April has come and gone, without the "Virus miraculously disappearing", in America like our Cheerleader-in-Chief promised back in March. As of May Day, instead of Zero cases, we have a million. More Americans have died in the past 2 months than we lost in 20 years of fighting in Vietnam.
America is the ONLY country in the world that has failed to stem the rising tide of new cases of Corona Virus, as armed mobs of middle aged (white) men storm the capitols of our States with military grade weapons to demand we end the lockdown.
As an American, I have to say, the vocal minority you see taking to the Capitol Buildings in armed protest, they are not us. They do not represent me, or the people I know and love, at all. They represent the worst aspect of America and of humanity, IMO. They are a perfect symbol of the failure of Free Market Capitalism, the Greed, Narcissism, ignorance and hatred, born of fear.
My home city, which is a State Capitol where the pandemic started in America, is occupied on occasions, like today, by large groups of angry white dudes with military assault rifles, who don't live in this city. They're from the country and they hold, by far, a minority opinion in this city, county, State and Country.
What I see in them is a complete lack of empathy for the lives that are being lost due to this virus.
We have people carrying signs that say, "Corona Virus is a Hoax!", "Let the Virus Victims Die!" and speech that reallyis harmful, but this is America and we do have our freedom of speech, even hateful speech.
But they're armed and they're white, so they can do whatever they want, without legal repercussions, as long as they're white.
If they were a bunch of angry non-white men, the National Guard would have descended on their asses the first time they showed up at the State Capitol packing heat.
But this is the day an age in which we live. The well informed, obedient citizens, like me, stay at home, sheltered in place listening to Cable news, surfing the internet, while these guys are out on the Capitol Rotunda waiving their military grade weapons in the air and threatening the cops and politicians.

Evolution Less Accepted in U.S. than Other Western Countries

http://www.mifami.org/eLibrary/Owen_EvolutionSUS.htm

This is what happens when you put a science denier in charge of a pandemic.
People die.
Lots of them, as we've seen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2020 07:51PM by schrodingerscat.

"shivering in a corner"...my I suggest a sweater or turn up the heat a smidge.

Rather than contributing to the ongoing narrative theme of “Me smart, they dumb” which permeates most of the stuff I read lately, how about expending that energy toward constructive ideas that help instead of dividing?

I would, but I acknowledge that I have no ideas. But, on the other hand I don’t spend my time pointing out where others are lesser people than myself, either.

Just a thought.

csuprovograd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rather than contributing to the ongoing narrative
> theme of “Me smart, they dumb” which permeates
> most of the stuff I read lately, how about
> expending that energy toward constructive ideas
> that help instead of dividing?
>
> I would, but I acknowledge that I have no ideas.

So what's your point?

> But, on the other hand I don’t spend my time
> pointing out where others are lesser people than
> myself, either.

So, "me smart, you dumb" is your point?

Got it.
>
> Just a thought.

Brilliant.
Thanks for your ironic input.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2020 02:36PM by schrodingerscat.

“I would, but I acknowledge that I have no ideas.”

Would they help if you did? I have written my ideas here before. Everybody thinks I’m crazy.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> “I would, but I acknowledge that I have no
> ideas.”
>
> Would they help if you did? I have written my
> ideas here before. Everybody thinks I’m crazy.

Not everybody.
Just the vocal minority.
I don't even remember what you said, but if it's a hopeful solution to Corona Virus, I'm all ears. The great thing about living now is nobody knows shit. Not even the most intelligent genetic scientist is anywhere near close to a cure for Coronavirus 19. Until there's a cure, your ideas (unless it's drinking bleach and shoving a UV-C lightbulb up your ass) are as good as Dr. Fauci's, since he doesn't have a cure.
But we do have a good candidate for a treatment, that got approved for treatment of Covid 19 yesterday.
But it's just a treatment, the same way you treat AIDS.
You cure the same way you cure AIDS, quit having unprotected sex with people who might have AIDS and quit sharing needles, unless you want to die.
Same with Covid 19.
Quit eating pangolins and raw bats and you won't get the wicked virus jumping between species and wiping out the mainly male, old, sick ones.
More women get it, but more men die from it, because we already have more pre-existing underlying conditions.
Here, in the US, it started spreading in WA, in a nursing home, where many of the deaths have happened, here and most of them in Sweden, which is on a similar upward trajectory as US.
This virus loves nothing more than humid, dark places, where people are packed in tight quarters.
Nursing homes are perfect.
So are hospitals.
So are Cruise Ships.
So are churches and any other Assembly areas.
Which is why we shut all assembling down and have kept it shut down for 2 months, until the idiots came out of the woodwork and started gathering together at our State Capitol to protest, like they are today and they did 2 weeks ago.
I am surprised that 12 days after the initial protests, that our ER's and ICU's are not overflowing right now, but apparently being outside in a gathering, is not nearly as dangerous as being inside in the dark.
UV-C is the most effective Virus destroyer on the planet.
But it also causes causes mutations, which does all kinds of damage to your DNA, which is how it causes cancer.
Fortunately most of the UV-C light is filtered out by our atmosphere/magnetosphere.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2020 08:10PM by schrodingerscat.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But we do have a good candidate for a treatment,
> that got approved for treatment of Covid 19
> yesterday.

