BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[China]

So apparently we're not going to have reliable numbers anymore:

 

US government moves to end daily COVID-19 death reporting by hospitals

 

The US federal government will no longer require hospitals to report the number of people who die from COVID-19 every day, according to new guidelines from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

 

On January 6, the HHS published updated guidelines on which information hospitals provide to the agency. The guidelines note the “retirement of fields which are no longer required to be reported,” among which is “Previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.”

 

The guidelines note, “This field has been made inactive for the federal data collection. Hospitals no longer need to report these data elements to the federal government.” This change goes into effect February 2.

 

The move by the Biden administration to weaken the reporting of COVID-19 deaths has direct precedents in the Trump administration. The House COVID Subcommittee’s 2021 year-end report said “Trump Administration officials purposefully weakened CDC’s coronavirus testing guidance in August 2020 to obscure how rapidly the virus was spreading across the country.”

 

Although the new HHS guidelines were issued on January 6, they were not made known until publicized by Dr. Jorge A. Caballero, a medical doctor and Clinical Instructor at Stanford university, on Twitter.

 

On Friday afternoon, Dr. Caballero wrote, “I’d love to understand why the federal government will no longer require hospitals to report the daily number of #COVID19 deaths as of February 2nd”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

That's disappointing. 

[Renegade7]

I dont like it either @China. 

 

I've seen some scientists make the case for focus on death numbers over testing numbers to determine if we in pandemic or endemic stage because they didn't have testing during the Spanish Flu.

 

But if feds aren't tracking death numbers, are they capitulating on how to deal with the virus and accepting living with it like many European countries are talking about?  If so, say that, so we're all in the same page.

 

Here i was hoping they'd redo their vaccine mandate so SCOTUS won't strike it down again, now I'm skeptical they'll even try.  They are probably giving up.

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[bearrock]

13 hours ago, China said:

So apparently we're not going to have reliable numbers anymore:

 

US government moves to end daily COVID-19 death reporting by hospitals

 

The US federal government will no longer require hospitals to report the number of people who die from COVID-19 every day, according to new guidelines from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

 

On January 6, the HHS published updated guidelines on which information hospitals provide to the agency. The guidelines note the “retirement of fields which are no longer required to be reported,” among which is “Previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.”

 

The guidelines note, “This field has been made inactive for the federal data collection. Hospitals no longer need to report these data elements to the federal government.” This change goes into effect February 2.

 

The move by the Biden administration to weaken the reporting of COVID-19 deaths has direct precedents in the Trump administration. The House COVID Subcommittee’s 2021 year-end report said “Trump Administration officials purposefully weakened CDC’s coronavirus testing guidance in August 2020 to obscure how rapidly the virus was spreading across the country.”

 

Although the new HHS guidelines were issued on January 6, they were not made known until publicized by Dr. Jorge A. Caballero, a medical doctor and Clinical Instructor at Stanford university, on Twitter.

 

On Friday afternoon, Dr. Caballero wrote, “I’d love to understand why the federal government will no longer require hospitals to report the daily number of #COVID19 deaths as of February 2nd”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Can somebody explain a plausible reason for this change because my initial reaction is bull****.

[Destino]

No matter how you feel about it, republicans are going to have an absolute field day with this.

 

 

if you think CRT scared white moms, this is going to create an easy terror campaign for the GOP. 

[Fan since a Fetus]

9 hours ago, bearrock said:

 

Can somebody explain a plausible reason for this change because my initial reaction is bull****.

i did a quick google search and didn’t find anything that back up this claim. I didn’t go to the dark web though, only the first two pages. I questioned it because the name of the site is World Socialist Web Site. 

[Fan since a Fetus]

8 hours ago, Destino said:

No matter how you feel about it, republicans are going to have an absolute field day with this.

 

 

if you think CRT scared white moms, this is going to create an easy terror campaign for the GOP. 

I went direct to the website verify her source. It’s there under times of limited resources. 
 

Prioritization

 

yes, they will have a ton of fun with this. 

