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Thread: The Corona Virus
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2020-04-27, 06:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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- Cippa's River Meadow
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Re: The Corona Virus
As others have said, you seem determined to use Denmark as the yardstick for how everybody should treat the disease. Denmark has a population of 5,792,202 according to an estimate from UN Data. That's less than some cities.
For example New York with a population of 8.399 million reported 824 deaths in a day and the current count is 12,067. Looking at the relative population densities, NYC has ~26,400 people per km2 while Copenhagen (presumably your most densely populated city) has ~6,800 people/km2.
Is it any wonder that the disease spreads differently and has different mortality rates, depending on the viral load that people are subjected to? If they followed the 'carry on as normal, let everybody not immunocompromised get infected and get back to normal as soon as possible' plan, do you really think the death toll in New York would stay that 'low'?
You also seem to be overlooking the fact that deaths from the disease isn't the only consequence. You seem to be looking into nice controlled conditions, so take a look at the USS Theodore Roosevelt; 94% testing rate, 710 positive and 3,872 negative, with 1 fatality.
So far, it's nice and low, but you're missing the point that an entire carrier group has been taken out of operation. There's a number of potentially worrying developments in the Far East that might necessitate an overwhelming large military presence in the area to keep things calm, and you don't get much bigger than a US carrier group.
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2020-04-27, 07:42 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: The Corona Virus
And equally damning, this fantasy that if we kept everything open "at least the economy wouldn't tank" is also ridiculous. Enough people would've started avoiding restaurants, cinemas, etc. that theirs collapse would've happened anyway, except on a backdrop of even more people dead. Businesses can be reopened or recovered. Loss of a significant portion of the population cannot.
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2020-04-27, 08:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
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- Denmark
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Re: The Corona Virus
Denmark - for mysterious and arcane reasons I'm not even going to try and explain, it's so weird - is what I know best. I don't use my home as an example trying to map us onto the entirety of the multiverse, I use Denmark because I don't know the figures for anywhere else.
Also, I think we're fairly standard. Edit: That's not true. We're fairly standard for the .. I dunno, western world?
Almost any city you'd care to count has higher population than Denmark.
Did I .... say: Carry on as normal? Can I just ask you to quote where I said that?
Yes, that sounds about right.
Edit: Actually, I have nothing to say to this.Last edited by Kaptin Keen; 2020-04-27 at 08:39 AM.
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2020-04-27, 08:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
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- Ontario, Canada
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Re: The Corona Virus
The carrier group itself is not the point. The point is that the United States Navy considers them very important, and there are very few things that would cause the Navy to take one out of action. The fact that coronavirus is one of those things is very telling about how serious the spread of this disease is. Armed forces are, quite reasonably, known for continuing to do their job in adverse or even dangerous conditions. If they start shutting down multi-billion dollar operations, it's for a very good reason.
Saying it doesn't matter because you don't care for carrier groups is ridiculous. That would be like a coal miner seeing a dead canary and staying in the mine because he doesn't like birds.
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2020-04-27, 08:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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Re: The Corona Virus
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2020-04-27, 09:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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Re: The Corona Virus
Last edited by Peelee; 2020-04-27 at 09:30 AM. Reason: Deleted last sentence.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
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2020-04-27, 09:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2006
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- Bristol
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Re: The Corona Virus
Speaking entirely from experience, it's definitely not a direct effect on the tastebuds, or at least not just that, because that was the first thing to return. While I lost my sense of taste (and smell) completely initially, what returned first, within a week or so, was my ability to taste whether food was salty, bitter, etc. - the flavours detected by the tastebuds themselves - but nothing more complex. The remainder is returning very gradually: it's been about a month since the primary symptoms wore off, and my sense of smell and correspondingly taste are still very weak.
Sure it can. It'll just take a while. You won't get those exact people back, obviously, but everyone dies at some point.
The Black Death killed a lot more people than this. Both in absolute and in relative terms. The population recovered.
Of course, we shouldn't just let everyone die. Societies ought to care for their most vulnerable citizens. I'd also hope we can cope with a pandemic better than mediaeval governments did in the Black Death (albeit I'm not sure we are doing...)
