Coronavirus Thread

[takethepoints]

I had said pretty far back that policies that prevented people from moving and businesses which had no possible (or extremely unlikely) impact on slowing the virus would eventually cause people to push back very hard. In at least one state, people were prevented from fishing in a state park by themselves. Now some people believe they have a Constitutional right to enter a Family Dollar without a mask even if the property owner requests that they wear a mask.

I am not interested in discussing (or at least arguing about) the politics, but that is a large part of the problem. Politicians don't want to discuss actual issues and actual solutions because you can't do that in "talking points". News outlets don't want to discuss actual issues and actual solutions because it doesn't make exciting television/radio for ratings. Politicians want to bash the other side. News outlets want to cover: deaths, misery, politicians arguing. Any discussion about relaxing regulations even lightly is termed "opening up". According to how things are reported, "opening up" is going to cause great death and misery, even if it is only allowing a father to take his son to a state park and fish. According to how things are reported, "opening up" is going to get the economy back on track, even if it is only allowing a father to take his son to a state park and fish.

If things had not been so politically divisive on both sides from the beginning, it might be easier now to get the public to follow policies that actually can make a difference for the disease and for the economy. As it is, there are still people who are afraid to walk out of their homes and there are people who want to get in the face of and scream at anyone who wears a mask in public. Too many people are fully on "this side" or "that side" and too few people are acting like a society of Americans.

All true. Now just who might be to blame for that? I wonder … I wonder …

 

[RonJohn]

All true. Now just who might be to blame for that? I wonder … I wonder …

Everyone.

Politics has been getting more and more divisive for quite a while. It didn't start 4 years ago, and it didn't start 12 years ago. News outlets have been getting more and more involved with stories instead of just reporting for at least 10-15 years. I haven't looked back to see any indications of what/when, but it has been a while. A non-political example is Nancy Grace covering the Casey Anthony trial ten years ago. She was advocating, not covering. That is all I see on television news stations now, talking heads who spew bile about their agenda whether it be a political side, a criminal case, or whatever. Some people have told me that there are still news casts on those stations, but I haven't been able to find an actual news cast for many years.

The American public is to blame for the fact that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about anything. Even discussions about things like drug pricing turn into fully opposite positions. Some refuse to look at R&D costs to develop life saving drugs, while others refuse to look at companies who drastically increase pricing on drugs that have been available for decades. It isn't one politician's fault, one media company's fault, or one large tech company's fault that the American public can't look at individual cases of drug pricing to decide if it is reasonable without falling back into a philosophical debate. It is the American public's fault for engaging in tribal arguments, and it is the American public's fault for supporting news media all across the spectrum that push agendas instead of provide information.

 

[takethepoints]

You love to just make things up. I don’t get it. Who here is saying just isolate people in nursing homes and magically things will clear up? Come on man. We’re saying when 50% of the deaths are from 4% of the population not spread out but living in clearly defined facilities, we can do better.

On contract tracing, I’m not sure why you bring up communism and also why you’re so obsessed with something you contend we are all but ignoring. It sounds like you have no idea states are already doing this, and that they’ve been doing it for a long time, and about 100,000 people are employed around the country to do it. We got a contact back in March because our teenage daughter was determined to have possibly come in contact with someone who had tested positive. Can we do better? Of course. I do admit to getting a chuckle about the moving target. We need to be Singapore. Oops let’s be South Korea. Oops let’s ge Germany. Oops let’s be New Zealand. Let’s be like a communist state in India! I mean you’re right - locking people up in windowless rooms under the thumb of armed police will in fact help stop the spread. LOL.

1. "We’re saying when 50% of the deaths are from 4% of the population not spread out but living in clearly defined facilities, we can do better." Oh? How? Let's see you game this strategy out. And let's see how your improvement would help with the rest of the facts given in my post.

2. I know some states have a contact tracing regime in place; that's why Washington state has largely controlled the virus. The problem is a lack of a national response. That has been completely lacking and we won't get ahead of the disease until it appears or we get a defense. There also aren't any goalposts moving here, except maybe your own. All the cases you mentioned have a coherent national response establishing a contact tracing/isolation regime and all have done well. I included Kerala to show that even a poor state (per capita income ~ £2200 a year) in a gigantic country can get the same results provided the public health officials get off their keisters and do what is necessary. It's not impossible to get conditions in the country safe enough for all of us to resume normal life. But … as long as we have people parading around talking about their inherent right to get haircuts or go to bars, we'll never make much progress on that. And we'll all pay for it.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Yet the "left front" keeps getting elected, over and over and over again.

