Skepticism and the Pandemic

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Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by ChicagoMotorman on Tue Mar 31 11:16:47 2020 Interesting read.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by AlM* on Tue Mar 31 11:28:02 2020, in response to Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by ChicagoMotorman on Tue Mar 31 11:16:47 2020.* This guy is adapting the facts to his point of view. What we cannot do is to continue to make drastic decisions that affect the lives of millions of people on the basis of worst-case scenarios that do not factor in either our lack of knowledge about where in the curve we are or the mitigation being done by changes of habits or the different kinds of living arrangements in different locales or the strides taken by states, the medical establishment, and businesses to mitigate the crisis if the numbers of significantly ill do shoot up. If we just had decent testing, we wouldn't be making decisions based on such an incredible lack of knowledge. Seventy percent of the deaths thus far have come from six coastal states with large city populations and lots of travel: New York (whose deaths are about a third of the U.S.’s as a whole), Washington, California, New Jersey, Georgia, and Louisiana. Um, CA has a low death rate relative to its population. GA and LA are not states with large city populations and lots of travel. WA doesn't really fit his description either. King County, the not-really-that-dense urban core of WA, doesn't have such a high case rate. Note: to the extent that he says "it's complicated," I agree with him fully. Pity we don't have a president who can cope with that.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Tue Mar 31 11:28:19 2020, in response to Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by ChicagoMotorman on Tue Mar 31 11:16:47 2020.* If they shut it down for 5 weeks, and put controls on the borders, we would've actually been over this by now. Instead we get N.Y.C.’s 911 System Is Overwhelmed. ‘I’m Terrified,’ a Paramedic Says. With coronavirus cases mounting, emergency workers are making life-or-death decisions about who goes to a hospital, and who is left behind. “I’m terrified,” said Mr. Suarez, who has been a paramedic in New York City for 26 years and had assisted in rescue efforts during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and later served in the Iraq war. “I honestly don’t know if I’m going to survive. I’m terrified of what I’ve already possibly brought home.” . . . In a matter of days, the city’s 911 system has been overwhelmed by calls for medical distress apparently related to the virus. Typically, the system sees about 4,000 Emergency Medical Services calls a day. On Thursday, dispatchers took more than 7,000 calls — a volume not seen since the Sept. 11 attacks. The record for amount of calls in a day was broken three times in the last week. In the United States, everything is political.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Spider-Pig* on Tue Mar 31 11:31:46 2020, in response to Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by ChicagoMotorman on Tue Mar 31 11:16:47 2020.* A quote from the piece: "The incidents there should give pause to those who want everyone to be densely packed and only have mass transportation and reusable bags for their shopping." In the end this is conservative backlash against cities. It also ignores the fact that the reason that the deaths are dwarfed by automobile accidents and the seasonal flu is that the full impact hasn't been felt yet. This is clearly deadlier than those.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by AlM* on Tue Mar 31 11:32:04 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Tue Mar 31 11:28:19 2020.* put controls on the borders They put controls on the borders. But they didn't keep Americans carrying the disease from re-entering their own country.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by AlM* on Tue Mar 31 12:18:45 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Mar 31 11:31:46 2020.* The incidents there should give pause to those who want everyone to be densely packed and only have mass transportation and reusable bags for their shopping. And then he'll say the Democrats are politicizing the crisis.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Tue Mar 31 12:22:44 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by AlM on Tue Mar 31 11:32:04 2020.* "They put controls on the borders" Not what I see of these bumbling stories of carriers testing positive and being let loose everyweek. "But they didn't keep Americans carrying the disease from re-entering their own country." Then there is no controls.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Tue Mar 31 12:24:31 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Mar 31 11:31:46 2020.* Minnesota has banned reusable bags for the epidemic. I mentioned to a covid-19 truther elsewhere that while your city banned plastic bags, they're using them for shoe coverings in China. Now I see cutesy pics of people in trash bags in NYC.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by AlM* on Tue Mar 31 12:29:20 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Tue Mar 31 12:22:44 2020.* Then there is no controls. There's just this darn thing called a Constitution that prevented them from doing it.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Spider-Pig* on Tue Mar 31 12:29:53 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Tue Mar 31 12:24:31 2020.* Minnesota has banned reusable bags for the epidemic. Reusable bags have always been disgusting and nothing more than virtue signalling. New York suspended enforcement of the bag law and I got free plastic bags in the store yesterday.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Spider-Pig* on Tue Mar 31 12:33:20 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by AlM on Tue Mar 31 12:29:20 2020.* They could have forced returning citizens into quarantine.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by AlM* on Tue Mar 31 12:50:28 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Mar 31 12:33:20 2020.* True. But then they would have had to admit there was a problem. As DJT said about a cruise ship, they would end up including those people in our numbers.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Kevin from Midwood* on Tue Mar 31 12:55:40 2020, in response to Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by ChicagoMotorman on Tue Mar 31 11:16:47 2020.* Even Neil Ferguson, the lead author of the Imperial College study has recently revised his own calculations about the UK from 500,000 deaths down to 20,000 or fewer.[4] I wonder what he says about the US now? Yet calculations like these that are driving the shut-downs of “non-essential” businesses in many states. The post's author got this wrong, too — see here or here. Also, if you're writing a piece about trying to see beyond your own usual perspective/biases (and why you think you shouldn't), maybe link to a source that's more middle-of-the-road than the Washington Examiner. Yet the calculations justifying keeping so many businesses shuttered are that almost two-and-a-half million more Minnesotans will contract the virus, resulting in sixty thousand in-patients at Minnesota hospitals simply for this virus. He includes other citations, so why are there none for this claim? Most hospitalization rates I've seen are closer to 10% than 2.5%.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Tue Mar 31 13:10:08 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Mar 31 12:29:53 2020.* "Reusable bags have always been disgusting and nothing more than virtue signalling." They only work if you bag your own stuff, at a self-checkout so you can control what goes on. I started to bring one in with me so I can cut down on how much to carry. Mainly a lot of light items seem to work. Or 800 pounds of milk and sauce so it won't rip a plastic bag. I like plastic bags, but not so many. I don't put meat or sweaty things in them. I made the mistake of going to a real cashier. They try to shove everything on earth into one giant heavy bag! "New York suspended enforcement of the bag law and I got free plastic bags in the store yesterday." FRREEEEEDDDOOOMMMMM!
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Orange Blossom Special* on Tue Mar 31 13:17:43 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by AlM on Tue Mar 31 12:29:20 2020.* "There's just this darn thing called a Constitutio" "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." I've been waiting so patiently to quote this!
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by LuchAAA* on Tue Mar 31 13:45:15 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by AlM on Tue Mar 31 11:28:02 2020.* "Um" lo@lm! Um still makes me laugh.
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Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic
Posted by Dyre Dan* on Wed Apr 1 13:49:40 2020, in response to Re: Skepticism and the Pandemic, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Tue Mar 31 13:17:43 2020.* The Constitution is "the Supreme Law of the Land". All government officials take an oath to support and abide by it, and may not violate it under any circumstances. The Federal government was created by the Constitution, and exists only by virtue of it. If that make it a "suicide pact", so be it. That said, some returning citizens have been quarantined. And it's probably not the Constitution, but international treaties, that prevent them from being turned away.
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