tng Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 Are you confused about high sensitivity of key variables in the models and the reduced deaths due to the effectiveness of shelter in place? Choosing to ignore them? Aware of them and disagree with them? What happens when shelter in place ends? Or are we just not going to end it until we discover a vaccine? A lot of the "open the economy" people are simply pessimists that think we are going to be forced into the herd immunity route whether we like to or not. It's not that they don't realize that staying in lock down prevents deaths right now, that's obvious, but a life isn't saved because someone is moved from one sinking boat onto another sinking boat.
Gregmal Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 The only thing I am confused about is the absolute certainty and conviction that was put behind the idea that this was massively mismanaged and that deaths would be hundreds of thousands and probably even millions and yet, a few weeks of shutdown and all of a sudden we're talking about 40,000 deaths(forget that the bulk are because of NY, a city thats been begging for a health/sanitation related crisis for ages) almost entirely consistent of elderly and at risk? Obviously we would like to be safe than sorry, but you have to be completely ignorant to just assume collapsing the economy and destroying jobs EVERYWHERE, with no respect for circumstance, has no consequence? Certainly not one equivalent to a few percent of a few percent of the population(that isn't part of the contributing economy btw) being affected. The net consequence, longer term, is that more lives are ruined via crushing the economy than it will be from the virus. Some of you seem to think there is zero consequence because for whatever reason you cant equate economic duress, job loss, wealth destruction, etc, with death and despair.
LC Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 Obviously we would like to be safe than sorry, but you have to be completely ignorant to just assume collapsing the economy and destroying jobs EVERYWHERE, with no respect for circumstance, has no consequence? The net consequence, longer term, is that more lives are ruined via crushing the economy than it will be from the virus. No need to be ignorant at all. Perform enough tests and you can make an educated decision. Tests cost $50/ea at the high end: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/mac-covid-19-test-pricing.pdf Let's call it another $20 for distribution. For $2.5B you can test 35 million people, which is frankly way more than enough from a statistical perspective. Obviously I am ignoring problems of lab capacity and getting 35 million people to take the test (if the gov't was smart they would use existing supply chains i.e. food delivery, USPS/Fedex/UPS, etc.), but I would think over 1 month they could make this happen. For a fraction of the stimulus packages already approved. And for even more billions in opportunity costs avoided by being able to re-open. Trump is an idiot for not doing so frankly as it is in his best interest to open the economy (unless you think he wants society closed to just pay poor people to vote for him). If the second quoted opinion turns out to be correct, a federally-coordinated national testing effort would cost a few billion and provide justification to re-open the economy and ultimately would have saved hundreds of billions. Why isn't Trump doing this right now and/or why didn't he do this 1-2 months ago?
SnarkyPuppy Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 The only thing I am confused about is the absolute certainty and conviction that was put behind the idea that this was massively mismanaged and that deaths would be hundreds of thousands and probably even millions and yet, a few weeks of shutdown and all of a sudden we're talking about 40,000 deaths(forget that the bulk are because of NY, a city thats been begging for a health/sanitation related crisis for ages) almost entirely consistent of elderly and at risk? Obviously we would like to be safe than sorry, but you have to be completely ignorant to just assume collapsing the economy and destroying jobs EVERYWHERE, with no respect for circumstance, has no consequence? Certainly not one equivalent to a few percent of a few percent of the population(that isn't part of the contributing economy btw) being affected. The net consequence, longer term, is that more lives are ruined via crushing the economy than it will be from the virus. Some of you seem to think there is zero consequence because for whatever reason you cant equate economic duress, job loss, wealth destruction, etc, with death and despair. Again - highly sensitive variables and effective lockdowns = 40k (and still clearly rising) deaths. This isn't really debatable and frankly isn't that hard to understand. The lockdowns were to buy time to a) prevent healthcare system from collapsing because any idiot without significant preconceived bias understands that there was a wide range of sensitivity to the key variables -> potential catastrophic outcomes that conservatism was the only rational decision and b) as LC points out to gain information - specifically the actual CFR and IFR through asymptomatic testing which is mind-blowing that we haven't seen solid results on (although you're starting to see data come out) Obviously if the IFR is actually low (because R0 was actually significantly higher than originally thought by a factor of 2-3x and large % of the population has been infected) you'll claim you were right - and I truly hope that's the case