There's a reason for that. This explains it:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED400149.pdf

Take a look.

So what? I didn’t say they were evil people. I was just explaining why folks like them can do things that will never ever happen here. I don’t care how the leaders got in charge.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

1. "We’re saying when 50% of the deaths are from 4% of the population not spread out but living in clearly defined facilities, we can do better." Oh? How? Let's see you game this strategy out. And let's see how your improvement would help with the rest of the facts given in my post.

2. I know some states have a contact tracing regime in place; that's why Washington state has largely controlled the virus. The problem is a lack of a national response. That has been completely lacking and we won't get ahead of the disease until it appears or we get a defense. There also aren't any goalposts moving here, except maybe your own. All the cases you mentioned have a coherent national response establishing a contact tracing/isolation regime and all have done well. I included Kerala to show that even a poor state (per capita income ~ £2200 a year) in a gigantic country can get the same results provided the public health officials get off their keisters and do what is necessary. It's not impossible to get conditions in the country safe enough for all of us to resume normal life. But … as long as we have people parading around talking about their inherent right to get haircuts or go to bars, we'll never make much progress on that. And we'll all pay for it.

1) I already detailed it multiple times. It’s a part of this current thread. If nurses and doctors can work every day with patients...it’s the same thing. We have disease/virus research labs that study things like Ebola and Coronaviruses and they don’t get sick.

2) You can get haircuts and go to bars and be totally safe about it. That illustration had nothing to do with anything.

I have no idea what you mean by moving goalposts. I never accused you of that. I honestly have no idea where you come up with some of these accusations. I constantly find myself having to scroll up to see if I said something I didn’t meant to, and there isn’t anything there.

 

[takethepoints]

Everyone.

Politics has been getting more and more divisive for quite a while. It didn't start 4 years ago, and it didn't start 12 years ago. News outlets have been getting more and more involved with stories instead of just reporting for at least 10-15 years. I haven't looked back to see any indications of what/when, but it has been a while. A non-political example is Nancy Grace covering the Casey Anthony trial ten years ago. She was advocating, not covering. That is all I see on television news stations now, talking heads who spew bile about their agenda whether it be a political side, a criminal case, or whatever. Some people have told me that there are still news casts on those stations, but I haven't been able to find an actual news cast for many years.

The American public is to blame for the fact that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about anything. Even discussions about things like drug pricing turn into fully opposite positions. Some refuse to look at R&D costs to develop life saving drugs, while others refuse to look at companies who drastically increase pricing on drugs that have been available for decades. It isn't one politician's fault, one media company's fault, or one large tech company's fault that the American public can't look at individual cases of drug pricing to decide if it is reasonable without falling back into a philosophical debate. It is the American public's fault for engaging in tribal arguments, and it is the American public's fault for supporting news media all across the spectrum that push agendas instead of provide information.

I have a response to this, but I think the mods would take it down since it actually names names. So, I'll just say that:

There haven't been any perceptible major changes in attitudes that Americans have toward major public issues in decades. The lit on this is massive and the conclusion is well-supported: Americans have become more polarized because our politics has become more based on activating divisions that were already there. I don't expect you to read the book - though you'd learn a lot by doing so; I did - but all this is described in:

John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck. 2018. Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle For the Meaning of America. Princeton: Princeton U.

This is actually a pretty easy read, as wonk stuff goes.

 

[takethepoints]

1) I already detailed it multiple times. It’s a part of this current thread. If nurses and doctors can work every day with patients...it’s the same thing. We have disease/virus research labs that study things like Ebola and Coronaviruses and they don’t get sick.

2) You can get haircuts and go to bars and be totally safe about it. That illustration had nothing to do with anything.

I have no idea what you mean by moving goalposts. I never accused you of that. I honestly have no idea where you come up with some of these accusations. I constantly find myself having to scroll up to see if I said something I didn’t meant to, and there isn’t anything there.

1. Try again. This time tell us how you would handle the 91M Americans especially susceptible to the disease in an environment where 45 - 50% of the infected population is asymptomatic. (Hint: contact tracing and isolation works.)