 

[bearrock]

1 hour ago, Fan since a Fetus said:

i did a quick google search and didn’t find anything that back up this claim. I didn’t go to the dark web though, only the first two pages. I questioned it because the name of the site is World Socialist Web Site. 

 

As much I would like to believe it's fake news, no longer requiring federal reporting of covid death is definitely true.

 

From the horse's mouth https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjcj-ea97b1AhVCm-AKHfPeBUcQFnoECAYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2oDWTLshCZ2dsIDL6N5SiZ

 

Element 16

 

Quote

This field has been made inactive for the federal data collection. Hospitals no longer need to report these data elements to the federal 
government. No change is required to reporting templates. (Previous day’s COVID-19 deaths)

 

From China's article

Quote

Responding to Caballero’s tweet, Sarah Lovenheim, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the US Department of Health And Human services, replied, “COVID mortality data remains publicly accessible. The data remains publicly accessible here and as there is new analysis, it becomes publicly available, too,” linking to data from the CDC compiled from state reporting.

 

To this, Dr. Caballero replied, “There’s no other source of daily in-hospital #COVID19 deaths at the state/national level. All other data sources are derivatives of *this* specific field. This field is *not* found in any other publicly available dataset. This field is used to estimate total COVID deaths + more.”

 

Responding to the claims by Dr. Caballero and the WSWS, Erin Kissane, a journalist at the Atlantic and co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project, which shut down on March 7 last year, replied “hospitals no longer reporting covid deaths to daily HHS doesn’t mean that all covid deaths don’t have to be reported to local/state health authorities, who report them to CDC. We’re still counting deaths.”

 

Likewise BNO Newsroom tweeted, “Contrary to some tweets, the U.S. is not ending daily reporting on deaths from COVID-19. Health departments will continue to provide updates as usual.” BNO confirmed to this journalist that it was replying to our tweet, but gave no further clarification in response to our inquiries.

 

 

Quote

Replying to these and other claims, Caballero wrote, “I, for one, care to have a secondary data source that can be used to double-check #COVID19 deaths reported by states with a 20-month track record of unscrupulous policies and questionable data management.”

 

 

Quote

Regardless of the claims by Kissane and BNO, the reporting by Caballero and the WSWS stands. On February 2, hospitals will no longer be required to report COVID-19 deaths directly to the federal government, and such data will depend on state governments that are themselves moving to shut down reporting.

 

What is the downside of hospitals being continued to report covid deaths if they are supposed to report them to states anyway? In the absence of mandatory federal reporting, how many states will gladly fudge with the numbers?

 

I keep hoping that I'm missing something because this sounds bat**** insane.  If it was done by the Trump administration, I would be polishing my pitchforks.

[China]

So people already brain damaged enough not to take the vaccine are going to be even more brain damaged?  Brilliant!

 

COVID-19 patients show more signs of brain damage than people with Alzheimer's disease

 

Could COVID-19 actually be doing more harm to the human brain than Alzheimer's disease? A new study reveals older patients contracting COVID have more signs of brain damage than people who develop the neurodegenerative disease.

 

Specifically, a team from NYU Grossman School of Medicine found significantly higher levels of certain blood proteins which typically arise when someone suffers neurological damage among COVID patients. Researchers say, over the short-term course of their infections, seven markers of brain damage were noticeably higher among COVID patients than non-COVID patients with Alzheimer's. One of these markers was more than twice as high among coronavirus patients.

 

"Our findings suggest that patients hospitalized for COVID-19, and especially in those experiencing neurological symptoms during their acute infection, may have levels of brain injury markers that are as high as, or higher than, those seen in people who have Alzheimer's disease," says lead author Jennifer Frontera, MD, a professor in the Department of Neurology, in a university release.

 

The team examined 251 people hospitalized for COVID-19 during the first few months of the pandemic in 2020. The average age of the participants was 71 years old, but all were in generally good health with no history of dementia or cognitive decline before their COVID infection. Researchers separated these patients into two groups, those with and without neurological symptoms due to COVID-19.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Edited January 17, 2022 by China

[China]

Omicron Can Strike More Than Once: Bay Area Infectious Disease Experts

 

Omicron is highly contagious and now experts say it does not provide much protective immunity, meaning you can be infected more than once.