Investor20 Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 Are you confused about high sensitivity of key variables in the models and the reduced deaths due to the effectiveness of shelter in place? Choosing to ignore them? Aware of them and disagree with them? What happens when shelter in place ends? Or are we just not going to end it until we discover a vaccine? A lot of the "open the economy" people are simply pessimists that think we are going to be forced into the herd immunity route whether we like to or not. It's not that they don't realize that staying in lock down prevents deaths right now, that's obvious, but a life isn't saved because someone is moved from one sinking boat onto another sinking boat. Not pessimists thats is a real possibility: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/coronavirus-second-wave-hydroxychloroquine-trial CDC chief warns of 'even more difficult' wave of coronavirus next winter https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/08/coronavirus-is-big-one-harvard-epidemiologist/2975019001/ Interview with Lipsitch is a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard Q. In the hot spots like Wuhan and northern Italy, 3% or 4% of the population had confirmed infections. But you and other epidemiologists talk about 40% or 70% of the entire population getting infected. Can you explain that gap? A. There's a first wave, and then there's the whole epidemic. A lot of the confusion is premised on the misunderstanding that if you control the epidemic once, then you're done. There's no reason to think that. Wuhan is starting to see resurgence of cases as they let up, and in 1918, we saw it all over the country as restrictions were lifted. So 40% or 70% is the number that you need to have immune before viral transmission stops on its own. The number that get infected under very intense control measures is the number that happened before those control measures fully take effect. Those are two different numbers.
meiroy Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 At this point, it seems futile, better to just reopen everything. USA Management Team is not going to improve and you cannot make up for a lost time or previous incompetency. If even one area allows reopening to some degree and people are not wearing masks it will just spread. Futile. How's this for a hashtag: #OhFuckItJustReopen or #ReopenResistanceIsFutile
Investor20 Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 At this point, it seems futile, better to just reopen everything. USA Management Team is not going to improve and you cannot make up for lost time or previous incompetency. If even one area allows reopening to some degree and people are not wearing masks it will just spread. Futile. People did not wear masks because they were told not to wear masks. The surgeon general tweeted in February "Dont buy masks". Right now we have data to guide us. Sweden and Japan were not following the lockdown and as far as I know in below list, other countries are following lockdown. Looking at deaths/million at worldometer Japan 2 Germany 61 Denmark 64 US 137* Sweden 175 UK 255 France 319 Italy 408 Are Japan and Sweden doing worse or better without lockdown than other countries with lockdown? US deaths are about half from NYC metro. Taking out NYC metro area, US deaths/million is similar to Germany. US did pretty well within western countries.
Spekulatius Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 Re Antibody Tests from Roche CEO. He could be talking his own book of course, but I don’t think so: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disaster-roche-ceos-verdict-covid-055050902.html
Liberty Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493879-texas-lt-governor-on-reopening-state-there-are-more-important-things https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/21/georgia-leads-race-become-americas-no-1-death-destination/
Dalal.Holdings Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 At this point, it seems futile, better to just reopen everything. USA Management Team is not going to improve and you cannot make up for a lost time or previous incompetency. If even one area allows reopening to some degree and people are not wearing masks it will just spread. Futile. How's this for a hashtag: #OhFuckItJustReopen or #ReopenResistanceIsFutile I am pretty much on board with this at this point due to incompetency/federal leadership vacuum.
Dalal.Holdings Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 Re Antibody Tests from Roche CEO. He could be talking his own book of course, but I don’t think so: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disaster-roche-ceos-verdict-covid-055050902.html Too bad--a lot of folks will be misled into believing they have immunity/prior exposure when it is merely a false positive... On the flipside: Depending on testing dynamics, repetition of a test even with high false positive can be useful. If you test positive two times but on the third negative with a test that has low PPV but high NPV, then you know you likely do not have antibodies and are not immune. If these finger prick tests become widespread and have high NPV (which is possible), they could be useful in someone after a series of repeat testing...