2. No, you can't, unless everyone else in the shop is adhering to the same guidelines. But, obviously, the folks in the "protests" aren't going to do that, are they? And your solution for that is … (crickets chirping … whistle of the Texas Special in the distance)

3. "Of course. I do admit to getting a chuckle about the moving target. We need to be Singapore. Oops let’s be South Korea. Oops let’s ge Germany. Oops let’s be New Zealand. Let’s be like a communist state in India!" Or, to put it more simply, you think I'm moving the goalposts. I mean, one reason you seem to have a problem with my posts is that you appear to never read your own.

 

[GTRX7]

1) I already detailed it multiple times. It’s a part of this current thread. If nurses and doctors can work every day with patients...it’s the same thing. We have disease/virus research labs that study things like Ebola and Coronaviruses and they don’t get sick.

2) You can get haircuts and go to bars and be totally safe about it. That illustration had nothing to do with anything.

I have no idea what you mean by moving goalposts. I never accused you of that. I honestly have no idea where you come up with some of these accusations. I constantly find myself having to scroll up to see if I said something I didn’t meant to, and there isn’t anything there.

I too am still confused by your proposal to protect seniors. You seemed to have totally ignored what I said in my prior post, so I will say it again. I believe that nursing homes are already, and have been for months, enforcing no visitor rules and mandatory PPE. My grandmother has certainly been in a Georgia facility with those rules since the beginning, and those rules have not been lifted. So, assuming those rules have already in place, and we still have had extensive deaths among seniors, what else, specifically, do you propose we should be doing?

Also, again, while protective measures are "working" with doctors, the CDC still estimates that over 62,000 healthcare workers have been infected by COVID, so whatever measures they are taking still are not a magic bullet.

Also, I do not think we are being "totally safe" by going to get haircuts and go to bars. We have just made a decision as a society to accept a certain level of risk. Personally, I will not be hanging out inside a bar any time soon. My dining and drinking will be solely limited to outdoor settings for quite a while.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

1. Try again. This time tell us how you would handle the 91M Americans especially susceptible to the disease in an environment where 45 - 50% of the infected population is asymptomatic. (Hint: contact tracing and isolation works.)

2. No, you can't, unless everyone else in the shop is adhering to the same guidelines. But, obviously, the folks in the "protests" aren't going to do that, are they? And your solution for that is … (crickets chirping … whistle of the Texas Special in the distance)

3. "Of course. I do admit to getting a chuckle about the moving target. We need to be Singapore. Oops let’s be South Korea. Oops let’s ge Germany. Oops let’s be New Zealand. Let’s be like a communist state in India!" Or, to put it more simply, you think I'm moving the goalposts. I mean, one reason you seem to have a problem with my posts is that you appear to never read your own.

1) now you’re changing the subject away from where half the deaths are. I don’t really have time to wade into another separate topic right now.

2). False. And yet again inflammatory personal accusations.

3) Oh I see why you would say that now. But if you look at that, it’s actually true. I didn’t accuse you of moving the goalposts. That’s changing the subject or changing the end goal. What I pointed out is that some people have said we should be more like X. And then something changes and illustration X doesn’t work anymore, so we move on to Y. And Z, and now we’re down to a communist state in India LOL. Like we can lock people up and stop domestric travel and so on like they did.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I too am still confused by your proposal to protect seniors. You seemed to have totally ignored what I said in my prior post, so I will say it again. I believe that nursing homes are already, and have been for months, enforcing no visitor rules and mandatory PPE. My grandmother has certainly been in a Georgia facility with those rules since the beginning, and those rules have not been lifted. So, assuming those rules have already in place, and we still have had extensive deaths among seniors, what else, specifically, do you propose we should be doing?

Also, again, while protective measures are "working" with doctors, the CDC still estimates that over 62,000 healthcare workers have been infected by COVID, so whatever measures they are taking still are not a magic bullet.

Also, I do not think we are being "totally safe," by going to get haircuts and go to bars. We have just made a decision as a society to accept a certain levels of risk. Personally, I will not be hanging out inside a bar any time soon. My dining and drinking will be solely limited to outdoor settings for a while.

The short story is they are not following recommendations. Go to a local nursing home today. I guarantee you that the entire staff isn’t in full PPE. To just name one thing. (They are also supposed to completely swap PPE every time they leave a room of someone that is infected or might be infected.). They’re likely trying harder and doing better, but they aren’t doing the best they can. We have not focused resources in any material way in all these bills towards them.

