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

Al Berton

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There’s a majority of those in power in the United States that have zero concept of the impact of your last statement. Since they lack basic intelligence for what it takes to run a restaurant they figure a restaurant can just reopen under draconian economic restrictions and carry on. It’s a grand experiment wherein government not Darwinism will determine who survives. In the USA so far money has flowed to large corporations but the best the local restaurant could hope for is a few months worth of operating expenses while his business was forced closure. This was the United States first countrywide foray into socialism and at first glance it has created an insatiable thirst for power through societal control that the people might never recover from. We don’t know the answer to your question yet.
Well, even if probably most of them -at least here - have never "seriously" worked in his life, at least they are supposed to master maths fundamentals. My impression is that they don't care that much to solve the problems, they just want to arrive at the end of their political mandate making the most of profit they can and putting the basis for their own future, possibly in a state-controlled body where they can earn a very big salary and have a lot of allowances without doing that much... Going back to the original question, to me the answer is that they simply can't operate at the previous conditions and they need help to survive until the vaccination campaign become operative. Else they will stay closed or close forever.
 
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Vigilante

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Well, even if probably most of them -at least here - have never "seriously" worked in his life, at least they are supposed to master maths fundamentals. My impression is that they don't care that much to solve the problems, they just want to arrive at the end of their political mandate making the most of profit they can and putting the basis for their own future, possibly in a state-controlled body where they can earn a very big salary and have a lot of allowances without doing that much... Going back to the original question, to me the answer is that they simply can't operate at the previous conditions and they need help to survive until the vaccination campaign become operative. Else they will stay closed or close forever.

A significant percentage will never reopen. This is not a case of evolve or die as that is a naturally occurring phenomenon. This is a case of the rules changing midstream.

I’ve already heard some meet this with casual indifference insinuating they were poor operators as lives are crushed and open signs switch to closed, never to turn again.

Phoenix will arise from the ashes though as there is ALWAYS opportunity in chaos. Industries are birthed in times of societal upheaval. Look for the opportunity... it’s there for some.
 

Andreas Thiel

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I didn’t ask about the Imperial College model. I asked what specific criteria would make you wrong here. It seems like you simply use a sliding scale of varying degrees of right.

it’s an intellectual exercise. For example, if there were 4,000,000 dead I personally would have been wrong.

What is the scenario in which you hypothetically could be wrong here? What does wrong look like specifically?
Good one.

My take on this would be: if the surplus of deaths in health systems under stress because of the virus turns out to be less severe than the surplus of deaths that are the result of restrictions, then his position is wrong. We will never see a number that settles this.

But to say he was clearly wrong ... I suppose we need to see more deaths than the worst case would have been with a steep curve. Deaths that can clearly be attributed to the restrictions, for example due to hunger and suicides during of a recession.

Could you briefly explain the 98% forecast miss thoughts? I don't think I have seen what that is about.
 

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Good one.

My take on this would be: if the surplus of deaths in health systems under stress because of the virus turns out to be less severe than the surplus of deaths that are the result of restrictions, then his position is wrong. We will never see a number that settles this.

But to say he was clearly wrong ... I suppose we need to see more deaths than the worst case would have been with a steep curve. Deaths that can clearly be attributed to the restrictions, for example due to hunger and suicides during of a recession.

Could you briefly explain the 98% forecast miss thoughts? I don't think I have seen what that is about.

My question of how he could be wrong was a straw man question to the straw man scenario he set up. There literally was no way for him to answer the question, which at first he acknowledged and then when pressed came up with something ambiguous, not tangible. He understood the question, and it's implications. There was no answer he could provide.

The reason the straw man exists looks like this. We put out a forecast number, and if the number is wrong we just revise the number until the data matches our forecast. We can therein never technically be wrong. If deaths increase, we can say we were right. If deaths never approach our forecast, we can say only because of the measures we advised on did we break the curve. It's an ultimate straw man. More deaths? We were right. Less deaths? We were right. Ultimately, what happens is the student gets to revise his test answers until either he gets the right answer, or until the test is over and graded after which he gets one final revision. He doesn't have to have the right answer up front, and thus there is no scenario within reason wherein the data prognosticators could ever be "wrong."

