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The Worldwide C0VlD-19 Coronavirus Pandemic Discussion Thread...

Kak

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I went to a brand new Jimmy Buffet restaurant last night with the wife that opened up near where we live.

The place was packed. We waited 45 minutes for a table on the “beach” they made for waiting guests and we enjoyed good music. Once we got the table the place was filled with patriots... It was as packed as any busy restaurant you have ever seen. The staff were the only people wearing masks.

This begs the question why my church is only opened at 25% capacity... You need to book tickets to go now. If you are lucky enough to get the tickets, you have to show up 30 minutes early so they can seat you safely. I am so uninterested in playing that game it is not even funny. I have not even tried to get the tickets.

I don’t know if this is the home rule for church or if it is law. If it is law, it is bullshit. If it is home rule, it is stupid and honestly makes me want to look for a different church which is saying a lot. I really like my pastor, but last week’s sermon was a bunch of virtue signaling... I don’t like when people that I normally have a ton of respect for cave to the will of a bunch of Karens. Even so, I am sure he virtue signaled incorrectly for their discerning judgement.

All the Karens say: “If you say nothing you are part of the problem.” Yeah, whatever. That’s bullshit. No one is going to make me feel guilty for being born a certain color (which is racist AF) and no one is going to make me apologize for doing nothing wrong. I don’t have to stand on my rooftop and declare racism is wrong to believe that.

The world is nuts, but we already knew that.
 
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Antti

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The world is nuts, but we already knew that.

I'm willing to bet my house that Russian and Chinese state-run trolls and hackers are currently working around the clock to pour as much gasoline to the flames as possible to create more chaos and divisiveness in the west. I'm equally as sure that the mainstream media won't demand investigation as eagerly as they did on Trump's alleged collusion with Russians.
 
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Vigilante

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I went to a brand new Jimmy Buffet restaurant last night with the wife that opened up near where we live.

The place was packed. We waited 45 minutes for a table on the “beach” they made for waiting guests and we enjoyed good music. Once we got the table the place was filled with patriots... It was as packed as any busy restaurant you have ever seen. The staff were the only people wearing masks.

This begs the question why my church is only opened at 25% capacity... You need to book tickets to go now. If you are lucky enough to get the tickets, you have to show up 30 minutes early so they can seat you safely. I am so uninterested in playing that game it is not even funny. I have not even tried to get the tickets.

I don’t know if this is the home rule for church or if it is law. If it is law, it is bullshit. If it is home rule, it is stupid and honestly makes me want to look for a different church which is saying a lot. I really like my pastor, but last week’s sermon was a bunch of virtue signaling... I don’t like when people that I normally have a ton of respect for cave to the will of a bunch of Karens. Even so, I am sure he virtue signaled incorrectly for their discerning judgement.

All the Karens say: “If you say nothing you are part of the problem.” Yeah, whatever. That’s bullshit. No one is going to make me feel guilty for being born a certain color (which is racist AF) and no one is going to make me apologize for doing nothing wrong. I don’t have to stand on my rooftop and declare racism is wrong to believe that.

The world is nuts, but we already knew that.

I am NOT happy with the ridiculousness by which churches in general are responding to this. My kid has been in summer camp all week this week, yet the church(es) refuse to have the kids back in for children's programming. Something has gone whackadoo here. We're not going back until people stop FREAKING OUT over this virus. The melodrama at this point has reached the stage of loonacy.

There's a right way and a wrong way to proceed, and unfortunately for some weird reason, the church(es) have proceeded for the most part down the WRONG WAY. They were NEVER even required to shut down in Florida to begin with, and now they have nearly NO restrictions. I'm not interested in going to a performance. Escorted in, dismissed by row like a wedding, no kids programming...

screw that. I am heading to the beach with the rest of the pagans. They can call me when they relax.
 
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David Harrison

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I don't know where or when I heard this phrase, but it makes sense now.
" The hardest thing to do during the process of change is to keep your sanity."
Might someone be able to help?

The brain is a pattern recognition machine. (Change is a challenge)...

?
 
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Trevor Kuntz

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Just had dinner with my gf’s mom. She is monitoring multiple vaccine trial studies (normally she monitors Alzheimer’s studies) in multiple sites. I can’t disclose a lot of information, but one of the subjects in one of the studies died today.

The study is a 3 arm study and the subject was in good health on Saturday. The subject was not very old. The subject received the vaccine on Sunday, became ill on Tuesday, and died today (Friday). That’s about all I can share about the subject. The subjects receive about $40k over 6 months to be part of the trial and to compensate for the obvious risk of illness or death.

In other news, my mom is now working two nursing jobs. She has 2 Covid19 patients in her care at the hospital, and generally patients in her care are already extremely high risk. She is also working as a private nurse for very high net-worth individuals. I told her she should quit her hospital job ASAP to limit her exposure, and hopefully she will. She really hates her hospital job. The hospital is now at 85% ICU capacity and increasing rapidly as daily cases in AZ are increasing.
 

