Dr. Frankovich Answers Questions About Whether Protesters Should Get Tested for COVID, Endemic Racism, and More
Humboldt County’s Public Health Officer Dr. Teresa Frankovich has been answering questions since the stay-at-home orders were instituted on a two question per media outlet, roughly three times a week basis. The Department of Health and Human Services or office takes the questions, and reads them on camera for their response. The resulting video, called a Media Availability, is then provided to news outlets at the end of the day.
Here are some of the main points covered in the June 1st Media Availability session with a summary of answers form Dr. Frankovich, followed by questions we would have liked to ask in response if appropriate.
Media Question: Considering that minorities are victims in higher numbers proportionally for both COVID and police brutality, can you compare the public health crisis of COVID and the public health crisis of “Structural Racism?”
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, I would say it’s part and parcel of the same thing really. You know structural racism is truly a public health crisis. We certainly noticed that it’s a large driver of social determinants of health that we address in public health all of the time. What we are seeing with COVID and with playing out, for instance, and deaths of African-Americans with COVID being twice what you would expect based on proportion of population, highlights the fact that issues like structural racism have an impact on long-term health for populations. And, you know, it’s incredibly important that the underlying root structural racism is addressed to help have an impact on some of these other health outcomes that we see, whether it’s chronic disease burden or it’s something acute as in COVID.
Media Followup questions we’re unable to ask because of the format:
- Have you seen that ratio (black and brown Americans contracting COVID at twice the expected rate) play out in Humboldt County in terms of race demographics and locals contracting COVID?
1 mins 25 sec in:
Media Question: Many national news sources are referring to the murdering of ‘unarmed black-men’ as a “pandemic.” Do you agree?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, first I just want to say I appreciate residents of Humboldt wanting to highlight the injustice that occurred with Mr. Floyd. And obviously, it not being a single case that we are referring to. In the term of whether it’s a “pandemic” is really sort of semantics, you know, “pandemic” typically refers to a global outbreak of an illness or disease, and in this case I probably can’t comment well enough on internationally what is being seen across the board in this event. What I can comment on is nationally here in the United States, and I would say that this is, to me, is -really the correct term might be “endemic”- meaning that this is a constant presence and that it has been in our country, as far as I can tell, for at least the last couple hundred years more than that at this point. And so it’s been a really challenging piece of our American history. Violence against black individuals in our population, and I think we are seeing this just play out now on a much more public stage because of the availability of technology now, that provides evidence of these instances. It is certainly not a new concept to any of us that this is occurring. And so, I think what we may be seeing is an increase in this violence but again it is difficult to say because we are just made more aware of it now than we have ever been, really, in this country.
3 mins 25 sec in:
Media Question: This weekend with the protests and groups of people gathering, is Public Health concerned at all there may be an increase in cases or increased exposure risk for those in attendance? Do you think that residents did a good job at masking and trying to maintain social distancing during demonstrations?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, I think in terms of a good job, I think it varies. You know, some of the images I’ve seen suggested there are certainly people masking, and are really attempting to have some distancing, and others who are not. And so again, when we bring large groups of people together it is a concern. Being outdoors is an improvement, wearing masks is an improvement, distancing is an improvement, so those factors are helpful. But of course we are always concerned about large gatherings of individuals at this point.
4 mins 5 sec in:
Media Question: Did you feel encouraged by the amount of people wearing face coverings at the protests?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, I do have to say that compared to what I have seen and some of the national footage, I think we have done better here at that. And I do find that encouraging. You know, just the fact that people can talk about and demonstrate against injustice but also at the same time be aware of trying to protect their fellow residents, I think made me feel much better about our residents and our county.
Media Followup questions we’re unable to ask because of the format:
- Would you have felt comfortable protesting against the injustice, yourself as a doctor, if social distancing had been adhered to?
4 mins 45 secs in:
Media Question: Considering the possibility of further COVID spread resulting from the large protests we saw over the weekend, would you recommend that people who attend the demonstrations schedule a COVID test at Redwood Acres, and would the masking policy alone be enough to limit the transmission in those situations?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, I guess the first thing I would say is I encourage everyone to get tested at Redwood Acres, because it is an important part of our surveillance, and I think that this is one piece of a possible exposure of residence in our community, but it, you know, there are multiple possible exposures that we all encounter as we are moving about outside of our homes. So I encourage everyone to get tested through the facility. Masking alone, again, masking is a help, it is not a 100% remedy. And so, you know again it is just part of the activities we do that increases our risk.
5 mins 35 sec in:
Media Question: If people participated in the demonstrations this weekend, should they be getting tested? Should they be self-quarantining? Etc.