 

The dean of Brown University School of Public Health, and a doctor with the World Health Organization tweeted warnings Friday, urging vaccinations and boosters.

 

And Bay Area experts agree, saying omicron can strike more than once as there are new cases indicating natural immunity after infection doesn't last.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

35 minutes ago, China said:

COVID-19 patients show more signs of brain damage than people with Alzheimer's disease

 

Well, odds of the Republican Party ever trying to hold back the virus, now?  

 

[skinsmarydu]

45 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Well, odds of the Republican Party ever trying to hold back the virus, now?  

 

Or folks who have had everyone in their family pass away of it, and are trying to hang on? 

We've got the worst odds. 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

On 1/16/2022 at 11:02 AM, bearrock said:

 

As much I would like to believe it's fake news, no longer requiring federal reporting of covid death is definitely true.

 

From the horse's mouth https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjcj-ea97b1AhVCm-AKHfPeBUcQFnoECAYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2oDWTLshCZ2dsIDL6N5SiZ

 

Element 16

 

 

From China's article

 

 

 

What is the downside of hospitals being continued to report covid deaths if they are supposed to report them to states anyway? In the absence of mandatory federal reporting, how many states will gladly fudge with the numbers?

 

I keep hoping that I'm missing something because this sounds bat**** insane.  If it was done by the Trump administration, I would be polishing my pitchforks.

 

 

I found this:\

 

A misleading claim that the government is going to stop tracking COVID-19 deaths is going viral — even though it isn’t true

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/misleading-viral-claim-on-government-tracking-covid-19-deaths-debunked-2022-1

• A viral claim falsely said the US government was no longer tracking COVID-19 deaths.
• In reality, HHS is no longer asking hospitals to report COVID-19 deaths.
• Most COVID-19 death counts rely on data from the CDC and local or state agencies, not HHS

 

“BREAKING,” one viral tweet said. “US Government to end daily COVID death reporting.”

 

The tweet then said the US Department of Health and Human Services will no longer require hospitals to report daily COVID-19 deaths to the agency. That part is true, according to guidance recently issued by HHS, but it does not affect the daily COVID-19 death counts that the vast majority of people have been consulting throughout the pandemic.

 

Epidemiologists and data journalists on Twitter chimed in to debunk the claim that the US was no longer tracking deaths.

 

“Seriously this is so misleading, please stop spreading it,” Erin Kissane, who cofounded The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, said in a tweet.

Kissane said the daily death counts most people are following, like the one maintained by The New York Times, do not rely on or use data from HHS. She said those counts use data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or from local and state health authorities directly.

 

“You will be seeing *exactly the same death counts* you saw before unless you’re a very specialized data analyst,” Kissane said.

[Llevron]

This information warfare **** we will be doing for the foreseeable future is gonna be funnnn

[bearrock]

49 minutes ago, Califan007 said:

 

 

I found this:\

 

A misleading claim that the government is going to stop tracking COVID-19 deaths is going viral — even though it isn’t true

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/misleading-viral-claim-on-government-tracking-covid-19-deaths-debunked-2022-1

• A viral claim falsely said the US government was no longer tracking COVID-19 deaths.
• In reality, HHS is no longer asking hospitals to report COVID-19 deaths.
• Most COVID-19 death counts rely on data from the CDC and local or state agencies, not HHS

 

“BREAKING,” one viral tweet said. “US Government to end daily COVID death reporting.”

 

The tweet then said the US Department of Health and Human Services will no longer require hospitals to report daily COVID-19 deaths to the agency. That part is true, according to guidance recently issued by HHS, but it does not affect the daily COVID-19 death counts that the vast majority of people have been consulting throughout the pandemic.

 

Epidemiologists and data journalists on Twitter chimed in to debunk the claim that the US was no longer tracking deaths.

 

“Seriously this is so misleading, please stop spreading it,” Erin Kissane, who cofounded The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, said in a tweet.

Kissane said the daily death counts most people are following, like the one maintained by The New York Times, do not rely on or use data from HHS. She said those counts use data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or from local and state health authorities directly.