That's precisely how you end up with this :
View: https://youtu.be/59a0uGIFZGY



In my home state of Florida, we were forecasted by our medical professionals on the advice of analysis that the death toll, including social distancing, would be in the vicinity of 485,000. The actual? Somewhere around 1,000 to date, and that includes factoring people who die from gun shot wounds being Covid-related (because everyone was so stressed, if not for Covid there would have been no gun shot. Label Covid and everyone gets more money). We sequestered 21,000,000 people to keep them from a 485,000 death threat, that turned out to be horrifically wrong. Maybe 99% wrong.

The virus killed people, and the simultaneous the power grab using hypothetical forecasts as the catalyst destroyed significant parts of civilization in a grand experiment gone wrong. The virus sucks but is an annual occurrence. The reaction and collateral damage is one of the largest man made catastrophes in the history of the world. The virus was never a "nothingburger" but it is the fallout from the over reach that the history books will be talking about.
 
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MTF

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In my home state of Florida, we were forecasted by our medical professionals on the advice of analysis that the death toll, including social distancing, would be in the vicinity of 485,000

Can you link to the source?

All I found for Florida close to this number was this article: Coronavirus in Florida: What can residents expect?

In it, it says (the parts in bold by me):

In one model presented to the American Hospital Association, Professor James Lawler of the University of Nebraska Medical Center forecast the death toll in the United States from the new coronavirus at more than 480,000 deaths if the country’s social distancing and other efforts to mitigate the epidemic fail.

I agree with the premise of your post (no matter what happens they're always right) but we should use good data to prove our point.

The oldest data I found regarding projections for Florida was 6,766 deaths by August: Coronavirus Florida: 6,766 C0VlD-19 deaths projected statewide by August

Now they project 1,921 deaths: IHME | C0VlD-19 Projections (oh how much I hate this site, it seems to be changing numbers every day and wildly)

What is funny about this site is that once countries start easing restrictions their model stops working.

For example, check Czechia, which started easing many restrictions:

It says "Projections unavailable. Long-term projections are unavailable for this location. Our model does not account for easing social distancing or quantify the risk of resurgence."

So did they assume that there would be a permanent lockdown until August? What a freaking joke.
 

Vigilante

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Can you link to the source?

All I found for Florida close to this number was this article: Coronavirus in Florida: What can residents expect?

In it, it says (the parts in bold by me):

In one model presented to the American Hospital Association, Professor James Lawler of the University of Nebraska Medical Center forecast the death toll in the United States from the new coronavirus at more than 480,000 deaths if the country’s social distancing and other efforts to mitigate the epidemic fail.

I agree with the premise of your post (no matter what happens they're always right) but we should use good data to prove our point.

The oldest data I found regarding projections for Florida was 6,766 deaths by August: Coronavirus Florida: 6,766 C0VlD-19 deaths projected statewide by August

Now they project 1,921 deaths: IHME | C0VlD-19 Projections (oh how much I hate this site, it seems to be changing numbers every day and wildly)

What is funny about this site is that once countries start easing restrictions their model stops working.

For example, check Czechia, which started easing many restrictions:

It says "Projections unavailable. Long-term projections are unavailable for this location. Our model does not account for easing social distancing or quantify the risk of resurgence."

So did they assume that there would be a permanent lockdown until August? What a freaking joke.
Can you link to the source?

All I found for Florida close to this number was this article: Coronavirus in Florida: What can residents expect?

In it, it says (the parts in bold by me):

In one model presented to the American Hospital Association, Professor James Lawler of the University of Nebraska Medical Center forecast the death toll in the United States from the new coronavirus at more than 480,000 deaths if the country’s social distancing and other efforts to mitigate the epidemic fail.

I agree with the premise of your post (no matter what happens they're always right) but we should use good data to prove our point.

The oldest data I found regarding projections for Florida was 6,766 deaths by August: Coronavirus Florida: 6,766 C0VlD-19 deaths projected statewide by August

Now they project 1,921 deaths: IHME | C0VlD-19 Projections (oh how much I hate this site, it seems to be changing numbers every day and wildly)

What is funny about this site is that once countries start easing restrictions their model stops working.