62,000 healthcare worker infection estimations is a lot, but percentage-wise out of almost 20 million healthcare workers, it’s small. They are suffering from some of the same things we are discussing relative to nursing homes. They are absolutely not wearing and swapping full PPE not as often as the regulation states. My wife is a nurse and can vouch for that in her own hospital. Every single time you leave the room of a patient that is either infected or you think might be infected, you are supposed to completely trash all of your PPE. At my wife’s hospital, they have never done that and are not even in full PPE. They only have a mask and gloves, some don’t have gloves, and they wear one set for the full day.

 

[RonJohn]

I have a response to this, but I think the mods would take it down since it actually names names. So, I'll just say that:

There haven't been any perceptible major changes in attitudes that Americans have toward major public issues in decades. The lit on this is massive and the conclusion is well-supported: Americans have become more polarized because our politics has become more based on activating divisions that were already there. I don't expect you to read the book - though you'd learn a lot by doing so; I did - but all this is described in:

John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck. 2018. Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle For the Meaning of America. Princeton: Princeton U.

This is actually a pretty easy read, as wonk stuff goes.

And this is ignoring a lot of information to put all of the blame in one place. I remember sitting at a dinner with some coworkers in 2012 not long after the Presidential election. One coworker was arguing a political point with phrases that he got from a conservative commentator. Another coworker was arguing points with phrases from a liberal commentator. I would interrupt both and ask for clarification as to what the phrases actually had to do with the specifics of the actual issue they were discussing. Both told me that the actual specifics of this incident weren't as important as the big picture of what was happening. Basically, because something happened it proved a bigger point, even if the thing that happened specifics are wrong, or don't match the bigger issue.

I brought up the divide in this thread because it is preventing America from acting responsibly. Does anyone actually believe that a man and his young son fishing together is going to cause this virus to spread? Does anyone actually believe that lawnscapers mowing grass while spread apart are going to spread this virus? Then why are so many people vehemently defending such restrictions? Does anyone actually believe that there is a constitutional right to enter any property they want without following guidelines set by the property owner? Then why are people actually committing murder to defend that "right"?

There were ways to increase economic activity without significantly increasing the spread of the disease, but one side was not interested in even discussing minor modifications to a complete lockdown. There are ways to decrease the spread while more people are in public, but one side isn't interested in abiding by them because of a perceived political point. Why couldn't the American public push back on restrictions that didn't actually matter to the disease, and why can't the American public be responsible about protecting each other? It is because people want to "prove" political points irregardless of whether it hurts the health or economic situation of their fellow Americans.

 

[MWBATL]

Yet the "left front" keeps getting elected, over and over and over again.

There's a reason for that. This explains it:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED400149.pdf

Take a look.

Feel free to emigrate there if you enjoy the trade-offs they choose to make. It is a free world (outside of leftist states, that is...)

 

[Deleted member 2897]

And this is ignoring a lot of information to put all of the blame in one place. I remember sitting at a dinner with some coworkers in 2012 not long after the Presidential election. One coworker was arguing a political point with phrases that he got from a conservative commentator. Another coworker was arguing points with phrases from a liberal commentator. I would interrupt both and ask for clarification as to what the phrases actually had to do with the specifics of the actual issue they were discussing. Both told me that the actual specifics of this incident weren't as important as the big picture of what was happening. Basically, because something happened it proved a bigger point, even if the thing that happened specifics are wrong, or don't match the bigger issue.

I brought up the divide in this thread because it is preventing America from acting responsibly. Does anyone actually believe that a man and his young son fishing together is going to cause this virus to spread? Does anyone actually believe that lawnscapers mowing grass while spread apart are going to spread this virus? Then why are so many people vehemently defending such restrictions? Does anyone actually believe that there is a constitutional right to enter any property they want without following guidelines set by the property owner? Then why are people actually committing murder to defend that "right"?

There were ways to increase economic activity without significantly increasing the spread of the disease, but one side was not interested in even discussing minor modifications to a complete lockdown. There are ways to decrease the spread while more people are in public, but one side isn't interested in abiding by them because of a perceived political point. Why couldn't the American public push back on restrictions that didn't actually matter to the disease, and why can't the American public be responsible about protecting each other? It is because people want to "prove" political points irregardless of whether it hurts the health or economic situation of their fellow Americans.

I am not voting for the corrupt old lying geezer this election again, or the other alternative candidate who is a corrupt old lying geezer. I'm currently looking for an alternative - happy to send you my vote if you run.

