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

[BradInATX 9208]

17 minutes ago, Bruno Sardine said:

You seem focused on the ratio between a country’s share of coronavirus deaths and its percentage of world population, using it to make the argument that the US “is massively over-represented.” Based on the numbers you provide, the US ratio is .25/.04=6.25

The best comparisons to the United States are other, Western countries. Let’s apply your approach to European nations:
Belgium - .15% of world’s population and 2.8% of total cases for a ratio of 19
France - .8% of world’s population and 9% of total cases for a ratio of 11
Germany - 1.1% of world's population and 2.5% of total cases for a ratio of 2
Italy - .8% of world’s population and 10% of total cases for a ratio of 13
Netherlands - .22% of world’s population and 1.9% of total cases for a ratio of 9
Spain - .6% of world’s population and 8.4% of total cases for a ratio of 14
Switzerland - .11% of world’s population and .6% of total cases for a ratio of 5
UK - .9% of world’s population and 11% of total cases for a ratio for a ratio of 12

So compared to these Western countries (with the notable exception of Germany and to a lesser extent Switzerland) the United States is not massively over-represented. 

It's interesting that you picked all European countries that have colder weather and 10x the population density we do and huge reliance on public transportation, instead of more appropriate comparisons like Canada, Australia, or Mexico.

Edited May 18, 2020 by BradInATX

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

9 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

Safe kid care will be necessary for a return to normal. 

 

I don't even comprehend what this means in a world where something like 12 kids under the age of 18 have died nationally from this thing. This thing is safer for kids than the flu is, and I've never seen anyone indicate that they give one bit of a shit about flu prevention in school.

Kids are basically bullet proof with this- some combination of every virus is a novel virus to a kid and a super charged immune system that lets them chew through diseases they experience for the first time without worrying at all about them.

I have 3 kids, 9, 7 and 4, If I felt like they were in any danger at all there is literally nothing I wouldn't do, including giving away all my money and freedoms and liberties to keep them safe. They are safe though. It's the greatest blessing about this thing in general.  School should go on exactly as it's gone on from the beginning of time and we should do literally nothing to "stop" spread of virus through school- as in almost every case they are completely and totally fucking asymptomatic and just fine, and infecting everyone under 18 could go a long way toward herd immunity.

If anything needs to be done it's to isolate kids from being in touch with olds and high co-morbidity people. I have no idea what that looks like, but that's where the real thought needs to be expended.

If I could bring home a corona spoon for my children to lick and get this all over with I'd do it, without thinking twice.  The world should be open like dineyfuckingland for kids, not keep them shut in and foreclosing educational opportunities in the name of blind and baseless fear over nothing. 

[Trey3216 15325]

46 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Taking victory laps already, i see

Taking shots of blood during daylight hours I see 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

14 minutes ago, Bruno Sardine said:

You seem focused on the ratio between a country’s share of coronavirus deaths and its percentage of world population, using it to make the argument that the US “is massively over-represented.” Based on the numbers you provide, the US ratio is .25/.04=6.25

The best comparisons to the United States are other, Western countries. Let’s apply your approach to European nations:
Belgium - .15% of world’s population and 2.8% of total cases for a ratio of 19
France - .8% of world’s population and 9% of total cases for a ratio of 11
Germany - 1.1% of world's population and 2.5% of total cases for a ratio of 2
Italy - .8% of world’s population and 10% of total cases for a ratio of 13
Netherlands - .22% of world’s population and 1.9% of total cases for a ratio of 9
Spain - .6% of world’s population and 8.4% of total cases for a ratio of 14
Switzerland - .11% of world’s population and .6% of total cases for a ratio of 5
UK - .9% of world’s population and 11% of total cases for a ratio for a ratio of 12

So compared to these Western countries (with the notable exception of Germany and to a lesser extent Switzerland) the United States is not massively over-represented. 

My suspicion is Germany has decided to classify deaths extremely differently than it's neighbors and peers around the world. 

[Dahobbs 17420]

36 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Yet per capita we have LOWER per capita death rates than every single European country not named Germany.

But globally HIGHER death rates. 6% per capita. Yet globally 25% of the deaths.

This does not fucking compute dude.

