At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[SeattleUte]

I corrected my last post. Meant to say false negatives.

[SeattleUte]

It was also a Stanford-based study that showed that only 1% of Major League Baseball personnel have COVID antibodies I believe. But interestingly the majority of those with antibodies (70%?) had never had any symptoms.

I think it’s possible that with 1.5 million documented US cases that up to 5-10 million people, mainly in metro areas, have had the virus and never got tested.

I agree with opening things up though. There is more than one way to kill a person prematurely and it’s a well accepted tenet of public health that when people lose their jobs and homes they die earlier.

Vulnerable people should stay home. No church for sure until they can put each piece of sacrament bread in some type of individual sterile bag (permeable only to the words of the sacrament prayer!)

Most physicians seem to agree with you.

No vaccine in the definite future and opening is proceeding. Of course the status quo can't continue. So obvious from the beginning we'd eventually arrive here.

[Northwestcoug]

Now you're lying. Everyone remembers it and it's in the written record. I said I'd heard that Chinese tests generated false negatives of I think up to 30 percent. You scoffed at that, said it can't possibly be true. You may even have said hilarious. I cited the NPR broadcast I heard that morning. Lebowski chimed in and said now SU is arguing with a real expert (Ha. Some expert!).

The article says explicitly that the donations were anonymous through a process at Stanford. But if they knew he donated $5,000, so be it. You think that influences Stanford Professors? if you say yes you're a dolt or being disingenuous, like the article. And they were writing their views well before he contacted them, which is why he sought them out. And his communications with them was never a secret. He talked about it in tweets and in his column on the Daily Wire. Again, let's see if any reputable outlet picks up this "story" or follows up on it.

Are you denying that subsequent similar tests have similarly shown actual infection death rates lower than case death rates by many orders of magnitude?

Lying? I..vaguely remember saying something about the Chinese tests. But I remember expressing initial skepticism that they were that bad. I will happily admit my skepticism was misplaced. There are very shitty tests out there. Including many of the studies you've been breathlessly hyping here have been based on. Like the Santa Clara data. If you took a step back, held your nose, and read the buzzfeed article, you would realize there was clearly a problem with the testing. Which contradicts the pages of posts you've thrown up here, trying to argue that the seroprevalence is much higher than what was originally thought.

Your deference to authority is naively charming. The Stanford docs are above the stain of filthy lucre? Because of Stanford? That is very funny. You obviously didn't read the whole article. It wasn't just the 5 grand. Neeleman was trying to give money to other researchers there to help validate the original research. At least one wanted nothing of it, and demanded her name be removed from the paper. The trio of Neeleman and the Stanford docs the then went on a media binge to hype their ultimately flawed data. So yeah, forgive me if I believe even Stanford researchers could be biased by money. If only you gave a smidgen of this deference to those here who have direct care dealing with COVID-19, or those who know a thing or two about models.

And I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say with this:

Are you denying that subsequent similar tests have similarly shown actual infection death rates lower than case death rates by many orders of magnitude?

The Stanford and other similar studies are trying to do one thing and one thing only: to determine the seroprevalence of the virus. You and others are trying to extrapolate that data into something none of these studies can yet claim with certainty. And you certainly shouldn't try to extrapolate it to bolster your biased opinion based on what increasingly looks like shoddy science.

[SeattleUte]

Interesting article from the New York Times. The Times at its best.

How pandemics end.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/h...c-history.html

According to historians, pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.

In other words, an end can occur not because a disease has been vanquished but because people grow tired of panic mode and learn to live with a disease. Allan Brandt, a Harvard historian, said something similar was happening with Covid-19: “As we have seen in the debate about opening the economy, many questions about the so-called end are determined not by medical and public health data but by sociopolitical processes.”

I like the part about the brown rats as possibly our saviors. Interesting.

[Lost Student]

No church for sure until they can put each piece of sacrament bread in some type of individual sterile bag (permeable only to the words of the sacrament prayer!)

If the prayer cannot pass through the flimsy table cloth I don't think it can go through a plastic wrapper.

[Jeff Lebowski]

the complete lack of self awareness and any sense of irony is really something special. i’m here for it!

It's remarkable, isn't it?

[Uncle Ted]

I guess biology types don't understand privacy... They should just get back to working on a vaccine and stuff.

Apple and Google are building a virus-tracking system. Health officials say it will be practically useless.
The tech giants have refused officials’ pleas to allow the collection of location data and to help contact-tracing teams learn where new infections have spread.

