How is lockdown working where you are?

[Tarkan]

I’m confused - if Texas and Florida are leading the way in terms of idiocy, why oh why does New York have 10x as many deaths as Texas. And last time I looked, New York has 10 million fewer people than Texas, so it’s not population. And Texas never really shut down either (I know, I live here). Maybe it’s because we didn’t force nursing homes to take in Covid patients? Maybe it’s because we don’t have a 3rd world hospital system like NYC does? I don’t know.

But, let’s talk numbers. CDC estimates 20 million Americans have had it. 125k deaths. That’s a CFR of 0.006. Right in line with a bad flu season. Yeah yeah it’s not over yet, but we have enough statistical data that tells us the death rate just isn’t that bad, certainly not worth destroying the economy over.

Do I think the shutdowns are some big anti-Trump conspiracy? Nah.

Do I think the Trump admin fucked up the initial response? Sure. CDC and FDA took months to get their shit together and anyone with half a brain could see in January this shit was going to go pandemic (I exited the stock market Jan 26). For a whole more month, Chinese here in the states were buying up N95 and N99 masks and sending them to China, US hospitals were turning over their expired stock (throwing them away) and unable to resupply due to Federal regulations. Which is why now we have medical professionals still rolling around with homemade masks and surgical masks.

And then you have Democrats making the specious claim that the protests aren’t going to increase cases of COVID. Yeah the recent uptick is because Texas reopened, not because hundreds of thousands of people decided to get in close proximity to protest.

[MJK]

Glad to see you back Mr. Tarkan. Looking forward to your insights on the shit that is going down all around. The theme music here at the Flag now is Les Dudek's 'Ghost Town Parade'.

We will probably see a ' Cervezavirus second wave' that will fill the news yet like the first, leave the staff of most hospitals lots of time for more TikTok videos.

Curious as to why you doubt the "OK, so Joe finger-bang raped a staffer and we believe her, but we're still gonna vote for him" crowd wouldn't add shutdowns to their bag of tricks.

[Tarkan]

MJK I don’t doubt some of the shutdown enthusiasm is, to quote Rahm Emanuel, about not letting a good crisis go to waste. But I don’t think Italy et al shut down as part of a grand conspiracy to hurt Trump. Democrats running states seem to be a little more enthusiastic at curtailing freedoms for the “common good” - you know, Gretchen Whitmer banning the sale or purchase of gardening seeds was just her trying to protect us from ourselves. New York cops forcing a married couple to maintain social distance of at least 6 feet on a park bench or get arrested the same. California police arresting a man kayaking on the empty coast - well, we never know where corona is lurking so we? Then of course they had to empty the prisons because it’s just inhuman to let people convicted of aggravated assault or attempted murder get sick from Covid - but it’s karma and just deserts if we imprison people who violate Covid distancing or mask rules and they get Covid and die. Shows the rest of the sheep I mean citizens how dangerous this thing is. Reminds me of the war on drugs. Drugs will ruin your life and to prove it we’ll arrest you and convict you of a felony - congrats your life is now ruined. Covid will kill you - and if you don’t believe us and flaunt the rules we’ll put you in a jail environment with confined people in close proximity with open air exposure to sick prisoners and common aid circulation. And if by chance you didn’t have Covid going in, you damn sure will have it by the time we reopen the courts to hear your case.

[ROB]

MJK I don’t doubt some of the shutdown enthusiasm is, to quote Rahm Emanuel, about not letting a good crisis go to waste. But I don’t think Italy et al shut down as part of a grand conspiracy to hurt Trump. Democrats running states seem to be a little more enthusiastic at curtailing freedoms for the “common good” - you know, Gretchen Whitmer banning the sale or purchase of gardening seeds was just her trying to protect us from ourselves. New York cops forcing a married couple to maintain social distance of at least 6 feet on a park bench or get arrested the same. California police arresting a man kayaking on the empty coast - well, we never know where corona is lurking so we? Then of course they had to empty the prisons because it’s just inhuman to let people convicted of aggravated assault or attempted murder get sick from Covid - but it’s karma and just deserts if we imprison people who violate Covid distancing or mask rules and they get Covid and die. Shows the rest of the sheep I mean citizens how dangerous this thing is. Reminds me of the war on drugs. Drugs will ruin your life and to prove it we’ll arrest you and convict you of a felony - congrats your life is now ruined. Covid will kill you - and if you don’t believe us and flaunt the rules we’ll put you in a jail environment with confined people in close proximity with open air exposure to sick prisoners and common aid circulation. And if by chance you didn’t have Covid going in, you damn sure will have it by the time we reopen the courts to hear your case.

