quote:

Someone who 'tests' positive and either is asymptomatic or recovers at home with no medical assistance is not a 'case'. And no one to date is even attempting to track those numbers, which by all indications are significant.

Exactly this...when figures were released here a few days ago, half of all deaths were in nursing/care facilities and there was a huge a difference between what they called positive cases and recovered cases statewide.. Subtracting the two left over 22,000 people presumed to be sick, yet nothing was given about on how many of those were actually ill versus no symptoms. If only a small percentage of those are actually ill and being treated, then obviously things are not as dire as these jackasses want us to believe. The constant lies, hiding of information, inflating numbers, etc. makes everything they say untrustworthy.

This may sound strange but has anyone else noticed a shortage of bicycles and free weights?

The local Trek store that I go to sent an email a couple months ago saying that they were closing for two days in order to catch up on service work and to restock. Whenever we go to a store such as Walmart or target, the shelves for bikes are nearly empty.

I’m planning on a road bike this summer. Hope it will be in stock. But I think I’ll be okay because it’s not a typical off the shelf bike for $200.

I suspect when the media finds something else to put fear into people, we are going to see some good deals on bikes and exercise equipment. Saw some assholes trying to charge $3-4 per pound for free weights.

Indeed...bikes are hard to come by.

Local bike shop had exactly 1 bike in stock when I went to pick up some inner tubes...a small yellow carbon fiber (Trek I think) road bike.

There was a rack full of bikes awaiting or post repair (like 30??) and had a sign on the door "No longer accepting repairs"

A friend ordered a couple mountain bikes back in May...first arrives June, second in October.

I myself have been riding 3-4 times a week as gyms are still closed in NC (thanks Boy Stupor, I mean Roy Cooper) and I dont like walking as a form of exercise (hiking for fun and scenery or walking across some city I'm visiting and sightseeing, all day).

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
This may sound strange but has anyone else noticed a shortage of bicycles and free weights?

The local Trek store that I go to sent an email a couple months ago saying that they were closing for two days in order to catch up on service work and to restock. Whenever we go to a store such as Walmart or target, the shelves for bikes are nearly empty.

I’m planning on a road bike this summer. Hope it will be in stock. But I think I’ll be okay because it’s not a typical off the shelf bike for $200.

I suspect when the media finds something else to put fear into people, we are going to see some good deals on bikes and exercise equipment. Saw some assholes trying to charge $3-4 per pound for free weights.

Nailed it.

Media whores too stupid or too corrupt to report "positive test result doesn't equal sick person" and zero talk of WHO report that asymptomatic spread is extremely rare.

You notice how the media aren't talking about studies like the Stanford or USC ones from a couple month back where they tested thousands of people and 30-50 times more people tested positive for it for the 'Rona than actually "had" the disease ?

Or that any similar studies have such been reported?

None of these actual data or facts fits the "end is near unless you do what we say" narrative.


Cool site I found, created by the inventor to Instagram. Tracks the infection rate (Rt) by state.

If Rt is lower than 1, infections are declining. If Rt > 1, its increasing

https://rt.live

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Positive 'test results' is not the same thing as 'cases' of KungFlu, no matter how much the media tell us it is. Ask a doctor if he gives a damn about the testing totals. Then ask them if he cares about actual 'cases' of the bug, most often meaning hospitalization. The terms are 'not' synonymous. Testing positive means virtually nothing if the person never develops symptoms, and only slightly more than nothing if they develop mild symptoms and recover without any medical assistance. The 'only' meaningful stats on this bug are the total number of hospitalizations versus the total number of available hospital beds (i.e. treatment capacity), and the number and trend of deaths specifically attributable to the virus. Hypothetically, if you had a million people test positive, yet not one of them had to be hospitalized and/or died from the virus, would we really care much about this? Of course not. All the gloom and doom bullshit and hyperventilating is just that...bullshit. Ignore it and tell the politicians to shove their commentary and their stupid public orders.

I agree with your general sentiment but your language is imprecise.

A positive antibody test does mean something. It means someone was exposed to the virus. If they never got sick or they got mildly ill and recovered on their own, then it is likely something to celebrate. They may well be immune going forward, and contributing to herd immunity. If so, this is good news, the exact opposite of how the Lame Stream Media is trying to portray it.

quote:

Someone who 'tests' positive and either is asymptomatic or recovers at home with no medical assistance is not a 'case'.

