Trump considers reopening U.S. economy despite coronavirus spread

[heybruce]

6 minutes ago, Opl said:

"“He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data,” Birx told CBN. “I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues because in the end, data is data.” 

There should be a "Bleah!" emoji.

[heybruce]

3 hours ago, Logosone said:

You provided the wrong post. You cast doubt on whether Ioannidis supports reopening the US for business. I then provided the relevant quote;

 

"One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society, and mental health. Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the social fabric. One can only hope that, much like in 1918, life will continue. Conversely, with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake."

 

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 if Professor Ioannidis of Stanford says he hopes that much like in 1918 life will continue and highlights that a lockdown puts millions of lives at stake do you think he supports a lockdown or he supports reopening the US for business? His view is very clear, but you insist on quoting the parts of the article that are not relevant to the issue you had raised, if he supports going back to normal business or not.  Clearly he does. You're obviously wrong here, he supports going back to business. 

Still nothing definitive in your quote, but I see what you mean.  You consider what Ioannidis "hopes" to be a definitive statement of the correct course of action.

[heybruce]

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

If you actually believe that Japan has only 1387 cases, then frankly you are just divorced from reality.

 

In the UK, which like Japan is also an island nation, Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK chief medical adviser, has admitted openly that though they identified 590 cases (at that time) the UK actually had 5000 or 10000 at least (at that time). So at the very, very least, you should allow for the fact that Japan has 15000 or 30000 cases, though the real number is probably much higher. We've seen with the Diamond Princess that Japan's measures are poor in the extreme.

 

And you see precisely because Covid19 transmission is much faster, and more stealthily than we thought is the conclusion near that so many are infected already that her immunity would be a much faster way to end the pandemic. The model from Oxford University in the news recently suggest this is the case. Because the numbers of infected is already so large social distancing is pretty pointless.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/health-51862922/up-to-10000-in-uk-likely-to-have-coronavirus-chief-scientific-adviser

 

See, it's not me ignoring the numbers, it's you who's ignoring the numbers. If you really think the identified case number is the actual number of cases you're clearly wrong. You have to take it as granted that those are only the identified cases, the real number is vastly higher, as Sir Patrick Vallance has made clear. This applies in Japan as everywhere else.

I believe the numbers provided were the confirmed numbers at that time.  I believe Japan has done a better than average job of measuring the progress of the disease.  I believe that the confirmed cases indicate that Japan and its practice of social distancing is doing a good job or slowing the spread of the virus.

 

I believe you bring nothing to the discussion other than the opinions of three doctors who are in a small minority on the approach to dealing with the pandemic.  I believe you attack the references and logic of what other's bring to the discussion because you can bring nothing substantive yourself.

[heybruce]

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

No actually I could quote a lot more eminent, and I do mean really eminent, professors of medicine who are also critical of the social isolation model. But it's not about that, the truth is not about quantity, but quality.

 

The key point is still that you have no hard data that would prove social distancing even works, and on a hunch you'd be ready to flush the economies of the entire world down to the toilet.

Please do cite more of these eminent professors.  And don't just tell us how they question the current approach, tell us exactly what they propose as an alternative.

[heybruce]

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

Okay, if you read the study you allude to, what you will see is quote after quote by people running the hospitals saying that they do not believe they can handle the onslaught of what is to come.

 

I know you have the hope that by putting in enough beds a huge number of lives will be saved. This in the absence of any treatment, vaccine or even basic equipment like test kits. What if you're wrong? What if that doesn't save lives to the extent you think it does? 

 

But instead it prolongs a period of shock for the hospitals when they have to neglect non-Covid19 patients who are critical. Has it occured to you that the majority of deaths could then be from that side of the hospital population? And that the longer you therefore prolong your Covid19 operation the more people would die?

Once again you return to another point in the argument that has already been refuted.  I maintain that slowing the progress of the pandemic gives health care systems time to acquire all of the resources needed to deal with it.  Stop pretending otherwise, I've explained this repeatedly.

[heybruce]

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

That is exactly how I feel about you, and since you're spreading misinformation I have to obviously counter it with real facts.

 

You know, since you don't have any real iron-clad hard data that would would lend any credibility to this belief that social distancing works like you think it will.

I am citing reputable studies, using numbers from these studies and basic mathematics (which you don't seem to understand), and logic.

 

You are referring to the opinions of three doctors who are in a small minority and don't explicitly state an alternative approach.  You also have no hard data, and certainly no credibility.

[KhunFred]

The President of the United States is insane.

[lust]

4 minutes ago, KhunFred said:

The President of the United States is insane.

I know, I love it. Trump 2020!

