"So far, county officials are not planning to reinstate restrictions or a mask mandate"

Totally gutless! Fire all the county officials!

Here is the bigger picture:

I understand your argument which is to pick out the most optimistic information. However last month in SCC we lost 29 people dying to Covid. And again you are neglecting to understand that 30% of infected will have permanent injuries and 10% will be disabled. In other words your do not want to discus the entire picture.

Here is some more to consider 388 people have died since 1/1/2022.. Since 1/1/2022 we have had 213,652 cases documented (more than 10% of the population of Santa Clara County) , thus 30% or 64,096 people are never going to be normal again, and 21,365 are not even going to be able to work again either. These are FACTS that you cannot ignore, 1 death is one too many let alone the average is 2 deaths a day. What you are saying is that let them die on order to satisfy your needs. Unfortunately the U.S. Constitution clearly states that government policies cannot take a persons life until due process is proven. A random person cannot be allowed to die under any circumstances.

With the constant attacks that our government officials are subject to, even personal threats, they are what they call Doctors, and unfortunately they do wind up with a situation where the public will simply not follow medical advice, and will assault anyone that tries to prevent infections of Covid at this time.

I simply point out that the situation is the perfect storm for more variants, and simply not be able to produce effective vaccines or treatments, that time has come and gone.

Why are 30 percent never going to be normal again? Is that a fact or are you suggesting the worst case scenario?

Santa Clara hospitalizations have skyrocketed for the last 2 months seen in this web page (Web Link

We are currently reporting only 41 ICU beds available (28 adult and 13 child) which is only 7.04% available beds in the county. Our current daily hospitalization are 267 with 23 suspected cases. Our averages regarding hospitalizations though we are at a 7 day average of 243 positive cases and 25 suspected cased at total of 268. We are ranked 6th in the state. And we have remained above the rate we were in Dec 2021 of 90 by 178

And understand these hospitals are instructed to send anyone with the mildest of Covid symptoms home, which means we likely have higher treatment numbers.

Now finally someone has gotten the information. Millions of people are unable to return to work because of Long Covid (Web Link I had been warning people for years about it. This is causing an permanent artificial shortage of labor and also going to be the cause of major economic damages for at least 10 years

Steven— and your solution is???

A complete and total lockdown???????
You have been warning us for years???? Long covid was only identified in spring of 2020
Web Link

Yes, I started telling people about this problem in June of 2020, both here and on the San Jose Inside and Spotlight. The facts are by putting immediate gratification ahead of dealing with the problem, we are no unable to control Covid in any way. It is out if control and we lost the war regarding World War Covid.

Victor, you and your friends have sunk the entire system, it just hasn't figured it out yet.

Even if we got an Omicron booster, it will be 6 months out of date. The reality is that we lost and we are never going to recover. Capitalism has only 2 stages, growth which is necessary to survive, or decline which will implode on itself. We are on a no turning back trajectory now, and maybe it will be for the best.

Too bad we couldn't deal with this correctly, it is too late now.

Steven- of course you told us 2 years ago (so not years but 2 years).

We “lost the war” because you and your friends refused to vaccinate and have sunk the entire vaccination system. Variants arose because you refused to vaccinate and create a state of herd immunity. Remember the original vaccines were 90-95% effective.

And yet you still cannot actually tell us what solutions (feasible, that is) to deal with the situation. Complete lockdowns???? Mandatory vaccination???? Universal triple masking indoors and outside????

But on the other hand since we lost the war, we will not hear anymore complaints form you.
Thanks to my top secret clearance, I will be evacuated to the bunkers set up to save the important people

Victor,

I cannot believe you tried to claim I was an Avnt-vaxxer? I got my shots ASAP all of them. You are in effect complaining about sonething your "team" was doing. And again, the reality was that the vaccines came out too late and too slow. The variants started long before the vaccines came out, if you bother to do any research.

So instead of trying to explain how the people who were violating masks, violating indoor mandates, and also actively resisting any means of infection control, you try to put the blame on one and onters that tried to stop it ealry.

You all were saying either PROVE that we are making people sick BEFORE implementing infection controls, or you have no right to prevent us from getting other people sick.

This was the reason why the Challenger and Columbia Shuttles were destroyed, and this is why you try to use distraction or the new term "what aboutism" to excuse the problem away. Sorry but it doers not work.

The facts were instead of following medical advice, so many were actively encouraging unsafe behavior. Remember the church in San Jose? Remember all of the cited restaurants? this is just people trying to cover up actions they encoiraged. You supported that history remember?

