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[ZBridges]

The World Health Organization is not an arm of the US government.  If anything, they're in China's pocket.  I don't think there is some sort of complex international conspiracy that the US is participating in, as this administration would be incapable of properly covering it up.

[Starver]

Have we gotten to the point where the Virus cases per day in the US exceeds total possible test capacity? At some point, cases will plateau because we simply can't test fast enough...

Had to read that twice-and-a-bit. Total actual (new} cases... is the default position, beneath which ((edit: sorry, bad phrasing, YKWIM)) you (and we in the UK) probably haven't managed yet.  Total identified (new) cases would never go north of the current testing number[1] because, well, you can't ever assign positive/negative to 110% of those tested, never mind get positives to that kind of supercentipercenty level.

Highly suspected cases (or back-extrapolated by later results, investigated vectors and outcomes), that'd be tricky. It'd also be the case the Trump would be 'right' in that only by testing more people clearly in distress (or worse) to discover their official condition, do you get to a point where they obviously were a case two weeks previously when they weren't tested because there was no capacity to do so. So if you don't test so much, you can never know you weren't testing enough.

(On the other side of that, I see there's still a lot of meme activity like "Person X died of <clearly non-Covid reason>, but is marked down as a Covid death", continuing to suggest there are inflations in the figures with the heavy imication that all the positives are doubtful, rather than percentile rounding errors. The one where X is George Floyd is, I would say, 'unbecoming', except that the 'people' who sparked that one off will already have shown their colours in that direction and it's probably sadly inevitable.)

The estimates are that the US has (just passed) 4 million cases, give or take arguments. I forget what total tests-done (not people-tested, unfortunately). The rate of positives found (probably includes positives (re)confirmed?) has been published/worked out for all periods. I'm sure we could establish whether the argued-over value of instantaneous cases-likely exceeded the likely number of persons-tested, at various points along that timeline.

Excluding the very beginning, and a little beyond, when there obviously were cases but equally obviously no way to test at all.  Every country, I think, will have had that phase in their profile, hopefully that ended quite early (and did not realise later).

But because a lot of that is interpretation, and there's little data to interpret (North Korea/Turkmenistan, you have your reasons...), and the data to interpret is presented very differently across jurisdictions, I don't think there's a fool(/dictator)proof comparison to be easily had, here.


[1] Recipients, not tests, which is << total testing capacity in reality.

[misko27]

We're still breaking records, so probably not. 78k yesterday, I believe.

See that's just it: are those essentially just advancements in our testing capacity? Bear in mind too that testing can only be considered on a state-by-state case: nationally, a record might only reflect (new) cases in states whose testing infrastructure is not yet overwhelmed.

For instance I know Arizona has, if we look at the numbers, seemingly plateaued. Yet what I recall about Arizona's situation was a desperate lack of testing capacity, to the extent that a site that opened at 8 had 800 calls waiting, and filled the 1000 they could do per day by 8:08. I worry that such plateaus represent merely the effective limit of daily testing capacity rather than an actual fact...

[feelotraveller]

Meanwhile globally records continue to be set for the number of new cases reported daily: 284,196 on friday the 24th (WHO numbers).  It's going to get worse for some time. 

Untested cases are anybodies guess.  Lack of testing can reduce reported figures but will not deal with the underlying spread of the virus (if anything underestimating of the scope of the pandemic leads to it becoming more severe since proper measures to deal with it are not undertaken).

[Starver]

Things just got serious, folks! North Korea has announced their first Covid death!

(And to think we imagined their example to be the very image of perfection.Looks like Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow is to be our saviour, then?)

[ChairmanPoo]

Spain is fucked

[wierd]

Again?

(sigh, when will the world's collective governments realize this is not a fucking game, and the cant just ignore this problem away?)

[Naturegirl1999]

Again?

(sigh, when will the world's collective governments realize this is not a fucking game, and the cant just ignore this problem away?)

