The all-new "US Politics and coronavirus" thread pt. 3

[newyorkguy]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

The site I was looking at didn't have data for Andorra or San Marino...

What site are you looking at?

[dudalb]

The Governor of Florida goes full fascist on those criticizing his "Mayor In Jaws" approach o the Covid crisis.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...cid=spartandhp

God, I hate moron De Santis. Happy I live two thousand miles from him. He is the ultimate "Florida Man".

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by dudalb

The Governor of Florida goes full fascist on those criticizing his "Mayor In Jaws" approach o the Covid crisis.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...cid=spartandhp

God, I hate moron De Santis. Happy I live two thousand miles from him. He is the ultimate "Florida Man".

The irony is stunning.

Quote:

Attorneys for the Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have called for sanctions against a lawyer who sued the state's highest government official over his relaxed response to COVID-19.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
17,143,779
Deaths:
311,068

New Cases:
199,875
New Deaths:
2,976

[Garrison]

And the Mayor of Dodge City Kansas has resigned due to the reaction to her backing the wearing of face masks:

Kansas mayor resigns over violent threats for backing mask mandate: ‘I do not feel safe anymore’

Quote:

The emails and voice mails to Dodge City, Kan., Mayor Joyce Warshaw began pouring in last month, after the city commission voted to require everyone in town to wear masks indoors.

Some anonymous messages told her that she was restricting civil liberties, Warshaw told The Washington Post. Others said she should go to jail over her vote.

But after the western Kansas city’s uphill battle against the coronavirus pandemic was highlighted in a USA Today feature on Friday, the messages grew more frequent and aggressive: Burn in hell. Get murdered. One person simply wrote, “We’re coming for you.”

[Armitage72]

Originally Posted by Garrison

And the Mayor of Dodge City Kansas has resigned due to the reaction to her backing the wearing of face masks:

Kansas mayor resigns over violent threats for backing mask mandate: ‘I do not feel safe anymore’

I was going to make a joke about it almost being to the point that people would start claiming masks are a plot to contaminate their "precious bodily gasses", but then I remembered the people claiming that masks cause carbon dioxide poisoning or cause COVID-19 infections by trapping the virus by your face.

[newyorkguy]

Originally Posted by Garrison

And the Mayor of Dodge City Kansas has resigned due to the reaction to her backing the wearing of face masks...

I have to wear a mask at work. I understand the reason why it's required. Five days a week, eight hours a day and I don't like wearing one either. But to threaten to kill someone over it?

This is from a report on Kansas dot com back in July.

Quote:

A week into Gov. Laura Kelly’s statewide mask order, 4 in 10 Kansans don’t have to wear one because their county officials have overruled the mandate, forcing the state to confront rising coronavirus case numbers in a divided fashion. At least 1 million residents are under no obligation to take a basic precaution public health experts say is one of the best ways to limit the spread of the disease. More than 90 of the state’s 105 counties have opted out of the mandate under a new state law that allows local leaders to follow or discard Kelly’s pandemic-related executive orders. An analysis of public health data by The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle shows that six of the 10 counties with the most cases have decided against mandatory mask wearing. Kansas.com link

What does it take to convince these people they're making a mistake?

[Resume]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

I have to wear a mask at work. I understand the reason why it's required. Five days a week, eight hours a day and I don't like wearing one either. But to threaten to kill someone over it?

This is from a report on Kansas dot com back in July.



What does it take to convince these people they're making a mistake?

Wait until folks start getting the vaccine and stop wearing their masks. That'll be fun.

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

I have to wear a mask at work. I understand the reason why it's required. Five days a week, eight hours a day and I don't like wearing one either. But to threaten to kill someone over it?

This is from a report on Kansas dot com back in July.



What does it take to convince these people they're making a mistake?

My cousin Teresa lived in Kansas. She's dead now, of Covid on Easter Sunday.

[Resume]

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

My cousin Teresa lived in Kansas. She's dead now, of Covid on Easter Sunday.

