Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[GRHorn 105]

7 hours ago, Deej said:

Houston has found the UK variant in most of their wastewater treatment plants and says they have community spread. Asking people to mask up and distance. 

 

We're gonna need a lot of anal swabs

8 hours ago, BradInATX said:

 

"IT'S BECAUSE EVERYONE IS FAT"

...

"IT'S MORE COMPLEX THAN JUST LOOKING AT FAT PEOPLE!!"

 

The mental gymnastics some of you put yourselves through to rationalize away America's objectively poor pandemic response is quite a ride.

The two biggest mistakes made were Trump's terrible messaging, especially initially, and not restricting travel from Europe at the same time as we did China. Our country was at an initial disadvantage because New York is the global financial and air travel hub. Our country was seeded heavily at the beginning and we didn't even know it.

We'll never know how much of an impact those changes could've made, but we've essentially been in the same ballpark as our Western European counterparts deathwise.

[Liquor and Poker 3,659]

8 hours ago, Newdoc said:

The death rates increase at overweight status not just obese. We have 50% of our adult population that fits into this category. Comparative Covid death rates across countries have too many variables to compare apples to apples.

I hate the BMI and its use for anything whatsoever.  I hover around 18-20% body fat, which is OK for a man in his early 50s.  Not amazing, but not bad.  But I am 70.5 inches tall and 215 lbs, which means I am obese under the BMI - even though I'd need more than another 20 lbs of fat to get to obese under a body fat analysis.  I guaran-fuckin-tee you that if I died of COVID, I'd be put in the "he died because he was obese" co-morbidity group. So just like all of these simple categorization explanations (such as counting high school kids as "children" for the whole "children don't get or spread COVID" thing), I think this idea is just more than a bit lazy.  Like fat people are.

[Deej 76,768]

1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I guaran-fuckin-tee you that if I died of COVID, I'd be put in the "he died because he was obese" co-morbidity group. 

That sucks, fatty. 

[Newdoc 3,439]

1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I think this idea is just more than a bit lazy. 

BMI is a poor invidual measure of actual body composition but applied to a population, most over a BMI of 25 are just overweight or obese.

Some people, especially the old, are obese in their body composition but come in under BMI stratification because they lose lean mass and maintain some fat stores.

And men are especially at risk because their fat is usually visceral (intra-abdominal) and that causes lots of problems.

[blacklab 11,928]

there's a whole thread about fatties and covid, please use it if you want to talk about that subject.

[Buzzrock 14,920]

Neighbor sent me this yesterday. The top left graph is interesting.

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

9 hours ago, blacklab said:

there's a whole thread about fatties and covid, please use it if you want to talk about that subject.

Yeah, but no one wants to look at Vic's porn page.

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

11 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Lol.

[XYZ 2,154]

55 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

Neighbor sent me this yesterday. The top left graph is interesting.

Can’t see shit, captain.

[mdmost 43,001]

1 hour ago, Buzzrock said:

Neighbor sent me this yesterday. The top left graph is interesting.

Did you neighbor also send you a magnifying glass so you could read this?

[GRHorn 105]

10 hours ago, blacklab said:

there's a whole thread about fatties and covid, please use it if you want to talk about that subject.

Eww gross 

[bolverk 29,671]

Los Angeles schools and teachers’ union agree to reopen classrooms

The Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers’ union have reached a tentative agreement to restore in-person instruction, clearing the way for a mid-April reopening of some classrooms in one of the last large school districts to bring students back in substantial numbers.

The deal, contingent on teacher vaccinations, extensive health measures and the county’s impending exit from the state’s most restrictive tier of health regulations, was announced on Tuesday evening in a joint statement by the district superintendent, Austin Beutner, and the union president, Cecily Myart-Cruz.

“The right way to reopen schools must include the highest standard of Covid safety in schools, continued reduction of the virus in the communities we serve and access to vaccinations for school staff,” they said. “This agreement achieves that shared set of goals.”

The agreement is subject to approval by the district’s school board and ratification of the union’s membership.

Under the tentative deal, elementary school and high-need students will be brought back in about six weeks, to allow time for returning school employees to be fully vaccinated, according to officials familiar with district negotiations. As middle school and high school teachers become inoculated, those students will then be phased in.

The agreement will not immediately restore instruction to pre-pandemic levels. At most, officials said, it will be a blend of remote and in-person teaching, allowing students to come into school for several hours a week in small, stable cohorts while still taking classes online. The last day of school is June 11, and the district expects to offer summer school as it did last year.

