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Because nobody has all the answers about this virus. With less social distancing, the afflicted rate might be a whopping 2%, or it could be higher or lower. The key word here is "might". My point is that while I believe we should take COVID 19 seriously, there is a limit to the seriousness, and at some point it reaches the panic & paranoia stages. We have already gone past those stages.
Here's a dose of realism for you: compare the afflicted >1% of the confirmed cases with the percentage rates of what the mitigation efforts have caused. We now have a 10% unemployment rate with a projected 15% rate by the end of the quarter. Some economists are predicting contractions in the second quarter of 30% or more. 24% of small businesses have closed down, and 54% of all small businesses report they are either closed or will close this month. The percentage of Americans who are seeing their freedoms scaled back: 100%!
Again, you're framing the argument so poorly that you're not getting anyone in the middle or anyone on the other side of the aisle because you're clearly not even having a fair debate on your own.
In hot spot cities, even with mitigation efforts in place, the mortality rate is so much higher than you're even willing to acknowledge that your numbers don't serve to have a productive starting point. We also have to have a conversation about what happens to the numbers when hospitals run out of resources. You've clearly made up your mind before consulting statistics. I'm not even saying you're wrong. But your numbers are so made up and unrealistic that how are we even supposed to consider what you're saying?
Before posting mortality rates, I will preface this by saying that there are conditions which make the mortality rate higher. Obviously, comorbidities play a huge roll. Lack of ICU beds and supplies will increase mortality rates (hence, "flatten the curve"), and one item that will artificially increase mortality rates is the lack of known confirmed cases, which we simply cannot compute. It might be a notable number and if we had that information, we can probably assume that it lowers the mortality ratio a certain percentage. I think it would be unfair to speculate, but we should just keep it in mind. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that a confirmed case that has not resulted in death is not necessarily a recovered patient. Even if no one else in these areas was ever diagnosed with COVID-19, these mortality rates would increase because obviously, some of those patients will die. I can't say if these numbers cancel one another out, but they're just important to keep in mind.
Why am I going through this exercise? Because the number isn't 1%. The number isn't 2%. If unmitigated, the number is much, much higher. I don't know the answer to this question and I am not asking it rhetorically, but the question is... given this information, where do you personally put the % for how many people you're comfortable dying when you weigh its importance with the health and well being of the market economy?
I honestly don't know the answer to that question myself, however, it must also be considered that the above percentages are with some level of mitigation efforts in mind. Remove those efforts and I fear you're working with a higher number. When coming to the debate, you should at the very least understand these underlying facts before concluding what should be done.
There has been so much flip-flopping and confusing information given by so-called "experts" how can anyone appeal to them as the voice of reason? And now with the ridiculous criteria they've established to code Covid 19 deaths they've lost all credibility.
When this is over it will be interesting to see how all of their fans spin it.
There has been so much flip-flopping and confusing information given by so-called "experts" how can anyone appeal to them as the voice of reason? And now with the ridiculous criteria they've established to code Covid 19 deaths they've lost all credibility.
When this is over it will be interesting to see how all of their fans spin it.
This isn't a team or a sport. It shouldn't be about "us against them". It's about the possibility of a lot of possible deaths. There will be thousands of real-life consequences: bankrupting businesses, MASSIVE hardships, more irresponsible federal debt, p_ss-poor execution on 50 different fronts causing stress and hardships, etc.
My compassion has turned toward the businesses as this cannot go on the way it has been. People are bleeding! Like a friend who is losing $1M a month in his 110 person company. A few months of that kind of loss will knock out the net worth that he has spent his entire life building. I believe there IS a cost of what a society is willing to pay for x amount of lives. If the real percentage is 0.4% (for example), I say flip that switch on the economy several weeks ago!
The problem is we barely have any F'n data! IF we had our crap together, we could have been doing sample testing along the way. You don't need to test everyone. T tables exist for a reason. With test data, we could put all of this to rest. It didn't have to be a guess. It's how "the supposed experts" (a STUPID phrase by the way) can actually do their damn job!
So let's rewind to 2008. Read https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209582/ : one of many playbooks on how to do what to do in a pandemic. We botched it top to bottom as those "supposed experts" who wrote the road map were not listened to. Did we have stockpiles of PPE built up? NOPE! Did we share resources right away like doctors, masks, etc? Nope, states hogged them. Most importantly, the FED's pooched the most basic execution to get rapid testing. The CDC had a technical problem with the tests — and federal officials were then too slow to find alternatives. So basically, the "supposed experts" were flying blind. If you want a scientist to look like an idiot, don't give him/her the needed data. So if you want to get angry at someone, blame the person(s) that were in charge of executing a much better plan. Still, social distancing may have saved countless lives. But we may never know. Or we may flip the switch back on and find out the hard way. No data==bad decisions.
This should be common sense ^^ for any critically thinking adult.
Last edited by MN-Born-n-Raised; 04-10-2020 at 05:58 AM..