Condolences.

[newyorkguy]

I'm also sorry to hear that. This is exactly what the 'opponents' always overlook. Families of people who passed away from this terrible virus have to listen and see all this nonsense. It's adding insult to injury.

[Resume]

From Worldometer:

Quote:

United States
Coronavirus Cases:
17,392,618
Deaths:
314,577

New Cases:
246,996
New Deaths:
3,486

[alfaniner]

Quote:

‘We want them infected,’ Trump HHS appointee said in email pushing to expose infants, kids and teens to Covid to reach ‘herd immunity

Lots of articles out there about this breaking revelation. I tried to find one that didn't have ellipses as I wanted to see the entire paragraph, but that may be the way it was originally written.

[Meadmaker]

Congress is trying to roll out some more checks for "stimulus".

You know what I would rather see? Take all that money, and talk to Moderna or Pfizer or whoever is making vaccines, and say, "If you had another 50 billion dollars, could you make that any faster?" Buy the capital that they need to crank up production.

[Tolls]

I'm sure they'd love to take that money, but I very much doubt it would make a blind bit of difference to their production rate.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Tolls

I'm sure they'd love to take that money, but I very much doubt it would make a blind bit of difference to their production rate.

In effect many governments did this by guaranteeing to buy vaccines before they got approved. This means the companies have been producing vaccine doses for months.

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Tolls

I'm sure they'd love to take that money, but I very much doubt it would make a blind bit of difference to their production rate.

I see what you mean.

I have no clue how the vaccine production process actually works, and what the production bottleneck is, or if it could be made faster. If so, that would be a better use of the funds than direct payment "stimulus" that goes to every taxpayer.

[Armitage72]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

I see what you mean.

I have no clue how the vaccine production process actually works, and what the production bottleneck is, or if it could be made faster. If so, that would be a better use of the funds than direct payment "stimulus" that goes to every taxpayer.

I work for a company that makes disinfectants, as well as other cleaning products. We've had a significant backlog on filling customers' orders because of increased demand during the pandemic. Our suppliers have a shortage of the raw materials we use due to increased demand, as well as a shortage of the raw materials that they use, and have limited how much each of their customers can receive, and we've already hired additional employees and added additional production shifts. In theory, we could add more production equipment, but that would also require constructing an addition to our building and installing all of the new production and safety equipment, which would probably take a year or more. Anyone we could outsource additional production to is either already busy making their own products or busy toll blending for other companies.

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Armitage72

I work for a company that makes disinfectants, as well as other cleaning products. We've had a significant backlog on filling customers' orders because of increased demand during the pandemic. Our suppliers have a shortage of the raw materials we use due to increased demand, as well as a shortage of the raw materials that they use, and have limited how much each of their customers can receive, and we've already hired additional employees and added additional production shifts. In theory, we could add more production equipment, but that would also require constructing an addition to our building and installing all of the new production and safety equipment, which would probably take a year or more. Anyone we could outsource additional production to is either already busy making their own products or busy toll blending for other companies.

But I'll bet if they gave you and/or your suppliers 50 billion dollars, production could be speeded up. The only problem is that it would require some major capital expenditures and the brief uptick in demand wouldn't be enough to pay off the cost of the increased capital used to increase production.

And even things that take a year to do can be done in a lot less than a year if you really need to do them.

I'm guessing, and this is only a guess, that something similar happens with vaccines. The process could be analyzed, and somewhere it could be identified where the bottlenecks are. This is done in production systems all the time. You spot which machine in the process is your limiting factor and see if something can be done to improve it. Often, the answer is no, because it just isn't cost effective to retool a production line for an increase in throughput.

However, the vaccine is an extraordinary situation, where it might be worth it to throw billions of dollars at the problem, even with no expectation of ever receiving a measureable payback. The real payback is that we get back to normal lives, which benefits the economy, but more importantly improves quality of life. The things that are possible to do change significantly if you don't have to justify the cost.