Of the countries that have seen significant reported outbreaks, we are the largest (excluding China). I think under reporting in other regions and earlier exposure in the US is the primary explanation for this discrepancy. And it isn't like the US is an outlier in seeing more cases relative to its population:

• US, 4.20 % of world population, 31.70% of reported cases  (x7.54)
• Spain: .60% of population, 5.71% of reported cases (x9.49)
• Italy: .77% of population, 4.63% of reported cases (x6)
• UK: .85% of population, 5.06% of reported cases (x5.92)
• Germany: 1.06 % of population, 3.64% of reported cases (x3.42)
• Turkey: 1.05% of population, 3.09% of reported cases (x2.94)
• Belgium: .14% of population, 1.14% of reported cases (x7.77)
• Netherlands: .22% of population, .90% of reported cases (x4.09)
• Sweden: .13% of population, .62% of reported cases (x4.76)

You can do the same exercise with reported deaths and see similar results. When you have so few cases reported out of India and China relative to their population, you're going to end up with disparities like this. And, the fact is that the virus hasn't hit everywhere at once. Some places were hit earlier and thus are farther ahead on the infection curve. 

[washparkhorn 9934]

Kids = asymptomatic carriers = spread to more vulnerable population = goodbye flattened curve if the krakens are released all at once.

Shutting schools/daycare was a primary component of slowing the spread and not overwhelming the hospitals.

The lack of childcare is an automatic stabilizer in the reopening. Just economic facts. Not an advocacy point. 

 

[Brisketexan 104537]

3 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I don't even comprehend what this means in a world where something like 12 kids under the age of 18 have died nationally from this thing. This thing is safer for kids than the flu is, and I've never seen anyone indicate that they give one bit of a shit about flu prevention in school.

Kids are basically bullet proof with this- some combination of every virus is a novel virus to a kid and a super charged immune system that lets them chew through diseases they experience for the first time without worrying at all about them.

I have 3 kids, 9, 7 and 4, If I felt like they were in any danger at all there is literally nothing I wouldn't do, including giving away all my money and freedoms and liberties to keep them safe. They are safe though. It's the greatest blessing about this thing in general.  School should go on exactly as it's gone on from the beginning of time and we should do literally nothing to "stop" spread of virus through school- as in almost every case they are completely and totally fucking asymptomatic and just fine, and infecting everyone under 18 could go a long way toward herd immunity.

If anything needs to be done it's to isolate kids from being in touch with olds and high co-morbidity people. I have no idea what that looks like, but that's where the real thought needs to be expended.

If I could bring home a corona spoon for my children to lick and get this all over with I'd do it, without thinking twice.  The world should be open like dineyfuckingland for kids, not keep them shut in and foreclosing educational opportunities in the name of blind and baseless fear over nothing. 

I almost agree with this.  The problem with your approach is that it is solely focused on kids as VICTIMS, when the real risk is kids as VECTORS.  I'm not saying that risk isn't/can't be minimized enough to be acceptable.  I'm just noting that you're discussing the wrong thing.

I think all scientific minds agree that kids are pretty safe from this thing (yes, some get sick, some have died, some have experienced the odd Kawasaki disease effects -- but truly, many fewer than suffer similar bad outcomes from the flu).  But that's not really the concern.  The concern is kids and schools/camps being petri dishes, where little Timmy picks up the sniffles, passes them on to his parents (any of us with children are familiar with this phenomenon), where 1) his parents suffer a lot more than Timmy did, and 2) THEY pass it along to adult peers, including a potentially vulnerable older person.  That's the risk we need to figure out.

[Guest Lobo]

4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

My suspicion is Germany has decided to classify deaths extremely differently than it's neighbors and peers around the world. 

 Classification isn't their issue, Germany keeps the most meticulous death records on Earth. They just don't like sharing them with outsiders. 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

I almost agree with this.  The problem with your approach is that it is solely focused on kids as VICTIMS, when the real risk is kids as VECTORS.  I'm not saying that risk isn't/can't be minimized enough to be acceptable.  I'm just noting that you're discussing the wrong thing.