In an effort to get "mud out of my eyes" (all in fun Tall Traveler) here is how the top scientist is predicting what will happen during the hotter months. The lead person is this brilliant guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_V._Fineberg .
For some background and not in the video, he thought (too late I suspect) the following: "I think we're thinking too defensively about what we should and could do against the coronavirus," Fineberg told Live Science. "If it is a war, and I believe that's a proper metaphor, then we should fight it like a war. That means we should fight to win to vanquish the foe, not to let it persist and hassle us for an indefinite period."
The Germans were able to trace it to a person passing a salt shaker.
That's always impressive. I read Ebola was traced to a toddler playing in a hollowed out tree who either came in contact with a bat or a flea (from a bat).
Again, you're framing the argument so poorly that you're not getting anyone in the middle or anyone on the other side of the aisle because you're clearly not even having a fair debate on your own.
In hot spot cities, even with mitigation efforts in place, the mortality rate is so much higher than you're even willing to acknowledge that your numbers don't serve to have a productive starting point. We also have to have a conversation about what happens to the numbers when hospitals run out of resources. You've clearly made up your mind before consulting statistics. I'm not even saying you're wrong. But your numbers are so made up and unrealistic that how are we even supposed to consider what you're saying?
Before posting mortality rates, I will preface this by saying that there are conditions which make the mortality rate higher. Obviously, comorbidities play a huge roll. Lack of ICU beds and supplies will increase mortality rates (hence, "flatten the curve"), and one item that will artificially increase mortality rates is the lack of known confirmed cases, which we simply cannot compute. It might be a notable number and if we had that information, we can probably assume that it lowers the mortality ratio a certain percentage. I think it would be unfair to speculate, but we should just keep it in mind. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that a confirmed case that has not resulted in death is not necessarily a recovered patient. Even if no one else in these areas was ever diagnosed with COVID-19, these mortality rates would increase because obviously, some of those patients will die. I can't say if these numbers cancel one another out, but they're just important to keep in mind.
Why am I going through this exercise? Because the number isn't 1%. The number isn't 2%. If unmitigated, the number is much, much higher. I don't know the answer to this question and I am not asking it rhetorically, but the question is... given this information, where do you personally put the % for how many people you're comfortable dying when you weigh its importance with the health and well being of the market economy?
I honestly don't know the answer to that question myself, however, it must also be considered that the above percentages are with some level of mitigation efforts in mind. Remove those efforts and I fear you're working with a higher number. When coming to the debate, you should at the very least understand these underlying facts before concluding what should be done.
Thank you for doing this. I'm not sure how anyone is still downplaying this.
This isn't about the mortality rate exclusively. The biggest problem with this virus is that 15-20% of those who catch it need hospitalization, and a percentage of those people end up needing ICU treatment. WE DON'T CURRENTLY HAVE ENOUGH BEDS OR VENTILATORS TO DEAL WITH EVERYONE GETTING THE CORONAVIRUS RIGHT NOW. The reason for social distancing is to prevent our medical system from being overwhelmed with COVID patients. Had we let this thing play out with no mitigation, the mortality would end up being anywhere from 7% to 15% because people would be dying from COVID because we wouldn't have the space, resources, or personnel to treat them, plus other people would end up dying from non-related issues like heart attacks, car crashes, and other treatable issues because the hospitals would be so overwhelmed with COVID patients. If we can keep the infected rate low until we get an effective treatment or vaccine, then we avoid that issue. Once we have the treatment/vaccine, then we can begin to open things up.
Also, why do people keep using current numbers to downplay the issue? "There's only X cases right now." Remember when there were 15 cases and we were quickly gonna be back to zero in late February? Now we are still seeing 33,000 new cases daily and every day the number of new cases increases. We know through psychology that a huge plurality of people won't take a crisis seriously until it affects them personally: 20,000 dead means nothing to them until a loved one catches it and dies. Maybe if people weren't so selfish and didn't have a silly sense of exceptionalism, nothing would have been shutdown because we as a society could be trusted to be responsible.
The economy was already gonna tank regardless. The difference between shutting down the economy and letting the virus gradually infect a majority of people which forces the economy to shut down is timing. If we saw the virus infect 1,000,000 and overwhelm our hospitals with mass deaths, people would have just stopped leaving their house on their own. Plus the economy would've taken longer to reboot due to the fact that the workforce would have been heavily diminished.
The reality is that when this thing ends, if we feel like we overreacted, then we did the right thing. If we continue to downplay it and wait until we personally feel it looks serious, then it's already too late.
Thank you for doing this. I'm not sure how anyone is still downplaying this.
