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17th April 2020, 05:56 AM | #241 |
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17th April 2020, 06:04 AM | #242 |
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Here's the problem. People are acting like these are temporary measures and then one day we can stop and go back to normal. That's not true. The virus is established in the population. We have to live with it for the foreseeable future. A vaccine could change that, but that's not guaranteed to ever happen, and it certainly won't happen next month. Meanwhile, our current lifestyle is unsustainable. The food distribution network is straining. We can't live like this. And would we even want to? Right now, it is illegal for me to visit my son or my mother. How long does that go on for? Until the virus is defeated? Well, in that case, that means forever, because there is no reason to believe the virus will ever be defeated. One of the lawsuits filed in Michigan is from a man who has a girlfriend of 14 years, but they don't live in the same house. It's illegal for them to visit right now. Is that the kind of life you want? Sooner or later, what will happen? The answer is that we will relax the restrictions, and the virus will continue to infect people, and some of those people will die. That's the reality. We can slow it down, but we can't stop it. So the question before us is how much are we willing to sacrifice in order to slow it down, and how long are we willing to make that sacrifice? I think that's a reasonable question. Now at this point I could reiterate my previous positions on specific restrictions and whether or not they go too far, but that would be just me repeating myself. There's a bigger point. You cannot prevent all deaths, and this situation is not temporary. We cannot live the way we are forever. There's a tendency to say that no sacrifice is too much in order to save lives, but to be realistic, we need to acknowledge that we aren't so much saving lives as providing a brief extension. Unless people acknowledge that, it's impossible to even address the problem in a meaningful way. |
17th April 2020, 06:39 AM | #243 |
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Sure.
If people wore masks, we avoided large in person meetings, there were testing protocols that would identify possible flareups, and the guarantee of material support if one has to self-quarantine and can't work both as to income and medical bills.... sure. Places where the medical system isn't completely knackered could start to loosen up. But that isn't what we are talking about here. There should be a WWII level crash to produce masks, tests, etc. A hiring initiative into the medical field and to help track down contact trees to warn people of potential contact and so on. The government can borrow money at negative interest at this point. There is no excuse for this thing except incompetence at best. Trump putting pressure on to want to open the economy wouldn't be so awful if the federal government under his leadership was putting in the work. Opening the economy should be a common goal, but right now is more the central belief of a death cult. |
17th April 2020, 06:43 AM | #244 |
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17th April 2020, 06:55 AM | #245 |
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Actually, this is the problem. The virus is NOT established in the population. Yet.
That's the whole point about "flattening the curve." It's about slowing the introduction of the virus into the population so that our medical resources can handle it. It's when the virus IS established in the population that we can go back to some normalcy. When the population has built up some immunity to fight or lesson the impact of the virus. A vaccine would go a long way toward getting there. The quickest way to get through this is to just expose everyone 2 months ago. Of course, that would mean that the medical care would be overwhelmed and lots of them would die for lack of it, but once we got through killing off the weak ones, the survivors would be pretty robust. The alternative is to slow the spread of the virus through the population. Everyone would still have the risk of getting sick, but there would be resources available to treat them, and so fewer would die. We take risks with dangerous diseases all the time. But we count on herd immunity to minimize the cost and spread. At the moment, we don't have that with COVID. We need to get to that point. |
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17th April 2020, 07:13 AM | #246 |
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Amen!
I can't grasp why this isn't happening. We'll throw a trillion dollars of random money out into the world in the form of $1200 "stimulus payment", but we won't spend the money to pull out every stop to figure out how to get more tests produced, which could actually solve, or at least severely mitigate, the problem. As you say, "incompetence at best". |
17th April 2020, 07:18 AM | #247 |
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Maybe I'm using a less technical definition of "established". What I mean is that at this point, the thing isn't going away. There will never again be a time when we are not at risk of catching COVID-19. That could change with a vaccine, but we don't have one and we may never have one. |
17th April 2020, 09:15 AM | #248 |
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https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coron...e-be9337092b56
Quote:
Slowing the infection is saving lives because it prevents the healthcare services being overwhelmed and therefore means that doctors don't have to perform triage on patients who could all live if there were more facilities, more equipment, and more doctors. It also allows for more time for people to make and distribute things like PPE and ventilators, increasing the capacity of the healthcare services to deal with it. And, one thing that's not talked about as much, it relieves the pressure on healthcare workers, meaning that they're less likely to make mistakes, and will have better mental health and therefore be less likely to break down or kill themselves - as we have already seen happen. If you keep infected people coming at a rate that can be coped with then, yes, people will still die. If you have more coming than can be coped with, then people who otherwise wouldn't will die. That's what "flattening the curve" means. That's why it's being done. And, no, that is' not "providing a brief extension", it really is "saving lives". |
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17th April 2020, 09:26 AM | #249 |
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17th April 2020, 09:57 AM | #250 |
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17th April 2020, 10:02 AM | #251 |
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What is not in the least astounding is that people will erect and argue against straw men.