I think all scientific minds agree that kids are pretty safe from this thing (yes, some get sick, some have died, some have experienced the odd Kawasaki disease effects -- but truly, many fewer than suffer similar bad outcomes from the flu).  But that's not really the concern.  The concern is kids and schools/camps being petri dishes, where little Timmy picks up the sniffles, passes them on to his parents (any of us with children are familiar with this phenomenon), where 1) his parents suffer a lot more than Timmy did, and 2) THEY pass it along to adult peers, including a potentially vulnerable older person.  That's the risk we need to figure out.

It's almost as if I covered exactly what you said in my 4th paragraph and literally said that all our thought should go into how to prevent that from happening, as opposed to how to keep schools safe from infections that won't fucking matter. Almost as if...

[Trey3216 15325]

41 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

 

Russia reporting accurately would move that 300% number to about 290%.

There's not a single answer for the why, obviously. It's probably a combination of us being fat, other countries (looking at you, China) underreporting, large swaths of our population feeling like they can't be bothered to wear masks or watch church from their couch for a few months, and some things that don't belong on this board (from both sides in some cases, for example Democratic New Orleans did a terrible job early on). 

But the underreporting is probably one of the least important of the factors above. 

My commentary was mostly just laughing at Onboard's ridiculous attempt to avoid looking at the most obvious answer whilst creating a laundry list of things that it "has to be" that have already been proven to be definitively irrelevant. "Well, if you arbitrarily rule out the most obvious answer, then you can certainly narrow it down to these five things that make no sense!". I'm not really going to worry too much about the numbers until a year or so after this thing is in the rearview. It's going to take that long to really understand how everything went down. But I do subscribe to the directional theory that we are probably not above average in terms of containment.

Let’s not forget Wu York encouraging people to attend Lunar New Year parade and other things as a show of solidarity 

[Brisketexan 104537]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Of the countries that have seen significant reported outbreaks, we are the largest (excluding China). I think under reporting in other regions and earlier exposure in the US is the primary explanation for this discrepancy. And it isn't like the US is an outlier in seeing more cases relative to its population:

• US, 4.20 % of world population, 31.70% of reported cases  (x7.54)
• Spain: .60% of population, 5.71% of reported cases (x9.49)
• Italy: .77% of population, 4.63% of reported cases (x6)
• UK: .85% of population, 5.06% of reported cases (x5.92)
• Germany: 1.06 % of population, 3.64% of reported cases (x3.42)
• Turkey: 1.05% of population, 3.09% of reported cases (x2.94)
• Belgium: .14% of population, 1.14% of reported cases (x7.77)
• Netherlands: .22% of population, .90% of reported cases (x4.09)
• Sweden: .13% of population, .62% of reported cases (x4.76)

You can do the same exercise with reported deaths and see similar results. When you have so few cases reported out of India and China relative to their population, you're going to end up with disparities like this. And, the fact is that the virus hasn't hit everywhere at once. Some places were hit earlier and thus are farther ahead on the infection curve. 

The fact that the highest numbers of reported cases and deaths also correlate to countries with relatively high-functioning healthcare AND gov't bureaucracies seems important.

We're not going to get good data on COVID out of Shitbagistan, or BananaRepublic (not to mention countries that are purposefully underreporting becauase that's how they roll, cough cough, China and Russia), because we don't get good data out of either place on ANYTHING -- they're not good at data.

It's not that Western countries are "overreporting," it's just that they're better at it.  That's my hypothesis.

[BradInATX 9208]

5 minutes ago, Lobo said:

 Classification isn't their issue, Germany keeps the most meticulous death records on Earth. They just don't like sharing them with outsiders. 

If you've been there you know why Germany has contained it better than most countries. Those people are hardcore about following rules. If you do something even in the gray area of the rules, you don't get the typical passive aggressive Euro look of disapproval, you get yelled at. My wife and I watched a guy see a Red Bull can on the sidewalk, pick it up, throw it away, and cuss to himself for a solid two minutes as he walked down the street. I really wanted to run around the block to get ahead of him and randomly drop bits of trash every 50 yards or so for him like angry Pac Man but my wife wasn't letting it happen.
 

Crazy ass Germans.

Edited May 18, 2020 by BradInATX

[BradInATX 9208]

2 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Let’s not forget Wu York encouraging people to attend Lunar New Year parade and other things as a show of solidarity 

I don't think it's possible to forget when we're reminded about New York four times per page. Of course in a totally apolitical way!

