Big C said:

---

Two weeks ago, they started saying cases were going up again, but when I looked at the graphs, it didn't jump out at me. This week, however, yikes...

Number of new cases in the Northeast, clearly going down. (Remember, they were hit HARD in April.) Number of new cases in the Southeast, South, Southwest and West (including CA): Noticeably going up. It's like the virus has shifted its focus.

Two possibly mitigating factors:

1. Increased testing means increased discovery of cases. Even Trump knows that apparently.

2. Some people say the deadliness of the virus is diminishing. Well, we'll know more on that in a couple of weeks.

---

I have noticed the same thing.
And points 1 & 2 raised these questions if you are a policy maker:

• Do we focus on the spread of the disease or the deadliness of the disease?
• Do we worry about stats. or ignore them because they are based on increased testing?
• Do athletes etc. that have the disease but are just carriers pose a risk to others like them?

heartofthebear said:

---

And points 1 & 2 raised these questions if you are a policy maker:

• Do we focus on the spread of the disease or the deadliness of the disease?
• Do we worry about stats. or ignore them because they are based on increased testing?
• Do athletes etc. that have the disease but are just carriers pose a risk to others like them?

---

moved to OT

excerpt also moved

heartofthebear said:

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Big C said:

---

Two weeks ago, they started saying cases were going up again, but when I looked at the graphs, it didn't jump out at me. This week, however, yikes...

Number of new cases in the Northeast, clearly going down. (Remember, they were hit HARD in April.) Number of new cases in the Southeast, South, Southwest and West (including CA): Noticeably going up. It's like the virus has shifted its focus.

Two possibly mitigating factors:

1. Increased testing means increased discovery of cases. Even Trump knows that apparently.

2. Some people say the deadliness of the virus is diminishing. Well, we'll know more on that in a couple of weeks.

---

I have noticed the same thing.
And points 1 & 2 raised these questions if you are a policy maker:

• Do we focus on the spread of the disease or the deadliness of the disease?
• Do we worry about stats. or ignore them because they are based on increased testing?
• Do athletes etc. that have the disease but are just carriers pose a risk to others like them?

---

1. hospitalizations are rising, so it isn't just testing.
2. Regarding deadliness, there are multiple factors at play. Who is getting it? (more younger people right now). Also, deaths spike when the hospitals become overwhelmed. Stopping the hospitals from becoming overwhelmed is definitely a key. Deadliness does seem to also be related to the amount of exposure. Those that get a high concentration of exposure seem to fair a lot worse. (so if people get sick based on a short term exposure to one person, they are less likely to die than someone who spends 45 minutes on a Covid laden BART train. So the lack of crowded gatherings, especially indoors could be helping) Lastly, we keep learning, so even without a cure, we find better techniques for fighting it. But I don't think there is much indication that the inherent "deadliness" of the disease is waning. Yeah, if more 20 year olds are getting it than 80 year olds, the numbers will improve, but that doesn't mean that 20 year olds and 80 year olds who get it aren't dying at the same rate as always. And the bottom line is, we don't know how many deaths are going to come from this spike in cases. We need to wait and see. I think the media coverage is going overboard right now, but I also think there is cause for concern and for me, personally, it is not time to take risks yet.

Cal88 said:

---

Big C said:

---

Two weeks ago, they started saying cases were going up again, but when I looked at the graphs, it didn't jump out at me. This week, however, yikes...

Number of new cases in the Northeast, clearly going down. (Remember, they were hit HARD in April.) Number of new cases in the Southeast, South, Southwest and West (including CA): Noticeably going up. It's like the virus has shifted its focus.

Two possibly mitigating factors:

1. Increased testing means increased discovery of cases. Even Trump knows that apparently.

2. Some people say the deadliness of the virus is diminishing. Well, we'll know more on that in a couple of weeks.

---

Yes, and yes.

Ignore the new case curve, focus on the new deaths curve, it is based on a far less volatile measurement with a lot less systematic error.

Quote:

---

Oaktown wrote:
Check out the curve for the US vs. The European Union.

---

Here is the comparative new deaths curves for the US, the EU and Europe, what you can see is that the curves and patterns are remarkably similar:



The US new deaths curve is basically the Europe curve with a time lag! That's basically been the main premise of my covid posting here.

People thought I was nuts to maintain back in February that it was going to get here in March and completely disrupt our lives, just like it had done in Europe. Now they think I'm an idiot for claiming that it is already on the wane in the US and will fade in July, just like it is now fading in Europe!

The new US deaths are going to dwindle to a trickle by mid/late July, the same way they are now in Italy, France or Spain, bank on it.

Quote:

---

CJay wrote:
^^^ middle america's long held core belief in American Exceptionalism
pushes the country towards magical thinking and denial imo.

