[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by loribellitt

The Civil Discourse Club in The V recently hosted a Zoom meeting w/a former CDC employee giving an update on Covid. It's a great club to join to receive pertinent info on many subjects. Pertinent to Covid were some valid points:
*Due to a lack of clear messaging, 2 countries suffer: US & Spain (Spain recently handed virus control to 'regional' govts to their peril)
*In Korea now, easy tests are similar to a pregnancy test (available at Dollar General)
*Across the world, there are over 200 possible vacs in development.
*60-70% of population needs to be vaccinated or recovered for herd immunity. As of now, only 2% have been exposed.
*Virus not changing as quickly as normal flu virus. In S. Africa where they are currently going through regular 'flu' season, it's not nearly as severe, thanks mostly to masking already taking place for Covid.
*Estimates vacs availability April 2021 earliest.
*Convalescent plasma has NOT been effective.
*Regarding govt. payments to hospitals for Covid diagnoses: They do NOT receive payment if patient admitted w/pre-existing condition.
*Initial messaging from the CDC was diluted dramatically.
*One metric used to determine Covid deaths is average of TOTAL deaths (car accidents, suicide, cancer, heart attack, etc) in same time frame year-to-year. It doesn't change much EXCEPT for this year where, sometime ago, deaths were up over 200,000. This points to Covid deaths actually being underreported.

Thank you! That was the most factual and informative post I have seen today and for MANY days. I learned a lot and I had a pretty good base knowledge of CV from before. Sounds like a GREAT club to belong to!!!!!