Covid 19 thread

[thirteen28]

Go Kyle Turley

Kyle Turley advocates cannabis as a coronavirus “cure”

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80uTRD1-F5A

 

[thirteen28]

Yeah, I call bullcrap. But as usual, we can just agree to disagree.

Earlier in this thread, you stated that epidemiologist Neil Ferguson was "full of contradictions" and said something that "didn't make any sense." After further analysis, I showed you proof that Ferguson's statements were NOT contradictory, and his statement (regarding "lethality") also made perfect sense-- you just didn't seem to understand his point.

Now, for whatever reason, you are trying to cast doubt upon yet another expert's opinion, again with shallow or non-existent proof.

The Fauci video clip you showed was from way back in January-- when the outbreak was confined to China. Fauci stated that "of course the coronavirus should be taken seriously" and that "this is not something that the citizens of the Unites States RIGHT NOW should be worried about." (Emphasis mine).

As for your second accusation, you have completely butchered and misrepresented his statement. You claimed that "Fauci stated that this virus was basically akin to the seasonal flu." As per your citation, the actual quote was:

"the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”

The scientists are discussing the "range of lethality" of coronavirus, and they only go as far as to say that it MIGHT be CLOSER to the low end of the lethality spectrum than the higher end. They're saying it MIGHT be closer to 0.1 than it is to 9 or 10 or 36. That leaves a HUGE amount of wiggle-room, obviously. Your summation of that sentence ("basically it's the flu") is completely misleading and inaccurate.

IMHO Fauci has been working tirelessly for weeks (perhaps months) to send out a consistent message-- yes, this is serious, and yes, it is dangerous. To cherry-pick two VERY weak counterpoints--one from a long time ago before it had escaped China, and the other from a co-authored study with ginormous qualifiers-- and accuse him of "flip-flopping like a politician" is just not fair.

In general, 1328, I think your "debate style" is unfair. You consistently mischaracterize and demonize others' opinions and then create ridiculous "Straw Men" which you gleefully knock down. And you seem to think that if you can come up with a metaphor you like, you automatically win, even if the metaphor is wildly inappropriate. (Like positing a false choice between "taking an aspirin or decapitation"-- gimme a break).

However, one metaphor you mentioned I actually really like. You wrote:

"We are on a ship at sea right now, there is a fire near the bow and there is flooding in the engine room back aft with the ship taking on a lot of water and starting to list. And we are ignoring the flooding and focusing only on the fire, instead of dividing our efforts to combat both. Taken individually, either the fire or the flooding is capable of taking down the ship, yet we are focusing on one thing, the fire, at the expense of the other, the flooding, and we are going to lose the ship."

Yeah, I actually agree with this, I can totally see your point. But where we differ is in that I want to listen to expert advice on BOTH problems. For the fire, I want to listen to the firefighters. For the flooding, I want to listen to the experts on flood remediation. But you seem bound and determined to IGNORE and UNDERMINE the experts' opinions for one of the two gigantic problems.

Cheers, man

Well, it comes down to the "who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes." I gave you the proof you asked for (and previously stated, if you look through my posts, that it was indeed January when Fauci stated what was on the video). Proof that you can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink.

On the other metaphor - after characterizing me as making straw men - you utterly mischaracterize my position as wanting to only deal with the metaphorical flooding at the expense of the fire. That's categorically false. If you've followed this debate and go back through my posts (including one with a NYT piece to which you actually responded), you will see clearly that I have always called for a targeted approach, one that quarantined the high risk groups but let the low risk groups continue their lives as mostly normal. I've made allowance for the cancellation of large events where big numbers of people congregate, but have also called for getting people back to work ASAP to minimize the economic conflagration while doing what we can to protect those that are most threatened by this virus. I've consistently called for fighting the fire and the flooding at the same time. So if you're going to accuse me of invoking straw men, you need to look in the mirror for your last post.

As far as my opinions regarding the experts and their opinions, I'm simply a skeptic. I may not be from Missouri, but I still say "show me." If they are right about something, I'll note that. If they are wrong, I'll note that too. And if they refuse to admit they were wrong and bounce all over the place on their opinions, haphazardly and continually miss the mark to what's actually going on, I'll also take note of that as well.

Experts told us that housing prices would never decline, and that mortgage backed securities were good investments. Many, many experts said this, and they are certainly people with a significantly greater understanding of finance than I had. Were they right?

In the late 1980's, the experts at the CIA - people with access to much better data than I have, and much more knowledge in their chose field - stated that there was no way the Eastern Bloc countries were about to fall. They may have been behind us technologically and economically, but the experts insisted their governments were safe and stable and weren't going anywhere for a long time. Then in 1989, communist government in Eastern Europe started dropping like flies that just flew into a cloud of Raid, and the Soviet Union ended with a pathetic little whimper toward the end of 1991. Were the experts right?

As I pointed out to to bluecoconuts upthread, that same organization, the CIA - along with the intelligence agencies of every major Western country - agree Iraq had massive stockpiles of WMD's. The experts that arrived at that opinion had far more access to data than I did and far more experience in evaluating it than I did. What's more, even the intel agencies of countries like Germany and France, both of whom were vehemently opposed to the invasion, agreed that Iraq had those stockpiles. The only question was "should we"; the existence of those stockpiles was a settled question by every expert who opined on the issue. Again, I ask, were they right?