 

“You will be seeing *exactly the same death counts* you saw before unless you’re a very specialized data analyst,” Kissane said.

 

I think the article quoted by China covered that point.  Right now there's redundancy between federal reporting and state reporting.  But we also know that some states have, shall we say, less than stellar track record with prioritizing data fidelity when it comes to covid related numbers.  

 

If everything is working as it should (no state is fudging with the reporting criteria), there is de minimis burden on hospitals to report death numbers to both federal and state (because hospitals still have whole host of other numbers to report to HHS anyway.   It's literally plugging in one more number).  If on the other hand, some states start fudging the criteria, manipulate the numbers once they receive it from hospitals,  or shut down covid death reporting altogether, missing that data redundancy of federal reporting becomes a huge issue.  

 

So given the negligible benefit and potential downside, what exactly is the logic behind not requiring reporting covid related deaths to HHS?

[Califan007 The Constipated]

21 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

I think the article quoted by China covered that point.  Right now there's redundancy between federal reporting and state reporting.  But we also know that some states have, shall we say, less than stellar track record with prioritizing data fidelity when it comes to covid related numbers.  

 

If everything is working as it should (no state is fudging with the reporting criteria), there is de minimis burden on hospitals to report death numbers to both federal and state (because hospitals still have whole host of other numbers to report to HHS anyway.   It's literally plugging in one more number).  If on the other hand, some states start fudging the criteria, manipulate the numbers once they receive it from hospitals,  or shut down covid death reporting altogether, missing that data redundancy of federal reporting becomes a huge issue.  

 

So given the negligible benefit and potential downside, what exactly is the logic behind not requiring reporting covid related deaths to HHS?

 

Doesn't matter if the source of the daily death counts we've all been seeing rarely relied on direct hospital death counts to begin with. The same article said that something like 1/3rd of COVID deaths don't occur in hospitals anyway.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

^^^Also:

 

 

 

"The HHS dataset is a national goddamn treasure that we at CTP fought to publicize and get into wider use. But this specific thing is not what you think it is."

 

"You will be seeing *exactly the same death counts* you saw before unless you’re a very specialized data analyst. I’m still getting freaked out texts so I want to make this super clear."

 

"Would I like to see a rationale for the HHS data change? Totally. But this isn’t what people think it is."

 

(someone else): "As the invested layperson, as near as I can tell they're changing the reporting to weekly and all cause respiratory deaths. So the deaths will get counted, granted with a larger lag and bundled to add extra confusion."

 

(and to that end...)

 

Deactivation of Certain Data Elements for Federal Reporting

The new guidance “deactivates” the federal reporting of 27 data elements, primarily focused on supply chain and therapeutics whose use has been curtailed (e.g., remdesivir). HHS notes that while the federal government will not require hospitals to report the data, HHS will retain the data fields in its reporting templates and guidance in the event that local, state and territorial partners wish to use them in their own reporting processes.

 

 

Additional responses/tweets:

 

"*thank you.* IDK people understand that especially at smaller hospitals, it's people scrambling to collect this information and upload it daily. If it's not being used for decisionmaking it frankly doesn't make sense to ask, especially when it's only in-facility mortality."

 

 

(and to that end lol...)

 

 

[China]

I think it's funny that people say they report to the CDC but not HHS.  Apparently nobody realizes that the CDC is a part of HHS.

 

So if you're reporting to the CDC you're reporting to HHS.

[China]

AK Inmates sue a prison for giving them ivermectin to treat COVID-19

 

Four inmates at an Arkansas jail are suing the facility and its doctor after they were allegedly tricked into taking ivermectin to treat COVID-19 - despite the CDC warnings that the drug does not prevent or treat the virus, and can have serious side effects.

 

The inmates at Washington County Jail were told the pills they were taking were just vitamins, antibiotics or steroids, according to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas in federal court Thursday on behalf of the detainees.

 

'The truth, however, was that without knowing and voluntary consent, Plaintiffs ingested incredibly high doses of a drug that credible medical professionals, the FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all agree is not an effective treatment against COVID-19,' the lawsuit continued. 

 

The suit states that inmates were given the drug as early as in November 2020 and in very high doses.