This month, California began immunizing teachers statewide, with Gov. Gavin Newsom setting aside 10 percent of new doses for school employees and channeling 40,000 doses specifically to Los Angeles school employees.

About 38,000 of the district’s 86,000 teachers and other support personnel have been vaccinated, given appointments or waived the privilege, Mr. Beutner said. Most of those have been employed in the district’s preschools and elementary schools.

In the governor’s State of the State address on Tuesday, Mr. Newsom said that “there’s nothing more foundational to an equitable society than getting our kids safely back into classrooms.”

“Look, Jen and I live this as parents of four young children,” Mr. Newsom noted, echoing the pandemic frustrations of many California parents. “Helping them cope with the fatigue of ‘Zoom school.’ The loneliness of missing their friends. Frustrated by emotions they don’t yet fully understand.”

He also noted that the state has committed $6.6 billion for tutoring, summer school, extended school days and mental health programs.

“We can do this,” the governor said. “The science is sound.”

[Nicole44 22,059]

Damn. So people over a certain percentage of body fat make up roughly 72% of the deaths/ or cases? 

[workswithseed 2,103]

3 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

Damn. So people over a certain percentage of body fat make up roughly 72% of the deaths/ or cases? 

Nuance?

[Nicole44 22,059]

2 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Nuance?

No. A lot of my family is overweight. They know this. It’s not like exercise is hidden from everyone. Walking around the block 20 minutes. You can control how much you eat. Damn. Off my soap box. 

[Newdoc 3,439]

22 hours ago, BradInATX said:

The mental gymnastics some of you put yourselves through to rationalize away America's objectively poor pandemic response is quite a ride.

You are a beating dude. When have I ever said we did everything right? I’m on record stating it could have been better but our reporting, surveillance is actually better than a bunch of countries and likely worse. But we are overall a very unhealthy country and this is greatly affected our morbidity and mortality in this pandemic. There are no mental gymnastics about that.

Our leadership fubar’d this at the beginning. Both sides. There was a lot of irregularities and irrationality. Still is.

But you and several others of the CR regulars want to place the blame on all the deaths at the feet of our governor and our last administration and that’s just not the case. Should some people be scritunized? Absolutely. That includes Fauci.

Just because you post on here nonstop  does not mean you have been deemed an expert in all things Covid.

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

16 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

You can control how much you eat. Damn.

[BradInATX 9,208]

10 minutes ago, Newdoc said:

You are a beating dude. When have I ever said we did everything right? I’m on record stating it could have been better but our reporting, surveillance is actually better than a bunch of countries and likely worse. But we are overall a very unhealthy country and this is greatly affected our morbidity and mortality in this pandemic. There are no mental gymnastics about that.

Our leadership fubar’d this at the beginning. Both sides. There was a lot of irregularities and irrationality. Still is.

But you and several others of the CR regulars want to place the blame on all the deaths at the feet of our governor and our last administration and that’s just not the case. Should some people be scritunized? Absolutely. That includes Fauci.

Just because you post on here nonstop  does not mean you have been deemed an expert in all things Covid.

 

I've scrutinized and criticized both Biden and Fauci on quite a few things.

You've changed the subject and deflected the blame everywhere but leadership at every opportunity, even in the face of cold hard data and facts. You've put forth several posts deflecting blame for our significantly higher than expected Covid death rate on the fats. I gave you hard data showing that even controlling for obesity, we still drastically underperformed. Then you decided that "it's more complicated than just fat people!".

That's not the first time you've done a hit and run like that. Remember when there was an article posted that conflicted with your political views and you told us there were "a lot of things wrong with it" then didn't come back and defend that or tell us what?

If you haven't noticed, my pet peeve is people who argue disingenuously. If that's a beating, so be it. Be intellectually honest or put me on ignore.

Edited March 10, 2021 by BradInATX

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

4 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

even in the face of cold hard data and facts

 Not even sure how you quantify this. I hear "we should have done better", but given the unknowns early on, what should we have done? I remember for the first month or so, we focused on surface cleaning. Turns out that was wrong. Monday Morning QB's are always successful. 

[LurkingHorn 1,066]

28 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

 Not even sure how you quantify this. I hear "we should have done better", but given the unknowns early on, what should we have done? I remember for the first month or so, we focused on surface cleaning. Turns out that was wrong. Monday Morning QB's are always successful. 