Steven - I cannot believe that you said “ Victor, you and your friends have sunk the entire system, it just hasn't figured it out yet.”

Too late and too slow?? 6 months to,produce a vaccine that was 90-95% effective??? Never done before
BTW, if the church in San Jose was such a clear and present danger to public health, why weren’t the police sent in to lock up the criminals?????

But thank goodness I have my top secret clearance!!!!

Victor,

Of course you made an inaccurate claim, 6 months to make a vaccine, it was in November of 2020 when the vaccine was in Phase 3 trials. It was permitted to be used in December 2020. It was a two dose vaccine that meant to vaccinate the entire country 670 Million doses needed to be made and delivered.

In order to vaccinate the U.S. in 90 days we needed to give these doses at a rate of 14 Million doses a day. But we never got close, it took as much as 9 months to reach the target goal. So unfortunately we jumped the gun regarding establishing proper risk management of Covid.

Of course you keep trying to distract from the fact that the current vaccines are no longer preventing infection and variant production. It can be said that every day a new variant is born in the U.S. given that the mutation rate is:

The mutation rate in the SARS-CoV genome was estimated to be 0.80 – 2.38 × 10-3 nucleotide substitution per site per year which is in the same order of magnitude as other RNA viruses. The non-synonymous and synonymous substitution rates were estimated to be 1.16 – 3.30 × 10-3 and 1.67 – 4.67 × 10-3 per site per year, respectively. The most recent common ancestor of the 16 sequences was inferred to be present as early as the spring of 2002.

The flue mutates at Previously, Parvin et al. reported a mutation rate for the NS gene of influenza A virus A/WSN/33(H1N1) (WSN) of 1.5 × 10−5 mutations per nucleotide per infectious cycle during the growth of a single plaque in MDCK cells (23).

Maybe you just want to make up stories. Here is medical facts. Unfortunately we did not achieve destruction of Covid when we had the chance because too much pressure to relax nonpharmaceutical controls overwhelmed the public health.

Steven
"Of course you made an inaccurate claim, 6 months to make a vaccine, it was in November of 2020 when the vaccine was in Phase 3 trials. It was permitted to be used in December 2020. It was a two dose vaccine that meant to vaccinate the entire country 670 Million doses needed to be made and delivered."

But the vaccine was made in 6 months-- it was in phase 1 and 2 trials before November 2020. Of course you are forgetting the J&J vaccine, which is a single dose vaccine and it was in Phase 1 and 2 trials within 6 months.

"Of course you keep trying to distract from the fact that the current vaccines are no longer preventing infection and variant production."
Current vaccines still protect against severe illness and hospitalization. Thanks to you and your friends they are less effective.

"The mutation rate in the SARS-CoV genome was estimated to be 0.80 – 2.38 × 10-3 nucleotide substitution per site per year which is in the same order of ......"

If you are going to cut and paste scientific reserach, you need to cite your source and not make it sound like you have written it. Plagirism.

"Unfortunately we did not achieve destruction of Covid when we had the chance because too much pressure to relax nonpharmaceutical controls overwhelmed the public health."
Viruses like the covid virus are very hard to "destroy" ( a non scientific term). All the places in the world that attempted zero covid did not succeed.
As for "nonpharmaceutical controls" consideration must be taken with regard to the collateral effects of lockdowns and deprivation. Something that does not interest you since you supported total lockdowns.

Victor,

Here is your prevention statistics for hospitalization:

We are currently reporting only 74 ICU beds available (48 adult and 26 child) which is only 12.71% available beds in the county. (Web Link Our current daily hospitalization are 266 with 28 suspected cases. Our averages regarding hospitalizations though we are at a 7 day average of 259 positive cases and 24 suspected cased at total of 283. We are ranked 4thh in the state. And we have remained above the rate we were in Dec 2021 of 90 by 183. We have more hospitalizations now then we did with Delta

And understand these hospitals are instructed to send anyone with the mildest of Covid symptoms home, which means we likely have higher treatment numbers.

And in fact there are reports we are not getting 80% of the actual numbers due to inconsistent data collection or lack of it.

The bottom line is that we are continuing the trainwreck and even you know it.