When I was a kid, the experts said Africanized killer bees would make it unsafe to go outside in the southern U.S. They were wrong. I also heard when I was a kid that we were entering another ice age. Also wrong. Then I heard that the polar ice caps would be melted, first by 2000, then by 2005, then by 2015. All wrong.

I could go on and on about how many times I've seen experts be wrong, certainly longer than you would care to read (assuming you've made it this far).

And I'm not even saying the experts are ALWAYS wrong, or that you shouldn't hear what they have to say.

But I am absolutely saying, as I have consistently and persistently demonstrated in this thread, that one should be SKEPTICAL. Don't take their word at face value, especially when they are making huge policy decisions that affect millions and they don't have skin in the game. The guys who fucked up the assessment of Iraq's WMD's paid little if any price, while thousands upon thousands of our soldiers and a greater number of civilians over their paid either with their lives or with their physical and mental health if they somehow survived.

Skepticism will serve you well. It doesn't mean you don't hear what they have to say. But it does mean you put their opinion to the test, and if they fail the test, you evaluate the reputation of the expert accordingly.

 

[thirteen28]

Stockholm is 24th in Europe in population density. So again, it's not all that crowded comparatively speaking.

City Mayors: Largest cities in the world by population density (1 to 125)

City Mayors: Largest cities in the world ranked by population density (1 to 125)

www.citymayors.com

According to the link, Stockholm is 93rd in the world in population density, at about 2700 per square km. Go two spots up, to 91, and Milan, Italy - the largest city in the Lombardy region where the worst Western outbreak of the virus occurred - has a comparable population density of 2750.

Two cities with substantially the same population densities.

So yeah, I'm going to be watching how things evolve in Sweden, and Stockholm in particular, and comparing that to how things unfolded in Italy. One way or the other, it's going to tell us a lot.

Anticipating your counter, you'll probably state that we have to adjust for things like demographics (e.g., age), social customs, smoking rates, etc. And if you do, we won't have an argument because I'll agree completely with that statement - which is the basis of why we should consider different levels of response for different areas of this country.

Not all Universal Health Care is equal, of course. Sweden is 5th in the world in life span, which certainly seems to indicate that they have above average health care even by European standards. They are not perfect, but they have shown they are well above average.

I'm not really going to debate the merits or demerits of UHC with you, and that would probably pull this thread into a political argument contrary to forum rules. We'll agree to disagree on UHC, although we'll probably both agree that the US HC system is a mess. Fair enough?

Despite these advantages, and despite a population that has been relatively careful compared to the US where churches have been packed in places and where spring breakers have massed with no concern about the diseases they will bring home, Sweden IS considering far more draconian measures.

Like I say, we'll see how the situation evolves, and it's going to tell us a lot.

 

[kurtfaulk]

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the virus is putting bill burr's evil plan into action.



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[thirteen28]

That's not my expertise, and I never claimed otherwise, this challenge is meaningless.

Wow. Just wow.

You have went back and forth with me over the economic aspect, repeatedly claiming that the economy should have been somehow structured differently so that we could respond to this pandemic without killing it. And now I ask you to give me a few substantive examples of how you would have changed the economy, and you simply walk away from the challenge?

Wow. I guess we know now that you had nothing to back you up on this point.

Sure, experts can be wrong, especially when trying to keep up with an ever changing landscape in sciences and medicine. That doesn't negate the fact that they have been correct in this instance. Additionally while experts can be wrong, they're getting their talking points by looking at data, by conducting research and experiments, not just pulling things out of their asses. This is incredibly complicated stuff.

See above in my response to XXXIV.

But for the record, look at this too:

Those are projections - made by experts - of two different models of hospitalization rates for COVID-19, with the actual data. The dark purple (largest) curve is their model as it projected things on April 1st - after the U.S. had been shut down to various degrees for about two weeks. The light purple curve is the model as adjusted on April 7th - downward to be sure, but still grossly overstating the actual data.

These wild over-projections cannot be chalked up to a lack of data, there was plenty of it available on both April 1st and April 7th (today). There was plenty of time for adjusting it to something that matched the actual data much more closely. Furthermore, since we had been in lockdown mode for a couple of weeks on April 1st and nearly a week longer by April 7th, one cannot use the excuse that those models lack the real time data to account for the shutdown.

I get that modeling is not an exact science, but with all the data they had - data that revealed not only absolute numbers for specific dates, but trends over time - they still grossly overstate the number of projected hospitalizations to actual. Even the downgraded April 7th model overshoots actual hospitalizations by well over 100%.

Our country has been using IMHE's models as a basis for setting policy to respond to the pandemic. Should they be using these models? Should we maybe question the experts who are putting them out and still overstating their projections relative to the actual data? Or should we just excuse them and take what they say at face value?

You evaluate based on their track records?

See above. That's part of their track record.

Sounds like it's a lose lose situation. Except one can have the impact of the loss be reduced by things we've already begun implementing, and the other one includes things like death, and absolute generational crushing medical debt. So much better than staying home for a few weeks/months.

So instead of generation crushing medical debt (which you need to substantiate, since many of those people at least HAD insurance when employed), you're willing to give them generational crushing non-medical debt, loss of homes, loss of jobs, loss of livelihood, irrespective of their actual risk profile.

"We've got to destroy the village to save it!"