Perhaps it would have helped to have an administration who wouldn't have kept claiming that it was going to disappear like a fart in the wind. Maybe a message of taking it seriously would have actually resonated with many more people who ended up dying or with a severe case. But I don't know, I guess I'm just a Monday Morning QB. 

[BradInATX 9,208]

33 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

 Not even sure how you quantify this. I hear "we should have done better", but given the unknowns early on, what should we have done? I remember for the first month or so, we focused on surface cleaning. Turns out that was wrong. Monday Morning QB's are always successful. 

I mean that's a CR discussion (not that that has stopped anyone on this thread yet). But we could start by not having leadership scoffing at and minimizing the virus. By not having our president mock people for mask wearing. Not having politicians take away local government's ability to stamp out outbreaks. Not putting Covid+ patients in nursing homes. 

There was a lot we didn't know but there was a lot of poor example setting that led to risky behavior and a lot of politics being played that were obviously poor form. Idiocy from Trump hurt a lot. I don't think Fauci helped a lot. Cuomo killed a bunch of people with an obviously terrible decision to put sick patients with an unknown but very serious novel virus back into nursing homes. Governors playing politics didn't help.

The short answer to "what could we have done" would be "what the other countries that didn't perform as poorly did". It's really that simple. Results are how we judge people.

Edited March 10, 2021 by BradInATX

[Foosters 17,856]

29 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

 Not even sure how you quantify this. I hear "we should have done better", but given the unknowns early on, what should we have done? I remember for the first month or so, we focused on surface cleaning. Turns out that was wrong. Monday Morning QB's are always successful. 

I guess it's hard to quantify, but certainly the head of state regularly holding nationaly televised briefings wherein he told people that Covid was a hoax, no worse than the flu, that Democrats and the media were literal enemies of the State using Covid to destroy the economy to install communism, pushing snake-oil remedies, questioning the motives and bonafides of the entire medical and scientific community, and calling on his supporters to ignore state and local restrictions and guidelines. 

Weird that tens of millions never took it seriously.

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

5 minutes ago, LurkingHorn said:

Perhaps it would have helped to have an administration who wouldn't have kept claiming that it was going to disappear like a fart in the wind.

And you'd quantify that how? 

[Johnny Sack 8,397]

4 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I guess it's hard to quantify, but certainly the head of state regularly holding nationaly televised briefings wherein he told people that Covid was a hoax, no worse than the flu, that Democrats and the media were literal enemies of the State using Covid to destroy the economy to install communism, pushing snake-oil remedies, questioning the motives and bonafides of the entire medical and scientific community, and calling on his supporters to ignore state and local restrictions and guidelines. 

Weird that tens of millions never took it seriously.

You would think if that was significantly driving deaths then it would be the red states filled with more Trumpers with the highest death rates. But it isn't.

 

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

5 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

The short answer to "what could we have done" would be "what the other countries that didn't perform as poorly did". It's really that simple.

It really isn't that simple. We are completely different geographically, economically, socially, etc. than every other nation. We aren't an island. We don't have a homogeneous society. We aren't a dictatorship. We are unhealthy but have a healthcare system that keeps unhealthy people alive. Any comparisons are always going to fall short. 

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

7 minutes ago, Foosters said:

wherein he told people that Covid was a hoax,

Didn't happen, but you know that.

[BradInATX 9,208]

1 minute ago, Cheeseweasel said:

It really isn't that simple. We are completely different geographically, economically, socially, etc. than every other nation. We aren't an island. We don't have a homogeneous society. We aren't a dictatorship. We are unhealthy but have a healthcare system that keeps unhealthy people alive. Any comparisons are always going to fall short. 

Lots of other countries match those criteria, including Canada, who performed much, much better than we did.

[LurkingHorn 1,066]

3 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

And you'd quantify that how? 

Your question is what should we have done. If you want to quantify it, there are tons of links out there for you to see all the lies and misleading statements over the past year if you're actually interested. 

[workswithseed 2,103]

1 hour ago, Nicole44 said:

No. A lot of my family is overweight. They know this. It’s not like exercise is hidden from everyone. Walking around the block 20 minutes. You can control how much you eat. Damn. Off my soap box. 