Of course I understand what "flattening the curve" means. I could give you a whole bunch of ways to further flatten the curve, beyond what Governor Whitmer has implemented. I can also take a look at the actual things she has done and say that I think the degree of flattening that will be achieved by that measure is not worth the cost, whether that cost is a dollars and cents measure, or whether it is measured in loneliness and stress. Reasonable people could look at any given restriction, and weigh the costs and benefits. You can't say, "Whatever saves lives (i.e. flattens the curve) has to be done." We could do more things, but people would judge that they aren't worth it. So there's two actual arguments I'm making. One is about which restrictions ought to be imposed, and the other is about who should have the power to impose them. |
17th April 2020, 10:17 AM | #252 |
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17th April 2020, 10:37 AM | #253 |
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17th April 2020, 10:43 AM | #254 |
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17th April 2020, 11:04 AM | #255 |
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I'm piggybacking on your points here.
Additionally, it's not just looking at the one side and saying that sustained social distancing saves lives. That's true... but it's kind of like buying starbucks every morning and saying that it saves you money because a $5 drink is less than a $300 espresso machine. There are risks to sustained social distancing as well. At the very least, there's loss of income that puts people at risk of becoming homeless or facing food insecurity. But it compounds beyond that - loss of income also means that some people with existing conditions are no longer able to afford the medical services or drugs needed to treat their illness and maintain their health. It means that other injuries or illnesses that wouldn't be life threatening if people had access to regular care and the funds with which to pay for it could become life threatening. It means that poverty-related illnesses and conditions are likely to increase, including obesity, drug and alcohol abuse, and depression. That's only the financial impact. There's also a mental health impact of isolation. Rates of prescriptions for anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs are already up. And for every person who seeks help, there are other people who don't. For people who live alone, especially older people, the isolation can be devastating. Humans are social creatures. Heck, I'm a natural introvert who loves solitude... and this week has been hard on me! Turns out that three weeks of social isolation, even with conference calls and phone conversations, actually does take a toll. Beyond the immediate personal impact, there's a systemic risk as well. Over the past few decades, we've shifted to a just in time supply chain for many goods. An interruption in that supply chain could potentially have cascade effects. I expect that chain to be a high priority for our government. but if a node of that system fails, there's a very real risk of very real loss of life. I'm all for flattening the curve as much as is reasonably possible. I don't think it's reasonable to sustain this level of lock-down for very long. There needs to be some rational balance between between the two. |
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17th April 2020, 11:31 AM | #256 |
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17th April 2020, 11:33 AM | #257 |
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Exactimundo. I am reminded of Adelaide in Guys and Dolls. Wasn't she engaged for 14 years?
What a lame example. Can you imagine arguing this stuff during WW II in London? That's what this is, or should be. A military operation. Snuff it and solve it. Use all resources. Because just as a poster above tried to argue that no vaccine is guaranteed to be forthcoming, there's also no guarantee pandemics won't be forthcoming two years, five years, and 10 years from now. So let's get the drill down pat and understand how it works or doesn't. |
17th April 2020, 11:57 AM | #258 |
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Hello and welcome.
Exactly what I thought of, because Adelaide was indeed engaged for 14 years. The plaintiff in this suit isn't even engaged to the woman. However, the question in the lawsuit isn't really what he ought to do, but rather what the government, and specifically the governor, may compel him to do. The limits of power on the executive and legislative branches of government are common topics for the judicial branch. If you allow the governor the kind of power that she is exercising in this case, you are trusting that she will use it wisely. More importantly, you are trusting that all future governors will also use that power wisely in all future instances. I would prefer that there be some sort of check on that power, which Mr. Locke said the legislature could provide. |
17th April 2020, 01:33 PM | #259 |
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Then there's the trillion and a half thrown into the stock market a couple months back, trying to stop the crash. Predictably it was eaten within hours. That's over two and a half trillion dollars "thrown out into the world" by your definition. Rather than easing the lockdown so you can risk killing your mother by bringing her covid at the same time millions of other children are bringing their parents covid, or 'finding some rational balance' between taking all measures to flatten the curve and only taking half-ass measures (rather like Sweden's doing), tax money being thrown at mega-corporations and billionaires who've avoided paying any taxes for years could instead be used for supporting that supply chain from the bottom. Ensuring dairy farmers can pay for feed for the cows they have to keep milking. Buying produce that farmers can't find a sale. Improving factory conditions so workers can keep working in food preparation all through the chain without being cheek by jowl with hundreds of others in unsanitary conditions. This is our chance for a major overhaul and improvement of the ignored-but-imperative aspects of our society, and that can't happen if we're only thinking in simplistic terms of 'opening up the economy' and 'getting back to work'.