 

[FredJacket]

I am not voting for the corrupt old lying geezer this election again, or the other alternative candidate who is a corrupt old lying geezer. I'm currently looking for an alternative - happy to send you my vote if you run.

Handled correctly, George P Burdell could beat both of these clowns.

 

[takethepoints]

1) now you’re changing the subject away from where half the deaths are. I don’t really have time to wade into another separate topic right now.

2). False. And yet again inflammatory personal accusations.

3) Oh I see why you would say that now. But if you look at that, it’s actually true. I didn’t accuse you of moving the goalposts. That’s changing the subject or changing the end goal. What I pointed out is that some people have said we should be more like X. And then something changes and illustration X doesn’t work anymore, so we move on to Y. And Z, and now we’re down to a communist state in India LOL. Like we can lock people up and stop domestric travel and so on like they did.

Won't go into the first two. You evade the challenge in one and hand wave in the other.

But … ok on #3. Though all the cases mentioned have used pretty much the same strategies and all of those strategies worked. Using some kind of central quarantine facility would be hard here, though by no means impossible. (There are a lot of unused luxury hotels, for instance.) As to domestic travel restrictions, we were ready to try that (one of the things the administration did correctly), but were warned off it by some states. Too bad. There's nothing unconstitutional about it; we do it in wars and other emergencies all the time.

One thing: the CPI (Marxist) is part of a front government; it doesn't run the state on its own. Here's one of my favorite Kerala images:

I'm not sure if Ganesh and Krishna would approve or not. Btw, the BJP got it's head handed to it in the last elections and has no foothold in Kerala at all. It frustrates them no end,

 

[LongforDodd]

That shaded, 14 day window of uncertainty has almost always gone up, not down as data continues to be posted. Nationally, our numbers are going down (I think) because the initially hot spots are cooling off, and now the new ones are rising.

There seems to be a coincidence of the numbers spiking up with the amount of increased testing here in Ga. (?)

 

[Jim Prather]

AARG... The testers are spreading it...

(TIC for those humor challenged)

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Won't go into the first two. You evade the challenge in one and hand wave in the other.

But … ok on #3. Though all the cases mentioned have used pretty much the same strategies and all of those strategies worked. Using some kind of central quarantine facility would be hard here, though by no means impossible. (There are a lot of unused luxury hotels, for instance.) As to domestic travel restrictions, we were ready to try that (one of the things the administration did correctly), but were warned off it by some states. Too bad. There's nothing unconstitutional about it; we do it in wars and other emergencies all the time.

One thing: the CPI (Marxist) is part of a front government; it doesn't run the state on its own. Here's one of my favorite Kerala images:

View attachment 8381

I'm not sure if Ganesh and Krishna would approve or not. Btw, the BJP got it's head handed to it in the last elections and has no foothold in Kerala at all. It frustrates them no end,

I evade a challenge LOL. I admit I am not owned by you and not beholden to answer every question that you offer. So sorry, yes lets move on. On South Korea, this state in India, and others, if I were you I would also just move on. Our folks are already revolting and protesting for just the stay at home orders we've had. There's no way we're going to transition to an Orwellian police state where we require special permission for people to just drive a car, all domestic interstate travel is shut down, people are electronically surveilled and tracked through GPS and credit card and video surveillance data, police regularly visit your home to check on you or there are special facilities you get sent to and your names and identities are published on websites and newspapers. That just won't ever happen in a million years.

 

[takethepoints]

Feel free to emigrate there if you enjoy the trade-offs they choose to make. It is a free world (outside of leftist states, that is...)

If you want to learn something about Kerala instead of just spout off, go to the link I provided and read about it. The "tradeoffs" in Kerala are very different then they are here and they make it crystal clear why the CPI (M) has run the state more often then not since it was first elected in 1957.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

If you want to learn something about Kerala instead of just spout off, go to the link I provided and read about it. The "tradeoffs" in Kerala are very different then they are here and they make it crystal clear why the CPI (M) has run the state more often then not since it was first elected in 1957.

Just make sure before you move there that you understand that all even domestic travel is currently shut down. You have to get special permission to just drive a car. If you test positive, they will send you to a special facility. And the list goes on. Why anybody finds that type of society inviting is beyond me. That is so far and away the antithesis of everything the United States stands for.

They are also dirt poor, which is essentially the sum total of what their society does for them. Their median net worth is something like $7k. And its only even that good because many people work in the oil industry over in the gulf and send their money back home. The median net worth in the United States is $100k. But I mean jeez, have at it I guess.