KJP Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html It's an op-ed, but it has a useful discussion of how at home pulse oximeters (easy to find) can help avoid bad outcomes from an unusual Covid-19 symptom. My apologies if it has already been posted.
Liberty Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html It's an op-ed, but it has a useful discussion of how at home pulse oximeters (easy to find) can help avoid bad outcomes from an unusual Covid-19 symptom. My apologies if it has already been posted. Agreed:
Jurgis Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493879-texas-lt-governor-on-reopening-state-there-are-more-important-things https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/21/georgia-leads-race-become-americas-no-1-death-destination/ "There are more important things than living"!
Investor20 Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died. Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work? Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is. It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere. The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that. Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it. Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste. I posted earlier. But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation. You can check that. I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence. Germany supposedly tested a lot. But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million. You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million . Japan did not have lockdown. They are cold, crowded and old people. No one wants to talk about Japan. Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths?
Guest Schwab711 Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died. Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work? Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is. It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere. The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that. Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it. Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste. I posted earlier. But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation. You can check that. I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence. Germany supposedly tested a lot. But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million. You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million . Japan did not have lockdown. They are cold, crowded and old people. No one wants to talk about Japan. Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths? It's a trivial amount of money, experts are saying it will help with health outcomes, and it seems like it would help with consumer confidence in the US since there's infighting. Who cares if it's testing per se. Make enough masks to send every household several a month. Maybe some idea I can't imagine. You seem focused on a specific solution that will definitely work. I obviously do not know that solution. Experts suggest testing/masks will help so I support it. I know they don't actually know for sure. Similar to Fed injections, efficiency/best solution is not necessarily important. It's about reversing the decline in confidence. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/493722-us-needs-to-conduct-20-million-coronavirus-tests-per-day-to-fully-open 20m tests/day is not possible in the near-term. Current capacity is something like low-to-mid millions/month right now (manufacturing/procuring, testing, and processing). I'm trying to be realistic with a ballpark number. I don't know exact capacity. I don't know what's possible. I'm just trying to be realistic with my guesses.
Cigarbutt Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html It's an op-ed, but it has a useful discussion of how at home pulse oximeters (easy to find) can help avoid bad outcomes from an unusual Covid-19 symptom. My apologies if it has already been posted. It's an interesting idea (oxygen measure as an indicator) but there are fundamental conceptual issues with the application (not the place to discuss that). Wearable (watches) devices are getting there but there are potential problems with sensitivity and specificity. ----- The following is likely to be irrelevant for 99.9% so skip. i've transposed the underlying physiology to investments because it fits well with margin of safety. The % oxygen saturation (to oxygen pressure) curve is not a straight line. Long story short, at high %, the curve is relatively flat and below 90% the curve becomes vertical. In real life (breathing people), a decreasing saturation may not look like anything much but once at a certain stage, things can go downhill very rapidly. People with CV who develop disproportionate inflammatory responses in their lungs (final common pathway to ARDS) may be a reflection of that. Companies that flirt with financial distress (knowingly or not) often show this pattern (exponential rise in cost of capital at certain stages and firm survival issues). This is also reflected in underfunded pension plans when non-linear changes can be introduced when plans have 90% and below funded levels. An unfortunate feature may be that people put emphasis on prevention at the wrong place in a way because it may be that CV people who don't do well already have the vulnerabilities (immunity, comorbidities etc) and what you do once the virus elects residence may have little effectiveness (at this point anyways). Somehow this connects with something i read yesterday (from somebody whose tactics are despicable but whose gut instincts tend to be well grounded): "How did the world's financial markets miss the slowest-moving black swan in history?". From a humble perspective, it may be because there is an unusual number of zombie companies living on cheap borrowed time and it is as if the Surgeon General Reserve had suspended the use of oxymetry altogether. I hate to say it but many are on the edge of the curve and may end up behind the ball. ---) Back to the virus