[URMySunshine]

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

 

Well, done for posting this report. The initial model from Imperial College with its apocalyptic 40 million dead figure was of course the reason social distancing was adopted in the UK.

 

Isn't it rather telling then that one of the main authors of the Imperial College modelling report, Neil Ferguson, has retracted this doomsday apocalypse figure.  

 

He's now conceded, testifying before the U.K.’s parliamentary select committee on science and technology, that in the U.K. deaths from the disease will not exceed 20,000, and could be much lower.

 

Ferguson said the current strategy was intended to keep transmission of the virus at low levels until a vaccine was available. Experts say that could take 12 to 18 months and Ferguson acknowledged it was impractical to keep the UK in lockdown for so long, especially because of the impact on the economy. “We’ll be paying for this year for decades to come,” he said.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/

 

So not only has one of the very scientists you quote in your article, Throatwobbler, retracted his doomsday figure of deaths, and now quietly revised the estimate significantly downward. He also thinks a prolonged lockdown is not feasible due to the impact on the economy.

 

What's more the Imperial College model has so many flaws even the Guardian has attacked it sharply:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/25/coronavirus-exposes-the-problems-and-pitfalls-of-modelling

 

One of the issues I see is that the model conflates the measures of social distancing and testing, as if they could predict the effect of one or either, when they can not. Even the Chinese paper cleopatra kindly posted, which purports to analyse this very issue has admitted it can not attribute the results to one or either measure. And remember, this was after the fog had cleared in China and they had a lot of data. The Imperial College model pretends it can distinguish the effect of both, when obviously there is no way it could.

 

 

 

Looks like Boris though and probably the rest of cabinet have decided to take this herd immunity theory seriously. 

[Neeranam]

1 hour ago, Sujo said:

If its not really so bad then you must hate trump taking the action he has.

why?

[Logosone]

32 minutes ago, URMySunshine said:

Looks like Boris though and probably the rest of cabinet have decided to take this herd immunity theory seriously. 

Also Neil Ferguson, the genius author of the Imperial College model which caused the adoption of the social distancing mantra with his "40 million may die" headline, and has now revised the estimate of deaths in the UK down to 20,000 "or considerably less".

 

That's one thing all the social distancing rapturists will have in come, they'll all get the virus, and thereby at least contribute to herd immunity. We'll all be fine in relation to the virus, provided we're not over 81, bar the odd exception.

 

However, the economic catastrophe the lockdowns have unleashed, totally unnecessarily, will be with us all, will affect us all, regardless of age, and for generations to come. Even our children's children will pay for the disastrous lockdown and sd policy. This is the real disaster, but people will only realise this much later. When this Covid19 panic has allowed real thinking to return and the panic is over.

 

Trump is absolutely right, the earlier the US opens for business, the better it will be.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Logosone

[gk10002000]

11 hours ago, heybruce said:

Unfortunately states can't close borders with neighboring states, so piecemeal lockdowns won't be as effective without a national strategy.

well Rhode Island and Mass are stopping people with New York license plates at the border.  Not sure that is legal since I 95 seems like a federally funded road and I doubt states have the right to block it. I am sure the lawyers are lining up on both sides

[gk10002000]

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

Fact-challenged much?. He hasn't revised his method. His original estimate was for if nothing was done.

No, a COVID Scientist Didn’t Walk Back His Prediction

The paper actually offered simulations of numerous scenarios. The one resulting in 500,000 deaths was one where Great Britain just carried on life as before. Other scenarios, where the country locked down whenever it was necessary to stop the disease’s spread, put death totals below 20,000. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-pandemic-neil-ferguson-did-not-walk-back-covid-19-predictions/

the thing about these models is while obviously less social contact can flatten the curve and slow down the spread, they do not explain why the total amount infected gets less.  Unless one assumes that the people NEVER come into contact with anybody infected or that people once infected do get better or become non contagious, there is no reason the virus would not just spread slowly,  So I would take these models with a grain of salt

[metisdead]

Posts with content from unapproved YouTube sources have been removed as well as the replies:

 

18) Social Media content is not to be used as  source material unless it is from a recognized or approved news media source,  the source of any such material (Twitter, Facebook  etc.) should always be shown.

[candide]

12 minutes ago, gk10002000 said:

the thing about these models is while obviously less social contact can flatten the curve and slow down the spread, they do not explain why the total amount infected gets less.  Unless one assumes that the people NEVER come into contact with anybody infected or that people once infected do get better or become non contagious, there is no reason the virus would not just spread slowly,  So I would take these models with a grain of salt

Quite interesting remark. I did not pay attention to it. Could it be that without social contacts the number of infected people would exceed the percentage that is necessary for herd immunity? Or that some isolated areas would be likely to avoid being infected?