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Again, with this kind of exposure as opposed to exposure to a known case, we don’t have people quarantining. However, I again, just emphasize that testing is for everybody. We know that most people, if they have an exposure, will become positive that typically is around day four or five and most everyone will become positive within about 2 1/2 to 10 days- we use 14 as our outlier because some people may be a little bit different. But, I think doing some regular testing is important for everyone in our community.
6 mins 30 secs in:
Media Question: Are you expecting a spike in COVID-19 cases in Humboldt after recent protests?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Again, I don’t know. We’ve had many new things happening in our community in terms of gatherings. With some casinos opening, with churches now gathering, some of the things we saw over the holiday weekend in terms of people gathering. I certainly have concerns over the coming few weeks about what we might see in cases. This large gathering for the protest is among those.
7 mins 5 sec in:
Media Question: Do you expect to see a national spike in COVID-19 cases following the widespread protests and will health officers use this data to determine how prevalent the virus currently is?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, again certainly some of the national images I have seen, many protests there has been little adherence to masking or relatively little, depending on the state in which it occurred. And so I would certainly be more concerned if I were a health officer in some of those areas. All the data that we gather in terms of testing individuals is important in us looking at prevalence in our community.
7 mins 40 sec in:
Media Question: Now that we’ve had the public relax its adherence to sheltering in place over the Memorial Day weekend, followed by a weekend of hundreds of people on the streets of Eureka, by what extent do you expect the county’s confirmed case total of COVID-19 to grow in the coming weeks?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
I really don’t know. Again that crystal ball would be really good to have. I guess I just want to take the opportunity and remind people that as we try and do things to get our economy up and running and get people able to kind of resume more of their normal lives, then it’s really important for us to limit the gatherings. I know it’s difficult. I know we’ve all been doing this a long time, but adding those gatherings on top of the thing is we are already just trying to do county wide, just increases the risk of a sudden increase in cases. So I just really want to ask people to hold on a bit longer. And to really try and limit those exposures in those group settings because we have seen in our recent cases even relatively smaller groups of people from less than 10 to 20 can result in a large number of cases. And so it is really important to try to limit that.
9 mins in:
Media Question: What’s the plan to prevent further community spread of the virus if large gatherings continue?
Answer by Dr. Frankovich:
Well, if gatherings continue then you’re really left with two things. One is really counting on people doing some surveillance testing to pick up some people who may be asymptomatic but infected. Because the earlier we were able to identify cases in quarantine contacts, the better chance we have of controlling the spread of the virus. So, the second piece besides testing is our contact investigation quarantine and isolation. And again, one thing people have to remember is that our capacity to do this well is not limitless. We have built our capacity and continue to do so, but it would be difficult to envision a time in which massive numbers of new cases are going to be able to be investigated, quarantined and isolated quickly. And so it is really important to keep the increase in the number of cases relatively controlled so that we don’t face that limitation.
10 minutes in:
Dr. Frankovich added:
Well again, it’s been kind of a big couple weeks in terms of what’s been going on. I think, again I know some people have been confused at this with the discussions at the state level about where we are at with our response and where we are at the local level. So I just want to remind people that again, the governor has basically framed the roadmap. The state is telling us how to open and we are determining when. So the state is basically taking the stage to things that we have all been talking about and then adding the stage three items to the mix as well. And basically saying that as we provide guidance is for the sectors, and as you are ready on the ground, wherever you are, you can access these additional sectors. And so what we are doing locally is we are taking the lowest risk things, those things that are identified as earlier stage two, making sure those are up and running and then really just following their data and adding those additional things as we go. Again, it’s important for people to understand that even if the things we are opening are lower risk, there’s a different level of risk if you’re opening five or you’re opening 1000 or you’re opening 6000, and so doing so brings more traffic, intersection of people, more mingling within a setting, and interacting with each other. And so we really do need to pace ourselves. COVID is not going away anytime soon and we really do need to make these efforts in part, so that we protect our most vulnerable populations. Who, if there is less virus spreading within our community, they are less likely to get exposed. And also again, to protect our hospital capacity. We have not seen a surge of COVID yet. These small peaks are relatively smaller peaks that we have been seeing lately of cases, and then a little bit of subsiding, and then another peek, may be what we’re going to see ongoing. At some point, one of these increases may continue to go up and that can happen if our ability to decrease transmission is challenging. And so again, I just want people to understand there’s a reason that we need to pace ourselves going forward. I think we will be most successful in the long run at doing those two things- protecting our vulnerable folks and protecting our hospital capacity if we do this in a very thoughtful way.