For example, check Czechia, which started easing many restrictions:

It says "Projections unavailable. Long-term projections are unavailable for this location. Our model does not account for easing social distancing or quantify the risk of resurgence."

So did they assume that there would be a permanent lockdown until August? What a freaking joke.

I didn’t spend much of any time looking for it because what they typically do is replace the old numbers with the new numbers much like bleaching a hdd.

The original number was a percentage allocated to Florida from the first forecast of 4 million, which then the government quickly revised to 2.2 million.


There’s not a good paper trail but If anyone wanted to spend some time going through the media stories etc. you could follow the bouncing ball.

Even the allocations by state were dreadfully wrong understandably because nobody knew that half of the deaths would be in New York City.
 

MTF

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So, in general, WE know lockdowns are BS.

When does everyone else wake up?

It's like we're in perpetual limbo.

We were at a crossroads ~2 weeks ago, and I don't see any movement.

Many European countries are slowly easing restrictions (despite having more cases than when they implemented them) but it will still take weeks or months before most (not all) of the businesses can operate (and with restrictions regarding how many clients they can have and increased hygiene standards many will probably never reopen anyway or will struggle mightily).

Unfortunately facemasks are mandatory in many of them despite weak and inconclusive evidence that they work. In some countries they're even saying that facemasks will be mandatory until there's a vaccine (what if there's no safe vaccine ever?)
 

Kevin88660

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Many European countries are slowly easing restrictions (despite having more cases than when they implemented them) but it will still take weeks or months before most (not all) of the businesses can operate (and with restrictions regarding how many clients they can have and increased hygiene standards many will probably never reopen anyway or will struggle mightily).

Unfortunately facemasks are mandatory in many of them despite weak and inconclusive evidence that they work. In some countries they're even saying that facemasks will be mandatory until there's a vaccine (what if there's no safe vaccine ever?)
Since we know it is spread through droplets at least face masks deter infected people from passing it to uninfected individuals.

But there is little downside risk for mandatory facemask. Economic activities can continue with face mask. People can still go to cafe and have food and just need to take off their face mask when eating or drinking.
 

lowtek

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Vigilante

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Since we know it is spread through droplets at least face masks deter infected people from passing it to uninfected individuals.

But there is little downside risk for mandatory facemask. Economic activities can continue with face mask. People can still go to cafe and have food and just need to take off their face mask when eating or drinking.

Unless the mask is an N95 (particulate-filtering) mask, they are completely ineffective against droplets and small particles. The cloth masks the United States civilians are wearing are not only ineffective, but a few months ago the government was warning AGAINST them because they actually CAUSE respiratory issues.

See CDC information here

45 days ago, the United States Surgeon General told Americans to NOT wear the masks32662
 
G

GuestUser4aMPs1

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Good News!

Antibody tests are being given from a local diagnostic lab.

Blood test claiming over 90% accuracy (RARE!).

And, this lab in particular can do it from home for <$100.

Same day results.

Don't think I've had the 'rona but wouldn't be surprised.

I'll let everyone know how it goes (?)
 

Inimitable

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I was watching this video by Dr. Erikson and Dr. Massihi. I really, really want what they're saying about the lethality rate of COVID vs the flu to be accurate. However, to me it seems like they are taking completely different numbers for each illness.

For COVID, they are using the total number of deaths divided by the total number of people in the entire state to get their lethality rate. For the flu, they are taking the number of infections divided by the number of people infected (not people in the entire state/country) to get the lethality rate. I hope I'm missing something here?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW_2mWBFu1U&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2x4ARtFh6gDvTallixQodx6enry2LDLVkS_jvoTrvLuXxZ9nFwiuRhEHM
 
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Kak

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Not every American. I didn’t get one, and a lot of people from here did t get one.

Nor did I. Is there a cutoff? I didn't even pay attention to this stupid check. I thought it was for the unemployed...

So, in general, WE know lockdowns are BS.

When does everyone else wake up?

It's like we're in perpetual limbo.

We were at a crossroads ~2 weeks ago, and I don't see any movement.

Even if covid was found to not even exist, I think there would still be people clamoring for lockdown.