Anyway, I have no idea if such a thing is possible. I'm reasonably confident that, at the least, people will be looking at it in a serious way starting January 21st, if not sooner. If it is possible, I would much rather have a vaccine a month earlier than having a six hundred dollar check.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

But I'll bet if they gave you and/or your suppliers 50 billion dollars, production could be speeded up. The only problem is that it would require some major capital expenditures and the brief uptick in demand wouldn't be enough to pay off the cost of the increased capital used to increase production.

And even things that take a year to do can be done in a lot less than a year if you really need to do them.

I'm guessing, and this is only a guess, that something similar happens with vaccines. The process could be analyzed, and somewhere it could be identified where the bottlenecks are. This is done in production systems all the time. You spot which machine in the process is your limiting factor and see if something can be done to improve it. Often, the answer is no, because it just isn't cost effective to retool a production line for an increase in throughput.

However, the vaccine is an extraordinary situation, where it might be worth it to throw billions of dollars at the problem, even with no expectation of ever receiving a measureable payback. The real payback is that we get back to normal lives, which benefits the economy, but more importantly improves quality of life. The things that are possible to do change significantly if you don't have to justify the cost.

Anyway, I have no idea if such a thing is possible. I'm reasonably confident that, at the least, people will be looking at it in a serious way starting January 21st, if not sooner. If it is possible, I would much rather have a vaccine a month earlier than having a six hundred dollar check.

Again various governments guaranteed orders for millions of doses months ago regardless of the success of the trials. This enabled the pharmaceutical companies to run their production lines throughout the summer and into autumn.

ETA: For example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...-a9703911.html

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Darat

Again various governments guaranteed orders for millions of doses months ago regardless of the success of the trials. This enabled the pharmaceutical companies to run their production lines throughout the summer and into autumn.

ETA: For example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...-a9703911.html

And so everything that can possibly be done to increase manufacturing capacity has already been done?

I don't know the answer to that, but it would be surprising if the answer is yes.

I'm simply saying that if the government has enough money to throw six hundred dollars at all taxpayers, I would prefer they spend it, if possible, on measures that would actually shorten the pandemic.

And fortunately, I think the Biden team will be looking at what more can be done, while the Trump team would have been saying, "Look at all the awesome stuff we did."

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

And so everything that can possibly be done to increase manufacturing capacity has already been done? ...snip,..

Of course not - we could have everyone in the world working on nothing bar vaccine production....

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

I don't know the answer to that, but it would be surprising if the answer is yes.

I'm simply saying that if the government has enough money to throw six hundred dollars at all taxpayers, I would prefer they spend it, if possible, on measures that would actually shorten the pandemic.

And fortunately, I think the Biden team will be looking at what more can be done, while the Trump team would have been saying, "Look at all the awesome stuff we did."

Trump made an offer of a billion dollars to one of the vaccine companies to secure exclusive access to their vaccine for the USA.

Often simply throwing money at a problem will not speed up the critical path.

[Lurch]

Throw the funds at the vaccine maker(s), or give relief to the populace?

I say the latter. Why?

- There's already a cost-effective means of limiting viral spread--masks and distancing--that normally would provide a buffer until vaccination.
- A vaccine a bit sooner won't mitigate evictions and hunger now.

In aggregate, the money is better spent keeping more people solvent in the immediate term than would die as we await the vaccine. At least it would make perfect sense in a nation comprising sensible, patient, disciplined citizens. In crazy land USA, I guess that's not applicable.

[Delphic Oracle]

https://youtu.be/JnX-D4kkPOQ

The Onion: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Such a classic :9

[Solitaire]

Originally Posted by Darat

Often simply throwing money at a problem will not speed up the critical path.

You know I read an article about Bill Gates months ago. Here it is...

Bill Gates is helping fund new factories for 7 potential coronavirus
vaccines, even though it will waste billions of dollars.

I wonder how that turned out. Anyone know?