Did you climax as you wrote that?

[Kurt]

Texas seems to be where NY was in Mid April. NYC is crowded and sometimes you have places where 6 people live in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Italy is the same way. We picture Italian villas but many Italian houses and apartments resemble a clown car, but with better food and clothes.

So if Trump, Like Cuomo, screwed up initially, does that mean he is doing better now at containing the virus?

Is there really evidence the economy is not hit in the long run when we face a percentage death rate? If so, what?

Also, if I were to use an example of Open Vs. Closed I would use California's rising rate of infection Vs. Whomever is open. NY State has been managed fairly well with very little help from the Feds, and in fact we had a Navy Hospital ship that no one could figure out how to get admitted to and they would not take non-covid emergency cases...which would have helped existing Hospitals.

Also another long term fuck up was Bloomberg and Cuomo presided over the shutting down of 3 hospitals in the NYC area, one of which was turned into Luxury West Village Rentals. Not smart to get rid of Hospitals in favor of Real Estate interests.

[Tarkan]

MJK I don’t doubt some of the shutdown enthusiasm is, to quote Rahm Emanuel, about not letting a good crisis go to waste. But I don’t think Italy et al shut down as part of a grand conspiracy to hurt Trump. Democrats running states seem to be a little more enthusiastic at curtailing freedoms for the “common good” - you know, Gretchen Whitmer banning the sale or purchase of gardening seeds was just her trying to protect us from ourselves. New York cops forcing a married couple to maintain social distance of at least 6 feet on a park bench or get arrested the same. California police arresting a man kayaking on the empty coast - well, we never know where corona is lurking so we? Then of course they had to empty the prisons because it’s just inhuman to let people convicted of aggravated assault or attempted murder get sick from Covid - but it’s karma and just deserts if we imprison people who violate Covid distancing or mask rules and they get Covid and die. Shows the rest of the sheep I mean citizens how dangerous this thing is. Reminds me of the war on drugs. Drugs will ruin your life and to prove it we’ll arrest you and convict you of a felony - congrats your life is now ruined. Covid will kill you - and if you don’t believe us and flaunt the rules we’ll put you in a jail environment with confined people in close proximity with open air exposure to sick prisoners and common aid circulation. And if by chance you didn’t have Covid going in, you damn sure will have it by the time we reopen the courts to hear your case.

Did you climax as you wrote that?

Was it as good for you as it was for me?

[Tarkan]

Texas seems to be where NY was in Mid April. NYC is crowded and sometimes you have places where 6 people live in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Italy is the same way. We picture Italian villas but many Italian houses and apartments resemble a clown car, but with better food and clothes.

So if Trump, Like Cuomo, screwed up initially, does that mean he is doing better now at containing the virus?

Is there really evidence the economy is not hit in the long run when we face a percentage death rate? If so, what?

Also, if I were to use an example of Open Vs. Closed I would use California's rising rate of infection Vs. Whomever is open. NY State has been managed fairly well with very little help from the Feds, and in fact we had a Navy Hospital ship that no one could figure out how to get admitted to and they would not take non-covid emergency cases...which would have helped existing Hospitals.

Also another long term fuck up was Bloomberg and Cuomo presided over the shutting down of 3 hospitals in the NYC area, one of which was turned into Luxury West Village Rentals. Not smart to get rid of Hospitals in favor of Real Estate interests.

The fuck-ups at the Federal level go back to the Obama administration - Bush became convinced that a pandemic was going to happen so began a stockpiling program, which the Obama admin liquidated (no, I'm not blaming Obama). CDC then had their budget cut under Trump. WHO became the lackey running dogs of China, so while China was welding people shut in apartment buildings and bulldozing roads so people couldn't enter or leave impacted cities, WHO was saying person to person transmission for Sars-COV-2 was still infrequent and China had it under control. China's official death count is almost certainly 2-3 orders of magnitude under reality. Back in late Feb, a chart floating around showing China mobile subscribers over the past 24 months showed continuous growth until December, then there was a 6 or 7 million decline (cumulative) in subscribers through January.

Italy tends to not do so well with the flu either. Their death rates tend to be higher than the US. Stands to reason, they have the 2nd oldest population in the world, next to Japan, and flu and covid hits old people particularly hard, absent any other considerations like policy / health care systems.