[gk10002000]

2 minutes ago, candide said:

Quite interesting remark. I did not pay attention to it. Could it be that without social contacts the number of infected people would exceed the percentage that is necessary for herd immunity? Or that some isolated areas would be likely to avoid being infected?

Yeah, I really do have engineering and math degrees and do have some knowledge of modeling  dealing with all sorts of things, so the basic model is not very hard.  There are some time decays, infection probabilities , etc.  But total spread is pretty much inevitable depending on how the model is structured

[heybruce]

58 minutes ago, gk10002000 said:

the thing about these models is while obviously less social contact can flatten the curve and slow down the spread, they do not explain why the total amount infected gets less.  Unless one assumes that the people NEVER come into contact with anybody infected or that people once infected do get better or become non contagious, there is no reason the virus would not just spread slowly,  So I would take these models with a grain of salt

I'm confused by your confusion.

 

Models assume a certain number of transmissions per infected person.  Obviously this is an assumption based on averages from past history; an infected person may walk through a crowded room and infect no one, or may talk to three people and infect all three.  That's why empirically based averages based on as much data are available are used.

 

Once empirically based averages are determined (or, when data are limited, assumed), large number modeling is used.  A thousand infected people will infect three thousand (the virus spreads rapidly) or a thousand infected people will infect 500 (the virus dies out rapidly). 

 

If social distancing reduces the infection rate from three per infected person to two (with exponential growth the difference between three and two is huge) the infection rate will be greatly reduced.

 

In a later post you used the term "infection rate".  Time dependence adds another variable, but you need only adjust the above explanation by assuming infection rate per time period.  The time from initial infection to recovery would be a logical time period.

 

Obviously given infinite time a slow exponential growth will yield the same results as fast exponential growth, but most of us are thinking about the next one to two years.  With luck we will have a game changing vaccine in that time.

 

Why is this a unclear?  Ok, why is this unclear for a numbers person? (Some people shut their brains down when presented with simple mathematics.)

Edited March 28, 2020 by heybruce

[candide]

1 hour ago, gk10002000 said:

Yeah, I really do have engineering and math degrees and do have some knowledge of modeling  dealing with all sorts of things, so the basic model is not very hard.  There are some time decays, infection probabilities , etc.  But total spread is pretty much inevitable depending on how the model is structured

It's likely to be a spatial network model in which the population is irregularly spread on a territory and irregularly interconnected. As nodes are active only during a short period of time, temporary isolation is likely to increase the odds of having later some nodes surrounded by inactive nodes only.

Well, that's the way I see it. I may be wrong, of course.

[Consummata Sunt]

12 hours ago, cleopatra2 said:

The current statistics and evidence suggest people do not fully recover from the virus.

At present the US has 102,000 known cases with only 2,400 fully recoved.

Worldwide the recovery is standing at approx 133, 000

Figures from John Hopkins University

This is an example of misreading statistics. Obviously the ill are not yet recovered.

[Consummata Sunt]

2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

"Denies the facts regarding transfer"?

 

What on earth are you talking about?

Distance.

[metisdead]

An off topic post about Trump and Easter has been removed, that topic is HERE.

 

Off topic obfuscation posts continuing to troll about social distancing and "herd immunity" in other countries have been removed as well as the replies. 

 

The following is from the UPDATED NOTICE TO MEMBERS POSTING ON THAIVISA AMID COVID-19 - 25 MARCH 2020:

 

Do not post news or any form of content, including video, audio, images, social media posts that contains messages that may cause people to be afraid or intentionally distort information, causing misunderstanding during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

[gk10002000]

6 hours ago, heybruce said:

I'm confused by your confusion.

 

Models assume a certain number of transmissions per infected person.  Obviously this is an assumption based on averages from past history; an infected person may walk through a crowded room and infect no one, or may talk to three people and infect all three.  That's why empirically based averages based on as much data are available are used.

 

Once empirically based averages are determined (or, when data are limited, assumed), large number modeling is used.  A thousand infected people will infect three thousand (the virus spreads rapidly) or a thousand infected people will infect 500 (the virus dies out rapidly). 

 

If social distancing reduces the infection rate from three per infected person to two (with exponential growth the difference between three and two is huge) the infection rate will be greatly reduced.

 

In a later post you used the term "infection rate".  Time dependence adds another variable, but you need only adjust the above explanation by assuming infection rate per time period.  The time from initial infection to recovery would be a logical time period.

 

Obviously given infinite time a slow exponential growth will yield the same results as fast exponential growth, but most of us are thinking about the next one to two years.  With luck we will have a game changing vaccine in that time.