 

[Akrasian]

According to the link, Stockholm is 93rd in the world in population density, at about 2700 per square km. Go two spots up, to 91, and Milan, Italy - the largest city in the Lombardy region where the worst Western outbreak of the virus occurred - has a comparable population density of 2750.

Of course, Lombardy as a whole in about 1/18 of the space has virtually the same population as Sweden as a whole. Lombardy 23,844 square kilometres Sweden 450,295 km2 . There just is no honest comparison between the two. Or are you arguing that the populations surrounding the city are irrelevant? That would put you into a minority of one.

I'm not really going to debate the merits or demerits of UHC with you, and that would probably pull this thread into a political argument contrary to forum rules. We'll agree to disagree on UHC, although we'll probably both agree that the US HC system is a mess. Fair enough?

No, not fair enough. The quality of health care believe it or not does make a difference. Sweden based on life expectancy has a very good health care system. I understand that's inconvenient for your arguments, but it does need to be factored in. If Sweden is doing better at handling a pandemic, part of that IS that they have a health care system that responds rapidly to health care emergencies, regardless of the income of the sick. Abandoning the poor does make a difference in pandemics, since they then tend to infect others. That is VERY basic to interpreting data. In a pandemic, the more citizens who fall through the cracks, the greater the danger is to everybody else.

Like I say, we'll see how the situation evolves, and it's going to tell us a lot.

And ignoring things like large groups gathering despite lockdown is NOT irrelevant. That is dangerous to everybody else, and affects the future infection rates of the population as a whole. This is why so many disagree strongly with you - you have a tendency to handwave away things that hurt your argument.

 

[thirteen28]

Of course, Lombardy as a whole in about 1/18 of the space has virtually the same population as Sweden as a whole. Lombardy 23,844 square kilometres Sweden 450,295 km2 . There just is no honest comparison between the two. Or are you arguing that the populations surrounding the city are irrelevant? That would put you into a minority of one.

So you are saying here that geography makes a difference? If so, we agree on that. I kind of made that point in my last post responding to you, I'll re-iterate it here.

More generally, when you say there is "no honest comparison between the two", you are essentially stating you have to adjust for various factors, even if other factors are similar. Again, no argument there - that's been a point I've made myself when arguing against a one-size-fits-all approach to this pandemic across the entirety of the USA.

If you can't make an honest comparison between Stockholm and Milan, you most certainly cannot do so between Boise, ID, and NYC.

No, not fair enough. The quality of health care believe it or not does make a difference. Sweden based on life expectancy has a very good health care system. I understand that's inconvenient for your arguments, but it does need to be factored in. If Sweden is doing better at handling a pandemic, part of that IS that they have a health care system that responds rapidly to health care emergencies, regardless of the income of the sick. Abandoning the poor does make a difference in pandemics, since they then tend to infect others. That is VERY basic to interpreting data. In a pandemic, the more citizens who fall through the cracks, the greater the danger is to everybody else.

Without getting into the weeds of the UHC debate, again, it varies. Sweden's numbers at the present are pretty good. France's numbers - where they also have UHC - are not only worse than Sweden's on a per capita basis, but worse than ours in the US on the same basis (much worse in terms of deaths).

The point being, having UHC is not the dominant determining factor in outcomes. If you look at the numbers across Europe, where just about every country has UHC to one degree or another, you'll see quite a wide variation in outcomes.

And ignoring things like large groups gathering despite lockdown is NOT irrelevant. That is dangerous to everybody else, and affects the future infection rates of the population as a whole. This is why so many disagree strongly with you - you have a tendency to handwave away things that hurt your argument.

Go a couple posts up and read what I said to XXXIV about my proposed response. Or hell, I'll help you here so you don't have to go find that needle in the haystack:

I've made allowance for the cancellation of large events where big numbers of people congregate

I've acknowledged the need to cancel big events a number of times in this thread, and did it again in the post from which I quoted, so what exactly did I handwave away?

 

[Akrasian]

So you are saying here that geography makes a difference? If so, we agree on that. I kind of made that point in my last post responding to you, I'll re-iterate it here.

More generally, when you say there is "no honest comparison between the two", you are essentially stating you have to adjust for various factors, even if other factors are similar. Again, no argument there - that's been a point I've made myself when arguing against a one-size-fits-all approach to this pandemic across the entirety of the USA.

If you can't make an honest comparison between Stockholm and Milan, you most certainly cannot do so between Boise, ID, and NYC.

I'm saying that comparing a densely packed area to a lightly populated area does make a difference to short term results. Despite that - as has been posted - Sweden is considering blocking social gatherings, since their rate of infection is rising. You wanted to compare a city in Lombardy which has 18 times the population density to Stockholm - and even then, the rate of infection was higher there.

And what we are finding here in the US is that rural areas are starting to accelerate their infection rate. Rather than stopping it while it's still low.

Oh, and FWIW, Idaho is 18th in infection rate for its population. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ Sort of shoots down your argument that Boise doesn't need to be concerned.

Without getting into the weeds of the UHC debate, again, it varies. Sweden's numbers at the present are pretty good. France's numbers - where they also have UHC - are not only worse than Sweden's on a per capita basis, but worse than ours in the US on the same basis (much worse in terms of deaths).