But, callous as it sounds, you can't save everyonen and you can't throw everyone under the bus to save a few. The people who are paid to make the hard decisions know that, or at least ought to, and if they don't then they shouldn't be doing their job. Because if you're not careful, people will start taking that into their own hands.
If this goes on too long, and we somehow manage to survive without serious civil unrest, it'll still create breaches of trust between population groups that will be extremely difficult to undo or overcome. It won't take much to create an entire generation who believe their futures have been sold down the river to pay for the protection of their grandparents. Even before the lockdown I was hearing otherwise sensible people saying in all seriousness that we should just lock up all the old and sick people and let everyone else get on with their lives. Equally, we've got people willing to torch all our hard-fought privacy rights and liberties if it'll let us get out of the house again. As long as this lasts, and unless properly managed, those voices are only going to get louder, and angrier, and that's not good for anyone.
I don't pretend to have an answer, but what worries me is that I don't think anyone else has one either. Or at least not a good one.Last edited by Aedilred; 2020-04-27 at 10:13 AM.
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2020-04-27, 09:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2009
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Re: The Corona Virus
I think this is a good case to show the lower mortality for young people (I doubt they have many septuagenarians on board). By now, however, I'm not really convinced that it's a matter of age, and it looks to me like the underlying conditions are the only thing that matters; even in this case, I think it works, since I expect navy members to be physically fit. To make a comparison, these data seem to show a fairly even distribution of deaths, if there aren't preexisting conditions, even at different ages.
The result is more or less the same as if going by raw age, because older people have more chances of having chronic health problems, and one can object that I didn't check the proportion of the total population made up by different age groups, but I think it's interesting.
I also assume that the ships were retired because there were worries that the local "hospital" would have been insufficient to handle the situation, or that enough people would become sufficiently sick to make the ship unacceptably vulnerable or unready.Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2020-04-27, 11:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
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- Ontario, Canada
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Re: The Corona Virus
Not only by different age groups, but by the proportion of the population without underlying conditions.
Those numbers show a pretty consistent number of deaths (~25) among those without underlying conditions for each age range. However, not only are there different numbers of people within those age ranges, but - as you pointed out - the rate of underlying conditions varies. There are a lot more 20-40 year olds without underlying conditions than 80-100 year olds. With that in mind, if age weren't a factor by itself, you should see more deaths among the younger population. As it stands, it trends upward with age even among those without underlying conditions - though not enough to prove correlation without more numbers.
Anyway, of course underlying conditions will play a big role, but age is, itself, and underlying condition. Even if there isn't any diagnosable condition present, like heart disease or diabetes, the body deteriorates in a hundred different ways with age. Even if none of them, by themselves, would be severe enough to be qualified a medical condition, the aggregate effect is quite significant.
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2020-04-27, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: The Corona Virus
But the economy did not. And indeed that is my whole point: "the cure is worse than the sickness" is a ridiculous position, because in a pandemic, people are too scared to take part in the economy. There is no scenario where people like you get to be happy that the economy is chugging along on the backs of the deaths of 2% of the population. The economy would have shut down regardless - by shutting it down in advance, and with care, you reduce the mortality, which allows the economy to recover more gracefully when the coast is clear.
Leaving aside the utter immorality of "I don't care how many old people die, I want the economy working, and besides, we' all will die someday, so what do I care if they die years before they could've" vibe these "arguments" give, the reality is that there was no saving the economy the moment this started. It is a fantasy to pretend otherwise.
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2020-04-27 at 01:13 PM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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2020-04-27, 12:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2011
Re: The Corona Virus
It's not really that complicated.
1)Use a universal basic income(UBI) to allow people to stay at home as long as they need to without going broke.
2)Provide financial relief for industries hardest hit(note: they don't need to pay employees, because of UBI, so this will be less than it might sound initially).
3)Test everybody.
4)Start opening up for those who are negative or immune.
5)Retest regularly, with anybody who tests positive going into personal quarantine for 2-3 weeks.
6)Recoup expenditures with tax increases on those for whom the UBI was a tiny portion of their income and industries that saw financial gain(medical supply, for example).
