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New Year arrives with U.S. topping 20 million COVID cases

39 Comments
By Ben Sheppard

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39 Comments

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2021 is the year of the cow and the word vaccine is from the latin word vacca meaning cow.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

Russa's number should be updated.

Russian Covid deaths three times the official toll

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55474028

Meanwhile China's death toll has continued to stay intact since last April. Or say, it should always be so at Xi Jinping's will no matter how unnatural it appears :P

11 ( +13 / -2 )

The country who made this virus is so happy by looking these numbers. They should be celebrating now as things are going as they planned.

When will we Americans recognize the enemy who is killing us form with in,

It is time to wake up.

Look around carefully

Never believe the fake stories.

But stand up for USA now.

-12 ( +5 / -17 )

Russa's number should be updated.

My sympathies are with the Russians, all people everywhere for that matter, who've suffered in any way because of the virus. The fact that the Kremlin has paid troll armies to downplay the seriousness of the virus, even deny its existence, and also push anti-vaxx messages shows how little regard Putin and his oligarchs have for Russian people. And all people everywhere.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

When will we Americans recognize the enemy who is killing us form with in,

I think around 80,000,000 Americans did in fact recognize Trump was the enemy within and voted him out. Unfortunately the damage he did while in office and continues to do will linger on long after he's gone. And his followers (US and 'foreign') will LOL that he dumped those problems on Biden - even though the country continues to suffer.

3 ( +13 / -10 )

Maybe the U.S.A. needs to get some advice from China on how to handle the virus?

0 ( +10 / -10 )

Users of RT-PCR reagents should read the IFU [Information for Use] carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is necessary to account for any background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold (Ct) value result being interpreted as a positive result.

Translation: Using too many test cycles—aka “high cycle threshold (Ct) value”—has resulted in patients being told they’re infected, which is a lie.

https://www.who.int/news/item/14-12-2020-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

All the violence, the hatred, the riots, the commotion, the unrest, the ego, the lies, the ignorance, the denials that Trump spread and openly encourages have made the CoVid problem worse than it should be. He knew about the problem last January and then popped off his chops with uncouth 'Kung Flu' jokes and more lippy sassy talk. He is a traitor, terrorist, international criminal, despot, and narcisstic juvenile. He also has BLOOD on his hands. He sold his soul to the Russians and the Devil and now he's losing everything. The damage he did to America and to millions of people is incalculable.

Starpunk. Thank You for your comments. I have exactly same thoughts on Trump.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Maybe this what he meant by “you’re gonna be sick of so much winning”.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

“Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.’ By the way, on November 4, you won’t hear about it anymore,”

How much damage has this clown done? MAGA, what a joke.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

I think India is much higher. But I guess there are many vegetarians there, so maybe this could explain these statistics?

-12 ( +0 / -12 )

Where are the Chinese figures?

-11 ( +7 / -18 )

Let this be Trump's legacy (among a few other notorious ones).

8 ( +12 / -4 )

I see everyone enjoying the panic porn still.

And ignoring the fact that the overall death rate in the US in 2020 is right on par with those of the last 4 years - although it has grown as a percentage less than those 4 years.

but POSITIVES!!! seems to get the clicks, so enjoy.

-16 ( +1 / -17 )

Translation: Using too many test cycles—aka “high cycle threshold (Ct) value”—has resulted in patients being told they’re infected, which is a lie.

No, that is a horrible misunderstanding.

Ct value is just one of the many kinds of controls that can be used for qRT-PCR, it may be believable that in the developing world it may be still important, but for any 1st world country it is redundant, you could have hundreds of cycles and the number of false positives would not increase. Even in 3rd world countries what is increased is the background positivity, that can be detected easily, meaning that the problem is not that false positives become common, but that reactions would have to be repeated frequently.

Use of more of one well for each sample, discarding of any positive at a cycle equal or higher than a negative control, use of two or three primer sets on different regions of the viral genome for the same sample, correlated multiplex reactions, switch from intercalated dye reactions to fluorescent probe reactions, melting curve analysis step at the end of the reaction, etc. etc.

All these controls are easy to implement and they eliminate systematically false positives, for some even the machine that runs the reaction does it automatically, it is practically impossible that false positives for COVID-19 exist in any significant amount just because high Ct.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

Nice cut and paste job, but his translation is correct.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is-Ct-values-above-35-in-RT-PCR-run-acceptable-or-not

The US administers a 40 cycle PCR test.

Don't have any trace of the virus? Don't worry, we'll give it to ya!

-13 ( +3 / -16 )

The US administers a 40 cycle PCR test.

Don't have any trace of the virus? Don't worry, we'll give it to ya!

Read what you try to bring to the conversation before posting, the first answer to that question does a very nice job explaining why thinking Ct is important by itself and can increase false positivity rates with any of the many other controls is just nonsense.

Nice job bringing a source that prove you are wrong, maybe next time you may try with something you actually understand.

12 ( +14 / -2 )

Where are the Chinese figures?

From Johns Hopkins:

Number of cases: 87, 093

Deaths: 4,634

They are clearly not to be trusted. About as useful and compelling as claims of a fraudulent election.