By both dictionary and medical definition, a person who tests positive for SARS-CoV-2 is a case. Medical treatment or attention is not a requirement to be considered a case. From the CDC case definition for COVID-19 ( Link ):

"Laboratory Criteria
Laboratory evidence using a method approved or authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or designated authority:

Confirmatory laboratory evidence:
Detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 ribonucleic acid (SARS-CoV-2 RNA) in a clinical specimen using a molecular amplification detection test"

I think it's fair to assume that after two weeks those who have tested positive and were asymptomatic or stayed at home without medical treatment have recovered.

Interestingly, the CDC case definition also includes people who have tested positive for antibodies as cases. This means I was wrong and the article 71 TRUCK posted as a possible reason for the spike in cases applies. The article said antibody testing may pick up antibodies for other coronaviruses and thus may not be accurate for this coronavirus.

Rt COVID-19
https://rt.live/
Interesting...
Most of the places, like in the Northeast, that have already had a lot of 'cases' now have a lower Rt < 1.
I see that as more good news. The current "hot spots" won't be hot for long.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
This may sound strange but has anyone else noticed a shortage of bicycles and free weights?

I work in this industry. And you are not wrong. Overall bicycle sales, nationwide, jumped 75% in April.

Drill down to statewide, and some stores were completely closed, but in places like FL, where the weather was really, really nice in April and the stores were open, it was not uncommon for a store to report triple their normal sales volume in April. May was the same. June has continued to be the same.

If you walk into a random store and ask for a $750 mountain bike, you are likely to get laughed out the door. They are being produced as fast as possible, they are being airfreighted over, but there is no way the system can keep up with this demand.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
There might be a spike in cases but what will be more important is if there is a spike in mortality? If not then as the number of cases increase but the mortality rate stays the same it decreases this will end up being just another flu bug

But I’m curious to know how many people died from influenza and pneumonia this year.

they've probably all been classified as crud-19 deaths due to the $$ incentive.

I don’t care either way on the “case” definition, that wasn’t the lack of precision I was referring to. The specific bone I was picking was,

quote:

Testing positive means virtually nothing if the person never develops symptoms, and only slightly more than nothing if they develop mild symptoms and recover without any medical assistance.

and my point was that it DOES mean something. Actually, it means something positive, in contrast to what the liars, Lefties, and media (apologies for being doubly redundant) would have us believe.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Forgive me, but 'F' them.

On this, we agree completely.

I'll ask this question to the Forum scientists and docs: since this is an bio-engineered virus - is it possible for a marker in this virus to attach itself without actually triggering an immune response?

Here's another issue, if you don't or are not exhibiting any of the symptons of COVID-19, you cannot get tested, this is important, since all we have are people getting tested that a) have symptoms or B) lie to get tested....

The rest of us who operate on a honest basis and don't want to expose ourselves to a room full of potentially sick COVID patients, or, since we are not feeling the effects, simply don't get tested.

There's no possible counting of all cases, potential risks, immune, post covid cases, none.

So the numbers we see are meaningless in the overall scope, since more tests are available, and testing quantity is increasing daily, AND most importantly, only those who have symptoms may be tested, the result of more cases is inevitable.

Things that are not answered as well about the positives.

A) have they been following social distancing.
B) did they attend a protest in the past 14 days
c) are they attending public functions without distancing, and/or a mask
d) do they wear masks.
e) how many had exposure to family members to obtain COVID, ie you live with an emergency room nurse, doctor, attendant, still practiced social masking and yet are symptomatic.

At least I have not found these answers to be easily available.

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
I'll ask this question to the Forum scientists and docs: since this is an bio-engineered virus -

How's that again?

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
I'll ask this question to the Forum scientists and docs: since this is an bio-engineered virus -

How's that again?

That right - I forgot. Some chinese guy ate a bat.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Here's another issue, if you don't or are not exhibiting any of the symptons of COVID-19, you cannot get tested, this is important, since all we have are people getting tested that a) have symptoms or B) lie to get tested....

The rest of us who operate on a honest basis and don't want to expose ourselves to a room full of potentially sick COVID patients, or, since we are not feeling the effects, simply don't get tested.

There's no possible counting of all cases, potential risks, immune, post covid cases, none.

So the numbers we see are meaningless in the overall scope, since more tests are available, and testing quantity is increasing daily, AND most importantly, only those who have symptoms may be tested, the result of more cases is inevitable.

Things that are not answered as well about the positives.