The point being, having UHC is not the dominant determining factor in outcomes. If you look at the numbers across Europe, where just about every country has UHC to one degree or another, you'll see quite a wide variation in outcomes

You apparently don't realize - despite I pointed it out - that there are differences between different countries health care plans. Sweden has one of the best in the world. Not perfect, nothing is, but to this point it has been keeping up - partially because their population is spread out. Which - again - is why they are considering a lockdown, before their health care system gets overwhelmed. Countries like Italy and France waited too long, and their health care systems got overloaded. Same thing with NYC here in the US.

I've acknowledged the need to cancel big events a number of times in this thread, and did it again in the post from which I quoted, so what exactly did I handwave away?

You "acknowledge" it, then in other posts (like the one I quoted before) ignore that. You are all over, but in the end you are seemingly arguing that acting to reduce opportunities for infection is wrong - there are other concerns which are more important. You CANNOT have it both ways. I know Emerson said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds - but that quote omits foolish - i.e. a FOOLISH consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Choosing to argue multiple sides to attempt to disguise your actual position doesn't fool anybody. I'm trying to be polite - in the early days of the internet I would have abandoned that already. Please - please please please - show that you are worthy of respect in an argument. Up to this point I'm skeptical.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Wow. Just wow.

You have went back and forth with me over the economic aspect, repeatedly claiming that the economy should have been somehow structured differently so that we could respond to this pandemic without killing it. And now I ask you to give me a few substantive examples of how you would have changed the economy, and you simply walk away from the challenge?

Wow. I guess we know now that you had nothing to back you up on this point.

I said that the fact we had to shutdown is evidence that we should look to make improvements and changes to our economy because it clearly isn't strong/good enough.... You know, because it had to shut down with such a risk/threat to the workforce. To me, this is a pretty important lesson to learn, because there is more than one way to have large sections of the workforce at a major risk, which is why I believe improvements should be made. It's not a very complicated idea.

Those are projections - made by experts - of two different models of hospitalization rates for COVID-19, with the actual data. The dark purple (largest) curve is their model as it projected things on April 1st - after the U.S. had been shut down to various degrees for about two weeks. The light purple curve is the model as adjusted on April 7th - downward to be sure, but still grossly overstating the actual data.

These wild over-projections cannot be chalked up to a lack of data, there was plenty of it available on both April 1st and April 7th (today). There was plenty of time for adjusting it to something that matched the actual data much more closely. Furthermore, since we had been in lockdown mode for a couple of weeks on April 1st and nearly a week longer by April 7th, one cannot use the excuse that those models lack the real time data to account for the shutdown.

I get that modeling is not an exact science, but with all the data they had - data that revealed not only absolute numbers for specific dates, but trends over time - they still grossly overstate the number of projected hospitalizations to actual. Even the downgraded April 7th model overshoots actual hospitalizations by well over 100%.

Our country has been using IMHE's models as a basis for setting policy to respond to the pandemic. Should they be using these models? Should we maybe question the experts who are putting them out and still overstating their projections relative to the actual data? Or should we just excuse them and take what they say at face value?

Models change as data changes, data changes as new data gets collected, new data is being collected every day.

See, these guys aren't just making shit up, they're taking numbers and plugging them into equations based on what the data and trends are saying. We don't expect their model, which is always going to err on the side of worse case (because it's better to have more than you need rather than need more than you have) to be perfect right out the gate, but we can see how easily hospitals and services can become overrun if we don't take steps to mitigate the risk. We know there are shortages right now, and we know a number of hospitals are at their breaking point, so we know that we can't afford to just let things spread.

See above. That's part of their track record.

Okay, and you know how to read the raw data yourself then?

So instead of generation crushing medical debt (which you need to substantiate, since many of those people at least HAD insurance when employed), you're willing to give them generational crushing non-medical debt, loss of homes, loss of jobs, loss of livelihood, irrespective of their actual risk profile.

"We've got to destroy the village to save it!"

The jobs aren't going to be gone forever, and months out of work means that bills will be passed to help with rent repayment, lost wages, etc. Things like the stimulus bill that's giving many people $1,200, things we're already seeing happening. To act as if a few months of rent is equal to the $100,000+ bill someone would get after hospitalization for weeks is almost laughable, or you know, the fact that if people die then there literally just isn't someone who can work and bring money home anymore. Because they're dead. And the family have a nice fat bill to remember it. It's much better to have these guys working and risk dying so their bosses can keep making money.

"We've got to sacrifice the kingdom to save the king!"

 

[XXXIVwin]

Well, it comes down to the "who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes." I gave you the proof you asked for (and previously stated, if you look through my posts, that it was indeed January when Fauci stated what was on the video). Proof that you can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink.

On the other metaphor - after characterizing me as making straw men - you utterly mischaracterize my position as wanting to only deal with the metaphorical flooding at the expense of the fire. That's categorically false. If you've followed this debate and go back through my posts (including one with a NYT piece to which you actually responded), you will see clearly that I have always called for a targeted approach, one that quarantined the high risk groups but let the low risk groups continue their lives as mostly normal. I've made allowance for the cancellation of large events where big numbers of people congregate, but have also called for getting people back to work ASAP to minimize the economic conflagration while doing what we can to protect those that are most threatened by this virus. I've consistently called for fighting the fire and the flooding at the same time. So if you're going to accuse me of invoking straw men, you need to look in the mirror for your last post.