(Maybe when they get infected, then they’ll realize)

[ChairmanPoo]

So far most contagions are in younger people. Most outbreaks notably associated to "night-time entertainment" and agriculture  workers in poor living conditions (likely because of those poor living conditions). ~60% asymptomatic so far but the numbers are climbing. Contact tracing is at its bare minimum in most regions. As far as doctor employment the system is not at its best either, nd the staff in place are pretty burned out. I think its likely worse than in other places because doctors have accepted many sacrifices over the years with the unspokeb understanding that at least the quality of the service would be preserved  -one of the reasons for the "efficiency" of Spain's healthcare system is that the goverment(s) cut mainly on personnel spending, bringing wages down, and keeping a lid over hiring more staff, ampng other things-. When push came to shove and nursing home residents were dumped, like everywhere else, and our HCW were working with improvised PPE... well it was kind of a moral injury

[McTraveller]

Again?

(sigh, when will the world's collective governments realize this is not a fucking game, and the cant just ignore this problem away?)

This is a human problem, not just a "government" problem.  Seriously, you shouldn't need the government to force you to wear a mask or take precautions.  I guess maybe if there was one thing I would like to see from governments it is this: instead of printing dollars, simply freeze all accounts. No bills due, no payments required. You don't get paid, but you also have no bills.  Start from that premise, then figure out how to still provide health care, emergency services, agriculture and shipping so we can still have clean water, electricity, food, and health care without having to have people get paychecks.

There's got to be a way to make that work....

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is a human problem, not just a "government" problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Vietnam

[McTraveller]

I never said the government didn't have an impact.   But it's the citizens that have to obey that government, unless you actually want the government to use military force.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Americans are pretty good at being obedient sheep when the government is actually united. The issue is that we have one of the two political parties wildly swinging between "it's just a little flu" and "Obama injected my children with the plandemic", and as such the people feel empowered to not obey.

Or rather, about 1/5th of the people feel empowered to not obey according to polling, which sadly for viral infection is more than sufficient opening.

[Eschar]

Again?

(sigh, when will the world's collective governments realize this is not a fucking game, and the cant just ignore this problem away?)

This is a human problem, not just a "government" problem.  Seriously, you shouldn't need the government to force you to wear a mask or take precautions.  I guess maybe if there was one thing I would like to see from governments it is this: instead of printing dollars, simply freeze all accounts. No bills due, no payments required. You don't get paid, but you also have no bills.  Start from that premise, then figure out how to still provide health care, emergency services, agriculture and shipping so we can still have clean water, electricity, food, and health care without having to have people get paychecks.

There's got to be a way to make that work....

Until they find out what's going on, everyone who provides goods and services is going to stop providing until they can figure out how they're going to get compensated by their erstwhile customers, and so nobody's going to have those goods or services, and that's going to end very badly.

Well, some will provide goods/services for free, but probably not enough will do that to stave off shock and doom.

[Reelya]

Again?

(sigh, when will the world's collective governments realize this is not a fucking game, and the cant just ignore this problem away?)

(Maybe when they get infected, then they’ll realize)

You have too high hopes. They'll deny reality, then when reality hits them in the face, instead of admitting any error they'll just rewrite history. Consider how after Bush left all the conservatives started saying Bush was one of those dirty liberals, so anything he did while in office was that nasty liberal stuff, completely rewriting the actual history in which all the conservatives were following behind Bush like good little loyal fascists up until the thing became unstuck and everyone realized what a balls-up the whole thing was. Just to make the point:

https://www.newsweek.com/fox-lou-dobbs-george-bush-liberal-1111686
"Fox Business Host Calls Former President George W. Bush a 'Radical' Liberal"

This was the same Fox News that was beating the war drums for Bush in the vein of a Stalinist propaganda machine the whole time. This is the real Orwellian Newspeak right there.

When they get infected then people will realize? Good luck with that. These sort of political machines have no problems throwing members under the bus if they've served their usefulness or they become a liability. Any one of them who get infected are just cannon fodder.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/world/americas/bolsonaro-coronavirus.html

For example Bolsonaro got infected, but didn't die, so to his supporters, this justifies Bolsonaro's claim that Coronavirus isn't a problem. Now, consider if he had died, they could just have concocted conspiracy theories that he had been murdered somehow, poisoned by the 5th column "doctors" as part of their 'Scamdemic' directed against Trump and Bolsonaro.