orthopa Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-21/autopsies-reveal-first-confirmed-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-occurred-in-bay-area-in-early-february?mod=article_inline There have been growing concerns that the new coronavirus has been in California longer than experts first believed. Dr. Jeff Smith, a physician who is the chief executive of Santa Clara County government, said earlier this month that data collected by the CDC, local health departments and others suggest it was “a lot longer than we first believed” — most likely since “back in December.” “This wasn’t recognized because we were having a severe flu season,” Smith said in an interview. “Symptoms are very much like the flu. If you got a mild case of COVID, you didn’t really notice. You didn’t even go to the doctor. The doctor maybe didn’t even do it because they presumed it was the flu.” https://www.marketwatch.com/story/santa-clara-county-officials-identify-additional-covid-19-deaths-2020-04-22?mod=home-page he local medical examiner collected samples during autopsies performed on people who died on Feb. 6, Feb. 17, and March 6 that later tested positive for the novel coronavirus. If COVID was in California earlier then expected it was in NYC earlier then expected. Both get tons of international flights. That being said community spread was happening undetected. Was it the stay at home order that poured gas on the fire in NYC? Initial business closure was on March 16th, schools closed on March 18th, Shelter in place March 22nd. Peak hospital usage April 8-10th so 21-23 days after kids forced to stay home. Are there a lot of multi generational homes in NYC? Was the gas on the fire bringing everyone together and locking them up in close contact for days on end? People of color would seem to be more likely to live in a multi generational situations. Is this why they are more hard hit in addition to comorbidities? Italy had some of the strictest stay at home orders started on March 9th and 30% of Italians live in multi generational homes https://www.wsj.com/articles/family-is-italys-great-strength-coronavirus-made-it-deadly-11585058566 Italy has a ton of multi generational homes Wouldn't that be a pisser if the stay at home orders had just the opposite effects in NYC, Italy and Spain?
Liberty Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493879-texas-lt-governor-on-reopening-state-there-are-more-important-things https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/21/georgia-leads-race-become-americas-no-1-death-destination/ "There are more important things than living"! I'll believe him right after he offers his own life for the economy.
Gregmal Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died. Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work? Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is. It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere. The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that. Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it. Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste. I posted earlier. But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation. You can check that. I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence. Germany supposedly tested a lot. But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million. You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million . Japan did not have lockdown. They are cold, crowded and old people. No one wants to talk about Japan. Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths? It's a trivial amount of money, experts are saying it will help with health outcomes, and it seems like it would help with consumer confidence in the US since there's infighting. Who cares if it's testing per se. Make enough masks to send every household several a month. Maybe some idea I can't imagine. You seem focused on a specific solution that will definitely work. I obviously do not know that solution. Experts suggest testing/masks will help so I support it. I know they don't actually know for sure. Similar to Fed injections, efficiency/best solution is not necessarily important. It's about reversing the decline in confidence. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/493722-us-needs-to-conduct-20-million-coronavirus-tests-per-day-to-fully-open 20m tests/day is not possible in the near-term. Current capacity is something like low-to-mid millions/month right now (manufacturing/procuring, testing, and processing). I'm trying to be realistic with a ballpark number. I don't know exact capacity. I don't know what's possible. I'm just trying to be realistic with my guesses. Someone from NYC can go upstate but the living dynamics alone, make it much harder to spread. Thats largely the problem with places like NY. Every decision is made selfishly considering only the people who live in the 5 boroughs, whereas 95% of the state is much more comparable to Nebraska than NYC. You can make the case cases for California and even Texas to a degree. Most folks I know who are in the city take the subways. Everyone outside the city drives their cars. That right there, outside of hanging out in a hospital, eliminates possibly the biggest spread risk. City restaurants are significantly more prone to being capacity packed. Outside of there city, even the best ones, typically dont have the same type of traffic. I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.