Apple and Google’s announcement last month of a joint effort to track the coronavirus by smartphone sparked a wave of excitement among public health officials hoping the technology would help alert them to potential new infections and map the pandemic’s spread.

But as the tech giants have revealed more details, officials now say the software will be of little use. Due to strict rules imposed by the companies, the system will notify smartphone users if they’ve potentially come into contact with an infected person, but it won’t share any data with health officials or reveal where those meetings took place.

Local health authorities in states like North Dakota, as well as in countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, say they’ve pleaded with the companies to give them more control over the kinds of information their apps can collect. Without the companies’ help, some worry their contact tracing systems will remain dangerously strained.

But Apple and Google have refused, arguing that letting the apps collect location data or loosening other smartphone rules would undermine people’s privacy. The companies are also concerned that easing the restrictions around apps’ Bluetooth use would drain phone battery life, which could irritate customers. That unbending stance has led some health authorities to abandon hopes of building a fully functioning contact-tracing app.
[...]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/15/app-apple-google-virus/

If the health officials get what they want there is not a chance in hell that folks like Walter will "opt in" and use the app.

[SeattleUte]

It's remarkable, isn't it?

Sticking up for the moron who said the clampdown would only hurt hot dog vendors.

Don't you have some belittlement of less educated fellow Mormins to post?

[YOhio]

lol. Scientists are pretty shitty negotiators if $5k is all it takes.

[Northwestcoug]

Interesting modeling paper about the effects of summer on COVID-19 transmission. Overall, they estimate summer will decrease the efficiency of transmission by ~25%. Not enough to stop it all together, but it will help.

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid19/home

It’s from Harvard, so I’m sure you can trust them.

[SeattleUte]

More than anything this event is about the criminality of those responsible for nursing homes, which have ever been disgraceful on the whole. The criminality extends to New York’s governor. According to this Times article, half the deaths overall are from nursing homes, including thousands because Cuomo ordered infected residents returned to them.

The Nursing Home Crisis Was Inevitable
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/o...e=articleShare

[SeattleUte]

This is for Frank and NWCoug our resident economic genius old_gregg.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/the-left-wing-case-against-lockdowns/

[Northwestcoug]

This is for Frank and NWCoug our resident economic genius old_gregg.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/the-lef...nst-lockdowns/

I like the George Orwell picture; good skeptic bonafides. But should I trust it more than a Buzzfeed article???

[frank ryan]

This is for Frank and NWCoug our resident economic genius old_gregg.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/the-lef...nst-lockdowns/

I like Orwell. He was a committed leftist. He is one of history’s most important socialist figures. He was a principled democratic socialist whose warnings about totalitarianism will always be relevant.

He fought in the Spanish Civil War with a unit of Anarchists and Communists. That’s where he developed some real disdain for Stalin, who left the Spanish Republicans out to dry. Orwell mentioned fighting because he felt if everyone killed at least one fascist there would be none left.

I’m unsure why the article is using his picture. He supported public health and almost certainly would have encouraged his fellow humans to cooperate with government to lockdown for the safety of everyone.

I’d describe old gregg and NWC as moderate Republicans or conservatives. They certainly aren’t leftists. I’m progressive, but have developed a lot more nuance in my belief system than I’m given credit for.

There is a case to be made against the lockdowns but it’s not something that evokes Orwell.

[Northwestcoug]

I like Orwell. He was a committed leftist. He is one of history’s most important socialist figures. He was a principled democratic socialist whose warnings about totalitarianism will always be relevant.

He fought in the Spanish Civil War with a unit of Anarchists and Communists. That’s where he developed some real disdain for Stalin, who left the Spanish Republicans out to dry. Orwell mentioned fighting because he felt if everyone killed at least one fascist there would be none left.

I’m unsure why the article is using his picture. He supported public health and almost certainly would have encouraged his fellow humans to cooperate with government to lockdown for the safety of everyone.

I’d describe old gregg and NWC as moderate Republicans or conservatives. They certainly aren’t leftists. I’m progressive, but have developed a lot more nuance in my belief system than I’m given credit for.

There is a case to be made against the lockdowns but it’s not something that evokes Orwell.

Although Omaha knows, I guess I haven’t voiced my political opinion enough around here. I’m much more comfortable on the left side of the divide than the right. Not a conservative and definitely not a Republican.