Twas a joke on brad

[BradInATX 9,208]

@Cheeseweasel I don't disagree with your statement BTW. There's a lot of nuance. But there's certainly not enough nuance to explain it all away to geography or healthcare. If we were barely above the expected death rate, sure. But when you're approaching doubling it, a little nuance isn't going to change the outcome that much. We did poorly. 

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

Just now, LurkingHorn said:

Your question is what should we have done. If you want to quantify it, there are tons of links out there for you to see all the lies and misleading statements over the past year if you're actually interested. 

Not even sure how you quantify this

[Johnny Sack 8,397]

4 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Lots of other countries match those criteria, including Canada, who performed much, much better than we did.

Canada has minorities? Covid has been very hard on Latinx and African Americans.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Johnny Sack

[BradInATX 9,208]

2 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Canada has minorities?

Their white population is 72.9%, ours is 61% if you count only cracker whiteys and it's above 70% if you count the the way the Census Bureau does (including "Hispanic Whites"). It's not a drastic difference. 

Edited March 10, 2021 by BradInATX

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

2 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Lots of other countries match those criteria, including Canada, who performed much, much better than we did.

Canada has no Northern border. We have a 9X population density. Again, comparisons are difficult at best.

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

2 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Canada has minorities?

A few people still rout for the Ottawa Senators

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

4 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

@Cheeseweasel I don't disagree with your statement BTW. There's a lot of nuance. But there's certainly not enough nuance to explain it all away to geography or healthcare. If we were barely above the expected death rate, sure. But when you're approaching doubling it, a little nuance isn't going to change the outcome that much. We did poorly. 

I think you are being honest about your assessment. I'm just asking how you quantify "poorly" when the initial estimates were "Millions dead". 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/the-coronavirus-could-kill-millions-of-americans-cdc-advisor-says.html

[BradInATX 9,208]

1 minute ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Canada has no Northern border. We have a 9X population density. Again, comparisons are difficult at best.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-density-does-not-doom-cities-to-pandemic-dangers/

We should stick to things that we know correlate to increased Covid spread.

[BradInATX 9,208]

Just now, Cheeseweasel said:

I think you are being honest about your assessment. I'm just asking how you quantify "poorly" when the initial estimates were "Millions dead". 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/the-coronavirus-could-kill-millions-of-americans-cdc-advisor-says.html

Well, those initial estimates were bad data science. We beat the point spread but lost the game. 

[Foosters 17,856]

10 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Didn't happen, but you know that.

Trump retweeted a post to his over 80 million followers by game show host Chuck Woolery claiming "everyone is lying" about the pandemic, including naming the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the media, Democrats, and even doctors, to damage his reelection chances.

So, a hoax?

[Hate 20,108]

I guess it's hard to quantify, but certainly the head of state regularly holding nationaly televised briefings wherein he told people that Covid was a hoax, no worse than the flu, that Democrats and the media were literal enemies of the State using Covid to destroy the economy to install communism, pushing snake-oil remedies, questioning the motives and bonafides of the entire medical and scientific community, and calling on his supporters to ignore state and local restrictions and guidelines. 
Weird that tens of millions never took it seriously.

The beginnings of this were truly a “both sides” issue. China travel bans were called racist. Fauci was telling people in mid-March that masks weren’t necessary and to go on a cruise if you are healthy. Cuomo was comparing this to the flu and Pelosi was in Chinatown saying there is nothing to worry about. I know the Cheeto man is bad, but there is more than enough blame to go around and more than enough MMQing to be done if you really want to.

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

4 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-density-does-not-doom-cities-to-pandemic-dangers/

We should stick to things that we know correlate to increased Covid spread.

Here's an actual scientific study, not an opinion piece:

The effect of population density on the spread of COVID-19 in the Catalan territory

The results summarized in this research suggest the existence of a positive association between the population density of BHA and the spread of COVID-19 during the period of exponential growth of the disease.

https://www.ub.edu/aqr/covid19/?p=113&lang=en

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

6 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Trump retweeted a post to his over 80 million followers by game show host Chuck Woolery claiming "everyone is lying" about the pandemic, including naming the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the media, Democrats, and even doctors, to damage his reelection chances.

So, a hoax?

Nice bait and switch. Your statement: head of state regularly holding nationaly televised briefings wherein he told people that Covid was a hoax

When asked to provide a back up for that your response is "well, he retweeted something". Try again.