This isn't about the mortality rate exclusively. The biggest problem with this virus is that 15-20% of those who catch it need hospitalization, and a percentage of those people end up needing ICU treatment. WE DON'T CURRENTLY HAVE ENOUGH BEDS OR VENTILATORS TO DEAL WITH EVERYONE GETTING THE CORONAVIRUS RIGHT NOW. The reason for social distancing is to prevent our medical system from being overwhelmed with COVID patients. Had we let this thing play out with no mitigation, the mortality would end up being anywhere from 7% to 15% because people would be dying from COVID because we wouldn't have the space, resources, or personnel to treat them, plus other people would end up dying from non-related issues like heart attacks, car crashes, and other treatable issues because the hospitals would be so overwhelmed with COVID patients. If we can keep the infected rate low until we get an effective treatment or vaccine, then we avoid that issue. Once we have the treatment/vaccine, then we can begin to open things up.
Also, why do people keep using current numbers to downplay the issue? "There's only X cases right now." Remember when there were 15 cases and we were quickly gonna be back to zero in late February? Now we are still seeing 33,000 new cases daily and every day the number of new cases increases. We know through psychology that a huge plurality of people won't take a crisis seriously until it affects them personally: 20,000 dead means nothing to them until a loved one catches it and dies. Maybe if people weren't so selfish and didn't have a silly sense of exceptionalism, nothing would have been shutdown because we as a society could be trusted to be responsible.
The economy was already gonna tank regardless. The difference between shutting down the economy and letting the virus gradually infect a majority of people which forces the economy to shut down is timing. If we saw the virus infect 1,000,000 and overwhelm our hospitals with mass deaths, people would have just stopped leaving their house on their own. Plus the economy would've taken longer to reboot due to the fact that the workforce would have been heavily diminished.
The reality is that when this thing ends, if we feel like we overreacted, then we did the right thing. If we continue to downplay it and wait until we personally feel it looks serious, then it's already too late.
Good thoughts. Sadly, the poster that is throwing out absurd numbers probably won't be back because for them, it's not about having a discussion and learning new things. I wish it would. If that poster did return, I'd welcome him into the discussion so we can both try to learn new things together, but I just haven't seen that willingness on their part. I'm willing to be open about this because I firmly believe this thing is going to last a long time. It takes a long time to infect 7.8 billion people (or say, 5 billion for herd immunity). So I acknowledge that it's a discussion worth having because I don't want to see the working classes be punished because the oligarchs running operations can hold out a lot longer than we can.
BUT, we have to have an honest discussion and right now the talking points being regurgitated by these people aren't honest. They're highly politicized talking points aimed at getting people to push forth an agenda for profits -- profits those that are unknowingly pushing forward will likely never see.
Instead, you know what we should do? Flip the tables. Band together and get the reforms pushed forward that will better the majority of society and most importantly, continue to better our society even after this pandemic ends. Until people take a stand economically and demand more money, more protections, healthcare, social safety nets -- they're going to continue to be stripped away as they have ever since the New Deal was formulated. You can't have a healthy economy when your workforce can no longer afford to buy the things they're making.
I actually thought when this thing first went down that we'd see social strife on a level we haven't seen in a long time. It just hasn't materialized because you have so many people convinced that the lack of social safety nets isn't the problem; the problem is that we're not all running en masse back to work to literally kill our family members for the sake of wholesale profits. It's so robotic and disgusting.
Thank you for doing this. I'm not sure how anyone is still downplaying this.
This isn't about the mortality rate exclusively. The biggest problem with this virus is that 15-20% of those who catch it need hospitalization, and a percentage of those people end up needing ICU treatment. WE DON'T CURRENTLY HAVE ENOUGH BEDS OR VENTILATORS TO DEAL WITH EVERYONE GETTING THE CORONAVIRUS RIGHT NOW.
I don't know how you arrived at the 15-20% needing hospitalization. With the so many having no symptoms, and many others feeling under the weather and doing nothing about it kind of like how most handle the flu, and then those that are actually tested but sent home, I don't think those numbers are accurate.
I don't think having enough beds or ventilators is a problem in most of the country let alone in Metro Phoenix. Not having enough in certain places is a problem but those estimates have also been lowered.
I don't think any predictions should be made by using the number of people tested. Occupation and severe symptoms being the reason for those that are tested leaving out most people.
We will never know how many people have/had it. The number hospitalized and the number of deaths are the only thing that can be counted accurately. Those numbers are very low such as 39 dead in Maricopa County out of 4.5million.
I don't know how you arrived at the 15-20% needing hospitalization. With the so many having no symptoms, and many others feeling under the weather and doing nothing about it kind of like how most handle the flu, and then those that are actually tested but sent home, I don't think those numbers are accurate.
I don't think having enough beds or ventilators is a problem in most of the country let alone in Metro Phoenix. Not having enough in certain places is a problem but those estimates have also been lowered.
I don't think any predictions should be made by using the number of people tested. Occupation and severe symptoms being the reason for those that are tested leaving out most people.
We will never know how many people have/had it. The number hospitalized and the number of deaths are the only thing that can be counted accurately. Those numbers are very low such as 39 dead in Maricopa County out of 4.5million.
There's some funky math going on in this thread.
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