[Brisketexan 104537]

2 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

It's almost as if I covered exactly what you said in my 4th paragraph and literally said that all our thought should go into how to prevent that from happening, as opposed to how to keep schools safe from infections that won't fucking matter. Almost as if...

No, you only spoke of them as direct contacts.  That's the point in viral spread -- it's not about one direct contact.  It's about the hundreds of indirect contacts.  Timmy gives it to Billy, Shiela, Tommy, Bob, Michelle, , Steve, and Sally at school.  Each of them infects at least one of their parents, so we now have 8 infected adults.  And let's say half of them transmit it to an older person they work with, assist, visit, etc. -- we now have 4 infected vulnerable people.  And it all started with Timmy, who hasn't been around an older person in months.  That's kinda the whole point -- it can be a launching point for the, literally, viral spread.

So how to we mitigate that risk? 

[Js1 85085]

5 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Let’s not forget Wu York encouraging people to attend Lunar New Year parade and other things as a show of solidarity 

Wow did you come up with that one on your own?

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

The fact that the highest numbers of reported cases and deaths also correlate to countries with relatively high-functioning healthcare AND gov't bureaucracies seems important.

We're not going to get good data on COVID out of Shitbagistan, or BananaRepublic (not to mention countries that are purposefully underreporting becauase that's how they roll, cough cough, China and Russia), because we don't get good data out of either place on ANYTHING -- they're not good at data.

It's not that Western countries are "overreporting," it's just that they're better at it.  That's my hypothesis.

Sure, all that is true. My bet is that they also are more fanatical about isolating out any cases where covid is not the cause of death even if it's present at death.  The German shark attack victim who dies of shark bite wounds that is asymptomatic for Covid isn't going to get put in those statistics like he looks like he might here. That has to help on some level.  We lump (in our reporting on the crawl of your news cast of choice) all our "possibles" in.  My bet is that it doesn't look like that there.  But yeah, we aren't doing worse than shitbagistan at this, we just report better and more honestly on everything.

Quick aside- one of the reasons our CIA people didn't see the collapse of Russia coming was because we were so accurate in getting their internal data on food harvests and economic data and the like out. We looked at it and said- this isn't great but it's probably workable. In reality, it was accurate as to what they were telling themselves, but what they were telling themselves didn't jive with reality.  

[stork642 4498]

1 hour ago, BradInATX said:

That doesn't explain the fact that we account for 300% more of the world's deaths than our population would indicate.

Take out the abomination that is NY and how are our numbers.  NY is a complete outlier/shit show and not at all indicative of the rest is the US.  That happens when they had great ideas like the one to place Covid19 patients in nursing homes.   

Edited May 18, 2020 by stork642

[BradInATX 9208]

2 minutes ago, stork642 said:

Take out the abomination that is NY and how are our numbers.  NY is a complete outlier and not at all indicative of the rest is the US.  That happens when they had great ideas like the one to place Covid19 patients in nursing homes.   

Already done upthread. Barely moves the needle. We've been having this convo for about 30 minutes which means you're about 29 minutes too late to the "but New York!" parade.

Edited May 18, 2020 by BradInATX

[Foosters 17725]

Wasn't the Lunar Year Parade in early February?

How is it consistent to criticize NYC for holding a parade in early February and throwing a hissy fit over the AG trying to keep a bar shuttered in May?

[stork642 4498]

6 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Already done upthread. Barely moves the needle. We've been having this convo for about 30 minutes which means you're about 29 minutes too late to the "but New York!" parade.

Sorry I’m late but taking NY deaths out barely moves the needle?  What is NYs death count as a total percentage of the US total?  Does NY account for 1/3 of total US deaths.  You definition of barely moves the needle is very different than mine.  

Edited May 18, 2020 by stork642

[BradInATX 9208]

1 minute ago, stork642 said:

Sorry I’m late but taking NY deaths out barely moves the needle?  What is NYs death count as a total percentage of the US total?  

About 17%

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

10 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

If you've been there you know why Germany has contained it better than most countries. Those people are hardcore about following rules.

I did nazi that coming.

[Armybrat 40710]

16 minutes ago, Lobo said:

 Classification isn't their issue, Germany keeps the most meticulous death records on Earth. They just don't like sharing them with outsiders. 