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by Garrison

And the Mayor of Dodge City Kansas has resigned due to the reaction to her backing the wearing of face masks:

Kansas mayor resigns over violent threats for backing mask mandate: ‘I do not feel safe anymore’

Dodge City needs Wyatt Earp back....

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by newyorkguy

I have to wear a mask at work. I understand the reason why it's required. Five days a week, eight hours a day and I don't like wearing one either. But to threaten to kill someone over it?

This is from a report on Kansas dot com back in July.



What does it take to convince these people they're making a mistake?

Nothing will. They think science is the work of Satan and all we need is the Bible.

[PhantomWolf]

Can Trump and his cohorts be charged with Murder now?

"We want them infected"

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[Resume]

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

Can Trump and his cohorts be charged with Murder now?

"We want them infected"

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

What an inept **** show this presidency has been; this is what happens when an amoral, sociopathic, narcissistic confidence trickster becomes president. There is no way Trump and his evil COVID cabal will ever be charged with anything regarding their pathetic response to this pandemic and that of course is regrettable. What's worse is that a large percentage of the U.S. population see nothing wrong with Trump's criminal indifference because they share it. It clearly didn't have to be this bad, but Trump clearly didn't care. Deaths are peaking again, and will likely continue through the holidays and after, leaving the Biden administration with a disaster. In no way, shape or form should Trump get any credit for the vaccines as he had nothing to do with them, yet everything to do with how the virus crippled this nation.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by dudalb

Dodge City needs Wyatt Earp back....

To be fair I think the city was a sight more civilized then, probably had far stricter gun controls than its modern day counterpart for that matter...

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

But I'll bet if they gave you and/or your suppliers 50 billion dollars, production could be speeded up. The only problem is that it would require some major capital expenditures and the brief uptick in demand wouldn't be enough to pay off the cost of the increased capital used to increase production.

That might help a single company increase its production, but that would be at the cost of that company just outbidding every other company for the limited supply of materials available. Like it or not, money doesn't just magically make new stuff appear. Every step of the process would need to be beefed up, but every step of the process competes with every other step of the process for the resources needed to beef up their systems, as well as competing with everyone else who wants those resources.

It's a classic "For want of a nail" problem. Every step has something that's likely both necessary and scarce. Any one such step can stop or slow down your whole process, regardless of how much money you throw at it.

You need construction guys to build the facility.
You need factory guys to build the machinery for the facility.
You need materials guys to produce the raw materials for your facility.
You need technical guys to run the machines in the facility.
You need quality guys to monitor the facility.

And everyone else in the industry also wants to employ all those guys. Training new guys will take months or years. And any one of those steps can be a problem. And I'm sure I've missed a few steps.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by Resume

Deaths are peaking again,

"Peaking" implies you're at or near the top. That's the best case scenario now. "Increasing" would be better, because at the moment, there's nothing to suggest that the numbers won't keep going up for quite some time.

Indeed, with reports of ICUs being at near-capacity, it's reasonable to conclude that deaths will keep increasing, instead of "peaking".

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by Garrison

To be fair I think the city was a sight more civilized then, probably had far stricter gun controls than its modern day counterpart for that matter...

You to park your Colt.45 at the sheriff';s office before entering town.in the cowtown days.
Logic was that drunk cowboys letting off steam after a three month cattle drive were going to get smashed and fight, but if you took away their guns the damage would be leimited to black eyes and bruises.
The classic Western "WInchester .73" shows this quite well.IMHO one the best Western ever made and one of the first films where Jimmy Stewart let his dark side out.

[Armitage72]

Originally Posted by Horatius

That might help a single company increase its production, but that would be at the cost of that company just outbidding every other company for the limited supply of materials available. Like it or not, money doesn't just magically make new stuff appear. Every step of the process would need to be beefed up, but every step of the process competes with every other step of the process for the resources needed to beef up their systems, as well as competing with everyone else who wants those resources.