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2020-04-27, 01:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2006
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- Bristol
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Re: The Corona Virus
(1) and (6) are sufficiently political in nature that I'll leave those, but regarding the remainder, the problem is the scale of the job and the availability of the tests. If the UK were to do 100,000 tests per day, starting today, it would have done enough tests to have tested everyone by about next Christmas. Which is far too long.
And 100,000 is an aspirational target which the UK will miss by its self-imposed deadline. The USA is currently hitting about that number, but it's got a much larger population.
And that assumes that the tests are reliable, which they may not be.
And you'll have to test some - probably most - people more than once.
Of course, we could solve this with a vaccine, or with massively ramped-up testing, but the reality of getting those produced and into circulation is more taxing: it's going to take months at minimum before it even starts to work.
Debatable. The end of the Black Death was not far off the start of the Renaissance. Wages soared. It led to a flourishing of urban business and the growth of a whole new entrepreneurial class. If anything the economy recovered more quickly than the population.
And I'm not quite sure where you're coming from. You said initially that the economy would recover but the population wouldn't; I said that the population did and you answer that the economy didn't, so you seem to have reversed your position.
Leaving aside the utter immorality of "I don't care how many old people die, I want the economy working, and besides, we' all will die someday, so what do I care if they die years before they could've" vibe these "arguments" give, the reality is that there was no saving the economy the moment this started. It is a fantasy to pretend otherwise.
So if you agree not to take my silence as assent the next time someone ventures to say something about how me or my ilk must be feeling silly and take my disagreemtn as read, I'll leave you all to congratulate yourselves about how seriously you're taking this without the trouble of dissenting opinion.Last edited by Aedilred; 2020-04-27 at 01:37 PM.
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2020-04-27, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
Re: The Corona Virus
It's funny... I wouldn't mind a bit about emergency taxes, I could tolerate a reasonable privacy-preserving contact tracing policy, masks are fine, etc. But the idea of being tested periodically is so off-putting given how painful the nasopharyngeal tests are supposed to be, I think I'd rather just stay in for the next 4 years.
Makes me wonder whether it'd actually fly if there's so much fuss already about people putting a piece of cloth on their face.
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2020-04-27, 02:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
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2020-04-27, 02:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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Re: The Corona Virus
I wouldn't call it painful, but it's certainly one of the most uncomfortable procedures I've had done. I certainly would not want to repeat the experience.
I even asked if they could just take my blood instead. I have tons of blood, so much blood, I told 'em! They could take as much as they wanted! But no, they refused not matter how much I offered.Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
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2020-04-27, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Washington, D.C.
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Re: The Corona Virus
The immunity tests will be blood-based (I think they're called serology tests). At the moment, it appears they're dicey in terms of accuracy and we still don't know how many antibodies would show immunity.
Also, when I read/saw how Coronavirus tests were administered, I winced. I have very small nasal passages and it'd be very uncomfortable for me to have that test; when I went to the ENT, I had to get the pediatric probes along with a dose of anesthetic to get the probe to fit.
From an article about new ways of making swabs in the WaPo (3-D printing!):
“A nasopharyngeal swab is not a joke. It goes about four inches into your head,” Arnaout said. “It has to be thin, long and flexible enough to get around the nasal anatomy, but it has to be stiff enough that you can twirl it to pick up nasal secretions you’re going to do testing on. They tell us in medical school that if the patient isn’t complaining, then you’re not doing it right.”Last edited by Joran; 2020-04-27 at 04:03 PM.
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2020-04-27, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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Re: The Corona Virus
Don't care, would rather they take a full liter than do that swab again.
That is 100% no joke. The nurses who did my wife and me were pretty nice about it, they let us take a breather after the first one (it helped that I was coughing a bit after the first nostril. I also suspect my humorous pleas for bloodletting warmed them up to me). A coworker had his nurse just plow it in right after the other immediately.Last edited by Peelee; 2020-04-27 at 03:41 PM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
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2020-04-27, 09:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2011
Re: The Corona Virus
That's correct. That's why we need UBI (to prevent people starving) and financial relief for heavily affected business(so they don't have to close) in the meantime.