---

The magical thinking here is to believe that the virus is going to behave completely differently in the US vs Europe. In reality, with a few exceptions like Germany, European leadership is just as bad as it is in the US.

There are some differences between the US and Europe that might have affected the spread, for example by and large the red states have a less favorable terrain for the spread of the virus, with a suburban layout and much higher automobile use vs public transit. As well the US is further south geographically, and got hit later in Spring, so warmer and sunnier conditions overall. Stockholm for instance is further north than Juneau. On the other hand the US has much higher obesity rates and poorer diets, then again the US has lower smoker rates. But by and large, at a continental scale, the differences wash out, and we should expect a similar pattern on both sides of the Atlantic, and the actual curves above reflect this, strikingly so.

The main policy differentiators will turn out to be nursing home management, testing/tracing and treatment policy.

---

Just a reminder to the forum that almost every contrarian comment Cal88 has said about COVID in the last few months has been disproven at this point. There is a reason that Trump went with Remdesivir, Dexamethazone and $100k Regeneron monoclonal antibodies and not HCQ.

But of course Cal88 said COVID would be gone months ago from the US just like in Europe.

......and tRump is a dead man walking. He ain't cured.

It must be disappointing for Cal88 to be so recently so humiliated. He has trained his whole life for this moment to make Hunter Biden seem like the biggest thing since Watergate.

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

I think the virus has blown through most of the weakest of the population already and also that treatment has improved.

We have a big population and lots of vulnerables. With lack of discipline and bad leadership, lots more tombstones to be made.

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

When someone goes on about how right he has always been and that others are engaging in magical thinking and writes:

Quote:

---

The new US deaths are going to dwindle to a trickle by mid/late July, the same way they are now in Italy, France or Spain, bank on it.

---

you don't defend that. I appreciate you are a nice guy, but people need to be held accountable on stuff like this. He did this to argue for policies that have been a disaster.

As for France, they had 370 deaths in the whole month of Augyst. 2092 in October so far. 206 today. Remember they have one fifth our population. They were down to almost nothing and they are catching up to us fast in per capita deaths per day.

Yes, increased testing and more able bodied people getting the disease impacts the case to deaths rate. But France's average daily deaths over the past week is 12 times higher than the daily death rate in August.

Again, I still don't know why anyone would take Cal88 seriously after he made up those Time Magazine stories about "global cooling."

dimitrig said:

---

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

I think the virus has blown through most of the weakest of the population already and also that treatment has improved.

---

This is antidotal, but I think this is true to some degree. If you ask experts like Fauci, they will also say that protocols have changed to protect sensitive receptors like those in retirement homes, which is a variant of what you said.

That said, there is second waive occurring right now in much of Western Europe, other counties and portions of the US. Not all numbers are equal. For example, Switzerland, which had almost eradicated COVID, has recently declared an emergency, re-closed its borders, and reestablished COVID restrictions. Now they test and trace most of their population, so the probably have a sense what the numbers actually are. The US is just a crap shoot depending on where you are. Testing and tracing is all over the place, so is compliance or even levels of restrictions. You can't shut down borders. Time lags in reporting are very different. Without a national approach, we have no clue as a country what is really happening. Arguably, one area is facing an unreported surge due to lags in reporting while another may be over reporting due to lags in reporting. And some areas just are not reporting much. My suspicion is this is true of some otter counties (India comes to mind), but bad information is not the way to marshall assets to fight a pandemic or set restrictions on conduct. A sample of the COVID numbers for the EU vs the US adjusted for population seems to suggest the US is being hit harder, but when you throw out places like Switzerland and probably Germany, it is probably hard to tell how accurate the numbers really are in the rest of the countries. For example. the UK and France are probably worse than the US overall in collecting data. But recalling the comments that COVID would be over the day after the election, the numbers in aggregate, don't appear to be saying that, but the seriousness of the average case appears to be diminishing (hospitalizations and deaths as a percent of cases is trending down for a long time). Absent vaccine immunity (if and whenever that occurs), Biden is going to need to develop a national policy because COVID is not going away before he takes office.

wifeisafurd said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

I think the virus has blown through most of the weakest of the population already and also that treatment has improved.

---

This is antidotal, but I think this is true to some degree. If you ask experts like Fauci, they will also say that protocols have changed to protect sensitive receptors like those in retirement homes, which is a variant of what you said.

---

We are all waiting for something truly antidotal to the effects of the anti-science poison infecting our country.

I will add that I think the widespread use of Dexamethazone may end up being the best therapeutic we have.

Anecdotal*

wifeisafurd said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

I think the virus has blown through most of the weakest of the population already and also that treatment has improved.