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“If the casino opens up we’ll see a surge of cases, if churches open up cases will definantly spike, restraunts are opening, we’re all going to die. Mass protests nationwide…. I think they did a pretty good job, you know from that picture I saw. I mean they completely did everything the oppostisite of what I’ve said the entire time but this is different, you know because of reasons and stuff.”
Cough…casinos have only been open a week.
And just because the potential for getting sick is getting bigger that doesn’t mean that people will get sick.
Come on, you’ve played dice games before. If you’re trying to roll sixes and you keep adding another dice, the chances that you are going to roll at least one six increase with every die you add. BUT theoretically you could have a million dice and not roll a six. That’s highly unlikely but it could happen.
In addition, we don’t know about COVID’s behavior. Does it die down in summer? Is it mutating to a less virulent strain?
Give the woman a break. This is a brand new disease and no one knows what the possible permutations are.
You can’t be mad at casinos and ok with protesting from a epidemiological stand point.
There are differences between protesting systemic racism that results in a white officer believing he has immunity so strong that it allows him to kneel on the neck of an obviously dying man for almost nine minutes while being filmed. And restarting a business for economic reasons no matter how strong they are. One is about murder and one is about money.
That said. I’m worried about the possible ramifications on public health from the protests.
No. It takes money to survive. People need to work, to make money to eat.
Work and money are not all about stuff and things. It’s is a medium of exchange required to live, eat, prosper, and choose your own destiny.
I absolutely agree. Economic prosperity is important. And I sympathize with business owners and employees eager for a paycheck that want to reopen the economy.
However, on my personal scale, I sympathize a lot more with people protesting systemic racism than ends in murder than those protesting for the right to open their businesses a few weeks earlier than scheduled.
Poverty is systemic underrepresention of economic opportunity.
Racism is simply a form of tribalism.
It’s an interesting to see the nature of the sociopaths who are given the moral excuse and political pretext to push a violence and the means to the end.
We need a massive amount of introspection to understand the end game.
Sociopaths are found on both sides of the law.
We don’t need a massive amount of introspection to understand the end game. That is what is said every time something like this happens. It is the excuse of those who will ultimately do/accomplish nothing. It is similar to, “We need a *comprehensive* solution to the problem of [fill in the blank].” We cannot eat the elephant all in one bite (and so “comprehensive” is the most idiotic word in politics…but I digress). We will choke on it and accomplish nothing, because the more comprehensive something is, the longer it takes to work out, and the harder it is to get people to agree on it. We need to tackle the problem one bite at time with a targeted solution to the problem we all see time and time again. We need a solution sooner rather than later (or never).
Anyone should already know that the end game is. We just need leaders who are not cowards/idiots and that will take time away from making stupid comments like, “Don’t blame any spike in COVID -19 cases on protesters. Blame it on racism.” when they also say “Even one [avoidable] death is too many.” Except racism. A garbage cop murders one man, and that exempts others to be able to act in a manner that may lead to the deaths of thousands. Brilliant. Genius level politicians/people out there, to be sure.
It would be great if police misconduct could be dealt with at a local/state level, but I see the most irrelevant or weakest of responses, and outright excuses, being made by politicians at that level regarding all of this harmful behavior. Also, it would be naive to not acknowledge that some localities are a hell of a lot more racist than others, and so relying on things being solved at the local level is just a plain bad idea at the outset. On another note, leaders local to an event of this kind should not be allowed to enact/oversee investigations of these matters, which they have in all likelihood to through their own action/inaction. That responsibility should be taken out of their hands and given over to others.
Instead of any local response, we need a Federal response in the form of the 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the Unites States of America…also to be known as The Gardner- Floyd Amendment…aimed at universal law enforcement reform; with specific attention given to defining what techniques and level of force are allowable in subduing/apprehending/detaining a subject given the situation, as determined by a specially appointed Federal Commission. There will be no more “recommendations,” “department guidelines,” or “local laws” (that would undoubtedly vary by locality), but a universal nationwide LAW. The core of the Amendment would be that “The People have the right to expect not to be injured or killed by any representative of the government – local, state, or federal – or individual(s) (i.e. law enforcement officers of all types, Secret Service, National Guard, Military, Militia, citizens making a Citizen’s Arrest, etc.) in the course of enforcing any law or order of the government without probable justification.” In accordance with the guidelines of the Amendment, and in accordance with the more detailed procedural guidelines set forth by the Federal Commission, *all* such bodies must adhere to the outlined procedures, which will be enacted through a *universal* Federal training program. *Everyone* will be trained the same way. *Everyone* will be required to do things the same way. *Everyone* will know the parameters – THE LAW. Untrained Citizens making a Citizen’s Arrest will be held to the same standard – “I’m just a citizen, not a trained law enforcement officer. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to do X.” will *NOT* be an excuse. Ignorance is *NOT* an excuse. There will be *NO EXCUSE*. Breaking this law will be Federal crime. It will be Federally investigated. It will be Federally prosecuted. The penalties for violating this Amendment will be strictly defined. By our laws, the People cede great responsibility and power over the People to the government and those enforcing laws and orders on its behalf, and when that responsibility and power are not used responsibly, uniformly, morally, and ethically, the penalties need to be severe. Unlawful Injury: 15-20 years. Permanent Unlawful Injury: 25-40 years. Unlawful Death: Life without parole. And 100% true sentencing – no early releases for any offense, and the convicted are explicitly exempted from Presidential Pardon as well. You. will. Rot. In. Federal. Prison. For. The. Prescribed. Time. Conversely, making false claims of violation of this Amendment leads to the same penalties for the false accuser that would have been meted out to the accused were they to be found guilty. Sad that that would need to be included, but *anyone* can be a garbage human being. Consequences need to be real.