 

One of the four inmates named in the suit, Edrick Floreal-Wooten, said he felt violated.

 

'It was not consensual,' he told CBS News in a prison interview. 'They used us as an experiment — like we're livestock,' he said. 'Just because we wear stripes and we make a few mistakes in life, doesn't make us less of a human.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[bearrock]

@Califan007 Right now, I assume the HHS number and the local/state number shouldn't have a meaningful variance in terms of trend (I'm not sure whether CDC number is separate from HHS data collection or if it's based on state numbers, whatever).

 

But let's say some states start fudging numbers in the future or drop covid data collection altogether.  Then having that HHS data collection becomes critical.  So what exactly is the downside of having hospitals continue to include covid death numbers in the reports sent to HHS?  What is the benefit of dropping the reporting requirement when it's something hospitals should be keeping track and reporting to state/local anyway?

[China]

Beijing locks down office building with workers still inside after single Omicron case detected

 

At an office building in China's capital on Sunday, masked COVID-19 control personnel lugged boxes of pillows and bedding through the closely guarded entrance for white collar workers stuck inside, preparing for what may be days of lockdown as Beijing rushes to prevent the spread of Omicron ahead of the Winter Olympics.

 

The snap lockdown meant the building in the west of the city was sealed off without advance warning, with everybody inside unable to leave and subject to compulsory Covid testing. The decision to lock the office down came after an employee tested positive for Omicron on Saturday -- the city's first recorded case of the highly transmissible variant.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Califan007 The Constipated]

27 minutes ago, bearrock said:

@Califan007 Right now, I assume the HHS number and the local/state number shouldn't have a meaningful variance in terms of trend (I'm not sure whether CDC number is separate from HHS data collection or if it's based on state numbers, whatever).

 

But let's say some states start fudging numbers in the future or drop covid data collection altogether.  Then having that HHS data collection becomes critical.  So what exactly is the downside of having hospitals continue to include covid death numbers in the reports sent to HHS?  What is the benefit of dropping the reporting requirement when it's something hospitals should be keeping track and reporting to state/local anyway?

 

 

From what I'm seeing, if some states dropped reporting COVID deaths altogether in what they send to the federal government, then the hospitals would be responsible for sending their death counts to the feds? Not really sure, though...because in that pic I posted it makes it sound as if hospitals were required to do just that but can stop doing so if their local state government is sending that same data to the federal government (along with whatever other data they send).

 

I remember there was some state in which hospitals were announcing that they would collectively publish their COVID data daily because their state government was changing how often (or even if) they were releasing that same data. So these healthcare collectives said "**** that, we'll just release it ourselves then"...

Edited January 18, 2022 by Califan007

[China]

Hong Kong to kill 2,000 animals after hamsters get COVID-19

 

Hong Kong authorities said Tuesday that they will kill about 2,000 small animals, including hamsters, after several tested positive for the coronavirus at a pet store where an employee was also infected.

 

The city will also stop the sale of hamsters and the import of small mammals, according to officials from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. The pet shop employee tested positive for the delta variant on Monday, and several hamsters imported from the Netherlands at the store tested positive as well.

 

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, animals do not appear to play a significant role in spreading the coronavirus. But Hong Kong authorities said they are not ruling out transmission between animals and humans.

 

“We cannot exclude the possibility that the shopkeeper was in fact actually infected from the hamsters,” said Edwin Tsui, a controller at the Centre for Health Protection.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Dozens of Patients Wait for ICU Beds As Oklahoma City Hospitals Declare They've Run Out

 

Dozens of COVID-19 patients are waiting for beds across Oklahoma as health officials declare intensive care units (ICU) are full.

 

Coronavirus cases are surging in Oklahoma, with 27,754 new cases being reported since Saturday. (this is from Monday numbers + Sunday's numbers and Saturday's numbers)

The seven-day average for new COVID cases in the state reached 10,642, according to data from the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

 

There were 12,841 new cases reported Monday for a total of 110,244 active cases across the state.

 

Hospitals are unable to keep up with the influx of COVID patients filling emergency rooms.

 

Click on the link for the full article