Ahh...so we have a motive. Where's Columbo when you need him...
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No. Most state governors and world leaders have shut down the country over something slightly worse than the flu. Today they failed to pass a stimulus bill or come up with a timeline for when the shut down will end. It's not about the severity of the virus. The government is incapable of handling this. It is not the government's job to defend against this kind of stuff.
What would happen if something like the bubonic plague hit?
Bubonic plague - Wikipedia
10% fatality with treatment, 30-90% without.
What would the government do in that situation? I don't think they'd do anything, because they wouldn't have control of the country at that point, based on how this situation is going.
The issue isn't the severity of the virus, it's the government's inability to handle it in the first place.
I'll take my individual liberty, if not for my sake than at least for the sake of my children. Once those rights are gone, they're not coming back.
Just in case you didn't get to read the "scientific garbage" in the post that was pulled down, it is now available at zerohedge.com
COVID-19 - Evidence Over Hysteria | Zero Hedge
I like to think we'll get there in the future (maybe the next pandemic). But even in a situation where people generally know what to do, even a small number of schools/churches/sporting events etc. not playing along can have devastating effects.
Have you heard of patient 31 who has been causally linked to 60% of the South Korean cases? The dynamics of human networks are such that a single person can have enormous effects. And even if you aren't a super spreader, you may infect someone who becomes a super spreader.
I'll grant you that if most people are behaving themselves, then these effects can be dampened, but it's an empirical question as to what the thresholds are where enforcement becomes necessary.
Italy went from around 30 total dead at the end of February to a peak of ~800 dead in a single day three weeks later. Imagine what that peak would have looked like had they waited even a few more days to act.
A single day makes a huge difference in these scenarios.
The pernicious elements of our current situation are that our brains do not intuitively grok exponential growth, and that transmission occurs asymptomatically.
If we react only once the bodies start piling up, we have reacted too late.
And crucially, one of the claims being made here is that we will react, no matter what, and that it is far, far better to react early.
Clearly, based on the behaviour of most of the world, we have not internalized this lesson, hence the need for enforcement.
Since I know nothing about epidemiology, I will ask: Is it proven that most epidemics /do not/ follow a normal distribution? Truly interested in current thinking. Wouldn’t the central limit theorem apply particularly well to such datasets, I.e. sum of a bunch of random variables tends to a normal PDF, regardless of the original PDFs?
Wonder if anyone can properly tease out the context and conclusion from this arxiv paper:
http://export.arxiv.org/pdf/1812.03105
Scraping through it...the final asymptotic distributions look very normal-ish to me, and that would be for some very non-normal input dists.
Figured I'd jump in with a few random thoughts because not training is really draining on me mentally. For starters, I'm reminded of that movie where some 20-something year old is trapped in the bottom of a crevasse and has to make the choice to cut his arm off or die. He does so with a dull multi-tool pocket knife. Letting this "shelter in place" go on for any longer is to assure certain death to the economy. Of that, I am certain. That would, presumably, have a much more painful and awful fallout than the alternative, it seems. "Cutting our arm off" will most likely assure the deaths of many people in their 60's and above as well as the woefully unhealthy younger folks we have in this country. It's a shit position. I'd hate to have to make that decision.
I am in my late 30's. I am not aware of having been infected. I work for a company that delivers overnight goods and supplies. Business is good - for now. I am so very thankful right now to have a job that seems to be weathering this fairly well. I would gladly volunteer my time off to deliver food and supplies to the elderly who can't leave their home if it means others can go back to work. I am fully on board with stepping up my game to help the economy as well as those who need to shelter in place. We need to all consider this, in my opinion. Whether the data is shit or not, I don't know. I'm not a scientist, data analyst, or epidemiologist and don't pretend to be. What I do know is that as long as governments are considering draconian measures, our entire country and, I believe, national security, is at risk.