Now we just need enough representatives to quit making excuses for anyone (bad cops, individuals bent on causing harm to others, to property, to communities, etc.), and simply do their damn jobs. True and peaceful protestors, keep doing what you are doing, and help authorities take control of, and protect!, *your own communities*. BE THE EXAMPLE, because our representatives mostly offer only platitudes on social media (because they care sooo much!), and those trying to enforcement our laws morally and ethically every day need your help to get a handle on people just bent on violence and destruction. If you want a positive solution, BE a part of the solution.
There. Massive amount of introspection complete. One big bite of the elephant could be taken, if our representatives could see fit to extricate their heads from betwixt their buttocks.
Cool. I understand your opinion. We’ll see how many people die from the shutdown as time goes on. Smart people,in high places are expecting hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of deaths from starvation due to lack of food supply chains. Time will tell, but the cure looks worse than the disease to me. Especially since this disease has turn out much, much Milder than expected.
Those are opinions, probably correct opinions, but a virus doesn’t care if your cause is just. If you were against protesting before but for it now all that it means is that now you are ok with endangering public safety because you feel your cause is just. There is no difference between infectious rates of people protesting for different reasons Is there? Keep in mind that I’m in support of both groups of protesters, but that doesn’t mean that I’m oblivious to the severity or hypocrisy of either situation.
I also support both groups of protesters’ right to protest. I just think one cause has the weight of years of oppression behind it which makes me more respectful of their pain.
And how does sympathy effect reporting?
Perhaps you could point me in the direction of the literature for varying infection rates of viruses depending on how just your cause is?
Yeah but…one group has anger based on lies. If you look a little deeper at the news that got people so angry, you will see lots of it is not racist at all. Trayvon…King…. Smollett… seriously we have records of these things….the media hyped it big time…and they were wrong on many large profile accounts.
Msm is not judge jury and executioner…yet…but we’re moving quickly in that direction.
how do you know the murder was racist? did the cop say something racist as he was murdering the man? couldnt it have just been a nonracist murder by a sick individual and his accomplices
It could have been. But what constitutes racism? Does it have to be that the officer was wearing a white hood and yelling racial slurs? That’s overt racism.
Or could it be an officer blatantly uncaring that he was killing a black man while people plead with him to stop, secure in the knowledge that no white officer had been convicted of killing anyone or had even lost their job. That’s systematic racism.
Covid was like sooooo last week….. we want division and civil unrest! We want more government control by means of military intervention! When do we it? NOW! This is what happens when you have 100 million jobless, hungry, bullied people with nothing better to do with there time. Keep biting the hand that feeds and than see what’s for dinner in another couple of months….
The riots have silenced the non stop virus obsessive compulsive addiction.
Times like these remind us of why non stop media outlets can be a part of the problem, not the solution.
10 USC 275
Divide and conquer.
Consolidation of wealth and power.
The multinational corporate office will understand the importance of thinning the competition.
The true criminal class.
Best in thread, fan.
Better get that cough checked out.
😉
Lol
Told you guys!!!!!! It’s too induce violence! And here we are,blaming trump for wanting to end this. My friend witnessed this first hand, along with hundreds arriving by bus.
I’m sorry, Ma’am, but I had a little chuckle over your headline today — I agree with the doctor, that we should be tested also for endemic racism.
I don’t think a test is needed. Apparently all non- persons of color are infected, even if asymptomatic; and should self quarantine for the rest of their lives. This per Dr Schwartz.
