COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (24 Viewers)

[DaveXA]

Sounds like you are advocating that we should have sealed people in their homes. You used to be credible, but you have really gone off the deep-end.

China didn't do anything right. They took away people's freedoms there with a crushing fist, made critics of the government disappear, and let people die in their homes, and kept valuable information from the rest of the world that could have helped other countries prepare properly.

He didn't say he advocates sealing people in their homes. He's saying that lockdowns can be effective and do work. We shouldn't necessarily be China, but we should find a way to protect the health of our citizens from this virus to the extent possible.

As far as his credibility. He has participated in this thread from the beginning and in good faith. We might be wrong sometimes, but at least we're willing to adjust as the facts on the ground changes, unlike some people I know.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

The argument is that the social mitigation aims to flatten the curve - and we've done that, so the restrictions should be lifted. It's true that in some places the curve appears substantially flattened . . . but not in others.

I don't think anyone is persuasively arguing that the health impact of the stay-at-home orders is worse than not having it. The harm argument lies on the economic side . . . and it's not simply the "economy" in the macro, it's the destruction of cash flow for many individual households.*

*In light of a do nothing Congress
That’s the part that keeps being omitted

 

[DaveXA]

*In light of a do nothing Congress
That’s the part that keeps being omitted

There's a reason for that.

 

[James Spader]

I'm not sure a state paid single payer system is possible for most states. I can't imagine that Louisiana could do it before all this and with the double hit of COVID shutdowns and oil prices tanking, it's not going to get any better any time soon for Louisiana.

Anyway, I'd be in favor of stopping spending all that money on wars, bribing foreign countries, spying on our own citizens, and bailing out large corporations that are irresponsible with their money. And then using that money to pay for a single payer system funded by the Feds.

I've never really been a fan of big government spending or big government, but since they are going to waste all the tax money anyway, they might as well be using it to help people instead of fuel the military industrial complex.

Don’t disagree at all. Remember this, you will never defeat the MIC, never. Some say Kennedy was killed for it and Eisenhower warned us while Smedley Butler blew the whistle early on.

 

[DaveXA]

Fine. Then look at South Korea.

Heck, look at any country who has taken the COVID-19 threat seriously. It's certainly not just Asian countries. And Europe was a mess, South America is a mess now. And China and Korea are starting to see new cases popping back up and are having to go through this again.

 

[BobE]

 

[sammymvpknight]

This would be funny if it wasn't so incredibly messed up.

 

[St. Widge]

This would be funny if it wasn't so incredibly messed up.

At least he's wearing a mask.

 

[sammymvpknight]

That's definitely good news. Hopefully the trend continues that way and people can feel safe again. I do still think we need to keep our guard up through the fall in the event a second wave is worse than the first.

Even if it is, the lessons we've learned from this first round could help, I think. I dont think we're out of the woods yet, but how we respond to the second wave will be revealing i think.

I hope that local and state governments are already making plans about how to safely and smartly re-close. The good thing is that we have had this test run, so there's at least some precedent moving forward about what to expect. We can learn from what worked and didn't work so well.

 

[DaveXA]

This would be funny if it wasn't so incredibly messed up.

Ikr, wasn't sure whether to or .

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Again, the best way to contain this virus and keep our economy going is to do testing and contact tracing. Take everyone who is currently Covid-19 positive. Find everyone who has been in contact with that person over the past 2 weeks and test them. Out of the people who tested positive, find everyone they've been in contact with and test them... and so on until you get no more positive cases. Those testing positive should be self-quarantined with paid sick leave (if necessary funded by the government).

If you do that, you can contain the spread without locking down indiscriminately. If an area has lots of positive cases, maybe do a lockdown of just that area (in addition to the positive case self-quarantines).

This is not a technologically difficult problem to solve -- it's a logistics issue that we are choosing not to succeed at.

 

[Goatman Saint]

Again, the best way to contain this virus and keep our economy going is to do testing and contact tracing. Take everyone who is currently Covid-19 positive. Find everyone who has been in contact with that person over the past 2 weeks and test them. Out of the people who tested positive, find everyone they've been in contact with and test them... and so on until you get no more positive cases. Those testing positive should be self-quarantined with paid sick leave (if necessary funded by the government).