From an epidemiology point of view, the chance to contain this left the barn in January, maybe even December. Plenty of evidence that it was community spread (endemic) in Seattle area by end of January. Containment measures like lockdowns, masks, are attempts to lower the R0 in order to "flatten the curve" so the medical system doesn't collapse, but it won't eradicate the transmission of Sars-COV-2. We are long past that tipping point. The only thing that stops this is: herd immunity (and people have to catch it for the society to develop herd immunity), or a vaccine, which is still months away. I told my wife back in February that this will go pandemic, we'll probably catch it, and we'll probably be fine, but maybe not. You make your choices and take your chances. If the CFR was 3-5% I'd be a little less nonchalant, but with a CFR of 0.6% - it's concerning, but not end of the world kind of thing. The Black Plague killed 1/3 of the European population. And for the record, I was exposed 8 days ago - little Father's day get together, my brother in law's wife's brother came to visit my brother in law, tested positive on Tuesday, brother in law and his wife are now both symptomatic, test results still pending). My family is asymptomatic, and I think we are in the clear since it's been 8 days, but you never know (I also think we had it back in early March when we went to Disney right before it shut down, or earlier in Feb when I was traveling for work, or late January when one of my coworkers returned from Spring Festival in Wuhan). Despite being an early believer back in January, but mid-April I was Wuflu fatigued out and stopped wearing a mask. Fuck it. Herd immunity doesn't happen by itself.

[Kurt]

Now, you guys are all for shutting down the economy permanently. Remember flatten the curve? Now it’s wreck the economy so Biden can be President.

Do you really think this is being done to wreck the economy so Biden can become President?

Do I think the shutdowns are some big anti-Trump conspiracy? Nah.

Ok I will rephrase this:

Do you think that the Dems want to shutdown the economy so Biden can get elected?

[Tarkan]

Now, you guys are all for shutting down the economy permanently. Remember flatten the curve? Now it’s wreck the economy so Biden can be President.

Do you really think this is being done to wreck the economy so Biden can become President?

Do I think the shutdowns are some big anti-Trump conspiracy? Nah.

Ok I will rephrase this:

Do you think that the Dems want to shutdown the economy so Biden can get elected?

Well, the answer is...it depends. I think some Democrats absolutely do. For others, the motivation is public health, and the potential collateral damage to the economy is a positive benefit (since it nominally hurts Trump). How many of these people are actual policy drivers, don't know. There is that AOC tweet out there (maybe real, maybe fake, hard to tell these days). But I don't think there is a widespread conspiracy to wreck the economy to hurt Trump. But it makes for good copy and who doesn't love a good conspiracy theory?

[Kurt]

While we are talking about inept leadership, let’s talk about Cuomo - who ordered nursing homes to accept COVID positive patients. Where have most of the fatalities occurred? Nursing homes. Who is most seriously affected by COVID? Elderly people with co-morbidities - you know - the type of people in nursing homes.

The CFR for this if you are under 60 is in line with a bad seasonal flu. 0.1 to 0.2%.

In the past, during epidemics, we quarantined the sick and let the healthy proceed as normal.

When Trump put the travel ban on China in place, Democrats accused him of being racist. Now, you guys are all for shutting down the economy permanently. Remember flatten the curve? Now it’s wreck the economy so Biden can be President.

Total death rate in the USA is 4.9%

Why are you only counting "under 60"? because 5% death rate for an easily transmittable illness is pretty high.

[Tarkan]

While we are talking about inept leadership, let’s talk about Cuomo - who ordered nursing homes to accept COVID positive patients. Where have most of the fatalities occurred? Nursing homes. Who is most seriously affected by COVID? Elderly people with co-morbidities - you know - the type of people in nursing homes.

The CFR for this if you are under 60 is in line with a bad seasonal flu. 0.1 to 0.2%.

In the past, during epidemics, we quarantined the sick and let the healthy proceed as normal.

When Trump put the travel ban on China in place, Democrats accused him of being racist. Now, you guys are all for shutting down the economy permanently. Remember flatten the curve? Now it’s wreck the economy so Biden can be President.

Total death rate in the USA is 4.9%

Why are you only counting "under 60"? because 5% death rate for an easily transmittable illness is pretty high.

https://www.scpr.org/news/2020/06/25/93 ... d-coronav/

CDC: At Least 20 Million Americans Have Had Coronavirus. Here's Who's At Highest Risk

According to wuflu.live, US has had 128,665 deaths from COVID. 128,665 / 20,000,000 = 0.00643325, or 0.643325% case fatality rate.



I agree that it's pretty highly transmissible. But the death rate is no where near 5%. It's barely 5% for people who present at hospitals (e.g., severe cases). Most cases are not severe and do not require hospitalization.

[ReptilianKittenEater]

Up north some modelling done suggest Ontario has 18x the official case count and Quebec has 12x, so multiplying official cases in developed countries by 10 sounds reasonable.