What’s scary is that they really feel that way. All the mistakes and assumptions that fueled white on black racism, are now reversed and those assumptions and mistakes and lying narratives are flowing the other way into black on white hate….to the point where many POC assume a white man is racist….BASED ON SKIN COLOR ALONE…AKA RACIST.
No dr. , It’s not about skin color, it’s about socio economic class regusrdless of color. Plenty of poor people of all colors struggling out there.
Marion – yes! I read it the same way!
Without social distancing and closing of non-essential business, SARS-Cov2 would have easily become America’s #1 cause of death this year.
No, the others don’t follow a curve.
The statement is true, regardless.
Our policies slowed and flattened the curve.
It could only have been worse, as better case scenarios were also forsaken in the lack of earlier and better policies along with failures on many levels.
So, the graph shows a timeframe, it’s very short, and Covid 19 shot from nothing to almost 1st rate killer in months.
No biggie. I can explain in a longer version if necessary.
Pure speculation on your part Brian…you will never be able to prove that.
What we do know is that all their predictions were wrong by a magnitude of at least 10x or more. We know their predictions on death and hospitals being overrun were wrong. They failed in real time and literally changed their predictions by the day.
No my friend…it is far more likely that the danger was never as great as it was sold to us in the first place
Right…there was no New York. No Italy. No Wuhan. There never were overflowing hospitals and bodies sitting in trucks.
Good observations. More than half of all the US case are in NY. More than half of all Covid deaths are in the elderly or people with depressed immune systems. We know in Italy that close to half the cases were confined to specific group as well.
As for Wuhan…where the virus originated…I hope you are not still a believer in the conspiracy theory that this came from bat soup…in a Wuhan market that did not actually sell bats?
Are you familiar with the term gain of function by chance?
There is no reasonable discussion with you disruptors of truth.
Yes but the truth is a very slippery and much more complicated thing than those who want to control the discussion by character assassination want to hear.
It is obvious with that statement Brian that the discussion ventured into deep water for you (2 feet) and you are out of your depth.
Sorta says the same thing as your post, no?
Ban on gain-of-function studies ends
“On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014. At the time, the NIH had stated that the moratorium “will be effective until a robust and broad deliberative process is completed that results in the adoption of a new US Government gain-of-function research policy”. This process has now concluded. It was spearheaded by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and led to the development of a new framework for assessing funding decisions for research involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential. The release of the framework by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which NIH is part, signalled the end of the funding pause.
“The situation has its roots in 2011, when the NSABB suppressed two studies involving H5N1 viruses that had been modified to allow airborne transmission from ferret to ferret. They worried that malign actors could replicate the work to deliberately cause an outbreak in human beings. ”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext
Thank you for posting that Ullr Rover. Nice to see someone informed on the issue
.26 DR is hardly the 4 percent they told us about. Why is it it that when Dr. Fauci and the superstar British doc revised there estimates drastically downward, it received almost no coverage on msm. You’d think there would have been headlines all over…but of course if it doesn’t fit the narrative, it’s not reported.
They had a rough time in NY for sure. Roughy 2.5x what they see from normal flu, but that’s no the apocalyptic scene they told us was coming
Great points Who Cares
Aside from sports and reality TV…it seems people have a very short memory. They forgot all the revisions in their models over the course of like 2 weeks. They forgot what was said during the daily press conferences…like when scarf said they were counting all deaths as covid when they might have or might not have tested positive. Suicides..heart attacks and overdoses were all counted as covid.
They are already trying to sell us on the idea that a vaccine is the answer and will be our saviors. What they do not mention is that there is no corona vaccine and never in the history of science have they been able to create one despite their best efforts….not for MERS…not for SARS…and not for the common cold
Thank you for that statement no corona virus vaccine in existence. I had read a report about a SARS vaccine that actually made the reaction to the infection more severe than the better but didn’t understand that this was a difficulty with any corona virus vaccine development. “This sort of vaccine was tested with SARS in 2003 and resulted in reinfected lab monkeys having a nasty immune response, which is why many groups working on a vaccine for Sars-CoV-2 are going for a very specific antibody response.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-vaccine-ian-frazer/12146616
Who Cares, The City was shut down and they had bodies in pickup trucks and patients in tents. Seemed bordering on apocalyptic to me.
To what city do you refer?
US,
I was referring to NYC.
That is because it is a very tight urban setting. It did not help that Cuomo sent thousands of elderly patients to nursing homes either. The disease is highly contagious…just not nearly as universally deadly as they sold us on. Again….elderly and people with immune issues should be careful.
Everyone should be careful but locking down businesses wholesale in the name of preventing spread of a disease that will certainly resume spread as soon as the controls are relaxed leaves both the disease to kill the same people and an unnecessarily crippled economy.
