COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Dillon Spencer]

You're of course joking about Taco Bell, because you don't understand that just because you and I don't eat there doesn't mean it's shitty. If people ate there and died from food poisoning, that would qualify as shitty, and the market would close them.

I am of course joking about Taco Bell, and I do indeed understand the difference. That's what made it a joke. The rest of my point stands, and you've acknowledged as much in other posts since.

Let's see your data on the number of COVID-19 cases transmitted by ungloved grocery store employees. You do know that even the people working produce at Walmart already wear gloves, right?

I don't have data on it, and I'm not about to go looking for it, because I'm not arguing that grocery store employees should have to wear PPE. The only reason I even posted in the first place was because someone pointed it out as an example of absurd over precaution, and I feel like it's a fairly harmless measure we're probably just going to have to get used to going forward, agree with it or not.

Well, you got me here. The fact that all the bars, restaurants, gyms, and stores are still closed, many of them permanently, means that "standing on ideology" was a worse option than bankruptcy. The government won that argument. Congratulations.

I'm not even going to respond to this, because I think you know perfectly well that's not at all what I was saying, and I'm not interested in serving as a punching bag.

[Barry Charles]

The problem is that most people aren't paying attention, and since we already fetishize "science" and treat scientists as something between oracles and saints, we're already being told how the colossal failure of the epidemiology models actually means they're super-duper correct and thus we need to intensify the lockdowns because they're working so well. It's nuts.

Fetishize “science”. Good one. I’m giving you credit, unless proven otherwise. I’ve heard weaponize, but that’s getting played.

The parallels between this pandemic and global warming are very telling. The number one argument is the overwhelming scientific consensus. The number two, is denial of science. Which is interesting since many of the accusers of science denial, believe that there are 63 genders. But in either case, consensus and skepticism are completely irrelevant.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Kitsuma's link: YouTube

Watch it.

[George Christiansen]

The "Public Burden" argument is the central question here. They just shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, stores, and lots of other places because we have all made the assumption that we are all responsible for everybody else's health and safety. There is no other reason to shut down a restaurant except to argue that the restaurant is responsible for contagious disease transmission. I'm not saying that the Health Department should allow dirty kitchens to poison people, although it's been my experience that the market disposes of shitty restaurants quickly and thoroughly. But the flu comes through every year, and this is the first time we have decided that owners of buildings are responsible for diseases that other people bring into the room. Again, where does this shit stop?

Nobody who has EVER actually worked in a kitchen thinks that the health department is doing jack shit for public safety.

The same goes for building inspectors.

I've worked in numerous kitchens and on hundreds of construction sites and can assure you that personal integrity and fear of lawsuits is all that have protected a single soul from harm from either industry.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I grew up in a cafe, George.

[George Christiansen]

The point would be that if one person's receipt was contaminated, and he touched it, gloves or not, he'd potentially contaminate every subsequent receipt he might touch. Is it overkill? No idea. But it's a pretty basic risk mitigation protocol.

This just points to the insanity happening and the utter inability for people to evaluate risk.

How does a receipt become contaminated? By the person who was later afraid to touch it putting the paper into the receipt machine. That's how.

Now in a fantasy world we can talk about how they COULD have used a pair of gloves to load the receipt paper and then tossed them (let's pretend they actually did it properly while we're here pretending) and be touching nothing but all of the customers groceries and the keyboard, but not the receipts as they come out. Those are only being touched by every single customer, none of who are touching the machine while grabbing them, right?

Do people still have the audacity to tell their children that there are not monsters in their closet?

Because they COULD be there you know! invisible or really really small.

Anyone checked on how space suit sales are doing?

[mpalios]

Good video. I am absolutely astonished that it SEEMS there is no voice in any level of govt to offer this information to leaders. It just makes no sense.

Kitsuma's link: YouTube

Watch it.