As far as my opinions regarding the experts and their opinions, I'm simply a skeptic. I may not be from Missouri, but I still say "show me." If they are right about something, I'll note that. If they are wrong, I'll note that too. And if they refuse to admit they were wrong and bounce all over the place on their opinions, haphazardly and continually miss the mark to what's actually going on, I'll also take note of that as well.

Experts told us that housing prices would never decline, and that mortgage backed securities were good investments. Many, many experts said this, and they are certainly people with a significantly greater understanding of finance than I had. Were they right?

In the late 1980's, the experts at the CIA - people with access to much better data than I have, and much more knowledge in their chose field - stated that there was no way the Eastern Bloc countries were about to fall. They may have been behind us technologically and economically, but the experts insisted their governments were safe and stable and weren't going anywhere for a long time. Then in 1989, communist government in Eastern Europe started dropping like flies that just flew into a cloud of Raid, and the Soviet Union ended with a pathetic little whimper toward the end of 1991. Were the experts right?

As I pointed out to to bluecoconuts upthread, that same organization, the CIA - along with the intelligence agencies of every major Western country - agree Iraq had massive stockpiles of WMD's. The experts that arrived at that opinion had far more access to data than I did and far more experience in evaluating it than I did. What's more, even the intel agencies of countries like Germany and France, both of whom were vehemently opposed to the invasion, agreed that Iraq had those stockpiles. The only question was "should we"; the existence of those stockpiles was a settled question by every expert who opined on the issue. Again, I ask, were they right?

When I was a kid, the experts said Africanized killer bees would make it unsafe to go outside in the southern U.S. They were wrong. I also heard when I was a kid that we were entering another ice age. Also wrong. Then I heard that the polar ice caps would be melted, first by 2000, then by 2005, then by 2015. All wrong.

I could go on and on about how many times I've seen experts be wrong, certainly longer than you would care to read (assuming you've made it this far).

And I'm not even saying the experts are ALWAYS wrong, or that you shouldn't hear what they have to say.

But I am absolutely saying, as I have consistently and persistently demonstrated in this thread, that one should be SKEPTICAL. Don't take their word at face value, especially when they are making huge policy decisions that affect millions and they don't have skin in the game. The guys who fucked up the assessment of Iraq's WMD's paid little if any price, while thousands upon thousands of our soldiers and a greater number of civilians over their paid either with their lives or with their physical and mental health if they somehow survived.

Skepticism will serve you well. It doesn't mean you don't hear what they have to say. But it does mean you put their opinion to the test, and if they fail the test, you evaluate the reputation of the expert accordingly.

Couple things...

1. Another thing that is terribly annoying )) about your “debate style” is you are a lazy-ass reader. Seriously. I NEVER said “you didn’t want to deal with both problems.” Never said that, don’t believe it, either. I know that in your own way you want to deal with both problems. What I said was more specific— that you don’t want to LISTEN to the EXPERTS on how to deal with both problems. So no, unlike you, I am not creating straw men and knocking them down. Your distrust of experts is well documented and something you openly acknowledge.

2. You call your approach “surgical”. I would call it “half-assed.” Just sayin’.

3. If, if, if, IF IF the USA had been at the forefront of testing, and had spent the month ofFebruary racing to get nationwide testing available everywhere... THEN, MAYBE we could have had considered the more “targeted” approaches you have been advocating for. The problem is, the response of the USA from February 1st to mid-March was an utter disaster from a testing standpoint. We didn’t have any opportunity to differentiate between folks as “positive”, “negative” and “recovered.” We were flying completely blind. It is because of the complete lack of testing that our only choice was to use the “blunt instrument” of social isolation and lockdown. IMHO (and in the opinion of most “experts” you tend to dismiss), It was the only choice we had available to prevent hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

4. People are stupid. One of the main reasons I disagreed with your so-called “surgical” approach is that it would have sent a deadly mixed message. You can’t on the one hand tell people this is deadly, but on the other hand tell people it’s safe enough to go back to “mostly normal”— all while flying blind with drastically subpar testing capacity. I do indeed believe that the path you advocated for would have resulted in mass carnage. We'll never know of course, since it’s a hypothetical at this point.

5. The debate over whether to trust experts is of course abstract. But you definitely seem to have a pre-conceived notion regarding epidemiologists. You seemed determined to distrust Ferguson, for example, without a shred of evidence. Mainly, you seem easily flummoxed by the wide discrepancies inherent in their models. The same model can produce an outcome of as high as 2.2 million deaths and as low as 80,000. This is not due to a “flaw” in the model or “incompetence” of the expert, it has to do with the fact that viruses spread in EXPONENTIAL terms when left unchecked.

6. I strongly agree with your choice of football teams. Well played.

Cheers

 

[XXXIVwin]

To all,

Two interesting articles, from two sources on different ends of the spectrum. (Yes, I’m one of those rare folks who getS info from both “news bubbles.” ).

First one (although a couple weeks old), analyzes why South Korea was largely successful in containing the virus WITHOUT ordering a nationwide lockdown. Main answer—- Testing, testing, and more testing. But also: extreme quarantines for confirmed cases, contact tracing, and massive cooperation and buy-in from the population at large. 1328, hope you check this one out.

Redirect Notice

Second article: a scary one about 51 folks in S Korea getting sick a second time AFTER being supposedly cleared. Looks like it wasn’t “re-infection” but instead the virus being reactivated.