Kak

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Trevor Kuntz

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Good resource for Florida residents:

The scientist who wrote this dashboard also created the dashboard for Florida Dept of Health but was fired in May for refusing to dilute the less favorable statistics, which showed higher rates in 65 out of 67 counties. Florida DOH was measuring each positive test only once but each negative test multiple times, even if the negative tests were conducted sequentially on the same individual, thereby diluting the rate of positive individuals compared to individuals tested.

From an interview with Rebekah Jones, former DOH scientist and creator of the dashboard:

Jones says she was originally tasked with building essentially the same type of dashboard for the health department's website in her role as a geographic information system manager — until it became clear what the results would show.

"When I went to show them what the report card would say for each county, among other things they asked me to delete the report card because it showed that no counties, pretty much, were ready for reopening," she says. "And they didn't want to draw attention to that."

"To me, it did not read like some kind of political conspiracy or some higher directive," Jones says. "It seemed like people who expected when I brought in those results, the results to support the plan they had written, and they did not, they seemed panicked, and like they had to figure out a way to make the results match the plan."
 
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Raoul Duke

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David Harrison

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“But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it hap- pens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"They thought they were free" by Milton Mayer.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USEFLLFhIZI
 
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WillHurtDontCare

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I think that the events of the last 2-3 weeks have distracted people from the fact that many city / state / federal government officials handled the coronavirus poorly. Millions lost their jobs, millions are on government benefits, thousands of small businesses shut down, and so on.

I think that there will be a reckoning of sorts over the next few months or even years based on the decisions that were made by government and business leaders regarding the coronavirus.

Anyone care to speculate on what those consequences might be?
 

MTF

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Trevor Kuntz

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I think that the events of the last 2-3 weeks have distracted people from the fact that many city / state / federal government officials handled the coronavirus poorly. Millions lost their jobs, millions are on government benefits, thousands of small businesses shut down, and so on.

I think that there will be a reckoning of sorts over the next few months or even years based on the decisions that were made by government and business leaders regarding the coronavirus.

Anyone care to speculate on what those consequences might be?
I would hope that people take their health and financial security more seriously. My biggest worry was not of getting sick and dying but of getting sick and going bankrupt. It is hard to comprehend how the US can spend the second highest amount of public dollars on healthcare AND the highest amount of private dollars on healthcare and still have so many problems. I feel like there is probably no greater barrier to self-employment than how easily someone in the 60th, 70th, or even 80th percentile of income or net worth in the US can be bankrupted by medical emergencies.

I have worked on my business for 8 years and am finally building a high net worth. I'd rather it not evaporate in a two month hospitalization.

https://time.com/5853392/million-dollars-C0VlD-19-treatment-seattle/

 

WillHurtDontCare

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It is hard to comprehend how the US can spend the second highest amount of public dollars on healthcare AND the highest amount of private dollars on healthcare and still have so many problems.

It's easy to understand when you see it as a system's primary goal is to profit from sick people and that helping them comes second. Also, health systems tend to be huge, which leads to bureaucracies which lead to inefficiencies.

The best health insurance is taking great care of yourself.
 

Lyinx

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GIlman

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Finally some good news for people that get severely sick with COVID. A large double blinded study which is well designed, out of the UK has been looking at several different treatments, they found that Dexamethasone, a cheap and readily available steriod, has proven to be useful in decreasing the death rate in people on ventilators and also decreasing death in those that require Oxygen therapy alone.

The results where that Dexamethasone reduced deaths by 1/3 in people ventilated and 1/5 in people receiving oxygen. That's a very significant decrease death rate due to this readily available medication.

So it appears that one of the major problems with COVID is the bodies response to the illness itself, something called a cytokine storm. The steroid basically holds the body back from being able to response so aggressively.

Also, dexamethasone showed no useful impact on people with mild symptoms.

 

MTF

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Finally some good news for people that get severely sick with COVID. A large double blinded study which is well designed, out of the UK has been looking at several different treatments, they found that Dexamethasone, a cheap and readily available steriod, has proven to be useful in decreasing the death rate in people on ventilators and also decreasing death in those that require Oxygen therapy alone.

Posted it on Tuesday but it seems that people are no longer interested in the topic :)

In general it looks like the world has been slowly moving on which is a good thing but also a bad thing (I sure don't want to get used to wearing a f*** facemask for the next bazillion years until there's a vaccine).
 
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RoadTrip

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In general it looks like the world has been slowly moving on which is a good thing but also a bad thing (I sure don't want to get used to wearing a f*** facemask for the next bazillion years until there's a vaccine).

I completely agree not wanting the social distancing fines and mask wearing to become the new normal. I also really wonder how effective the masks are considering the recent new outbreaks on China markets where I suppose everyone wears a mask???
 

GPM

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A bunch of doctors in Alberta just signed an open letter requesting that the government make wearing masks in public mandatory up here...

I for one welcome our overloads and can't wait for the fines to be handed out for those not complying. That is what we all need. More fines for everyone! Fines make the world a better place.
 

RoadTrip

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A bunch of doctors in Alberta just signed an open letter requesting that the government make wearing masks in public mandatory up here...

I for one welcome our overloads and can't wait for the fines to be handed out for those not complying. That is what we all need. More fines for everyone! Fines make the world a better place.