In my own case, as a memberof the most vulnerable group, I figured on fully hunkering own for about 6 months and being careful for a year after. Now that social distancing has flattened the curve, it is looking like I should have prepared for a much longer expansive exposure period with it’s many more risk opportunities. Oh well, the best plans of mice and men…
a 60 bed tent in central park…. 60 beds for new york city no wonder it was full
The tent in Central Park was not the only field hospital–There was the Javits Convention Center and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal
That’s because apocalyptic has become overused like hero or racism. People tend to not pay enough attention to more accurate but less sensational terms. Words like serious, hardship or stressful don’t gain attention like holocaust, cataclysm and apocalypse. Temperance never sells.
Yes extremism in language is a problem, as well as a sign that you have been successfully brainwashed.
It means your mind is off, and your fear and hate is on
Kym, I have family in Manhattan. I can assure you that was blown out of proportion. I have had weekly zoom conferences with them every week since the start of shelter in place. Two weeks ago they sent me pictures of the footprint of where the medical overflow tent in central park was. It’s not there anymore. The navy medical ship that Trump sent to NYC has also been gone for about a month. I heard second hand from people in this area about bodies being packed in the street. Those statements were not validated by people I know that live in NYC. Seems like sensationalism to me and my family.
They also said that bars have been allowed to operate on the sidewalk, so now everyone is getting drunk in the middle of he street with no masks. That was before the protests. If there’s going to be an new outbreak, it will surely happen there. We’ll see what the next month has in store, but from my experience it appears that a lot of this has been over-hyped from the start.
The death rate has been dropping since mid-April in New York. But at the height there was an enormous spike in deaths.
Below is a graph showing the numbers of those dead in New York City. The dark line at the bottom is an average year. The red line is this year.
The image is from a conservative and highly respected news site the Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441
As is always the case, and expected when a new bug shows up
Okay. But the reality is still .26, far from apocalyptic.
The msm narrative played it for all it’s worth.
Good points, in my opinion, who cares.
Thanks.
Covid is real, just like the flu.
COVID-19 is real and it’s many many many times worse than the flu. It’s already killed more people than you and the president said it would by this time. And its likely to kill many many more. I hope my 60 year old ass isn’t in a coffin this time next year and I hope my parents and my husband’s parents aren’t either.
384,184 deaths as of right now from Covid-19. There are an average of 290,000 to 650,000 deaths from influenza every year per the CDC. So actually Kym, at this very moment in time, COVID-19 is real and its not any worse than the flu, actually it compares to an average flu season right now. Nothing special.
You aren’t comparing apples to apples, 1911.
CDC takes proven flu deaths (from all strains) and estimates how many more deaths are likely to have happened to come up with their numbers. CDC takes proven COVID-19 deaths to come up with their numbers for the cornavirus. (They don’t add in any estimated extra.)
Here’s a graph from the Washington Post. (You can find this info on a number of media sites though.) And they go into a very clear explanation here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/02/theres-more-accurate-way-compare-coronavirus-deaths-flu/?fbclid=IwAR1PDU-QYOsAoz3CY_TgKMgpZTl525pG27D_90UPGlGqX5zoB4gd6kvHgBk&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
But so far, the deaths from COVID-19 in 2020 are not equaled by all the deaths from flu for the last five years–if you use the same methodology to count them.
So, a 1/2 of this year of COVID-19 deaths with the entire country locked down in an unprecedented way is greater than the last five years of the flu deaths with no lockdown.
You are comparing data of just the United States. I am looking at it world wide. Last year’s flu killed 600,000 people world wide. This year’s coronavirus has killed 385,000, its still not as bad as the flu. When the death toll tops 600,000 worldwide I will come back and say yes, now it is worse than the flu, but its not there yet Kym. For me, for this all to be justified, it needs to be at least twice as deadly as the flu. When the death toll hits 1.2 million people worldwide this year from Covid, then I may change my tune. Death doesn’t scare me though so I probably won’t anyway.
The same sort of counting is used worldwide. You are using numbers that are like comparing apples to someone’s estimate of what their pumpkin in the field is likely to grow to.
Every day, of every week you try to help the same people with information.
It’s such a wasted effort.
1911 thinks that because scientists cant “make rocks breathe”, that is proof of god.
For fucking instance.
👍, Fan.
Viruses achieve their definition of success when they can thrive without killing their host.
————-
https://www.ksl.com/article/46749889/u-scientists-using-years-of-hiv-research-in-search-for-coronavirus-drug-development
HIV and the virus that causes COVID-19 have a lot of similarities in the way they attack a cell,” said Dr. Michael Kay, a professor of biochemistry at the university.