However the kicker is that I think there more deaths than 500k worldwide. I had an aunt die in NYC in April, she was 90 and in a care facility but had an illness and suddenly died. Not tested for covid but looks like a good culprit. If that happens in in a developed country it is happening a lot in say India.

Another thing specialists suggest viruses tend to mutate to a less deadly form. After all H1N1 killed 50 million in its first party but then turned into a beta and could only manage 500k in 2009. Too bad this hasn't happened for rabies. I can't say that isn't happening. Just hope they don't have to dig up a lot of parks for graves before it happens.

[Kurt]

Here is where I got 4.9% total.

https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-COR ... index.html

Still, its a high death rate for older people and people with pre-existing conditions, like diabetes.

The death rate you gave ignored that. Are you doing the lower end of the curve because people of a certain age or health's lives are less important than the labor of the younger, healthier populace?

[Kurt]

Up north some modelling done suggest Ontario has 18x the official case count and Quebec has 12x, so multiplying official cases in developed countries by 10 sounds reasonable.

However the kicker is that I think there more deaths than 500k worldwide. I had an aunt die in NYC in April, she was 90 and in a care facility but had an illness and suddenly died. Not tested for covid but looks like a good culprit. If that happens in in a developed country it is happening a lot in say India.

Another thing specialists suggest viruses tend to mutate to a less deadly form. After all H1N1 killed 50 million in its first party but then turned into a beta and could only manage 500k in 2009. Too bad this hasn't happened for rabies. I can't say that isn't happening. Just hope they don't have to dig up a lot of parks for graves before it happens.

Most likely, and I say this as an Armchair virologist, it will mutate into a more harmless form. Corona Viruses are more related to the Cold Virus. Herd Immunity does not happen with the Cold Virus, it changes, and you keep getting it anyway. The best thing to do is not to get it, especially now.

But morons are entitled to throw shit fits when they are asked, by private property owners, to wear a mask. Dummies go out and swim and go to megachurches and sing for hours on end.

Bet you guys are glad Trudeau and Co. is preventing fat, stupid disease bags from coming up there for a bit, huh?

[Tarkan]

Up north some modelling done suggest Ontario has 18x the official case count and Quebec has 12x, so multiplying official cases in developed countries by 10 sounds reasonable.

However the kicker is that I think there more deaths than 500k worldwide. I had an aunt die in NYC in April, she was 90 and in a care facility but had an illness and suddenly died. Not tested for covid but looks like a good culprit. If that happens in in a developed country it is happening a lot in say India.

Another thing specialists suggest viruses tend to mutate to a less deadly form. After all H1N1 killed 50 million in its first party but then turned into a beta and could only manage 500k in 2009. Too bad this hasn't happened for rabies. I can't say that isn't happening. Just hope they don't have to dig up a lot of parks for graves before it happens.

Most likely, and I say this as an Armchair virologist, it will mutate into a more harmless form. Corona Viruses are more related to the Cold Virus. Herd Immunity does not happen with the Cold Virus, it changes, and you keep getting it anyway. The best thing to do is not to get it, especially now.

But morons are entitled to throw shit fits when they are asked, by private property owners, to wear a mask. Dummies go out and swim and go to megachurches and sing for hours on end.

Bet you guys are glad Trudeau and Co. is preventing fat, stupid disease bags from coming up there for a bit, huh?

The "cold" is caused by hundreds of viruses. You don't get herd immunity because it isn't a single disease. For whatever reason, the antibody titer in blood for corona viruses tend to decay really fast - that combined with the fact that most of them are not severe is why there hasn't been a lot of vaccine development. Cold viruses where pretty damn lethal to American Indian populations because they had naive populations. The disease itself hadn't mutated to a more harmless form for the naive populations, it swept through like wildfire.

I know I've discounted Sars-COV-2 in other threads, but there's some real reasons to be concerned about the long term progression of the pandemic.

It infects ACE2 receptors. It attacks the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the brain. Many survivors of the more severe cases are left with permanent damage (reduced mental capacity, reduced lung capacity) or debilitating effects potentially years (if SARS is anything to go by, at least). People are asymptomatic spreaders for days after being infected. The antibody titer decays fast, which means you may get it in winter, and get it again in summer or fall. Without mutation. Some people are killed through cytokine storms (strong immune response), some people are killed by the disease itself.

There's the possibility this will become endemic, without a vaccine, and sweep through the population culling 20% of the people over 70, year after year.

It could very easily mutate into a more deadly form. Because it's an RNA retrovirus, it's going to be very mutation prone.