The Mengele Effect?

[Brisketexan 104537]

14 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

The German shark attack victim who dies of shark bite wounds that is asymptomatic for Covid isn't going to get put in those statistics like he looks like he might here. That has to help on some level.  We lump (in our reporting on the crawl of your news cast of choice) all our "possibles" in.  My bet is that it doesn't look like that there.  But yeah, we aren't doing worse than shitbagistan at this, we just report better and more honestly on everything.

Cool, cool. I mean, we know that all the reporting in the US is totally skewed at overreporting because every reported case gets the hospital a new car on The Price is Right and a year's supply of Rice a Roni, the San Francisco treat, which totally accounts for us being a X7.54 outlier.....we get it.

But what about the UK, Belgium, Spain, etc., which have similarly large outlier numbers.....are they reporting as well to commit [checks notes at the supposed reason US hospitals are over-reporting cases] US medicare fraud?  Come on, man.  

Edited May 18, 2020 by Brisketexan

[Captainant 27405]

9 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

The German shark attack victim who dies of shark bite wounds that is asymptomatic for Covid isn't going to get put in those statistics like he looks like he might here.

Kindly, care to give an example of such a thing happening here? It's been a popular talking point by pandemic minimizers that were just overreporting and it's all a conspiracy to take away our freedom, but I'd really love to see some data since you love to bring it up so often

[Dahobbs 17420]

8 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Sure, all that is true. My bet is that they also are more fanatical about isolating out any cases where covid is not the cause of death even if it's present at death.  The German shark attack victim who dies of shark bite wounds that is asymptomatic for Covid isn't going to get put in those statistics like he looks like he might here.

Look, that isn't happening here or at least isn't happening to any degree that is going to materially affect the numbers. The only state that has reported anything like that (and it is pretty extreme exaggeration of the statements) is Illinois, which indicated at the same time that those instances were being removed when identified. 

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1084]

22 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Hey poor, you don’t have to be poor anymore!

No sex until MARRIAGE!

[stork642 4498]

10 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

About 17%

According to World Meter the total US deaths are 91,717 of which NY has 28,443.  That’s about 1 in 3 right?   Hell if you add in New Jersey which is barely a different state that number is closing in on almost 45% of total deaths.  Am I not seeing these numbers correctly?

Edited May 18, 2020 by stork642

[ChickenSandwich 9798]

Please stop downplaying the fear mongering. It’s rude. 

[washparkhorn 9934]

9 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Quick aside- one of the reasons our CIA people didn't see the collapse of Russia coming was because we were so accurate in getting their internal data on food harvests and economic data and the like out. We looked at it and said- this isn't great but it's probably workable. In reality, it was accurate as to what they were telling themselves, but what they were telling themselves didn't jive with reality.  

Informative article on the subject by Brookings: (note - link is to the CIA library)  https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/20080229.pdf  TLDR - intelligence community predicted but leaders failed to recognize reality of the data. 

"So these facts raise two questions: Why do so many people think the Intelligence Community failed? And why do many of the U.S. officials who were professional consumers of this intelligence still feel that they were not adequately warned? The nature of these questions should be noted before answers can be proffered.

In part, the questions are not about empirical realities, but about perceptions of those realities. To use a photography metaphor, the questions ask not about the ‘‘picture’’ out there, but about the ‘‘camera’’ in human heads. As such, the questions are not asking about the external conditions that produce surprise, but rather, the collective cognitive architecture of surprise. Put another way, leaders usually do not ‘‘get’’ blindsided; they blindside themselves by how they perceive intelligence, by the mental hurdles intelligence must surmount before it can change their perceptions, and in the constraints that limit their ability to act on information."

Arguably, we are in the same position today with COVID-19. The intelligence is there, but the ability to act on the information is constrained by mental hurdles.

[Js1 85085]

Ah I see some posters have gone back to the (already failed) deflections and made up talking points such as: BUT NEW YORK,  fake deaths for profit, and the like. 

Fascinating. 

[BradInATX 9208]

8 minutes ago, stork642 said:

According to World Meter the total US deaths are 91,717 of which NY has 28,443.  That’s about 1 in 3 right?   Hell if you add in New Jersey which is barely a different state that number is closing in on almost 50% of total deaths.  Am I not seeing these numbers correctly?

