jcsmith

You don't think those world leaders have plenty of input from the top medical professionals? I'd guess that many of them are not okay with the idea of sacrificing thousands of lives.

It's befuddling that his guy still has a job after his endless string of controversy.

4 hours ago, Logosone said:

"Yet if the health system does become overwhelmed, the majority of the extra deaths may not be due to coronavirus but to other common diseases and conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, trauma, bleeding, and the like that are not adequately treated. If the level of the epidemic does overwhelm the health system and extreme measures have only modest effectiveness, then flattening the curve may make things worse: Instead of being overwhelmed during a short, acute phase, the health system will remain overwhelmed for a more protracted period. That’s another reason we need data about the exact level of the epidemic activity."

And this is where it is narrow sighted. For one it presumes that the hospitals are going to be overwhelmed with or without social distancing. Second it pretty much writes off everyone who gets sick in next month or so because the hospitals would be so badly overwhelmed they'd just have no way to treat them. People will have strokes, heart attacks during that time too.

The important bit is the "Yet if " that at the start. The entire article is built on this presumption. And it directly contrasts with what most medical experts believe. Now he is certainly entitled to his opinion. Maybe in his mind he's sounding the alarm and trying to help. But it's just one person's opinion, and it is a fringe one.

25 minutes ago, Logosone said:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

 

So it looks like social distancing does contribute to hospitals being overwhelmed.

That article doesn't conclude that social distancing contributes to hospitals being overwhelmed, nor is it an accurate reflection of what the vast majority of academics believe. It provides a lot of speculation to try to prove its narrow sighted conclusion. It's basic idea is that if the health system is overrun people are going to die anyway so lets just get it out of the way now. 

It seems to ignore the impact of hospitals being overloaded. There is a reason that the mortality rate in Italy is over 10%, and its at 7.5% in Spain. Certainly I think its fair to say many people who have the virus are not diagnosed as having it, especially the less serious or asymptomatic cases. But those are also a real world example of what happens when hospitals become overwhelmed. That's not to mention the effect of non-covid deaths as a result of them.

3 hours ago, Logosone said:

The hospitals will be overwhelmed either way, especially in the US, which is exceptionally poorly prepared, ironically. But America will be perfectly fine, because like in the UK, the US too will benefit from herd immunity.

You don't think there is a difference between being slightly overloaded and being massively overloaded? Once you reach that massive overload many more people will die, and not only people with Covid-19. In the long run the same amount of people may become infected with the virus sure. But the rate of that infection and how many people are dealing with it at a single time is very important.

The argument that just letting everyone get it is the best approach is basically saying okay let's voluntarily let more people die so the ones who are left behind have a better economy. Why not just let everyone get it at once instead of "dragging it out"? Because the hospitals are already being overwhelmed with social distancing. They would be completely overwhelmed without them. And overwhelmed hospitals equate to a higher mortality rate. A lot of people are being pretty quick to volunteer the lives of others.

2 hours ago, gk10002000 said:

287 deaths in the USA attributed to the COVID19 virus as of this afternoon.  Many more than that have died from the other Flu strains.  Crazy over reaction and incomplete fact reporting by officials.  So like in many things, in order to understand .  Follow the money.  Who or what will benefit from such a massive economic turmoil?

You don't seem to understand exponential growth. Check those same numbers in a month. You could also say there's only been 13k deaths worldwide in 2 months, that's only 6500 a month. But that would fail to recognize that 1700 of those were just yesterday. That after 1300 the day before, and 1000 the day before that. There will be over 2000 today. One month ago that number was 2300 deaths. If left unchecked you can expect 40+ million dead.

1 hour ago, Iron Tongue said:

CA has only fanned the flames with all the political correctness and refusal to address homelessness/addiction/sanitation problems. 

What would you propose they do to remedy the homelessness situation? The homeless would prefer California if possible because of the warm weather. But what should the state do with them?

This wasn't Trump's idea. But I don't have a problem with it. Most of that money is going to go back into the economy. 