Knock yourself out.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

America is facing a crisis. All the merits of American society people believed - democracy, individualism, free economy, human rights, melting races are revealing weaknesses in fight against the pandemic. While China is bragging about their success containing the epidemic quickly under their authoritarian and totalitarian rules. Interesting to see the future in the 21st century.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

Heres something a little easier to understand for the laymen.

-12 ( +2 / -14 )

They are clearly not to be trusted. About as useful and compelling as claims of a fraudulent election.

Very different and both for different reasons.

Knock yourself out.

Naw, don’t think so.

-11 ( +3 / -14 )

America is facing a crisis. All the merits of American society people believed - democracy, individualism, free economy, human rights, melting races are revealing weaknesses in fight against the pandemic. While China is bragging about their success containing the epidemic quickly under their authoritarian and totalitarian rules. Interesting to see the future in the 21st century.

Yes, I definitely agree, spot on.

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

Heres something a little easier to understand for the laymen.

Apparently still too hard for yourself, because your source says absolutely nothing about having false positives, it is about using the PCR test to decide if the person represent a risk of spreading the disease, those are two very different things.

Directly from the article

“It would be useful information to know if somebody’s positive, whether they have a high viral load or a low viral load,”

So no, even at 40 cycles positives are to be considered as positives, it is simply too easy to control for background positivity with any of the many other tools available. What the article discuss is how dangerous for others this infected person is, "positive" as in actively infectious. Not even one of the people interviewed ever says that any of the people identified as positive were actually never infected.

I can now understand why you refuse so much to bring sources for your mistaken ideas, either you don't make the effort to actually read the source or you get easily confused by a topic you know too little about, in any case the result is the same, you prove yourself wrong.

13 ( +14 / -1 )

Thanks, Trump.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

I think around 80,000,000 Americans did in fact recognize Trump was the enemy within and voted him out. Unfortunately the damage he did while in office and continues to do will linger on long after he's gone..

That legit number is around 67,000,000, but let's go with 80,000,000, so Trump is responsible for the virus infections and death, going by that well thought out reasoned logic, why not blame him for the worldwide spread and deaths..that will sync better in that two dimensional pane.

-8 ( +2 / -10 )

America is facing a crisis. All the merits of American society people believed - democracy, individualism, free economy, human rights, melting races are revealing weaknesses in fight against the pandemic. While China is bragging about their success containing the epidemic quickly under their authoritarian and totalitarian rules. Interesting to see the future in the 21st century.

It is worth remembering that the CCP and other totalitarian regimes love to see the bugling idiocy of Trump. He is the disaster/circus that democracy can produce from time to time, but he’s been decisively dismissed by the electorate.

One problem the CCP has is the quality of bureaucrat coming through isn’t the same as before as the best and brightest young Chinese see opportunities elsewhere. This is part of the reasons why Xi, who is regarded as one of the best and brightest, has been able to solidify his power. While we know the likes of Deng and Xi were/are despots and thugs, they were/are highly intelligent and shrewd. The latter qualities of these men are something I’ve heard over and over from Chinese people.

I don’t think this is simply a question of freedom v totalitarianism. The competence of the person in charge is also important.

Basically, stop electing clowns.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

The U.S. has floundered in its efforts to quell the virus

under Trump’s “leadership.

The virus has spread worldwide, so by that logic leadership in every country has failed..

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

Mrtinjp

Over at the New York Times, columnist David Leonhardt compared the US’s coronavirus death toll to that of the rest of the world. He noted the US accounts for about 4 percent of the world’s population but 22 percent of its confirmed Covid-19 deaths. So how many lives would be saved if those numbers were even? Leonhardt calculated: “about 145,000.”

4 ( +5 / -1 )

I am one of those that will not take the vaccine.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Maybe the U.S.A. needs to get some advice from China on how to handle the virus?

along with a bill for everyone's lives they f-ed up.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

President Biden has his work cut out for him. Thanks for nothing Trump.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Here's Trump's failure, summed up in simple facts.

Trump praised and continually touts the 'success' of Operation Warp Speed. That Operation included not only vaccine development, but also distribution and administration 'plans.'

Operation Warp Speed promised (through Trump) that 20 million Americans would have gotten the first dose of the vaccine by 1 January.

As of 1 January, roughly 2.5 million Americans have had their first dose administered, and only 12.5 million doses of vaccine have been distributed. Both in terms of distribution and administration, Operation Warp Speed has been a failure.

The pharmaceutical companies did their jobs. They efficiently developed a vaccine. But at the next level, where the federal government was supposed to do their jobs and not just pat itself on the back, it failed. The Operation Warp Speed distribution and administration plans FAILED. By roughly 17.5 million, it failed.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Hang on... Trump said it would disappear by April.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Many people are skeptical of China’s figures and believe the virus is still rampant in China.

Actually it is very easy to tell if China’s lying or not because there are so many foreign owned companies in China like Disney and these companies are hiring tens of millions of people. Japanese companies employ almost 3 million people in China in 2019.

so If the epidemic is still rampant in China, there must be infected people among these three million people, and the Japanese employers will know it for sure not to mention that German and American companies also employ millions of people in China have you ever heard of news about infected employees in China?

Companies like Tesla Shanghai or IBM are 100% owned and controlled by Americans

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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