---

This is antidotal, but I think this is true to some degree. If you ask experts like Fauci, they will also say that protocols have changed to protect sensitive receptors like those in retirement homes, which is a variant of what you said.

That said, there is second waive occurring right now in much of Western Europe, other counties and portions of the US. Not all numbers are equal. For example, Switzerland, which had almost eradicated COVID, has recently declared an emergency, re-closed its borders, and reestablished COVID restrictions. Now they test and trace most of their population, so the probably have a sense what the numbers actually are. The US is just a crap shoot depending on where you are. Testing and tracing is all over the place, so is compliance or even levels of restrictions. You can't shut down borders. Time lags in reporting are very different. Without a national approach, we have no clue as a country what is really happening. Arguably, one area is facing an unreported surge due to lags in reporting while another may be over reporting due to lags in reporting. And some areas just are not reporting much. My suspicion is this is true of some otter counties (India comes to mind), but bad information is not the way to marshall assets to fight a pandemic or set restrictions on conduct. A sample of the COVID numbers for the EU vs the US adjusted for population seems to suggest the US is being hit harder, but when you throw out places like Switzerland and probably Germany, it is probably hard to tell how accurate the numbers really are in the rest of the countries. For example. the UK and France are probably worse than the US overall in collecting data. But recalling the comments that COVID would be over the day after the election, the numbers in aggregate, don't appear to be saying that, but the seriousness of the average case appears to be diminishing (hospitalizations and deaths as a percent of cases is trending down for a long time). Absent vaccine immunity (if and whenever that occurs), Biden is going to need to develop a national policy because COVID is not going away before he takes office.

---

I think this is misleading. We are testing a lot more. We are picking up a lot more positives from people who have lesser symptoms simply because they were not tested previously. At one point, if you weren't in a hospital you weren't getting tested. Further, it appears, although, who the heck knows based on the lousy testing we did for months, that more younger people are getting it. (though frankly, it could just be that more younger people are getting TESTED for it more than they were). So it is true that hospitalizations and deaths as a percent of POSITIVE TESTS RESULTS have been trending down for a long time, but we always knew we were not picking up nearly all the people who had it. So I don't think it is accurate to say the seriousness of the average case is diminishing. Frankly, we are getting better at treating it than when it first hit, but not that much better. I'd say mainly hospitals not being overwhelmed plays the biggest part. But, adjusted for age, the disease is pretty much as serious as it always was, at least after maybe 2 months in when we figured out the best way to use ventilators and use prone positioning, etc.

OaktownBear said:

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Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

When someone goes on about how right he has always been and that others are engaging in magical thinking and writes:

Quote:

---

The new US deaths are going to dwindle to a trickle by mid/late July, the same way they are now in Italy, France or Spain, bank on it.

---

you don't defend that. I appreciate you are a nice guy, but people need to be held accountable on stuff like this. He did this to argue for policies that have been a disaster.

As for France, they had 370 deaths in the whole month of Augyst. 2092 in October so far. 206 today. Remember they have one fifth our population. They were down to almost nothing and they are catching up to us fast in per capita deaths per day.

Yes, increased testing and more able bodied people getting the disease impacts the case to deaths rate. But France's average daily deaths over the past week is 12 times higher than the daily death rate in August.

---

Yeah, I said I was defending ONE THING he wrote. Obviously not the dwindling-to-a-trickle-by-late-July part..

Good background on the France stats, which I will review. When I saw them, it really didn't look like deaths were anywhere near what they "should be", given their skyrocketing case counts. Lots of factors possibly going into that, as we acknowledge.

Big C said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

When someone goes on about how right he has always been and that others are engaging in magical thinking and writes:

Quote:

---

The new US deaths are going to dwindle to a trickle by mid/late July, the same way they are now in Italy, France or Spain, bank on it.

---

you don't defend that. I appreciate you are a nice guy, but people need to be held accountable on stuff like this. He did this to argue for policies that have been a disaster.

As for France, they had 370 deaths in the whole month of Augyst. 2092 in October so far. 206 today. Remember they have one fifth our population. They were down to almost nothing and they are catching up to us fast in per capita deaths per day.

Yes, increased testing and more able bodied people getting the disease impacts the case to deaths rate. But France's average daily deaths over the past week is 12 times higher than the daily death rate in August.

---

Yeah, I said I was defending ONE THING he wrote. Obviously not the dwindling-to-a-trickle-by-late-July part..

Good background on the France stats, which I will review. When I saw them, it really didn't look like deaths were anywhere near what they "should be", given their skyrocketing case counts. Lots of factors possibly going into that, as we acknowledge.

