit is really starting to hit the fan in Taiwan.
11 dead, 633 cases today.

LIVE | Tracking Taiwan’s COVID-19 Outbreak: The Latest News from Taiwan’s 22 Counties at a Glance | CommonWealth Magazine

Taiwan’s recent COVID-19 outbreak started with the China Airlines and Novotel clusters before spreading to tea parlors in Wanhua, Taipei City. Follow CommonWealth for the latest developments in the domestic outbreak and information about locations visited by confirmed cases.

web.cw.com.tw