Stick to health, why ask a doctor about race? What has come true that she has said?
If you think racism is healthy, I guess not. But reality is that racism is a very serious health issue, and it is perfectly proper for it to be addressed by the health officer.
Ronald Reagan certainly thought so when he had the CDC spend to create the “Office of Minority Health and Health Equity” in 1986. Of course following presidents had other agendas too and eventually violence, environment and terrorism competed for funding with infectious disease in the CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/strategy/index.html
I found the some questions to be totally inappropriate. Just because she has MD after her name doesn’t mean she is an expert on anything other than medicine. To ask her questions about crime against blacks isn’t even in the ballpark. She may be working with Honsal on a reopening plan, but I don’t find him to be trustworthy enough to answer these questions and she has no training in this area. And social racism? Really? The reasons some populations get COVID more than others are multiple. Because of cultural differences as well as lifestyle differences, some are more likely to be exposed. I have a neighbor who actually works in the medical field who is from another culture. Yet, even though she should have known better, instead of shelter in place with immediate family only, she had what appeared to be extended family and friend parties all the time with up to 10 young children and many adults frequently. I almost called her in several times, but what good would that have done under Honsal? People make choices. Some make good ones some don’t. Some choose to commit crimes, some don’t. Some this weekend chose to forgo social distancing, masking, and the “rule” put in place by our illustrious government leaders to limit gatherings to 10 or less. Some of these committed terrible crimes. Any of these people has a chance of getting COVID. They took the risk by their own choice. Some made that choice for their children as well. If they get COVID, it’s on them. It’s not because of social racism, it’s their own damn fault.
That was my question first, Alf. If you have time, read this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844417/
If not, short version systematic racism effects the health of minorities and is part of a public health officers job to address.
Actually poverty effects the health of all races.
Each race is more or less prone to specific hereditary conditions.
Everyone seems to be prone to Cancer and Autism these days.
Everything is not about racism.
Also medi cal actually has better coverage than medicare.
Who is fighting for the eldery?
Thanks hot coffee.
Yep, Humboldt’s main problems are poverty and drugs, that effects everyone.
I would like to see a rally to raise money for Humboldt, and more positive activities,
especially for juveniles, and more help for the elderly as well.
Nice comment.
…or it’s Vitamin D deficiencies. ..
“…black and minority ethnic people—who are more likely to have vitamin D deficiency because they have darker skin—seem to be worse affected than white people by COVID-19. ”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(20)30183-2/fulltext
Ullr, I’m not just talking about COVID. For heaven’s sake, if you can’t even acknowledge that most minorities are poorer as a whole than whites and they suffer disproportionately from bad health care, what hope is there for you to honestly be trusted to look at facts.
Why argue over who’s more poor? Poor is poor and both should have good health care so why divide it by race? Who does that help?
I’m a bigger victim than you doesn’t help either one.
But it works for creating resentment on both sides.
And no one mentions that there are more middle class and wealthy minorities than ever before.
Did you really expect Frankovich to encapsulate an answer to a question which, probably, is 2 unrelated issues? I’m offering an answer to half your question.
How often are questions asked to facilitate the questioners’ agenda? The Press is in love with itself. “Another part of the theory is that mainstream media tell people what matters and what they should be paying attention to.” https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/good-questions/stakeholder-journalism-mark-lee-hunter/
Thanks Kym, for speaking truth. The people protesting the doctor speaking on racism are laboring under the misconception that all those issues of inequality in this country have been ironed out. Makes me very sad.
You think this hatred and violence is gonna fix it? Nope gonna make it worse. Didn’t you listen to Dr.King. I’m a young, white, assumed to be racist, but not racist at all, man, and I remember Dr.King very well. Wish he we’re here now
Yep, who cares.
And the historical Gandhi, he changed a whole country of India, won their independence, through peaceful protests, not violence.
Thanks.
Is it worse to assume it can be “ironed out” if you just assert enough force when that level of force destroys that which it just wants pretty?
I administered MediCal for 15 years. It is far better coverage than any health care plan sold in California, especially Humboldt. There is no argument for who has better health care available. After the ACA became law, it was even offered to more people. And it covers more procedures than before. Healthcare isn’t the problem for the poor. It is seeking the healthcare, which takes effort. The blame game doesn’t work for medical.
Actually it depends on your desired grouping in the term minority- people who are very small in number can be large in wealthy. Asian Indians are probably the richest, Chinese following. But if you include Jew as a minority, they are up there too but most social advocacy groups prefer they be lumped in as white. I wonder if Latino second generation would be up there too. But I’m sure you mean race rather than ethnicity. In which case it’s Asians- both richest per capita and smallest in number.
