Corona Virus

[TheCasillas]

This season isnt gonna happen

[4Corners]

23 minutes ago, 45catfan said:

Folks in government bureaucracies often line the DNCs pockets.  Small and medium businesses lines the RNCs .  This is very, very common knowledge. 

I'm open to read/hear other views, but when more and more 'mistakes' are being uncovered at the foremost authority in the field of infectious disease in the world, something starts to stink.  Not just there, but at the state and local levels too.

Link?

[Wolfcop]

Too bad the GMs dont get to make that decision. Let them sit at home - someone else can do their job.

[Peon Awesome]

1 hour ago, 45catfan said:

As it turned out in hind site.  So what steps were taken to mitigate H1N1 when the virus first broke out and being studied?  Answer, none.  Pure luck it wasn't highly lethal as Biden's former Chief of Staff later admitted in an interview (Ron Klain).  I'm not suggesting we stop tracking COVID-19, but what I am suggesting is the data is being hypermonitored, as you would, say for political ends and manipulated to a degree.

Regarding ICUs--ICU units stay mostly occupied a great deal of the time:

"Over the three years studied, total ICU occupancy ranged from 57.4% to 82.1% ..." from a study released in 2014. Here  So it's not a stretch for an ICU to go from 82% to 100% quickly.

Oh and only botched surgeries thing is a joke.  My father-in-law had back surgery, everything went well and he recovered his first couple of days in ICU before getting his own room.  Long, invasive surgeries that have a fairly lengthy recovery often have stint in ICU directly following the surgery.

The CDC isn't political?   How about 8,000+ donations to the DNC since 2015.  Trump got only THREE donations in 2016 for his campaign from people at the CDC.  A little bit skewed there I would say.  

Please continue.

How much do you have to be grasping at straws to defend Trump when your argument is "Well H1N1 wasn't as bad as it could have been!" It doesn't make Trump's disastrous handling of COVID suddenly good. Sorry man. This very weak version of whataboutism is incredibly sad.

As far as ICUs, I think your study supports my point far more than yours. So ICUs at their busiest are around 80% and on average in the 60s. July is one of the least busy times of the year,  but let's just throw you a bone since you need help and assume Miami was going into their absolute busiest season by chance. And then realize jumping from 80% to 120% is a damn big deal. We're saying the ICUs are used to being somewhere between half to 2/3 as full as they are now. For good measure, our hospital system's most recent numbers show us at 70% ICU capacity and we're doing all of our elective surgeries. And cases in NC have been hitting record levels. So for Miami to be that overrun in comparison just shows how bad things are. And they're not the only one. Several hospital systems throughout the country are panicking about potentially exceeding available resources. 

Finally, I completely stand by my point about elective surgeries not having an appreciable effect on ICU bed occupancy. I'll take my experience working on the frontlines in the hospital approaching 10 years over your N of 1 case of your dad. Long invasive surgeries ending in the ICU, sure not crazy. The number of elective surgeries that qualify as that are quite low. Elective surgeries are far far more likely to be same day or next morning discharges.

And finally what's the point of the CDC's political contributions? They don't make up the numbers. Hospitals report them and they publish them. And of course more of their contributions go to democrats. Scientists and well educated people in general lean democratic. It probably doesn't help the Republican party that they often ignore or downright deny science in many cases. Either way, it's more grasping at straws rather than facing the cold hard truth that we are not handing the COVID situation well compared to much of the rest of the world. Instead of pointing fingers and making excuses, we'd be better served to actually acknowledge that the problem exists and do something about it. But that doesn't seem to be this administration's preferred strategy and people like you let them get away with it rather than demand they do better when we deserve that much. 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Peon Awesome

[45catfan]

20 minutes ago, 4Corners said:

Link?

You want receipts, here you go.  Actblue, as you may well know, is a pass-through entity for the DNC.

CDC Political Contributions

[45catfan]

19 minutes ago, Peon Awesome said:

How much do you have to be grasping at straws to defend Trump when your argument is "Well H1N1 wasn't as bad as it could have been!" It doesn't make Trump's disastrous handling of COVID suddenly good. Sorry man. This very weak version of whataboutism is incredibly sad.

As far as ICUs, I think your study supports my point far more than yours. So ICUs at their busiest are around 80% and on average in the 60s. July is one of the least busy times of the year,  but let's just throw you a bone since you need help and assume Miami was going into their absolute busiest season by chance. And then realize jumping from 80% to 120% is a damn big deal. We're saying the ICUs are used to being somewhere between half to 2/3 as full as they are now. For good measure, our hospital system's most recent numbers show us at 70% ICU capacity and we're doing all of our elective surgeries. And cases in NC have been hitting record levels. So for Miami to be that overrun in comparison just shows how bad things are. And they're not the only one. Several hospital systems throughout the country are panicking about potentially exceeding available resources. 

Finally, I completely stand by my point about elective surgeries not having an appreciable effect on ICU bed occupancy. I'll take my experience working on the frontlines in the hospital approaching 10 years over your N of 1 case of your dad. Long invasive surgeries ending in the ICU, sure not crazy. The number of elective surgeries that qualify as that are quite low. Elective surgeries are far far more likely to be same day or next morning discharges.