51 recovered coronavirus patients in South Korea test positive again after release from quarantine

Dozens of people who were diagnosed as recovered from coronavirus in South Korea have tested positive again a second time for the virus.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Merlin]

Soccer Star Kyle Walker Apologizes After Reportedly Hosting Party With Escorts During Coronavirus Lockdown

Soccer Star Kyle Walker Apologizes After Reportedly Hosting Party With Escorts During Coronavirus Lockdown

Soccer star Kyle Walker has apologized for his alleged actions during lockdown in England. He reportedly had a "three-hour sex session" with escorts.

www.google.com

This dude is my fuckin hero. Honorary Sailor right there lol.

 

[Merlin]

Some of these back and forths... C'mon dudes. Sometimes you gotta let the other guy get that last word.

 

[Mojo Ram]

I would just like to add that a big reason i believe that the Koreans and the Japanese are having an "easier" time with this is because as a nation and culture, they are much healthier than the US due to primarily their diets. This is not Earth shattering news to anybody, and it's just one of many other factors determining the spread and severity of C19 across the globe of course, but one that seems to not get discussed it seems.

Obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung disease, kidney disease immunosuppression , cancer. I've seen numbers for obesity in the US as high as 35% of the population. There's no need to post all the stats on just how ripe we are in terms of losing a fight to a virus this aggressive and deliberate. Is there?

I do wish the mainstream media would give the average viewer/listener more specific info on who exactly is losing here. One shouldn't have to dig for that info. I can tell you the cases and death numbers in Arizona by the hour though, no problem.

Age and underlying health issues are the crux of death with this virus. Your age is out of your hands. Maybe we as a country can come out of this with a new sense of taking care of our bodies before they get attacked. Idk.

I quit smoking just a few years ago. Pack a day for 27 years. Honestly my motivation was my pocket book more so than my health, but i sure do feel thankful today.

Can we become a healthier Nation? Will we? Probably a discussion for a different thread i suppose.

 

[thirteen28]

Some of these back and forths... C'mon dudes. Sometimes you gotta let the other guy get that last word.

I like a good, vigorous debate. Apparently a few others do too ...

I would just like to add that a big reason i believe that the Koreans and the Japanese are having an "easier" time with this is because as a nation and culture, they are much healthier than the US due to primarily their diets. This is not Earth shattering news to anybody, and it's just one of many other factors determining the spread and severity of C19 across the globe of course, but one that seems to not get discussed it seems.

I think there is some merit to this, although I do wonder about the smoking rate in Japan. I haven't been there in two years (and maybe @IBruce80 can chime in since he's there now), but it did seem like there were quite a few smokers, at least among adult males.

That being said, the high fish content in their diet is heart friendly. And I think when you look at the other end of the spectrum, in Italy, you have a very high rate of cigarette smoking from what I have read and not exactly the healthiest diet, combined with a population that skews elderly, which made them more ripe for this virus, even without the connections to China present in the Lombardy region.

I quit smoking just a few years ago. Pack a day for 27 years.

Congratulations, and well done.

 

[shovelpass]

If you've already paid for it I'd definitely play it if you've got the time. Their games definitely have glitch problems but overall it's a fun experience. Bethesda has also embraced the fan mod community, so there's tons of content to add to the playing experience.

 

[thirteen28]

Seriously. I NEVER said “you didn’t want to deal with both problems.” Never said that, don’t believe it, either. I know that in your own way you want to deal with both problems. What I said was more specific— that you don’t want to LISTEN to the EXPERTS on how to deal with both problems.

Well, you did write this in response to my fire vs. flooding metaphor:

But you seem bound and determined to IGNORE and UNDERMINE the experts' opinions for one of the two gigantic problems.

I'm not sure how else that reads. It's fair to note that I have been skeptical of the experts, but there is a thinly-veiled assertion there that I don't take the virus problem seriously. My skepticism of the experts is not on the binary question of whether "is the virus a serious concern or not", it's with their inconsistency in their pronouncements, as well as the wild over predictions of the models, which, even when adjusted for social distancing and economic shutdown, dramatically overstate the actual numbers we are seeing.

Case in point, the April 1st model by the IMHE estimated about 112,000 hospitalization from COVID-19 in NY state alone, as of that date - the actual number was in the low 20's, about 22,000 or so (and that model explicitly stated that the effect of social distancing and shutting down most of the economy was factored in, so that can't be used to explain the discrepancy). If they would have said something like 30,000, 35,000 or so, that would have been understandable, but they overstated the number by about 500%! Now throw in a couple of extra points:

1) The modelers pay virtually no price for being wrong;
2) The models are being used as a basis for public policy that literally affects hundreds of millions of people. Unlike the modelers, who pay no price for being wrong, the people in this country at large most certainly do. In the last few weeks, 10 million of them applied for unemployment benefits due to shutdown related job-losses, and we have another report coming tomorrow. Those 10 million jobs lost are not a projection, those are real actual numbers. And those ripples will travel through the economy for a while.

If a president, a governor, a mayor, etc., is going to use a model that affects their constituents in profound ways that include job loss and economic dislocation, is it really too much to ask that the model be at least somewhat accurate? Hell, I'll even accept a 50% overshoot. But 500%? In what world is that acceptable?

When projections are consistently overstating things by several multiples of the actual data on the ground, there is embedded in those models a systemic bias. It's not undermining anybody to point that out. Part of dealing with a problem is accurate assessment, and if you are making decisions off of an assessment that overstates the problem by a factor of five, your solution is going to suffer.