Wrong, they suffer “disproportionately” from bad choices. Example, a small portion of the Black community commit the majority of crimes. Check the Dept. of Justice crime statistics. (what percentage armed home invasions in Humboldt are committed by Black males) That’s why they have a disproportionate amount of police contact and that, combined with the tendency to be uncooperative, leads to crappy situations. I’m not speaking to the George Floyd situation which AT FIRST GLANCE appears to be a travesty. But these riots aren’t about George Floyd, it’s about Donald Trump and the left’s obsession with him.
Nice article, u.r.,
I’ve wondered if the elderly in alder bay are getting enough sunlight, especially around here, maybe something like this could help them.
We have remnants of systemic racism. Dying remnants from our past. But the perception of systemic racism is much worse than reality because the msm uses lies to support that perception.
One of the biggest drivers of this was Trayvon. If you look at the in depth, hind sight 20/20, investigations….you see a much different story that the msm told you
It’s not always about race, despite what they tell you.
” I have a neighbor who actually works in the medical field ”
Bullshit.
” who is from another culture.”
You’re a liar.
Where does the swab go for the endemic racism test?
The brain’s “fear center” aka the amygdala?
What is racism if not FEAR of the “other?”
The test is considered successful when the swab exits the opposite ear of introduction.
Fear and hate come from the same base emotion.
See it now, live and in color, on the faces of the maniacal mob.
Why are we still locked down? This is doing more harm than good. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/california-doctors-say-theyve-seen-more-deaths-from-suicide-than-coronavirus-since-lockdowns
also watch this before you look to big Pharma for a cure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhXIHFZnuLw&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3bcgOtN9hM5walpYLBHCQIqqa-hxsPnImXvcgHd48B6TiE1nJG-YoihuI
It’s a good excuse to pay kids more than they made working….to go out and destroy our society….
👍, who cares.
On point.
Kim – I have to say Thank You. I scan various news sources – most of which the “journalism” makes me sick. It all leans one side or the other. It’s not reporting the news anymore, it’s giving opinions on an incident that happened.
You are the only one I have encountered in years that just reports the facts.
Thank you, you are appreciated!
That article basically say that the African American populations health issues are enviormental, which is resulting from being socially economically disadvantaged, basically they don’t have Whole Foods or gyms on their street corners in the ghetto, which I completely agree with. One major, major aspect of that that you never hear about is that in America, African Americans have the highest number, by far, of single parent households. It is virtually impossible to get ahead in life as a single mother, you have no option of having a career, you are stuck in a low paying labor job, relying on government assistance for basic necessities. And as a result the children grow up eating more unhealthy food of convenience rather than home cooked meals, more soda and hot pockets instead of water and broccoli. The American dream was that if you worked hard your children could grow up with a better life than you had and a two partner household increases your odds drastically. The ghetto has no option of competing in the American dream with over 75 percent of children not having a two parent household. In turn it creates a revolving door of generational poverty, which means the ghetto stays a ghetto with no Whole Foods or gyms on the corners. On the other end of the spectrum Asians have the highest percent of two person household with whites coming in second. To fix health, you have to fix poverty, and as a community or a people you cannot get out of poverty with a burden of being a culture of single parents. Then to top it of teenagers with no father figures or supervision are not destined to do productive things, read lord of the flies.
Mike,
Exactly!
Plus grocery stores do not want to locate where theft is rampant and are likely to be burned down at the first sign of trouble.
Asians also value education as a culture where as many others consider it a “white” thing to be avoided.
When I’ve asked a few young men why they wanted to work at our store they usually replied ” cause my girlfriend is pregnant.”
Single mother households are the single biggest issue leading to juvenile delinquency and criminal behavior in our society today. It is a problem that leads to the same results across all communities in the USA. For minority communities the problem is worse. Study after study after study show that a father in the home has dramatically different outcomes for the future of the children. This is a problem that the people can fix themselves; it requires no State intervention.
“…children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
-Barack Obama
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2008/jun/23/barack-obama/statistics-dont-lie-in-this-case/
Such a major issue Ullr.
The extended family is broken, the nuclear family is broken, now we see that contemporary individuals can hardly keep it together.
The work we face as individuals and as a society to rebuild some sort of valid culture seems absolutely overwhelming.
If your nose is getting exposed your not wearing your mask the right way.
Why is this woman even daring to make commentd about race issues right now. Shut your mouth and go do your job. Health. You do nothing for our area except spew fear mongering and possibles and meaningless numbers.. How you sleep at night i dont know. Drugs probably.. Half of all health officer positions in the country were empty in january. Agents.