[lazygun37]

You see, Rip? This is exactly how it happens. I sit here quietly sipping my Scotch, reading the thread, content to let non-hysterical people talk about things like how "the only way now is blood". And I didn't say a word. But next thing I know, you've done it again -- (re)posted something objectively false and stupid enough that I feel compelled to post in response. If you don't stop this, I'm going to think you're doing this on purpose because you miss me.

As an aside, what happens to the 2-3% mortality rate when the whole population is tested? Math happens and the mortality rate drops below 1%...perhaps even .05%. Am I wrong? Or are the experts (CDC / Who / MSM) pretending to fail when they push the 2-3% mortality rate? Could this possibly be political?

No matter how many walls of text are posted here by "experts", the field of Epidemiology has been permanently disgraced by the actions of a few. Fuckery. That's the parameter some of you failed to include in your analysis. And the fuckery permeates all "science" because "scientists" are for sale.

Post Of The Week. Email the store for the T-shirt of your choice.

Kitsuma's link: YouTube Watch it.

Honestly -- what the hell is wrong with you? You (re)post this BS literally a couple of pages after the last time we went through this? Let's take a trip down memory lane:

This seems important: Coronavirus: NY antibody study estimates 13.9% of residents have had the coronavirus, Cuomo says The paper will obviously have problems.

I'm genuinely confused -- what is this supposed to prove? If 13.9% of NY state residents (i.e. 2.7 million of them) have been infected, and at least 15,700 people have died from COVID-19 (this is confirmed deaths), the implied infection fatality ratio is about 0.6%. That's completely in line with expectations. Just to give one early example: the Imperial College study everybody loves to hate had adopted an IFR of 0.9% (for the UK, which has an older population than the US). They also stated that they explored IFRs between 0.25% and 1.0%. And for a back of the envelope calculation earlier in this thread I'd adopted IFR = 0.4%. Are you saying that was too low and COVID-19 is more lethal than I had assumed?

So yeah, unlike Kitsuma and you, none of those corrupt "experts" and "modellers" and "epidemiologists" and "scientists" ever confused the CASE fatality rate with the INFECTION fatality rate. It came as a surprise to literally no one that the IFR is between 0.1% and 1%. That was accounted for even in early models.

So -- how come this latest YouTube expert and his press-conference-happy ER doctor get an even lower IFR (I think they claim 0.03%)? As near as I can tell, their brilliant calculation involves extrapolating the fraction of tests administered that were positive to the entire population. Apparently that's a great way to estimate the total number of people who are infected. And of course it would be, if it weren't for the tiny problem that tests haven't been and aren't administered at random. They're administered to people with symptoms. Which is precisely why random antibody studies are needed to estimate the true IFR. You know, like the one from NYC that you were more than happy to believe while you still thought it supported your point.

And just because I am so fucking tired of this -- let me repeat the trivial rough calculation of the number of deaths you might expect in the US if the outbreak isn't suppressed effectively. All you've got to do is multiply 3 numbers, for which I'll take simple estimates

US Population = 350 million
Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) = 0.5%
Fraction of Population Ultimately Infected = Herd Immunity Threshold = 0.6

Number of Deaths Without Effective Suppression = US Population x Fraction of Population Ultimately Infected x IFR = 1 Million

Anybody who wants to argue that COVID-19 definitely can't kill hundreds of thousands of people had better state explicitly which of those numbers they think is wrong and why. And by wrong I don't mean by a factor of two (e.g. the IFR is probably uncertain at that sort of level). Any other argument is just BS.

[George Christiansen]

Sure, that works when there are alternatives that do have satisfactory standards and are accessible. What about when there aren't?

This argument stopped being real about 20 years ago.

Everyone in the US can get pretty much whatever the hell they want delivered to their doorstep with nothing more than a phone and a credit card.

[JoshK]

Kitsuma's link: YouTube

Watch it.

Great video, Rip. Thanks. I actually watched the entire 52 minute press conference - even more educational. Probably hard, though, for people to make that time commitment.