DooDiligence Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 Somehow this connects with something i read yesterday (from somebody whose tactics are despicable but whose gut instincts tend to be well grounded): "How did the world's financial markets miss the slowest-moving black swan in history?". From a humble perspective, it may be because there is an unusual number of zombie companies living on cheap borrowed time and it is as if the Surgeon General Reserve had suspended the use of oxymetry altogether. I hate to say it but many are on the edge of the curve and may end up behind the ball. ---) Back to the virus Disbelief, apathy, misinformation, hubris, all of the above & then some? --- Hopelessly passing your time in the grassland away Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air You better watch out There may be dogs about I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen Things are not what they seem What do you get for pretending the danger's not real Meek and obedient you follow the leader Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel What a surprise Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead You better stay home And do as you're told Get out of the road if you want to grow old
Guest Schwab711 Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died. Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work? Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is. It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere. The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that. Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it. Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste. I posted earlier. But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation. You can check that. I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence. Germany supposedly tested a lot. But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million. You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million . Japan did not have lockdown. They are cold, crowded and old people. No one wants to talk about Japan. Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths? It's a trivial amount of money, experts are saying it will help with health outcomes, and it seems like it would help with consumer confidence in the US since there's infighting. Who cares if it's testing per se. Make enough masks to send every household several a month. Maybe some idea I can't imagine. You seem focused on a specific solution that will definitely work. I obviously do not know that solution. Experts suggest testing/masks will help so I support it. I know they don't actually know for sure. Similar to Fed injections, efficiency/best solution is not necessarily important. It's about reversing the decline in confidence. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/493722-us-needs-to-conduct-20-million-coronavirus-tests-per-day-to-fully-open 20m tests/day is not possible in the near-term. Current capacity is something like low-to-mid millions/month right now (manufacturing/procuring, testing, and processing). I'm trying to be realistic with a ballpark number. I don't know exact capacity. I don't know what's possible. I'm just trying to be realistic with my guesses. Someone from NYC can go upstate but the living dynamics alone, make it much harder to spread. Thats largely the problem with places like NY. Every decision is made selfishly considering only the people who live in the 5 boroughs, whereas 95% of the state is much more comparable to Nebraska than NYC. You can make the case cases for California and even Texas to a degree. Most folks I know who are in the city take the subways. Everyone outside the city drives their cars. That right there, outside of hanging out in a hospital, eliminates possibly the biggest spread risk. City restaurants are significantly more prone to being capacity packed. Outside of there city, even the best ones, typically dont have the same type of traffic. I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission. I'm in WNY. You don't have to convince me the state is run for NYC 8). I thought the post was referring to broader lockdowns. NY could certainly be and have been more nuanced. Part of the issue for NY is how government is structured. A lot of local government money comes from the state. State needs to declare emergency to get federal money. These declarations result in more centralized government, that screws non-NYC. All that is not to take away from the fact that it could've been more nuanced. I wish NY wasn't structured such that every county is dependent on the state, even in normal times. I read something on GA that I think fits a similar dynamic. The theory is that GA is opening early because they are running out of money, tax rates are constitutionally capped, and they need people working (more tax $ coming in) and people off UE (no emergency means less claims). As brutal as that policy may seem, I can understand making it as leader of a state with a cap on tax rates. They may need to raise rates but it's not a quick change. Folks can argue it's a problem of their own making, but it's a real and present problem so blaming folks doesn't change the fact that decisions need to be made. GA (and many other states) are in a tough spot. PA is another state that probably has ~6 months left on the UE fund if employment doesn't bounce back soon. I'm sure there's many others. Current stimulus is definitely assuming business rebounds by the end of July (bonus UE and PPP money has been used by then). All that's left on 8/1 is non-forgivable loans to corporations and states.
arcube Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission. Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.
Castanza Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/ An interesting ruling which I'm sure we will begin to see (if not already mentioned) in the news.
Pelagic Posted April 22, 2020 Posted April 22, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html It's an op-ed, but it has a useful discussion of how at home pulse oximeters (easy to find) can help avoid bad outcomes from an unusual Covid-19 symptom. My apologies if it has already been posted. Samsung phones have a built in pulse oximeter, in the health section under "stress". There are a couple apps available for iPhones that work as well. They're not perfect and won't have the accuracy of a true oximeter but they will give you a ballpark estimate. Some users who've compared them side by side have said they're quite accurate although I think it comes down to the individual user as the sensor on the phone is quite sensitive to things like the temperature of your fingers and any sweat on them. Either way, they're an easy way for people with symptoms to monitor themselves and if they note a change to seek care. Of course oximeters themselves aren't very expensive, just hard to find or get delivered these days.
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