---

I think on the last point, you are used to seeing our death counts and have probably become jaded. Remember 200 for them is like 1000 for us. 2 months ago they were at 10-12 having been around that for a long time. A month ago they were in the 30-50 range. I've been watching Europe as a comparison to us throughout and they hardly had anything all summer. Spain, UK and France have really skyrocketed the past couple weeks.

OaktownBear said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Big C said:

---

Wow, I started this thread four months ago, but it also could've been two weeks ago. Cases are SURGING, nationally. (Hell, internationally.) Not sure how much longer California can stay in its good-behavior bubble. Sucks, as my daughter is tentatively scheduled to return to the classroom part-time in a few weeks. Not to mention the return of California Football.

I would like to play devil's advocate to defend one thing Cal88 wrote back in June. In France right now, the case counts have been going through the roof for the past several weeks, but the fatalities have not increased commensurately, even taking into account the fact that fatalities lag about 3 weeks behind case counts...

One factor to explain this is that increased testing is revealing more cases. Another is that improved treatment is lowering the fatalities. Yet a third might be that younger people are getting the disease and the vulnerable population is being better-protected. And yet, it is almost like that one doctor was saying in Italy a few months ago, that COVID just doesn't seem as deadly as it was before.

Fascinating how we're still learning as we go. What will be next?

---

I think the virus has blown through most of the weakest of the population already and also that treatment has improved.

---

This is antidotal, but I think this is true to some degree. If you ask experts like Fauci, they will also say that protocols have changed to protect sensitive receptors like those in retirement homes, which is a variant of what you said.

That said, there is second waive occurring right now in much of Western Europe, other counties and portions of the US. Not all numbers are equal. For example, Switzerland, which had almost eradicated COVID, has recently declared an emergency, re-closed its borders, and reestablished COVID restrictions. Now they test and trace most of their population, so the probably have a sense what the numbers actually are. The US is just a crap shoot depending on where you are. Testing and tracing is all over the place, so is compliance or even levels of restrictions. You can't shut down borders. Time lags in reporting are very different. Without a national approach, we have no clue as a country what is really happening. Arguably, one area is facing an unreported surge due to lags in reporting while another may be over reporting due to lags in reporting. And some areas just are not reporting much. My suspicion is this is true of some otter counties (India comes to mind), but bad information is not the way to marshall assets to fight a pandemic or set restrictions on conduct. A sample of the COVID numbers for the EU vs the US adjusted for population seems to suggest the US is being hit harder, but when you throw out places like Switzerland and probably Germany, it is probably hard to tell how accurate the numbers really are in the rest of the countries. For example. the UK and France are probably worse than the US overall in collecting data. But recalling the comments that COVID would be over the day after the election, the numbers in aggregate, don't appear to be saying that, but the seriousness of the average case appears to be diminishing (hospitalizations and deaths as a percent of cases is trending down for a long time). Absent vaccine immunity (if and whenever that occurs), Biden is going to need to develop a national policy because COVID is not going away before he takes office.

---

I think this is misleading. We are testing a lot more. We are picking up a lot more positives from people who have lesser symptoms simply because they were not tested previously. At one point, if you weren't in a hospital you weren't getting tested. Further, it appears, although, who the heck knows based on the lousy testing we did for months, that more younger people are getting it. (though frankly, it could just be that more younger people are getting TESTED for it more than they were). So it is true that hospitalizations and deaths as a percent of POSITIVE TESTS RESULTS have been trending down for a long time, but we always knew we were not picking up nearly all the people who had it. So I don't think it is accurate to say the seriousness of the average case is diminishing. Frankly, we are getting better at treating it than when it first hit, but not that much better. I'd say mainly hospitals not being overwhelmed plays the biggest part. But, adjusted for age, the disease is pretty much as serious as it always was, at least after maybe 2 months in when we figured out the best way to use ventilators and use prone positioning, etc.

---

The only reason I say anecdotal (if I had not autocorrected into a rather amusing wording) was that I sit on a science institute board, and there always seems to be a discussion at the board meetings on COVID (very few of the scientists at this institute pivoted to COVID research, but our scientists get weekly briefings from government scientists) and as a courtesy we get updates. I said this badly, but the news is that there are better treatments and faster diagnosis so that the virus is having less impact. As an example cited, there was a local man with lymphoma that was feeling tired. No fever or respiratory symptoms. But because his fatigue was coming at the wrong time given his lymphoma treatment, they gave him a COVID test, and when he tested positive 20 minutes later, they were able to put him on TCZ and dexamethasone and they had him on O2 at home. Thus, he did't have to be hospitalized, which normally would have been automatic practice in his case with the co-morbidity. This is just one story, and comments from scientists who sit on the board, not a rigorous statistical analysis. I did not mean to imply or mislead that the virus' potency is lessening in some way. It isn't.