If you do that, you can contain the spread without locking down indiscriminately. If an area has lots of positive cases, maybe do a lockdown of just that area (in addition to the positive case self-quarantines).

This is not a technologically difficult problem to solve -- it's a logistics issue that we are choosing not to succeed at.

I believe in the end this will be the only way out. At least in any practical timeframe. It will keep the rates lower, and allow hospitals to keep a manageable population as this continues now that PPE and such are built up and ready to go. The lockdown bought time, which is really what was needed. It also has bought time with some treatments such as blood plasma, and some of the drugs used to raise the body’s infection fighting abilities. It’s also, hopefully, given people a bit of time to reassess their health and attempt to get healthier. I know of many people that due to lockdown boredom and seeing the risk factors are losing weight and increasing exercise, which is never a bad thing either. At least if it comes back this winter, which I honestly believe it will, hopefully we will be ready for it.

 

[B4YOU]

Not sure why you continue to beat a dead horse. This whole thing started when you wanted to use population density to say “look, the US isn’t even densely populated and look at all the deaths.”
But most of the deaths in the US occurred in densely populated areas. So of course that fact will skew the numbers.
What part of that don't you understand?
Then you followed that up with the fact the US has the most cases, therefore the US is doing the “worst “ job, completely overlooking the fact the US’ death rate is lower than most of Western Europe. If the US has more reported cases but less deaths, doesn’t that mean the US has flattened the curve and not overwhelming the Heath care system?
I was simply using deaths per million per country as a way to somewhat compare apples to apples when comparing countries.

Total deaths/million per country as of today puts the US 9th worst in the world when excluding 3 very small nations and islands (San Marino, Andorra, St Maarten). If that’s what you want to use, then the US is doing a pretty poor job. One could even say it’s one the worst jobs based on the data you want to use and the number of nations in the world.

This doesn’t factor when a nation hit 100 cases, population density, population age, public transportation usage, etc. Without factoring a bunch of differences, you aren’t comparing apples to apples.

I think an arguement can be made that the states of NY/Mass south to VA would be a reasonable comparison to the EU or individual EU countries. It has a higher population density and access/reliance on public transportation that spans regional areas. You want to ignore US states or regional areas compared to EU or EU countries for some reason.

At no point did I say the US had “the worst” response.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I believe in the end this will be the only way out. At least in any practical timeframe. It will keep the rates lower, and allow hospitals to keep a manageable population as this continues now that PPE and such are built up and ready to go. The lockdown bought time, which is really what was needed. It also has bought time with some treatments such as blood plasma, and some of the drugs used to raise the body’s infection fighting abilities. It’s also, hopefully, given people a bit of time to reassess their health and attempt to get healthier. I know of many people that due to lockdown boredom and seeing the risk factors are losing weight and increasing exercise, which is never a bad thing either. At least if it comes back this winter, which I honestly believe it will, hopefully we will be ready for it.

This was I think supposed to be the point of the lockdown. To build up hospital infrastructure and ramp up testing capability and a plan for contact tracing. And hopefully to gather more data to figure out the way this virus spreads and which activities are the highest risk activities so we can do a cost benefit analysis of what type of economic activity should be shut down if infection rates start to rise.

 

[DaveXA]

This was I think supposed to be the point of the lockdown. To build up hospital infrastructure and ramp up testing capability and a plan for contact tracing. And hopefully to gather more data to figure out the way this virus spreads and which activities are the highest risk activities so we can do a cost benefit analysis of what type of economic activity should be shut down if infection rates start to rise.

While I agree that contact tracing is part of the solution to getting cases to zero, I'm not sure that we're in a position to deploy the necessary resources to actually accomplish this. As you stated succinctly earlier, this is more of a logistical dilemma for the US. 350 million people and hundreds of thousands infected. The contact tracing would likely involve millions of people. That's a tall order and would have to happen in a really short period of time for be truly effective.

Even if it was conclusively proven that this would knock the virus out, I'm not sure there will be a political will to expend the necessary resources to accomplish this in the time it would take for it to be effective.

I hope I'm wrong but I'm a bit skeptical that this will be viewed by politicians as worth doing.