People are stupid. One of the main reasons I disagreed with your so-called “surgical” approach is that it would have sent a deadly mixed message. You can’t on the one hand tell people this is deadly, but on the other hand tell people it’s safe enough to go back to “mostly normal”

And yet people were already starting to socially distance even before the whole country went into lockdown mode. Events were being cancelled (SXSW, which is huge where I'm at, was cancelled several days before any orders were issued here, and several companies had already pulled out before that). I have heard (but don't have data) that dine-in restaurant traffic had declined for several weeks in a row as well. So call people stupid all you want, but it looks to me like a lot of people had voluntarily doing what they can to mitigate the spread well before the edicts started flowing from various governments.

3. If, if, if, IF IF the USA had been at the forefront of testing, and had spent the month of February racing to get nationwide testing available everywhere... THEN, MAYBE we could have had considered the more “targeted” approaches you have been advocating for. The problem is, the response of the USA from February 1st to mid-March was an utter disaster from a testing standpoint.

You don't suppose that one of the reasons testing wasn't taken as seriously as you would have liked it has anything to do with the opinion expressed by Dr. Fauci in the video I posted (at your request), do you?

Our how about this? (note the date as well)

I mean, if the good Dr. Fauci is proclaiming as late as March 9th that it's ok for the healthy to immerse themselves in the petri dish of a cruise ship, then do you think maybe that sent a message that widespread testing wasn't that urgent of a concern? He's held up as an expert and yet he did say these things. Is not a little bit of skepticism warranted?

In fairness, there was also a lot of bureaucratic inertia in our sclerotic, bloated government that made it more difficult to get testing going. But still, statements like the one above, statements by the Director of the WHO, etc. certainly didn't help to overcome it. It's a good thing South Korea didn't listen to those guys.

But you definitely seem to have a pre-conceived notion regarding epidemiologists. You seemed determined to distrust Ferguson, for example, without a shred of evidence. Mainly, you seem easily flummoxed by the wide discrepancies inherent in their models. The same model can produce an outcome of as high as 2.2 million deaths and as low as 80,000. This is not due to a “flaw” in the model or “incompetence” of the expert, it has to do with the fact that viruses spread in EXPONENTIAL terms when left unchecked.

I'm determined to be skeptical of any expert, for the countless examples (that go well beyond epidemiologists) that I've listed in various posts in this thread. That doesn't mean I'll never agree with them or their assessments, but I won't take them at face value without doing what I can to check their work. Because they can be wrong, and when their incorrect assessments form the basis of public policy, their mistakes can have disastrous effects.

I'd like to ask you this though: what level of economic pain do you think would be too much for our current response to this virus? Maybe it's an unemployment number, say 15, 20, 25%? (the last time it was as high as 15% was during the Great Depression, btw). What is your limit to the shutdown before you start saying "wait a minute here"?

And how long do you think we need to be locked down for? Fauci says until the new case count is zero? Ezekiel Emanual is out there saying it needs to be 12-18 months. Others are saying when a vaccine is developed, which is still probably a ways off, at least several months.

1328, hope you check this one out.

It keeps showing up behind a paywall when I try to access it. Can you post pertinent sections on this forum or at least DM them to me?

With regard to my statement on experts about, I do note that occasionally I make an exception:

https://www.wearethemighty.com/MIGHTY-SURVIVAL/whiskey-protect-against-covid-19

 

[thirteen28]

I'm saying that comparing a densely packed area to a lightly populated area does make a difference to short term results.

I'm not disputing that at all.

Despite that - as has been posted - Sweden is considering blocking social gatherings, since their rate of infection is rising.

As I said, let's see how things unfold over there. I understand as a basis for comparison, it won't be perfect, but it's still going to be illuminating to see how things play out over there. If nothing else, you should be able to agree on that, no matter which way it goes.

You wanted to compare a city in Lombardy which has 18 times the population density to Stockholm - and even then, the rate of infection was higher there.

I was comparing Stockholm and Milan, which have a very small difference in population densities with respect to one another. Lombardy as a whole? Yes, it has a greater population density than a comparable area surrounding Stockholm. Again, I'm not sure of the point your are trying to make, because I have acknowledged to you and argued with others that geography and associated demography is one of the things that needs to be taken into consideration when determining how different areas should respond to the pandemic.

It's one of the reasons why I rejected the claims (not necessarily from this forum) that "next week, the U.S. will be just like Italy" which we've heard for several weeks straight now. We're still not there. Perhaps because you can't make an honest comparison between Italy and the US.

Oh, and FWIW, Idaho is 18th in infection rate for its population.

And? As of today, they have a bit over 1200 cases statewide, in a pretty big-ass state.

Either way, my invoking of a city in Idaho, Boise, was in response to the assertion you made that you cannot honestly compare Milan and Stockholm. To that, I said the same applies to comparing Boise and NY City, as no honest comparison can be made between those two cities either. Is there a dispute there?

You apparently don't realize - despite I pointed it out - that there are differences between different countries health care plans.

Oh, I did and I do. My point is that the presence or absence of UHC (a binary proposition) is not the determining factor in how the virus spreads or is handled. That's all I was saying when I first responded to you, nothing more than that.