This is a psychological question... Something I certainly haven't seen in my lifetime. It takes a certain kind of person to want to force feed the entire country their own bullshit. I just can't get in that headspace. I can't bring myself to think like them. I don't know. But good fricking question.
 

Aurora_Spartan93

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I was watching this video by Dr. Erikson and Dr. Massihi. I really, really want what they're saying about the lethality rate of COVID vs the flu to be accurate. However, to me it seems like they are taking completely different numbers for each illness.

For COVID, they are using the total number of deaths divided by the total number of people in the entire state to get their lethality rate. For the flu, they are taking the number of infections divided by the number of people infected (not people in the entire state/country) to get the lethality rate. I hope I'm missing something here?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW_2mWBFu1U&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2x4ARtFh6gDvTallixQodx6enry2LDLVkS_jvoTrvLuXxZ9nFwiuRhEHM

I believe they are taking the number of people testing positive, divided by the number of people tested, and extrapolating that out to the state population to arrive at a theoretical number of cases. Then taking the deaths from Covid and dividing by the theoretical number of cases. They are not taking the total deaths divided by the state population.

Not a great way to do this (given I would assume people with more severe symptoms would be the ones getting tested, so one would think this would lead to a higher percentage of positive tests, but I think it's acceptable given some of the info we've heard.

I think due to the enormous about of both asymptomatic and mild cases that aren't currently included, combined with overstating the death rate by including co-morbidities balances the comparison out. It isn't perfect but it is much closer to the flu numbers.
 

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To me this perfectly sums up the last 30 pages of this thread with the exception of a couple of posts from Gilman

32663
 
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Bekit

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when will it get bad enough that the majority agrees about the economy tanking.

In other words, when will the sidewalker and the slowlaner wake up and realize that they're in a whole new reality that they haven't remotely adjusted to?

When will it stop tasting sweet to bring in extra money for no work?

When will they come to the inescapable conclusion that this is very, very bad for them?

It won't be very long.

Just wait for the day when the price of beer skyrockets because all that money printing triggered hyperinflation....but there's no corresponding pay increase at Chick-Fil-A.
 

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Andreas Thiel

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The article says: "far higher than its Nordic neighbors" about the deaths and number of cases ... but the difference is pretty small when you account for population differences [EDIT] and the quality of the data. Twice the amount can sound significant ...[/EDIT].
 
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MTF

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This may be the biggest news since the discovery of the coronavirus itself


Not sure who at this point listens to WHO anymore (probably no sane person) but it's still good news—ever since I heard about Sweden's strategy I was hoping they would stick to their guns until everyone else comes around. I'm glad they have. Seems like one of very few sensible examples. Now it seems more likely that other countries will come around if so-called internationally-respected "experts" (LOL to even use this word in the same sentence as WHO) consider them a model.
 

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GPM

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LOL @ the WHO. They are like a toddler who has one of those toys with 10 buttons. Except in the case of the WHO each one of those buttons is a contradictory statement. They bring in a toddler every other day and have them press a button and make it a press release.

Good job little Timmy, you press that button so good! Daddy is proud of you!
 
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MTF

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Deaths could actually be underestimated:

It's too early for such comparisons. You need to compare it year to year. Many people who die of C0VlD-19 would have died in the next few weeks or months anyway (and no, I'm not saying it's not a big deal since they would soon be dead anyway; it's just a fact that we need to consider).
 
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It's too early for such comparisons. You need to compare it year to year. Many people who die of C0VlD-19 would have died in the next few weeks or months anyway (and no, I'm not saying it's not a big deal since they would soon be dead anyway; it's just a fact that we need to consider).

It's comparing deaths so far this year to the last 5 years. How is this not comparing year to year?
 

GIlman

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Not sure who at this point listens to WHO anymore (probably no sane person) but it's still good news—ever since I heard about Sweden's strategy I was hoping they would stick to their guns until everyone else comes around. I'm glad they have. Seems like one of very few sensible examples. Now it seems more likely that other countries will come around if so-called internationally-respected "experts" (LOL to even use this word in the same sentence as WHO) consider them a model.

The WHO is not unique. It’s why I approach anything any expert says with extreme caution. People have biases, both intentional and blind unintentional biases. The scientific community is not welcome to all opinions, they have acceptable consensus, and fund and promote research based on the “merits” they want.