I don't know what worse: obliging masks or implementing a law that prohibits people to be within 1,5m from each other per 1st of July as they are planning to do in The Netherlands. And fine it if you don't comply.
 
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David Harrison

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I completely agree not wanting the social distancing fines and mask wearing to become the new normal.

It amazes us to hear accounts of the valor that liberty arouses in the hearts of those who defend it; but who could believe reports of what goes on every day among the inhabitants of some countries? Who could really believe that one man alone may mistreat a hundred thousand and deprive them of their liberty? Who would credit such a report if he merely heard it, without being present to witness the event? And if this condition occurred only in distant lands and were reported to us, which one among us would not assume the tale to be imagined or invented, and not really true?

Etienne de La Boetie

Refuse, Comply, Agree or Ignore. Where in lies your standard. Do you have one? And if so, would you do anything to adhere to it?

A "new" normal is only a dictate that manifests into a regular habit by those who follow.
"Leaders don't have shepherds".

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBsA7S8jxfU&list=PLAYxecbGotUyOGDXLw2M4NR4uK6WrAFbt
 

GIlman

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Thought people might find this interesting.

DECF4ADC-C207-4F79-A00B-53C5C35F0532.jpeg
This is the number of new cases by day in Arizona.

9A6033A0-69E1-4FCB-9666-B7F5A26AFFF6.jpeg

This is the number of hospitalizations one Arizona by Date.

E31D73C6-B795-47BC-BC2B-4E4AAA1ECA8E.jpeg

This is the number of deaths by day.

I post these because the narrative being pushed by the media and some heath policy makers does not seem to have sound basis. They are speaking of exploding # of cases in Arizona, which the first graph would tend to support.

But if we look at hospitalizations and deaths they are declining, not increasing.

The reason should be pretty straight forward, we are simply testing more and more people and finding more disease the more we test. But watching the hospitalizations and deaths paints the picture that the disease is actually declining is absolute # infected as time goes on.

Despite all the fear and media mongering going on, the data seems to support that Gov Ducey is actually doing the right thing in pushing forward with opening things up. We will be able to see if things worsen based on hospitalizations and deaths over time, those are the things to watch, not the # of positive tests which is highly dependent on the level of testing.
 

Vigilante

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Thought people might find this interesting.

View attachment 33621
This is the number of new cases by day in Arizona.

View attachment 33622

This is the number of hospitalizations one Arizona by Date.

View attachment 33623

This is the number of deaths by day.

I post these because the narrative being pushed by the media and some heath policy makers does not seem to have sound basis. They are speaking of exploding # of cases in Arizona, which the first graph would tend to support.

But if we look at hospitalizations and deaths they are declining, not increasing.

The reason should be pretty straight forward, we are simply testing more and more people and finding more disease the more we test. But watching the hospitalizations and deaths paints the picture that the disease is actually declining is absolute # infected as time goes on.

Despite all the fear and media mongering going on, the data seems to support that Gov Ducey is actually doing the right thing in pushing forward with opening things up. We will be able to see if things worsen based on hospitalizations and deaths over time, those are the things to watch, not the # of positive tests which is highly dependent on the level of testing.

So at what point does the news break favorably
 
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GIlman

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So at what point does the news break favorably

No idea, I guess when the “testing” positive trends down. But for that to happen testing levels need to be steady state.

As an aside, I believe we are slowly entering into a new form of the dark ages, where the truth and allowed narrative is shaped and suppressed. Not by religious ideology as happened last time, but by “acceptable” political ideology.

As one of many many examples, Nature, one of the most prestigious science publications on earth has been promoting the shut down STEM program. They are wanting to shutdown the advocacy programs for Science Technology Engineering and Math?? This stuff is truly scary where it is leading, and fast.

#ShutDownSTEM and the Nature Podcast
 

Vigilante

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No idea, I guess when the “testing” positive trends down. But for that to happen testing levels need to be steady state.

As an aside, I believe we are slowly entering into a new form of the dark ages, where the truth and allowed narrative is shaped and suppressed. Not by religious ideology as happened last time, but by “acceptable” political ideology.

As one of many many examples, Nature, one of the most prestigious science publications on earth has been promoting the shut down STEM program. They are wanting to shutdown the advocacy programs for Science Technology Engineering and Math?? This stuff is truly scary where it is leading, and fast.

#ShutDownSTEM and the Nature Podcast

Why do they want to shut down stem?

I found your aside daunting.
 

Trevor Kuntz

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Why do they want to shut down stem?

I found your aside daunting.
ShutDownSTEM was a June 10 strike asking anyone in STEM to stop working that day and fight racism. Pretty vague, but it seems to have already happened.


33626
 
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GPM

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So at what point does the news break favorably


You do realize that they will just portray the data any way that fits the narrative right? So never? When the new big scary arrives, they will just change the topic over to that.
 

MTEE1985

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The reason should be pretty straight forward, we are simply testing more and more people and finding more disease the more we test.

Not trying to be argumentative as I’m a novice at best at medical data but shouldn’t the % of positive tests remain relatively constant as opposed to trending up if it is simply a function of more testing?

33627
 

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