Declaring it a national emergency is a good thing. Trump getting tested shouldn't really be a question mark though. He had up close interactions with people who are known to be infected and he comes into contact with many people a day. 

2 hours ago, Iron Tongue said:

Do the math, continental Europe has 20x the total number of infected than the USA.

 

Spain, Germany and France all have 2-3x the infected as the US.  Italy -fugettaboutit!

We have no idea how many people are infected in the U.S., it's not easy to get tested.

4 hours ago, UbonThani said:

4 months prediction

Corona deaths 40,000.

 

Less than 10% of swine flu.

 

 

How about an actual prediction. If 60% of the population gets Corona Virus even if it has a mortality rate of just 1% you are talking about 46.2 million dead and 2 million dead in the U.S.

There is reason that people are making a big deal of this. It spreads easily. Many people who may have it would only think they have the common flu. Trump isn't doing anything to help that. He taunted Biden for cancelling rallies yesterday over this... Then today he cancelled his.

The NBA suspended their season today... Trump cancelled his rallies due to the latest "democrat hoax"... Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Rudy Gobert all confirmed they have it... And Trump suspended travel from Europe for 30 days... 

To 80% of the people the symptoms are mild. It's more serious for the other 20% though and of course a 2% mortality rate. That is significantly higher than the flu. I think the bigger problem is that because the symptoms are mild in some they may not realize they are sick and spread the disease. If you multiply a 2% mortality rate times millions of people the death toll starts to get enormous.

13 hours ago, bristolboy said:

Actually, I have to disagree with you on that. This is from the Manhattan Institute, a right wing think tank. They use a measurement called the Cost of Thriving Index. Basically it doesn't just measure income but also what it takes for a family of 4 to afford the basics. 

"In 1985,[2] the COTI stood at 30—it would require 30 weeks of the median weekly wage to afford a three-bedroom house at the 40th percentile of a local market’s prices, a family health-insurance premium, a semester of public college, and the operation of a vehicle. By 2018, the COTI had increased to 53—a full-time job was insufficient to afford these items, let alone the others that a household needs."

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/reevaluating-prosperity-of-american-family

Pew Research is considered the least biased research on things like this. Here's an in depth article from them covering all topics there:

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/

2 hours ago, nobodysfriend said:

What most people seem to forget : Thailand has a ( pseudo ) democracy , but first of all , it is a Monarchy .

I don't think it really qualifies to be called a democracy at this point.

1 hour ago, BobBKK said:

I don't doubt for a second that Stone is a manipulating toe-rag but nine years?  NINE?  rapists don't get that, serious assaults don't get that. Did he hurt anyone?  kill?  rape?  I would have thought 6 months to a year fitted the crime. Too much politics in just about everything these days.

Killers are rapists get longer than 9 years in most cases, they may not serve that long (typically a third of their sentence or less) but they get sentenced to it typically. Armed robbery without anyone getting hurt is a mandatory 10 years in a lot of states. 

On 2/17/2020 at 9:44 AM, BobBKK said:

Because it's a blatant misuse of justice. Comey lied, Strok lied and Clinton lied why are they not up for 9 year jail?  9 years is longer than rapists get and the foreperson was a biased Dem and if you can't see the injustice in that then you are lost to any sense of propriety. BTW I don't particularly like Stone but I love fair play.

Trump sicked his own justice department on all of those people... And they found that none of them deserved prosecution. Roger Stone threatened people. He betrayed the sanctity of his own countries elections, he lied, he put out attacks on the judge in his own case, and he never showed any sign of remorse, stretched the trial out as long as he could while he attempted to influence witnesses. Surely, you can't be serious?

19 hours ago, pkspeaker said:

if temps have risen so much in the last 30 years, then why isthere more snow now?

Warmer temperatures increase the amount of moisture in the air. That moisture leads to extreme weather events. Climate change is going to cause more extreme snowstorms, hurricanes, and floods.