From the SCC website:

“ Patients seeking care at a hospital with COVID are either treated and released from the Emergency Department (ED) or are admitted to the hospital. This dashboard contains information on all patients who are COVID positive and are hospitalized for any reason - whether they are hospitalized because of COVID or for non-COVID related reasons. When hospitalized, patients can be placed in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed or a non-ICU bed. ICU beds are in special departments within a hospital that are typically reserved for the most critical patients and represent the highest level of care available. Non-ICU Beds are in departments with levels of care other than ICU.”

Steven claims anyone with covid is sent home. Not true . Also as stated above, many people,hospitalized are not there because of covid.


And yet, no mention of any solutions from Steven!!!!

Victor,

I hate to point this out to you but the SCC hospitalization tracking was stopped in May 2021, if you look at the website here (Web Link have not yet pointed out any evidence to prove that Covid is under any risk management.

I am not responsible for the problem as such, I have not been infected and took safety precautions. I am not under any obligation to find a solution, even though the solution exists but no one wants to do it. THe research proved that Non-Pharmacuetical Infection controls WORK, but obviousl;y vaccination and treatment doesn't.

THe report here (Web Link "Estimating worldwide effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 incidence and population mobility patterns using a multiple-event study" concluded:

"Our findings establish that canceling public events and enforcing restrictions on private gatherings, as well as closing schools and workplaces, had the largest effects on curbing the pandemic. These four policies led to large and statistically significant declines in the incidence of COVID-19. Stay-at-home requirements were used as a policy of last resort and helped to slow down the growth of daily incidence. International travel controls had an early and short-lived effect on the incidence of COVID-19. Finally, restrictions on internal movement and public transport closures did not lead to decreases in the COVID-19 incidence. This latter finding does not imply that restricting internal movement or public transport is epidemiologically irrelevant. It rather suggests that once policies such as workplace and school closures, canceling of public events and restrictions on private gatherings -that restrict the activities which generate most of public transportation and internal mobility- have been imposed, the remaining travelers are so few and so sparsely distributed that the probability of infection during

Steven

Maybe you should look here
Web Link

SCC hospitalization data update weekdays. More false claims from Steven.

You link to a report from years ago. But even then, as you posted, the report states
“ Stay-at-home requirements were used as a policy of last resort and helped to slow down the growth of daily incidence. International travel controls had an early and short-lived effect on the incidence of COVID-19. Finally, restrictions on internal movement and public transport closures did not lead to decreases in the COVID-19 incidence.”

Clearly no (to use your words) destruction of covid.
But that was then .
What do you suggest be done now????

Victor,

You didn't read this part:

"This dashboard is updated Monday – Friday and will not be updated on holidays.

Source: Statewide COVID-19 Hospital County Data, retrieved daily from the CDPH Open Data Portal"

I said that the SCC did not report any data, and I am correct. You are not using data prepared by the Santa Clara County. Talking about being misleading.

In any event I am using the datasource here (Web Link This data us updated daily.

In any event, what is your next complaint?

Steve is in spin mode.
SCC is reporting hospitalization data. You said it was stopped in may. Does it matter where the data came from? SCC is reporting it.
BTW, where do you think the data that CPDH comes from??? Think real hard.

My next complaint is that you refuse to state what actions should be taken.

This has been fun, but I have to move on.
With my top secret government clearance, I have important work to do. But feel free to provide us all with what actions should be taken.

FYI,

Steven Goldstein:

Aug 3 Wastewater Update CDC Monitoring on July 31, 2022, these are cases resulting in exposure to the people in the county, this is not limited to Santa Clara since many people travel in and out of the county.

From Site 305: 11% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 76.4. During March 2022 the viral scale was 26.89 with an Ave. of 170 case per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 76.73%. (+185%).

From Site 352: 5% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 74.60. During March 2022 the viral scale was 20.48 with an Ave. of 170 cases per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 71.37% (+249%.)

From Site 353: 71% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 76.93. During March 2022 the viral scale was 19.67 with an Ave. 170 cases per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 80.73%. (+310%) This site samples 1.5M of Santa Clara county 75% of its population

From Site 354: 7% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 76.67. During March 2022 the viral scale was 19.19 with an Ave of 170 cases per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 77.96%. (+306%)

The Current Viral Scale for Santa Clara County is 76.70. In comparison to March which was 21.20 which we are 3.76 times March at this time. My Monthly average is 889. in March it was 170 We are 5.23 times of March 2022 In July 2021 it was 165 which means we are 5.38 times what we were last summer.