 

Why is this a unclear?  Ok, why is this unclear for a numbers person? (Some people shut their brains down when presented with simple mathematics.)

you are obviously unclear about many things.  If the virus always stays active, and infectious, then given enough time everybody will be infected, unless a person is alone and stays alone forever.  Now if a person gets over the virus and that person no longer carries a contagion that can be transmitted, things are different.  There is little evidence or data about it.  Are infected people now cured and can no longer transmit the disease or can they catch the disease again, or can they carry with no symptoms but still transmit the disease?  Do not attempt to throw out volumes of words you have no nor understanding of

[heybruce]

5 hours ago, gk10002000 said:

you are obviously unclear about many things.  If the virus always stays active, and infectious, then given enough time everybody will be infected, unless a person is alone and stays alone forever.  Now if a person gets over the virus and that person no longer carries a contagion that can be transmitted, things are different.  There is little evidence or data about it.  Are infected people now cured and can no longer transmit the disease or can they catch the disease again, or can they carry with no symptoms but still transmit the disease?  Do not attempt to throw out volumes of words you have no nor understanding of

Regarding my understanding of these words, I have a degree in math, two in engineering, have done some modeling and taught some statistics.

 

Yes, given enough time everyone will be exposed to the virus, unless they are stranded on an inaccessible island.  Yes, we don't have sufficient data on immunity once a person has been infected by the virus and recovered.  We also don't know if there are people with immune systems sufficiently robust to prevent them from getting the virus once exposed.  I can't recall being sick in the last five years, perhaps I have such an immune system.

 

However, as explained earlier, models use best available data.  Presumably this data shows that in past pandemics not everyone became infected.

 

What was there in my post that you think is incorrect? 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by heybruce

[earlinclaifornia]

Information for everyone but Fox News followers.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-coronavirus-disinformation-campaign-isn-003121699.html

[roaming2019]

15 hours ago, earlinclaifornia said:

Information for everyone but Fox News followers.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-coronavirus-disinformation-campaign-isn-003121699.html

check which website you are following  - dont expect to get honest news when you read a politically biased site - same goes for liberals on a conservative pres. and conservatives on a liberal prez.

 

http://www.progressive-sites.net/

News and Opinion Sites

This category contains some of the largest and best-known progressive websites. Although every type of news may be covered, the focus is often on U.S. social and political issues. Some of the most prominent writers and bloggers can be found on these sites.

The Huffington Post

Daily Kos

Alternet -- well-known alternative to the U.S. mainstream media

Raw Story -- extensive coverage of U.S. political news

Common Dreams -- features many top progressive writers

Political Wire

Slate Magazine

The New Republic -- founded in 1914

Vox -- popular site for both news and commentary

Mediaite -- focuses on the news media

Nation of Change -- covers U.S. progressive activism

Daily Beast

Salon

Mother Jones -- the original print magazine was launched in 1976

The Progressive -- one of the oldest U.S. liberal publications (1909)

Axios

The Intercept

Talking Points Memo

The Atlantic

Daily Intelligencer

McClatchy News -- the original newspaper began publication in 1857

Progressive Review Online Report -- print magazine was launched in 1966

Democracy Now!

The Nation

Front Page Live -- Aggregator of News Stories from Liberal Sources

The Daily Banter

Buzzfeed

Reader Supported News

The American Prospect -- founded in 1990

Washington Press

Drudge Retort -- a good retort is better than a false report

Shareblue

Intrepid Report

Jezebel -- U.S. politics as viewed by progressive women

Think Progress

Free Press -- covers attempts to restrict free speech

Capitol Hill Blue

The Washington Monthly -- web home of the well-known liberal print magazine

National Memo

Republic Report -- exposes corruption in government

Wonkette -- very combative

PoliticusUSA

More News and Opinion Sites: A Supplemental List

[Jingthing]

Premature opening is a BIGLY mistake.

 

Quote

 

Trump is missing the big picture on the economy

 

As an economist, I am normally enthusiastic when presidents or other political leaders emphasize the economic aspect of public policy issues. I am all for economic growth, cost benefit analyses, trade agreements, more flexible markets and prudent deregulation. Yet I am appalled by President Trump’s invocation of economic arguments as a basis for overriding the judgments of public health experts about battling the coronavirus pandemic.

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/24/trump-is-missing-big-picture-economy/

 

[Langsuan Man]

4 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I am appalled by President Trump’s invocation of economic arguments as a basis for overriding the judgments of public health experts about battling the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Why should anything surprise you about this president, he is even bragging about his daily briefing ratings, the mans ego knows no bounds

 

 

source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/trump-brags-tv-ratings-coronavirus-death-toll-rises.html