You're right - I pulled up NYC on accident instead of the state. I show 22,000. Either way, all that does is change it from us being over-represented by 400% in deaths to somewhere between 250 and 350 percent, depending on which number you believe.

So no, it doesn't really move the needle. It still puts us in the same ballpark as Canada, much worse than Mexico, and infinitely worse than Australia.

Edited May 18, 2020 by BradInATX

[Trey3216 15325]

23 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

I don't think it's possible to forget when we're reminded about New York four times per page. Of course in a totally apolitical way!

I was responding to your comment about New Orleans, and I didn’t mention politics or leaders involved. 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

No, you only spoke of them as direct contacts.  That's the point in viral spread -- it's not about one direct contact.  It's about the hundreds of indirect contacts.  Timmy gives it to Billy, Shiela, Tommy, Bob, Michelle, , Steve, and Sally at school.  Each of them infects at least one of their parents, so we now have 8 infected adults.  And let's say half of them transmit it to an older person they work with, assist, visit, etc. -- we now have 4 infected vulnerable people.  And it all started with Timmy, who hasn't been around an older person in months.  That's kinda the whole point -- it can be a launching point for the, literally, viral spread.

So how to we mitigate that risk? 

Give it to the parents as well. I've got a 1/8000 chance of dying. Lock the olds and vulnerables completely down for what a month?  two months?  three months?  They are no worse off than they are right now, as they are already locked down. Develop herd immunity. Profit.  

Something along those lines. Sacrificing kids education and all the long term shit show that implies when they are totally fucking safe is about the dumbest option we can come up with right now. 

Also, this is all me talking for the general good. My kids are fine. They are smart. They test out GT above grade level. My wife home schools them.  I help with some homeschool. They are enriched. They will probably do better than they are doing in school and it will be a fantastic fucking outcome for them, this corona virus.  But that sure as shit ain't how it will go for any of the poor or impoverished. It will be like continuing to add grease to the only fucking ladder they can use to climb out of poverty into the middle class. It's criminal to think of how many at risk kids are going to get flushed down the toilet if this distance learning bullshit keeps up. 

I've seen it.  I taught school for a couple years. The outcomes for the kids without a great support system at home with school the way it's currently set up is sketchy as fuck. Take away going to school face to face and turn it into a distance thing?  Those sketchy outcomes for at risk kids become a fucking pandemic of suck that won't get overcome.  

[PhillyD 1257]

1 minute ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Give it to the parents as well. I've got a 1/8000 chance of dying. Lock the olds and vulnerables completely down for what a month?  two months?  three months?  They are no worse off than they are right now, as they are already locked down. Develop herd immunity. Profit.  

Something along those lines. Sacrificing kids education and all the long term shit show that implies when they are totally fucking safe is about the dumbest option we can come up with right now. 

Also, this is all me talking for the general good. My kids are fine. They are smart. They test out GT above grade level. My wife home schools them.  I help with some homeschool. They are enriched. They will probably do better than they are doing in school and it will be a fantastic fucking outcome for them, this corona virus.  But that sure as shit ain't how it will go for any of the poor or impoverished. It will be like continuing to add grease to the only fucking ladder they can use to climb out of poverty into the middle class. It's criminal to think of how many at risk kids are going to get flushed down the toilet if this distance learning bullshit keeps up. 

I've seen it.  I taught school for a couple years. The outcomes for the kids without a great support system at home with school the way it's currently set up is sketchy as fuck. Take away going to school face to face and turn it into a distance thing?  Those sketchy outcomes for at risk kids become a fucking pandemic of suck that won't get overcome.  

This simple approach fails to account for the 8 year old daughter whose Mom works at a nursing home.  How do we still take care of the olds without interacting with them?

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Cool, cool. I mean, we know that all the reporting in the US is totally skewed at overreporting because every reported case gets the hospital a new car on The Price is Right and a year's supply of Rice a Roni, the San Francisco treat, which totally accounts for us being a X7.54 outlier.....we get it.

But what about the UK, Belgium, Spain, etc., which have similarly large outlier numbers.....are they reporting as well to commit [checks notes at the supposed reason US hospitals are over-reporting cases] US medicare fraud?  Come on, man.  