Climate change is a good example. Not just if, but how much, and what has actually changed is not as concrete as the politicians or scientific establishment would have you believe. Although I believe some man made changes to the climate ‘likely’ have occurred, there is great intolerance to funding research trying where the hypothesis is that climate change is not occurring or not a substantial problem.

The non believer scientists and policy makers have tried to even have public debates to discuss the merits of the research and models, no scientist or pro climate change policy maker will show up to participate. Because they know they will be blackballed and punished for even participating and giving the anti-climate people a platform to discuss their ideas. It’s politically unacceptable to take the opposing position to climate. That is not science, that is dogma and doctrine.

Science has been politicized, and it’s toxic and dangerous. Look at the hydroxychloroquine studies, many of them are intentionally designed to produce the result they want, to drive a political point.

Look at the VA study for example, sick patients were typically the ones who got hydroxychloroquine, so of course more of them died. The fact that they got HCQ was an indicator that they were the sick ones to begin with. It was not double blinded or controlled, the outcome of the study was obvious before they did it. It’s like saying, we grouped patients into two groups, those that were ventilated and those that were not. We discovered ventilated patients died more than non-ventilated patients, therefore people shouldn’t be ventilated because it kills them. It’s stupid misleading logic designed for a political end.
 

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After listening to the governor of Florida speak today I do need to correct one major error that I made. Florida deaths were never forecasted at 465,000. That was forecasted hospitalizations. Deaths were forecasted much lower than that. While the anticipated hospitalization number was similarly radically wrong, my initial recollection of that number was also wrong. While I felt an intellectual obligation to correct my own error, don’t for a millisecond think that gets the medical community in any way exonerated because when you look at Florida’s actual versus projected, it’s still in the 97% miss/wrong against the experts recommendations that caused the shut down to begin with.

Florida never should have been shut down. Now we just need to understand why the experts were so wrong in order to take measures to ensure this never happens again.
 
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MTF

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It's comparing deaths so far this year to the last 5 years. How is this not comparing year to year?

You need to compare the entire 2020 to the average because the virus is shifting deaths that would have happened later this year (since it mostly kills the most vulnerable, including very sick and very old people). There might be fewer deaths later this year because of it (though there will be more crisis-related deaths).
 

GIlman

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It's too early for such comparisons. You need to compare it year to year. Many people who die of C0VlD-19 would have died in the next few weeks or months anyway (and no, I'm not saying it's not a big deal since they would soon be dead anyway; it's just a fact that we need to consider).

Doctors are terrible at predicting when someone will die, as a group with similar patterns of illness we can give a statistic like 55% dead in 3 years.

But as an individual, their prognostication is terrible. I’ve seen people with cancer die days after being told they had 6-12 months left, then others alive years later after being told they have a couple weeks to months left.

The same is true about the flu, most people that die from the flu, were likely frail and more likely to die in the ensuing months, but we don’t use this standard to massage the data with flu, and I think likewise it’s a mistake to use that reasoning to massage the data with Covid. The same standards should be universally applied so comparisons are valid.

Current data across multiple populations in the US is showing a probable true mortality rate of 0.3-0.8% of those infected when factoring in asymptomatic patients. The experience is Sweden seems to be showing this as well. Their death rate appears higher than neighboring counties, but it seems to remain within the mentally acceptable range of public opinion.

In all probablity, it looks like Sweden is going to win the award for best handling of Covid in the history books. Of course this is also something we can only say in hindsight. There was an equal chance without better data that they could have been wrong, and a big swath of their county died. It was all dependent on the asymptotic infection rate, which no one knew. Of course regardless of the death rate there is a valid argument against lockdown regardless of risk.

That is not to diminish the value of each human life that was lost, but ALL of life is balancing risk vs benefit. There are no benefits without there being risk. When the risk of Covid appeared to be 3.4-9% of the population dying, the perspective is very different than if 0.3-0.8% die. We accept the risk of driving to work, because it is low compared to the benefits of having a job. If we all had to base jump as our more of transportation to get to work people might feel very different about commuting for a job.
 
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