The periodic retesting doesn't have to be super frequent, and may be skippable under certain conditions. But at least periodic sampling per community would be a good idea, especially in regions where the virus has been particularly widespread.
I said it wasn't complicated, not that it would be easy or fun.
I am aware, and it sucks. But it doesn't change the fact that certain businesses won't have income under lockdown and will need to pay for basic maintenance for the duration.
You can say you don't care, and I'll happily agree to disagree, but I would like movie theaters and restaurants to still exist when they are safe to visit again.Last edited by Peelee; 2020-05-16 at 10:47 AM.
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2020-04-28, 12:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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Re: The Corona Virus
The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Friendly reminder to give a wide berth when it comes to potentially political topics, even as they may intersect with COVID-19.
Last edited by Peelee; 2020-04-28 at 12:32 AM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 1
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2020-04-28, 01:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
Re: The Corona Virus
Funnily enough, something can be a 'good idea' from an infection control or economic reopening perspective, and also be something that personally I know that I would be non-compliant with. For me personally, suffering physical discomfort so that restaurants and theatres can receive my custom isn't actually a trade I'm willing to make. It crosses some kind of line.
I'm sure others have these lines too, though likely elsewhere, and if your lines don't line up it probably looks insane or unreasonable.
I guess I would describe it as a feeling of betrayal somehow. Like, on one side of the line there is 'by complying even if it requires some compromise, it will be better for all of us in the end'. But on the other side its 'by complying, it primarily serves the interests of others but makes things strictly worse for me in the end even if everyone else does it too'.
I think this is probably how some people feel about the lockdowns.
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2020-04-28, 02:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2009
Re: The Corona Virus
The Diamond Princess where 13 people have died out of 713 infections? Or is there some other Diamond Princess I haven't heard of? Because 13/713 is pretty darn' close to the standard 2% figure that you seem intent on denying.
If there were lots and lots of people, here in New Zealand, who have been infected and never noticed, why didn't they spread the disease any further? Why has testing - we've done quite a lot of that now - not picked up any new cases not closely connected to known clusters? The theory that some substantial percentage of the population has it but never gets officially recorded - was tenable a month ago, at the start of our lockdown period, but not now. We would have noticed it by now."None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2020-04-28, 05:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
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- Denmark
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Re: The Corona Virus
Look ... you seem to be upset. Or at least - very insistent.
I'm not denying anything. Ok?
Let me give you some numbers. Here: 2%, 10%, 0,13%.
See? All those are correct numbers. Each for their specific scenario. Each for their data set.
None of those numbers are right.
The mortality rate of the disease isn't 2%, or 10%, or 0,13%. The mortality rate in each narrow, specific case, is 2%, or 10%, or 0,13%. It's 2% if you're a cruise ship passenger, or 10% if you're above the age of 80 (in Denmark), or 0,13% if you're a blood donor (again, Denmark).
I'm not denying any of that.
What I am trying to get across is that if you focus on one number, in isolation, without looking at the context - then you are deluding yourself. Most particularly, if you listen to the media - then spreading what they report - then you are being deluded, deluding yourself, and if you spread that, you are deluding others.
None of it is correct. Except when viewed in the proper context.
Where did you get 13? I still get 7 as the highest I can find. Not that I doubt it - I just can't verify myself.Last edited by Kaptin Keen; 2020-04-28 at 05:30 AM.
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2020-04-28, 08:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
Re: The Corona Virus
I'm seeing 13 deaths on https://www.worldometers.info/corona...navirus-cases/ and the same here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...mond-princess/
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2020-04-28, 08:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: The Corona Virus
You are absolutely right that the economy will suffer significant damage even if a light touch approach is taken to dealing with the virus. But it will probably be much less bad than if lockdown occurs.
On the flipside there will be a significant number of deaths from the virus even if lockdown is implemented. But there will probably be many more deaths is a light touch is taken.
It is open to discussion how many more deaths there would be from one approach, or how much worse the economic crash would be from the other, or what priority should be given to either. But it is not ridiculous to suggest that the cure is worse than the sickness at all (in fact watering down the cure seems to be the more popular course of action amongst most countries).