WE ARE REPLAYING OMICRON FROM DEC 2021

More whining. No suggestions or solutions

Victor,

No whining, just SCIENTIFIC FACTS. But here is a new wrinkle, a new variant has been uncovered called BA 4.6. (Web Link "What is BA.4.6? The CDC is tracking a new COVID ‘variant of concern’ that’s overtaking earlier Omicron strains in at least 4 U.S. states" Another new one.

I am only reporting the facts, I am not going to be able to provide you with any answer that will work other than ones you absolutely refuse to perform.

The reality is that the Covid NPI "resisters" regarding public health set us on a path of no return. This virus will continue to systemically damage our future for decades to come.

The virus mutates too fast for a vaccination, and treatment is growing less and less viable.

Your link. Web Link

Goes to “page not found”

[Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]
But doesn’t actually provide answers .

Victor,

I do not know where you got your link but here it is again (Web Link the raw text is "fortune.com/2022/08/04/ba-4-6-omicron-subvariant-covid-ba-5-booster-vaccine/" I hope it comes out in text form The article is still titled "What is BA.4.6? The CDC is tracking a new COVID ‘variant of concern’ that’s overtaking earlier Omicron strains in at least 4 U.S. states"

Specifically:

"Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tracking a new “variant of concern”: BA.4.6. This week, the CDC included the BA.4 spinoff in its weekly tracking of COVID cases, with the agency’s chief data officer tweeting that the new subvariant had actually been “circulating for several weeks” in the U.S. The CDC designates strains as “variants of concern” if they display greater transmissibility, reduced effectiveness of treatment, increased severity, or decreased neutralization by antibodies.

According to the CDC, BA.4.6 made up 4.1% of COVID cases for the week ending July 30. The new variant is more prevalent in the region comprising Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, where it makes up 10.7% of local cases. The mid-Atlantic region and the South are also seeing rates of BA.4.6 above the national average."

Here is the CDC Web Page Web Link

No way it will miss the state of CA.

I am going to go out and buy some cheese for your whine.
Still no suggestions????
Attending a nice anime convention at the SJ convention center this weekend. Everyone masked. Living life.

Web Link

According to Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, the BA.4.6′s mutation “does not appear to be concerning [compared to] BA.4/5.”

Victor,

First "does not appear" is not a scientific conclusion it is wishful thinking. Abd BA 4/5 are actually been a very bad combination at this time. In fact BA.5 is still causing the most infections for the last nearly month.

This may be hard to understand, but sometimes there is no cure or solution to a problem. Like being born with Down Syndrome, or Autism. Likewise, a Traumatic Brain Injury, or a Terminal Cancer. There are times that expecting an easy or even a hard solution is impossible.

A case in point AIDS. We took more than 20 years to get a treatment that could at least control the disease in a person, but no vaccine yet.

Please understand you cannot expect a solution to this virus at this time, we lost our chance when the mutations started.

You appear to be stuck in the Covid 2nd stage of grief defined as Anger:

“In the second stage, you become frustrated by the fact that you’re vulnerable, that you have no control over what’s happened, and you begin to look for the events and people that you can blame. Anger is the bridge from numbness to feeling, and once you get through the anger, you are able to peel away the many layers of pain associated with the loss.

You need to achieve the 5th and final stage of grief regarding covid which is:

“The fifth and final stage is related to acceptance. You're finally able to accept the reality of what's happened and begin to look for avenues to move on. It's important that during this stage you accept how this loss has changed your life and stop wishing for everything to go back to how it used to be.”

It is time for all of us to get used to a virus that we cannot control and will be damaging us systemically.

Whine.

Vioctor,

No whining no complaining just FACTS:

We are currently reporting only 64 ICU beds available (42 adult and 22 child) which is only 11.34% available beds in the county. Web Link Our current daily hospitalization are 269 with 24 suspected cases. Our averages regarding hospitalizations though we are at a 7 day average of 266 positive cases and 23 suspected cased at total of 289. We are ranked 4thh in the state. And we have remained above the rate we were in Dec 2021 of 90 by 199. We have more hospitalizations now then we did with Delta

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

Victor,

More passive aggression, sarcasm, and getting into arguments? Those are signs of rage, resentment and feeling out of control. But here is the truth you are NOT in control regarding Covid, and no one is. July 2022 CDC Wastewater summary from Web Link the CDC database.

From Site 305: 11% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 72.73. During March 2022 the viral scale was 19.19 with an Ave. of 170 case per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 77.79%. (+305%).