A couple years ago, we couldn't make one of our disinfectants because the supplier ran out of the quaternary ammonium chloride active ingredient. They ran out because they manufactured it using a specific amine that was only manufactured in one factory in Southeast Asia. That factory had been shut down due to supply issues with the plant-based ingredients they used to make the amine.

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Lurch

Throw the funds at the vaccine maker(s), or give relief to the populace?

I say the latter. Why?

- There's already a cost-effective means of limiting viral spread--masks and distancing--that normally would provide a buffer until vaccination.
- A vaccine a bit sooner won't mitigate evictions and hunger now.

In aggregate, the money is better spent keeping more people solvent in the immediate term than would die as we await the vaccine. At least it would make perfect sense in a nation comprising sensible, patient, disciplined citizens. In crazy land USA, I guess that's not applicable.

Hopefully, the incoming administration will take the science based approach to things. I'm pretty confident they will. Of course we shouldn't "throw money at the drug companies." What we should do, though, is ask them how fast they can deliver vaccines. When they say "a million doses per day", and we do the math and see that we need 600 million does, which means it will take a year and a half to vaccinate everyone, we should say, "That's too slow. What would it take to make 3 million doses per day?"

If they respond, "Give us 50 billion dollars and we'll see what we can do" we say no, but if they say, "It requires a lot of this one specific chemical that is only made in one factory." we should say, "How much would it cost to build another factory. It only has to last two years at the most."

Industrial engineers do it all the time. Examine the process and find the bottlenecks. Under normal circumstances, you then ask what it would take to eliminate that bottleneck, and how long will it take to gain a return on investment? We can skip that part in this case.


And I absolutely am in favor of helping out insolvent people, but I, for one, am not insolvent. I haven't missed a single day's pay as a result of the pandemic. I don't need government help. Government shouldn't be giving me help.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Lurch

Throw the funds at the vaccine maker(s), or give relief to the populace?

I say the latter. Why?

- There's already a cost-effective means of limiting viral spread--masks and distancing--that normally would provide a buffer until vaccination.
- A vaccine a bit sooner won't mitigate evictions and hunger now.

In aggregate, the money is better spent keeping more people solvent in the immediate term than would die as we await the vaccine. At least it would make perfect sense in a nation comprising sensible, patient, disciplined citizens. In crazy land USA, I guess that's not applicable.

So many things you are not considering that WILL happen in that time frame.

We already know about using masks and distancing. And look at the soaring case numbers, deaths and hospitals bursting at the seams.

No the money isn't better spent elsewhere.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Solitaire

You know I read an article about Bill Gates months ago. Here it is...

Bill Gates is helping fund new factories for 7 potential coronavirus
vaccines, even though it will waste billions of dollars.

I wonder how that turned out. Anyone know?

Not hard to find out.

Quote:

“The fact that Novavax and J&J are above Pfizer makes us very hopeful that in the first quarter [of 2021] those vaccines will get approved and those we can make in many hundreds of millions per month in these developing world factories.”

Gates does not need to help the US though that article is about the impracticality of the deep-freeze vaccine.

[Captain_Swoop]

Originally Posted by dudalb

You to park your Colt.45 at the sheriff';s office before entering town.in the cowtown days.
Logic was that drunk cowboys letting off steam after a three month cattle drive were going to get smashed and fight, but if you took away their guns the damage would be leimited to black eyes and bruises.
The classic Western "WInchester .73" shows this quite well.IMHO one the best Western ever made and one of the first films where Jimmy Stewart let his dark side out.

Having to hand your gun in was also a reason for pocket pistols being popular.

[newyorkguy]

Meanwhile-

Quote:

In a press release issued Thursday, Pfizer said that the company has millions of doses of its Covid-19 vaccines sitting in warehouses that have not been delivered because the company has not received shipping instructions from the Federal government. Forbes report up dated three hours ago

[dudalb]

New Evidence that De Santis has faked covid numbers.
THe man sure be indicted for fraud and murder.