Leaving aside the utter immorality of "I don't care how many old people die, I want the economy working, and besides, we' all will die someday, so what do I care if they die years before they could've" vibe these "arguments" give, the reality is that there was no saving the economy the moment this started. It is a fantasy to pretend otherwise.
We are discussing it in aggregate terms - the impact on the world, or a country. But one can look at it from their own perspective. Would I rather a 0.5% higher chance of dying from the virus, or a 20% higher chance of losing my job (obviously a simplification on both sides)? Everyone's answer may be different depending on their perspective and circumstances, but I don't think either answer is morally questionable.Last edited by Liquor Box; 2020-04-28 at 09:00 AM.
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2020-04-28, 09:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
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- Denmark
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Re: The Corona Virus
Granted. I never did argue on the basis of infected/dead, though. I argued that 4800 were exposed to the virus, and 7 died (which was wrong, or changed since). Neither here nor there, though - like with each and every one of these figures or statistics, it's entirely irrelevant how many died on Diamond Princess, if one doesn't understand the context.
Now, it remains a nice, closed and controlled environment, and a case that's run it's course.
We do not know whether 2% is high or low or right on par, until we know who was on the ship. If it was primarily the elderly - ages 65 and up - then the number is low. If it was primarily people of the ages of 35-65, it's absurdly high. Worse still, if from 20-35.
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2020-04-28, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Corona Virus
Here's what we know. Strip away your theories on mortality rates, infection rates, whatever. We know two things for absolute certainty:
1. Covid-19 has killed over 212,000 people in under four months. This is true after incredibly unique and serious lockdown rules have been put in place worldwide.
2. Last year, over twelve months, the flu killed slightly under 400,000 people.
Those are the only two facts you need to disprove "Covid-19 is just a flu". It's killed half as many people in four months as the flu kills in twelve, and it's done it despite heroic measures to contain it. Anyone claiming that this is not a massive, massive problem that did, in fact, need a massive solution is just flat-out wrong.
And the reason that people are getting annoyed that you're insisting that the problem isn't that bad is that right now, several countries are in the middle of a political crisis in which vulnerable people are potentially going to be forced back to work and into the path of the disease. Right now, claiming that things aren't that bad could actually kill people.
We also are learning that (3) there seem to be a huge amount more secondary and long-term damage effects from Covid than from the flu, but I expect that you won't believe those until they're proven by a double-blind study that tracks cases over a five-year period.If you like my thoughts, you'll love my writing. Visit me at www.mishahandman.com.
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2020-04-28, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2018
Re: The Corona Virus
Lol at "absolute certainty." Over 200 victims miraculously came back to life in Pennsylvania last week, according to the "absolutely certain" official count. You're riding these numbers on a great deal of faith, believing that the people that are doing the counting are infallible, and preaching worse things to come based on a different set of theories, yet no closer to "absolute certainty" than anyone else. It's rather idiotic for anyone to argue absolutes until the dust settles, and even then the numbers need to be taken with a wide range of error.
That's not to disown the seriousness of the current pandemic or claim that it is or is not worse than any previous metric, but |certainty| is not what we have. What we have is a lot of scared people making a lot of fearful claims.
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2020-04-28, 02:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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2020-04-28, 03:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2005
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- Toronto, Canada
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Re: The Corona Virus
That's not uncertainty, that's statistics. 200 people is nothing for numbers of this scale.
Specifically, Pennsylvania revised its metrics for "probable deaths" and a small number fluctuated. Small numbers fluctuate a lot in reporting. The nature of statistics is that those fluctuations even out when pulled out to a large enough scale, such as the entire planet. They don't always even out entirely, which is why I said "over 212,000 people" and not "the current coronavirus death toll is 216,221 people" (it went up another 4,000 between my last post and this one.)
It would be absurd to give an exact death toll down to the last person. It is not absurd to say that mathematics are real. Even a variation of plus or minus 10%, which would be absolutely staggering for a sample of this magnitude, doesn't contradict anything in my post; if the numbers were off by a full 15% too high, coronavirus would still have killed half the number of people in four months that the flu managed in twelve.
So yes. Absolute certainty.If you like my thoughts, you'll love my writing. Visit me at www.mishahandman.com.
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2020-04-28, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Corona Virus