And finally what's the point of the CDC's political contributions? They don't make up the numbers. Hospitals report them and they publish them. And of course more of their contributions go to democrats. Scientists and well educated people in general lean democratic. It probably doesn't help the Republican party that they often ignore or downright deny science in many cases. Either way, it's more grasping at straws rather than facing the cold hard truth that we are not handing the COVID situation well compared to much of the rest of the world. Instead of pointing fingers and making excuses, we'd be better served to actually acknowledge that the problem exists and do something about it. But that doesn't seem to be this administration's preferred strategy and people like you let them get away with it rather than demand they do better when we deserve that much. 

Yep, and you look back at what you think should have been done differently during this pandemic.  Just a more current case of whataboutism, that's all.  I'm sure your 20/20 hind site going back to February is ironclad as what should have been done differently.  Please tell me how could we staved off this pandemic?  Locking down the entire county indefinitely and wearing masks 24/7 isn't realistic, so please enlighten me, how do we get rid of this in a real world scenario?

[LinvilleGorge]

16 minutes ago, 45catfan said:

Yep, and you look back at what you think should have been done differently during this pandemic.  Just a more current case of whataboutism, that's all.  I'm sure your 20/20 hind site going back to February is ironclad as what should have been done differently.  Please tell me how could we staved off this pandemic?  Locking down the entire county indefinitely and wearing masks 24/7 isn't realistic, so please enlighten me, how do we get rid of this in a real world scenario?

Why do people still scream what could we have done differently? How do you explain how the rest of the entire developed world handled it so much better? 

[Peon Awesome]

2 hours ago, 45catfan said:

Yep, and you look back at what you think should have been done differently during this pandemic.  Just a more current case of whataboutism, that's all.  I'm sure your 20/20 hind site going back to February is ironclad as what should have been done differently.  Please tell me how could we staved off this pandemic?  Locking down the entire county indefinitely and wearing masks 24/7 isn't realistic, so please enlighten me, how do we get rid of this in a real world scenario?

OK fine. I'll even try to minimize using much hindsight and even pretend like I don't have the tremendous resources and information at my fingertips in the early parts of the pandemic that the president had, instead limiting to what was widely known and available to the public. So how about start by not treating it like it was nothing and simply going to go away immediately, instead giving a clear message to the public that this was a serious virus that required vigilance, frequent hand washing, avoiding of high risk behaviors. That way, when scientists and politicians start making recommendations to slow the spread, people don't assume it's just an overblown hoax attempting solely to infringe on our liberties and do the exact opposite. Let's not forget before the US started shutting down, we had already seen thousands dying in Italy with whole hospital systems getting overrun, even if you want to discount China's problems for a month or two before. The US had the benefit of being one of the last industrialized nations to get hit hard and failed to take full advantage of learning from the rest of the world's experience. 

Now subsequently when it became public knowledge that masks were vital to slowing the spread, he should have stressed how important they were rather than treating them like a political statement and sign of weakness. Words matter. Many people for better or worse trust the president over scientists and physicians. His rhetoric led people to go against the very measures that other countries have taken to get the numbers down to highly manageable levels. Even if we missed a bigger opportunity by wearing masks in March, if he stopped the bleeding by reiterating CDC guidelines in April about how important they were, it would have made an enormous difference. 

And if that's all he did, he would have helped save several tens of thousands of lives and many more hospitalizations already. But beyond words, which is such low hanging fruit, I would have directed millions in federal funding upfront to get PPE and testing supplies (e.g. swabs, reagents, etc) to hospitals around the country, and encouraged manufacturers to ramp up production far sooner. Again we played a ton of catch up. And with a virus that has potential for exponential spread, even a couple days make a huge difference. There's no reason hospitals should have been running out of masks for the first 3 weeks when we knew how bad the virus was months earlier. Similarly it took forever to get testing so people were running around with the virus unbeknowst to anyone, spreading it far and wide. And perhaps it would've helped us recognize and achieve these things if Trump's administration hadn't dismantled the pandemic response team.

Listen, Trump isn't the only person who made mistakes. The CDC, even Dr. Fauci screwed up at points of time. The difference is, they typically acknowledge their mistakes and try to correct them. Trump doubles down repeatedly until the truth is so far in his face, he's literally one of the last people to acknowledge it. Plus as the president, he ultimately bears the most responsibilty whether that's fair or not. He got dealt an unlucky hand to be president during one of the worst public health crises we've ever faced. But he was elected to lead us through whatever problem came our way. He doesn't get to throw his hands up and say "Man this is hard. Tough luck America!" I admit, even if he handled this amazing well, it doesn't mean people wouldn't have died or our economy wouldn't have been severely affected. But the above measures are very simple things well within the president's purview that would've made a big difference and put us in better shape than we are now, similar to the position the vast majority of countries around the world are in. And I'm no public policy expert or epidemiologist so you could get a much better and more complete answer elsewhere. But these are some no brainers that require little hindsight.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Peon Awesome

[Paa Langfart]

I really feel bad for folks like this poor lady.  Shitheads like 45cat make her life and others like her a living hell because of their selfish stupidity.