A) have they been following social distancing.
B) did they attend a protest in the past 14 days
c) are they attending public functions without distancing, and/or a mask
d) do they wear masks.
e) how many had exposure to family members to obtain COVID, ie you live with an emergency room nurse, doctor, attendant, still practiced social masking and yet are symptomatic.

At least I have not found these answers to be easily available.

Yet another little tidbit many people overlook is that testing is a snapshot in time. It is absolutely possible someone could be tested today, prove negative, and end up being exposed to the virus and test positive two or three days later. And what if you do test positive for the underlying virus? You could have got it and recovered months ago at this point. Is the fact that person tested positive at this point of any real value? Of course not.

The testing numbers these people are shoveling at us are virtually useless without having a lot more data available to support them, and/or to build conclusions on. Again, look to the hospitalization rates/capacities, and the death rate/trend for the only 'real meaningful' data points we have to work with at this point. Unfortunately (for the media and politicians) those two pieces of data aren't doing much to support their "the sky is falling", decisions and warnings.

I think most reasonable people believe the virus came out of a chinese lab. I'm not sure many believe that it was bio-engineered though.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I think most reasonable people believe the virus came out of a chinese lab. I'm not sure many believe that it was bio-engineered though.

At this point, given the openness of the Chinese government , we have little to no information available as to how it came into being, short of it existing at that bio-research facility. As such, any speculations are pie in the sky guesses.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Here's another issue, if you don't or are not exhibiting any of the symptons of COVID-19, you cannot get tested, this is important, since all we have are people getting tested that a) have symptoms or B) lie to get tested....

This is not universally true. This may be the case in some areas, but it is far from universal.

In my home county, that was initially the case, but I do not believe it is any longer, with respect to the brain swab, current virus test. For some time, Quest labs has had antibody test that anyone could get. My understanding was that one signed up online, paid, then went to a nearby lab for the blood draw for the test. You didn’t to be sick, to have been sick, or to have doctors orders. You just needed to have $129 for the test. I’d likely have done it just to see if whatever nasty crud Mrs slosig and I had in January/February was the ‘VID or not, but the 15% false positive rate and 40 minute drive each way to their nearest lab put me off.

Just as well, as I find myself in another nearby county (my original home county) for a couple weeks. They have a program where they are providing free antibody testing in various sites around the county for a couple weeks hoping to test 10,000 or so. Oh, and they run a second, different test on any positive samples to rule out any false positives. No ID needed, no cost, no reservation. First come first serve, 10am to 3pm. Swung by the test site in the town I grew up in a little after 10 yesterday and the line was around the block. Did a couple errands / projects, went by around noon and it was better. Did one more thing, went by around one, probably waited a half hour to forty minutes, and got tested. Should have results in two to three days.

One of the questions was “Have you been diagnosed with COVID-19?”, but it was not a requirement. Another was do you work in “list of essential jobs”?

Sure, as originally rolled out, the nasal swab current virus testing was almost guaranteed to have a higher positive rate than the population due to selective use of the limited tests.

Sure, beyond that, any information generated via antibody or nasal swab testing will be twisted and misrepresented to further the “Dim Panic”. Gather whatever information you can, view it skeptically, and draw your own conclusions.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Here's another issue, if you don't or are not exhibiting any of the symptoms of COVID-19, you cannot get tested, this is important, since all we have are people getting tested that a) have symptoms or B) lie to get tested....

This is not universally true. This may be the case in some areas, but it is far from universal.

And thus exacerbating the problem of current reporting is lack of consistent testing rules vis a vis qualification.

It's the way it's done here, wife wanted to be tested, she'd not essential per the rules
and her company wanted to open the office up, she was trying to be tested last week, was told no
since she had no symptoms, testing was for people with symptoms.

My neighbor wanted to know, so he told him he had the symptoms, got right in and tested...

I'm just going to presume that nationwide there are people not going because they don't want
anyone to know they have it, as it might cause their spouse to lose pay, or them to lose pay
or a job, whatever reasons they may have be it right or wrong, people do this stuff..

Anyway it's just another little twist in the social experiment of control by virus JMO...

As I was heading into the grocery store yesterday I saw 2 or 3 masks lying in the parking lot. These were not the el cheapo's but quality masks. I think people are just getting tired of wearing them here and are just saying "Screw it.They aren't enforcing the rule so I'm not wearing one!"

We put a man on the moon but I cannot go to Europe. Our response to COVID is an embarrassment.