[Foosters 17,856]

2 minutes ago, Hate said:

The beginnings of this were truly a “both sides” issue. China travel bans were called racist. Fauci was telling people in mid-March that masks weren’t necessary and to go on a cruise if you are healthy. Cuomo was comparing this to the flu and Pelosi was in Chinatown saying there is nothing to worry about. I know the Cheeto man is bad, but there is more than enough blame to go around and more than enough MMQing to be done if you really want to.

Pelosi's Chinatown comment? In February? Not sure I'm gonna concede that it's comparable to a months long gaslighting campaign during the heart of the pandemic.

But sure, fuck Cuomo. See how easy that was?

[BradInATX 9,208]

9 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Here's an actual scientific study, not an opinion piece:

The effect of population density on the spread of COVID-19 in the Catalan territory

The results summarized in this research suggest the existence of a positive association between the population density of BHA and the spread of COVID-19 during the period of exponential growth of the disease.

https://www.ub.edu/aqr/covid19/?p=113&lang=en

https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/urban-density-not-linked-to-higher-coronavirus-infection-rates-and-is-linked-to-lower-covid-19-death-rates.html

 

Lots of conflicting info on this one. And even in your study which uses a sample size of about the DFW area, the correlation they found is very weak.

But let's just for the sake of argument concede the density point. There are still numerous countries that drastically outperformed us, despite having higher density. South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Israel, South Korea, Japan and many more (I focused on countries where I trust their reporting) all did much better with higher density than we did, even controlling for our fat asses. 

Edited March 10, 2021 by BradInATX

[dcar00 14,182]

Christ on a cracker, Trump never said Wuhan flu was a hoax.  he said the Democrats saying he wasn't doing anything about it and his team wasn't doing anything was a hoax.  this after he stopped travel from China because of it.

[utee94 15,821]

11 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/urban-density-not-linked-to-higher-coronavirus-infection-rates-and-is-linked-to-lower-covid-19-death-rates.html

 

Lots of conflicting info on this one. And even in your study which uses a sample size of about the DFW area, the correlation they found is very weak.

But let's just for the sake of argument concede the density point. There are still numerous countries that drastically outperformed us, despite having higher density. South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Israel, South Korea, Japan and many more (I focused on countries where I trust their reporting) all did much better with higher density than we did, even controlling for our fat asses. 

Not trying to come down on you, but I recently saw this, which offers some further insights on the subject.  Overall, population density has likely ended up being less of a factor than I expected it would be, a year ago.  However this study's findings do indicate that it can be a significant contributing factor.  But they go on to indicate that "connectivity" among densely packed communities is the largest driver.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2020.1777891

Quote

Our study is to our knowledge the first peer-reviewed publication to investigate the relationship between density and the COVID-19 spread and mortality in the United States, controlling for confounding factors. This is a perfect example of the application of structural equation modeling, as explained in the Conceptual Framework and Research Design section. Our outcome variables are COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths per 10,000 population. We find metropolitan population to be one of the most significant predictors of infection rates, with larger metropolitan areas experiencing higher infection and higher mortality rates. We also find that after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is unrelated to the infection rate and negatively related to the mortality rate, possibly due to greater adherence to social distancing policies and practices in denser areas and better quality of health care.

These findings suggest that connectivity matters more than density in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Large metropolitan areas (and megaregions) with a higher number of counties tightly linked together through economic, social, and commuting relationships are the most vulnerable to the pandemic outbreak. They are more likely to exchange tourists and businesspeople with each other and with other parts of the world, thus increasing the risk of cross-border infections.

 

 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by utee94

[Hate 20,108]

Pelosi's Chinatown comment? In February? Not sure I'm gonna concede that it's comparable to a months long gaslighting campaign during the heart of the pandemic.
But sure, fuck Cuomo. See how easy that was?

Like I said, plenty of blame to go around.

Edited to say that I would also add that eating inside of crowded restaurants during “lockdowns” and getting hair styled when your constituents aren’t allowed to would also be viewed as downplaying the seriousness of the virus.

[Guest Lobo]

If any of you think Trump and Cuomo aren’t going to be chastised by history books after they’ve both long since burned in hell—-ask your wives for permission to start thinking independently.  
 

they both fucked over millions and they’ll pay dearly for it in this life or the next.  

Edited March 10, 2021 by Lobo

[workswithseed 2,103]

51 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Canada has minorities? Covid has been very hard on Latinx and African Americans.

Disgusting. 

[Cheeseweasel 26,438]

33 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Israel, South Korea, Japan and many more (I focused on countries where I trust their reporting)