The U.S., with a health care system that is the envy of nobody, is doing better than some countries with UHC, and worse than some with UHC. And on the continent of Europe, where most countries have UHC in some form, the spread of the virus and handling of the same has varied widely.

You "acknowledge" it, then in other posts (like the one I quoted before) ignore that.

Not mentioning in a particular post <> "ignoring."

Up to this point I'm skeptical.

Good. I encourage skepticism, and take absolutely no issue with you being skeptical of what I say, testing my arguments, and coming to your own conclusions. But don't just apply that to me (don't worry, my feelings won't be hurt if you do). You should apply widely, and if you exclude anybody from that, it should only be family and very close friends.

 

[XXXIVwin]

Well, you did write this in response to my fire vs. flooding metaphor:



I'm not sure how else that reads. It's fair to note that I have been skeptical of the experts, but there is a thinly-veiled assertion there that I don't take the virus problem seriously. My skepticism of the experts is not on the binary question of whether "is the virus a serious concern or not", it's with their inconsistency in their pronouncements, as well as the wild over predictions of the models, which, even when adjusted for social distancing and economic shutdown, dramatically overstate the actual numbers we are seeing.

Case in point, the April 1st model by the IMHE estimated about 112,000 hospitalization from COVID-19 in NY state alone, as of that date - the actual number was in the low 20's, about 22,000 or so (and that model explicitly stated that the effect of social distancing and shutting down most of the economy was factored in, so that can't be used to explain the discrepancy). If they would have said something like 30,000, 35,000 or so, that would have been understandable, but they overstated the number by about 500%! Now throw in a couple of extra points:

1) The modelers pay virtually no price for being wrong;
2) The models are being used as a basis for public policy that literally affects hundreds of millions of people. Unlike the modelers, who pay no price for being wrong, the people in this country at large most certainly do. In the last few weeks, 10 million of them applied for unemployment benefits due to shutdown related job-losses, and we have another report coming tomorrow. Those 10 million jobs lost are not a projection, those are real actual numbers. And those ripples will travel through the economy for a while.

If a president, a governor, a mayor, etc., is going to use a model that affects their constituents in profound ways that include job loss and economic dislocation, is it really too much to ask that the model be at least somewhat accurate? Hell, I'll even accept a 50% overshoot. But 500%? In what world is that acceptable?

When projections are consistently overstating things by several multiples of the actual data on the ground, there is embedded in those models a systemic bias. It's not undermining anybody to point that out. Part of dealing with a problem is accurate assessment, and if you are making decisions off of an assessment that overstates the problem by a factor of five, your solution is going to suffer.




And yet people were already starting to socially distance even before the whole country went into lockdown mode. Events were being cancelled (SXSW, which is huge where I'm at, was cancelled several days before any orders were issued here, and several companies had already pulled out before that). I have heard (but don't have data) that dine-in restaurant traffic had declined for several weeks in a row as well. So call people stupid all you want, but it looks to me like a lot of people had voluntarily doing what they can to mitigate the spread well before the edicts started flowing from various governments.



You don't suppose that one of the reasons testing wasn't taken as seriously as you would have liked it has anything to do with the opinion expressed by Dr. Fauci in the video I posted (at your request), do you?

Our how about this? (note the date as well)

View attachment 35334
I mean, if the good Dr. Fauci is proclaiming as late as March 9th that it's ok for the healthy to immerse themselves in the petri dish of a cruise ship, then do you think maybe that sent a message that widespread testing wasn't that urgent of a concern? He's held up as an expert and yet he did say these things. Is not a little bit of skepticism warranted?

In fairness, there was also a lot of bureaucratic inertia in our sclerotic, bloated government that made it more difficult to get testing going. But still, statements like the one above, statements by the Director of the WHO, etc. certainly didn't help to overcome it. It's a good thing South Korea didn't listen to those guys.



I'm determined to be skeptical of any expert, for the countless examples (that go well beyond epidemiologists) that I've listed in various posts in this thread. That doesn't mean I'll never agree with them or their assessments, but I won't take them at face value without doing what I can to check their work. Because they can be wrong, and when their incorrect assessments form the basis of public policy, their mistakes can have disastrous effects.

I'd like to ask you this though: what level of economic pain do you think would be too much for our current response to this virus? Maybe it's an unemployment number, say 15, 20, 25%? (the last time it was as high as 15% was during the Great Depression, btw). What is your limit to the shutdown before you start saying "wait a minute here"?

And how long do you think we need to be locked down for? Fauci says until the new case count is zero? Ezekiel Emanual is out there saying it needs to be 12-18 months. Others are saying when a vaccine is developed, which is still probably a ways off, at least several months.



It keeps showing up behind a paywall when I try to access it. Can you post pertinent sections on this forum or at least DM them to me?

With regard to my statement on experts about, I do note that occasionally I make an exception:

https://www.wearethemighty.com/MIGHTY-SURVIVAL/whiskey-protect-against-covid-19

Cheers, man.

Whiskey as a treatment for Coronavirus? Now there’s a solution we all can agree on.

As usual, you bring up many (aggravating) points which I probably can’t resist responding to. Moving forward, I’ll probably PM you from here on out, since our exchanges seem to be lengthy and I’d rather not *completely* hijack this thread.

Yeah, remind me to get u that article about S Korea, very interesting to see them successful while using a different approach.

In the meantime... keep it cordial, motherfucker!

Go Rams