We are asking what's left of the greatest generation to make one more sacrifice for us, and I hate to think it's by suffocating them to death. I did it once before as a veteran and again I will gladly risk my own health and well-being for the betterment of this country and for those who need assistance. People from my generation need to get on board with this. The greatest generation laid it all out on the line for us. I say, let the millennials and those shitbags on the beach from whatever the hell generation they're called go back to work. If you're over 50, but under 65-ish it's up to you. Over 65... Stay home. I'll let the government figure out the age brackets. The burden is on us to protect the elders.
Fuck... I know it's a pipe dream. People are too goddamn selfish. But, if this is a war, then why not conscript folks? This could be as simple as doing grocery shopping - an easy task considering there's nothing on the shelf. We can keep the retirees at home if people will venture out for them. So you give up a Saturday afternoon shopping for Mrs. Betty Crocker down the street. Big fucking deal. The alternative is you have 7 Saturday afternoons a week because you're not fucking working.
Pardon my frustration, but during wartime we've drafted people. This is hardly the same as sending people to be tunnel rats or storm the beaches of Normandy. This is grocery shopping and maybe changing the oil in Mrs. Crocker's Cadillac El Dorado. Maybe then my gym can reopen and I can send in videos of my shitty squats above parallel without hip drive and feel all nice and warm that things are back to normal!
Here's another valuable piece Hitchens brought to my attention, from Prof John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, Population Health, Biomedical Data Science, and Statistics at Stanford:
In the coronavirus pandemic, we're making decisions without reliable data
Ioannidis' colourful summary of the reaction to the virus:
Quote:
It's like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.
Since everybody is quoting shit, I thought it might be good to revisit some statements from the blog post that was linked in the first post in this thread.
There are 582 fatalities at this point in the US, no marches yet, the public outcry is severe, but not so much about the virus, it's more about everything else. Or, as many individual oriented posters have noted many times - so, some people are dying, they would have died anyway.Quote:
If ONE American were to die of this virus, the marches will begin and the public outcry will be never-ending. Why? Because we are oriented to the individual, in this country. We believe – whether we practice it in our politics or want to admit it to ourselves – that one person makes a difference.
The author describes trouble his adopted daughter had while in China with a seizure, unrelated to the virus, but the same thing applies to healthcare systems worldwide now, regardless of how they are funded.Quote:
I was witnessing the kind of maximum, almost brutal efficiency a society must develop when the state is the master and the individual is merely a subject. Why would a Communist country not have an effective FDA? Because who are you going to complain to if you get tainted food? The government? They don’t answer to you. The press? They are owned by the government. And again, they don’t answer to you.
You can buy access to better healthcare in normal times all over the world, but right now, not so much. Cases are mounting, when the system breaks down due to an unforeseen event such as this one, you're stuck. Money won't help you all that much.Quote:
So what if you don’t like the conditions in the hospital? Where else are you going to go? This hospital is the last (and only) stop. You can’t opt for another place and then just pay out of your own pocket. The government has capped financial upward mobility. There is now “income equality.” And that means nobody has the means to buy their way into a different (or better) situation. And even if you could, one doesn’t exist. The state provides it all. You’re stuck.
Well right now in Europe, it's not just guards, but the army.Quote:
In every one of those places I described (especially the hospital) there were uniformed guards posted everywhere. The government was literally on every corner. And yet it didn’t feel like help. It felt like surveliance.
You guys are still doing it, aren't there several posts somewhere here that say or imply the virus votes Democrat?Quote:
As this virus is doing whatever it’s doing, we are also having a heated debate over our own politics as a nation. We are literally discussing the merits of “democratic socialism” in the context of a Presidential election, in the United States, in 2020. I don’t think this is an accident.
45000 cases in the US as of now, and it hasn't even started yet, what with all the choices. What a difference a couple of months make!Quote:
As for me, I’ve seen what happens when the choices are taken away. And what happens ends up being a place where new viruses can spread too easily, to too many people, and aren’t contained quickly enough.