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17th April 2020, 03:00 PM | #260 |
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17th April 2020, 03:02 PM | #261 |
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17th April 2020, 03:59 PM | #262 |
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17th April 2020, 04:28 PM | #263 |
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17th April 2020, 04:51 PM | #264 |
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Why didn't those Rambo guys remove the Governor? Trump tells them to "liberate" the state and then they don't even do it. Lazy pansy asses. That's what Trump is going to call those Rambo tactical gear posers.
If this is how Trump makes a call-to-arms for government take-over then he is more incompetent than anyone has imagined. |
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17th April 2020, 04:58 PM | #265 |
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17th April 2020, 05:19 PM | #266 |
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Was that OANN's Chloe Salsameda who lobbed that question to Trump about US Intelligence saying the coronavirus likely came from a lab in Wuhan and that the Obama admin gave them a $3.7 million grant?
I looked it up after the question was asked as it was blatantly misleading and obviously supposed to be Obama negative. My first instinct was "who is this reporter?" She sure looks like Salsameda to me but I'm not sure. The reporter claimed US Intelligence is saying the coronavirus likely came from a level 4 Wuhan lab. This is not true. What Intelligence has said is this: The U.S. intelligence community has not ruled out the possibility that the novel coronavirus was inadvertently introduced to a human carrier or released into the broader environment by a research laboratory, rather than a wet market, in Wuhan, China. Neither scenario has been deemed more or less plausible, though the notion that the virus itself was human-engineered has been effectively dismissed, officials said. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronav...-lab-accident/ The grant was actually given by the US NIH in 2015 to the Chinese lab:
Quote:
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17th April 2020, 05:22 PM | #267 |
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17th April 2020, 05:22 PM | #268 |
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A lot of people are using Trump's 'time to go back to work' as incentive to protest and ignore safety guidelines. Trump doesn't have to act, his cult followers pick up on his words and go with it.
It's what happens when the POTUS gives mixed messages and buggers up the whole country. |
17th April 2020, 05:42 PM | #269 |
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17th April 2020, 05:44 PM | #270 |
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Not all political, but awesome nonetheless:
Bad COVID-19 takes. |
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17th April 2020, 05:45 PM | #271 |
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17th April 2020, 06:09 PM | #272 |
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Yesterday Trump tweeted
Quote:
I think I see his strategy, though. He plays the end-the-lockdown crew by pretending to support them, secure in the knowledge that the state governors will hold the line. But that way Trump can direct the growing right wing anger and outrage at the Democrats. I'm sure he figures, that has to work for him. How about the rest of us, Mr. Prez, how does that work for us? If ever there was a time Trump was going to start behaving like a responsible adult instead of a total jerk, now would be an excellent time to start. Only we know he won't. |
17th April 2020, 06:14 PM | #273 |
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In my darkest thoughts I am starting to wonder if it wouldn't be a net positive for the US (and the rest of the world) if you guys just got on with killing one another at long last, provided of course, you finish the job this time.
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Before you say something stupid about climate change, check this list. "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. " Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1 |
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17th April 2020, 06:14 PM | #274 |
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17th April 2020, 07:14 PM | #275 |
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Press conference (I skipped the POTUS part) plus an interview with Pence with Judy Woodruff on PBS:
The states have all the tests they need they just aren't accessing them. And then more of the same crap: millions of tests are going to be out by the end of the week. They have been repeating this lie for 4-5 weeks. |
17th April 2020, 07:18 PM | #276 |
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17th April 2020, 07:21 PM | #277 |
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17th April 2020, 07:24 PM | #278 |
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Oh no, Trump is coming back to the press conference for the question and answer period.
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17th April 2020, 07:39 PM | #279 |
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Trump claims Inslee is a governor "under a cloud already".
Trump denies his Tweets were fomenting rebellion. Now there's a question-opportunity to complain about Obama because money went to the lab working with SARS. He has no idea the whole world was involved so that SARS could be studied in a few labs and not in one lab per country. He claims Pelosi is on vacation. He pushing for the payroll tax cut. That's the one that 82% or something goes to rich people. He has a hunch China is still under-reporting cases. As if cases haven't been seriously under-counted here. He makes the false claim China could have stopped the virus in Wuhan. Annnnndd he pushes the CT the virus came from the lab... some kind of bat wasn't in the area. Wonder which idiot on Fox gave him that info. Now there's the absurd exaggeration of crowd sizes at his rallies. Nobody could have imagined... Pretends there won't be a recession. [break to refill my wine] |
17th April 2020, 08:11 PM | #280 |
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The problem with China is that they have the same credibility rating as Trump: Zero.
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