That's not at all what I'm saying. I think that the US and all our peers report the deaths the same way and that's why we aren't an outlier but right there with them all for health results per million people, and Germany does it some other way. Either that or they've figured out a way to be 4 or 5 times as good as us and all of their W. European bretheren. Which is possible, but I doubt the entirety of the story. 

[BradInATX 9208]

2 minutes ago, PhillyD said:

This simple approach fails to account for the 8 year old daughter whose Mom works at a nursing home.  How do we still take care of the olds without interacting with them?

Wulaw has made it clear he's willing to sacrifice them. You guys must be new to reading his takes. You're not going to corner him with "gotcha, you're endangering old and vulnerable people!". He knows.

[dcar00 14028]

2 minutes ago, PhillyD said:

This simple approach fails to account for the 8 year old daughter whose Mom works at a nursing home.  How do we still take care of the olds without interacting with them?

there is no way to account for that unless you don't do anything until there is a vaccine.

[JBJ 3648]

11 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

You're right - I pulled up NYC on accident instead of the state. I show 22,000. Either way, all that does is change it from us being over-represented by 400% in deaths to somewhere between 250 and 350 percent, depending on which number you believe.

So no, it doesn't really move the needle. It still puts us as worse than Canada, much worse than Mexico, and infinitely worse than Australia.

It puts us better than Canada.

And everyone below the worldwide average is a who's who of 3rd-world and island nations.

Like Brisket said, the west are the only ones who are testing and reporting this well.  Thats really the only gleaning trend from the data.  And it should not be surprising.

Edited May 18, 2020 by JBJ

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

15 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Kindly, care to give an example of such a thing happening here? It's been a popular talking point by pandemic minimizers that were just overreporting and it's all a conspiracy to take away our freedom, but I'd really love to see some data since you love to bring it up so often

Yeah- initial estimates look like the CDC might be bringing down reported deaths by somewhere on the order of 25%

But, your are thinking I'm making a point that I'm not making. I reject the idea that we are doing any worse than any of our peer countries so to speak. I base shit on deaths per million and hospitalizations per million and we are to the upper part of the bell curve. I think its perfectly plausible at this point in time to report anyone with a positive corona test as a corona death right now, even the shark attack guy or the shot in the head guy that's asymptomatic.  I've said I won't put any stock in any death counts (high or low) for a couple years, as the smart guys and gals will study the shit out of this at some point in the future. Putting anyone with a positive test in that statisitc, right now, along with any maybe is imminently reasonable.  That gives a starting point to whittle away at when you try to get more exact in the future studies that will be plentiful. 

[Guest Lobo]

5 minutes ago, PhillyD said:

This simple approach fails to account for the 8 year old daughter whose Mom works at a nursing home.  How do we still take care of the olds without interacting with them?

I don't know but some of the suggestions I'm seeing on here remind me of that early episode of "The Man in the High Castle" where Joe is driving through to the Neutral Zone.

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

18 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Look, that isn't happening here or at least isn't happening to any degree that is going to materially affect the numbers. The only state that has reported anything like that (and it is pretty extreme exaggeration of the statements) is Illinois, which indicated at the same time that those instances were being removed when identified. 

I'm in favor of putting the shark victim in the covid statistics at first.  Longer post above explaining why. 

[Captainant 27405]

7 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

there is no way to account for that unless you don't do anything until there is a vaccine.

The idea is that we would use contact tracing and widespread testing to have visibility into the growth, movement, and spread of the virus so we can react in a targeted and less broad way. 

You know, like how we beat smallpox. 

But for some reason, we have not prioritized that on a national level, so we have to address it on a state by state basis with either dangerous uncertainty or significantly restricted social contact on a national/inter-state basis. At least, that's only if we want to take the danger of the pandemic seriously and as a real threat, and not put potentially millions of lives in peril. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Captainant

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

24 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

Informative article on the subject by Brookings: (note - link is to the CIA library)  https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/20080229.pdf  TLDR - intelligence community predicted but leaders failed to recognize reality of the data. 

"So these facts raise two questions: Why do so many people think the Intelligence Community failed? And why do many of the U.S. officials who were professional consumers of this intelligence still feel that they were not adequately warned? The nature of these questions should be noted before answers can be proffered.