From Site 352: 5% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 68.6. During March 2022 the viral scale was 20.48 with an Ave. of 170 cases per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 71.02% (+247%.)

From Site 353: 71% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 76.93. During March 2022 the viral scale was 19.67 with an Ave. 170 cases per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 80.29%. (+308%) This site samples 1.5M of Santa Clara county 75% of its population

From Site 354: 7% of Santa Clara County, the last reading was 72.73. During March 2022 the viral scale was 19.19 with an Ave of 170 cases per day. And this month so far, we have an Ave. of 77.79%. (+305%)

The July 2022 Viral Scale for Santa Clara County is 76.40. In comparison to March which was 21.20 which we are 3.60 times March at this time. My Monthly average is 862. in March it was 170 We are 5.09 times of March 2022 In July 2021 it was 165 which means we are 5.22 times what we were last summer.

You can just ignore the data like you want, but others have the right to know about it.

[Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]


Bay Area’s summer COVID surge has passed its peak. Is the worst past? Web Link

Victor,

The answer is NOT YET, because of the new variant. The facts are we are expected to have a surge in cases in the fall and winter and you know it

Web Link

"A Coming Fall Surge? U.S. officials predict another 100 million cases in late 2022."

You keep trying to only look at information regarding SHORT term trends. This is a major problem regarding taking actions to deal with the long term results.


THere is alo this report which shows we do not even have situational awarenes Web Link "Just how big is this COVID surge? As reported tests fall off, it’s harder to say"

"At the University of Washington, researchers who test blood to assess the true level of infections have estimated that only 14% of cases are being reported across the United States. Testing has never captured the full spread of the coronavirus, but the figure is much lower than in some earlier points in the pandemic, when more than 40% of cases were once estimated to be detected."

Please stop trying to make it look like things are solved, you know it is not. The facts are in about 4 weeks BA 4.6 will likely make up about 25% of the new cases, and this will reinfect others. Why are you so determined to avoid the problem?

I bet the readers here can see you are cherry picking your news to best fit your desired results.

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

Victor,

I still find it amazing you keep making it personal. This kind of conduct can be grounds to be a form of cyberstalking, but I guess you also want to violate the terms and conditions here too.

In any event the Covid crisis is ongoing as reported here Web Link

In Aug 2021 during the peak of Delta we had an 7 day average of 228,we are at 266 today. Our hospitalizations are systemically increasing, and you cannot establish any evidence it will start to go down.

For the month of July 2022 cases is 26,761 Web Link in comparison to July 2021, which was PRE-DELTA AND PRE-OMICRON, was 5,086 which means we are 5.260 times of the July 2021 cases when we had a supposedly safe level. Our current daily average is 863 and In July 2021, we had 164 cases per day.

For the month of July 2022 we have tested 212,713 Web Link and in July 2021 of the same sample we tested 250,708 which means our sample size is 85% of July 2021. But yet we have INCREASED POSITIVITY. The positivity rate is 13.00% but the July 2021 Average was .2.01% meaning we are about 6.46 TIMES higher than July 2021.

We are NOT DONE with Covid yet. I will start reporting on August next

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

Victor,

I still find it amazing you keep making it personal. This kind of conduct can be grounds to be a form of cyberstalking, but I guess you also want to violate the terms and conditions here too.

Lets look at the new Sac Bee Article here Web Link

10M cases in CA, 25% of the state.

The CDC in a weekly update Thursday classified 28 of California’s 58 counties in the high community level for coronavirus, down from 39 last week and 50 two weeks ago. The 28 counties still classified in the high level are: Alameda, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Fresno, Humboldt, Imperial, Kings, Lake, Los Angeles, Madera, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Monterey, Napa, Orange, San Benito, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, SANTA CLARA, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tuolumne and Ventura.

The designation means the CDC continues to advise residents to wear masks in public indoor settings in those counties.

But I can see that as much as 25% of the county is not practicing safe measures, I was at the DMV last wee and a good amount of people were not wearing masks and no distancing either.

Yes there is a short term “stabilization” but that cannot be expected to continue. Every public health doctor knows we are going to have a serious uptick in cases starting in September.

The sf chronicle reports that 1 in 7 cases are reinfections too Web Link “COVID in California: Coronavirus hospitalizations jump 145% in state in 1 month, Aidin Vaziri, Catherine Ho, Danielle Echeverria, Rita Beamish Aug. 2, 2022, Updated: Aug. 2, 2022 4:20 p.m.

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]