 

Quote

I’ll never understand what’s so hard about putting on a mask for a few minutes. It’s common sense. It’s a requirement now in North Carolina. But this is a conservative place, and there are only 900 people in this town. We try hard to get along. We’re a small general store, and we didn’t want to end up in one of those viral videos with people spitting or screaming about their civil rights. We put a sign outside — an appeal to kindness. “If you wear a mask, it shows how much you care about us.”

We found out how much they cared. It became clear real quick.

I’m 63. I’m a lifetime asthmatic. I’d watch customers pull into the parking lot without their faces covered, and my whole body would start to tense up. Our store is on the Intracoastal Waterway, and people from all over the world dock in the harbor and come in here for supplies. It’s a big petri dish. I put a shield up over my register, and a few hours into my shift it was covered with spittle. We’d have 20 or 30 people walk by the sign and come in without a mask. I’d try to get their attention and point to the sign. It was a lot of: “You’re infringing on my rights. This is a free country, and I’m here to shop, so who’s going to stop me?”

Maybe some people took it as a challenge. I don’t know. But it kept on escalating. Most of our customers are supportive and respectful about it — maybe 90, 95 percent. But on weekends, we get dozens of people from Charlotte or Raleigh who come to visit their boats. Those places are virus hot spots, and they come here to have a good time and maybe they’re drinking. Some of them would see our signs, open the front door, and just yell: “F--- masks. F--- you.” Or they would walk in, refuse to wear a mask and then dump their merchandise all over the counter. I had a guy come in with no mask and a pistol on his hip and stare me down. I had a guy who took his T-shirt off and put it over his mouth so I could see his whole stomach. “There. A mask. Are you happy?” I had a lady who tried to tape a pamphlet on the front window about the ADA mask exemption, which is a totally fake thing. It’s a conspiracy theory, but it’s become popular here. She kept saying we were discriminating against people with disabilities. What? Why? How? None of what they say sounds logical. I can’t make sense of half the names they call me. They say I’m uneducated — uh, that’s kind of ironic. They say I’m a sheep. I’ve been brainwashed. I’m pushing government propaganda. I’m suffocating them. I’m a part of the deep state. I’m an agent for the World Health Organization. “How do you like your muzzle?” “Is this going to become sharia law?” “Are you prepping us to wear burqas?” “What’s next? Mind control?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/18/covid-pandemic-store-clerk-north-carolina/?arc404=true

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Paa Langfart

[4Corners]

2 hours ago, 45catfan said:

You want receipts, here you go.  Actblue, as you may well know, is a pass-through entity for the DNC.

CDC Political Contributions

You are fake News 

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

53 minutes ago, Paa Langfart said:

 

Maybe some people took it as a challenge. I don’t know. But it kept on escalating. Most of our customers are supportive and respectful about it — maybe 90, 95 percent. But on weekends, we get dozens of people from Charlotte or Raleigh who come to visit their boats. Those places are virus hot spots, and they come here to have a good time and maybe they’re drinking. Some of them would see our signs, open the front door, and just yell: “F--- masks. F--- you.” Or they would walk in, refuse to wear a mask and then dump their merchandise all over the counter. I had a guy come in with no mask and a pistol on his hip and stare me down. I had a guy who took his T-shirt off and put it over his mouth so I could see his whole stomach. “There. A mask. Are you happy?” I had a lady who tried to tape a pamphlet on the front window about the ADA mask exemption, which is a totally fake thing. It’s a conspiracy theory, but it’s become popular here. She kept saying we were discriminating against people with disabilities. What? Why? How? None of what they say sounds logical. I can’t make sense of half the names they call me. They say I’m uneducated — uh, that’s kind of ironic. They say I’m a sheep. I’ve been brainwashed. I’m pushing government propaganda. I’m suffocating them. I’m a part of the deep state. I’m an agent for the World Health Organization. “How do you like your muzzle?” “Is this going to become sharia law?” “Are you prepping us to wear burqas?” “What’s next? Mind control?”

This is a mental illness

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Why do people still scream what could we have done differently? How do you explain how the rest of the entire developed world handled it so much better? 

It's to waste your time. I mean the guy wrote a long, detailed response to what's basically one question.  Now get thousands of people all over the internet doing the same thing over and over again all day every day.  The level of effort necessary is completely disproportionate.

[Happy Panther]

5 hours ago, Wolfcop said:

Too bad the GMs dont get to make that decision. Let them sit at home - someone else can do their job.

Yes that would be an excellent result of all of this.

[SmokinwithWilly]

4 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Why do people still scream what could we have done differently? How do you explain how the rest of the entire developed world handled it so much better? 

The rest of the world didn't make it so damn political. This country has never been more divided politically. Media outlets don't even care about truth, just money. This citizens of this country have been lied to by so many for so long there is zero trust or faith in anything anymore. Even in a time when logic should tell us to come together, we just can't. What you're seeing is the result of decades of lying without consequences or liability.