In part, the questions are not about empirical realities, but about perceptions of those realities. To use a photography metaphor, the questions ask not about the ‘‘picture’’ out there, but about the ‘‘camera’’ in human heads. As such, the questions are not asking about the external conditions that produce surprise, but rather, the collective cognitive architecture of surprise. Put another way, leaders usually do not ‘‘get’’ blindsided; they blindside themselves by how they perceive intelligence, by the mental hurdles intelligence must surmount before it can change their perceptions, and in the constraints that limit their ability to act on information."

Arguably, we are in the same position today with COVID-19. The intelligence is there, but the ability to act on the information is constrained by mental hurdles.

Saw something similar in Gladwell talking about liars. We default to truth as a basic human response so we are shitty at recognizing lies. We have to be convinced someone is lying rather than something on the order of a preponderance of evidence type of result.  Miss red flags like crazy because our mind filters them out or explains them away. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Wulaw Horn

[Foosters 17725]

Just now, Captainant said:

The idea is that we would use contact tracing and widespread testing to have visibility into the growth, movement, and spread of the virus so we can react in a targeted and less broad way. 

You know, like how we beat smallpox. 

But for some reason, we have not prioritized that on a national level, so we have to address it on a state by state basis with either dangerous uncertainty or significantly restricted social contact. At least, that's only if we want to take the danger of the pandemic seriously and as a real threat, and not put potentially millions of lives in peril. 

This is weird. Your post implies some sort of mitigating steps? I was under the impression our choices were: 1) do nothing - save the economy! or 2)everyone lives in a basement until 2022.

[InkaUtexas 25486]

3 minutes ago, JBJ said:

It puts us better than Canada.

And everyone below the worldwide average is a who's who of 3rd-world and island nations.

Like Brisket said, the west are the only ones who are testing and reporting this well.  Thats really the only gleaning trend the data.  And it should not be surprising.

I talk with a business partner in Kenya daily. They are being hammered, but since people just die in Africa it is listed as a death. Spoke with a doctor in Rwanda. He is trying to get testing done. They are in a rough neighborhood and there is a lack of ebola testing capabilities to this day. Testing is hard when your population is not centralized. 

There is very little testing going on. I think hospitalizations and comparisons to mortality are key for the developing world. But I am not seeing those. Anyone have any information on this? 

[BradInATX 9208]

Just now, Foosters said:

This is weird. Your post implies some sort of mitigating steps? I was under the impression our choices were: 1) do nothing - save the economy! or 2)everyone lives in a basement until 2022.

Well yeah, those really are the only choices we have. We're just little old America, not a technology and innovation powerhouse like Korea or New Zealand.

[Dahobbs 17420]

5 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Yeah- initial estimates look like the CDC might be bringing down reported deaths by somewhere on the order of 25%

Says who? What is this statement based on? 

[Bozo_Casanova 26271]

53 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

My suspicion is Germany has decided to classify deaths extremely differently than it's neighbors and peers around the world. 

Same question I keep asking people - based on what?

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

11 minutes ago, PhillyD said:

This simple approach fails to account for the 8 year old daughter whose Mom works at a nursing home.  How do we still take care of the olds without interacting with them?

There are lots of ways- this is just off the top of my head:

1) Daily testing of workers

2) Lock the workers in with the olds, have them live there during the height of the pandemic for the duration

3) Pay extra for workers that have already had it and shed it (Bozo's immunicapital argument)

4) Only allow people without a kid in their social circle to work in a nursing home during the lockdown?

That's literally what I came up with in thinking about this deal for 45 seconds to a minute. I'm sure, if we got a lot of smart people on it, they could come up with a better solution.

I mean, America will not stand to shut down their country and harm our young, indefinitely, to protect olds in the nursing home.  Or, put another way, we care so little about the olds in the typical nursing home that they are breeding grounds for neglect, abuse and misery. What makes you think- if we care so little about mom's well being that we will shunt her into a home and ignore her for more or less life, that we will burn the country to the ground long term to care for them?  Hell, look at the orders about nursing homes that had to take in covid positive patients and the decimation that wrought in some of those cities and states. It's shameful.