If you are referring to remdesivir, just to be specific it's still not proven to be amazingly effective and doctors are warning it's only being used at present for severely ill, intubated patients in ICU. I've heard some say it wouldn't be used for anyone with less severe illness. For one thing, at present at least, it's only administered intravenously, and is still not considered to be a silver bullet (nor likely to be) so is not widely available to the walking wounded (those not ill enough to be hospitalized in ICU). It was approved rapidly (and irregularly compared to the usual approach) as it showed some slight promise in certain conditions but has not received status yet (if at all) as a viable treatment for the masses.


> But it's just a treatment, the same way you treat
> AIDS.

> You cure the same way you cure AIDS, quit having
> unprotected sex with people who might have AIDS
> and quit sharing needles, unless you want to die.

I agree with the first statement.

As for a cure, I have read and heard that there is no "cure" for CV and will be none. It will always only be treatment, whatever and whenever the scientists discover something that is effective.

Again, just trying to be specific - there is no "cure" currently for AIDS. It too is always and only treatment over an affected person's lifetime. Again, unless something new is developed that is indeed a cure. Taking measures to avoid contracting any disease, including AIDS, is prevention, not cure. Also, having AIDS is not a death sentence any more in developed countries so even having unprotected sex with an infected person or exposing oneself to used needles is not an automatic one-way trail to death. (However, it's obviously still not recommended to be so careless, as far as possible).

As we're talking about health and disease and contagion and prevention, I thought it is best to be as specific and accurate as possible, which is the reason for my comments.

I may be incorrect myself on some details - it's easy to slip up.

"Obedient citizen"? I don't stay home because I am an obedient citizen. I check two "vulnerable" boxes, and figure there is roughly a 50-50 chance that catching this could be fatal. That doesn't strike me as a risk I am willing to take.

Similarly, I don't smoke not because I still feel a need to obey the WoW. I just think it is a really bad idea.

Nor am I shivering in the corner. WTF

If the effective infection rate is 1, the number of cases will be static. Of course, the infection rate never sits on a knife edge (exactly 1). If it is less than 1, the case load will slowly decrease, or rapidly decrease, depending on how far below 1 it is.

If it is above 1, the case load will increase. If the effective infection rate cannot be controlled by other means, there will have to be another shutdown. If it can be controlled by other means (that is, kept below 1), then great, do so.

That is what is going to happen, with or without loud protestors with pea shooters. However intolerable the alternatives are, exponential growth of the number of sick and dying is less tolerable.

Even here, exponential growth cannot go on forever. COVID-19 will eventually stop or at least be slowed to a crawl, whether through widespread infection and recovery, or vaccination. The question is how are we going to get to that stage.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2020 03:03PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nor am I shivering in the corner. WTF

I said "shivering in a corner bedroom" because I was being dramatic, but I really was in a corner bedroom, shivering at the sight of helicopters were flying overhead reporting on the shit show across the lake that I can see out my window. It's crazy.
May Day around here is always a shit show.
Masked anarchists take over the downtown, smash windows with bricks, light fires, cars get smashed.
This year, the local rednecks put confederate flags in the back of their pickups and drive up and down Capitol Blvd nearby and rev their engines on their 4x4's. I can hear the activity. That's a little too close to home.
Tonight there will be helicopters most of the night.
Friday night, MayDay, Pandemic,
Perfect storm.

Wow. I'm glad I live in the relative peace and quiet of Cuidad Juarez.

  ¿Que barrio, vieja desgraciada, hija de su ...?













  (I only did this in hopes D&D will laugh.  I worry about him...)

I'll show you around the barrio one day, EOD. But be forewarned, the ninos and ninas will want your autograph!

I am opposed to the lockdown. It is in effective when 80-90% of the infected will never have a symptom and for those who will have symptoms they may be ineffective for 4+ weeks before the first symptom. The rate of transmission is somewhere between 3.5-8.9 (just off the top of my head, I could look up the CDC numbers if needed). Furthermore, the false security of wearing ineffective masks and improper usage of gloves actually increases the danger for a virus that can be passed via not just respiratory routes but also fecal oral transmission and through the eyes actually increases transmission. But then I have read the science from when Ralph Baric made his SHC014 segment and put it into the MA15 coronavirus. His chimeric virus proved deadly to the aged mice and it is mainly the aged mice that are dying. His vaccines did not protect the aged mice against his virus. Covid 19 uses the same mechanism of infection as the man altered SHC014 MA15 (sample 2b) created by Ralph Baric and then sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

I here a lot about science, but I find that very few have actually read the science. Type in "gain of function" and "coronavirus" into your search engine and read for yourself.

I suppose you don’t believe that Jaredite barges were illuminated by magic glowing rocks.

I believe that there is ample science backing the finger of god touching the rocks. How else could they make the trip? It's been so long since I paid attention to that stuff I can't even remember much of the story and not enough to even make a joke.

The numbers in your post are so off-the-wall that I have to wonder why you even suggest them. R(o) is not 3.5-3.89; it is around 1.0. The rate you propose for asymptomatic infection is incorrect, as is your supposed incubation figure: 4+ weeks? "Gain of function" likewise has nothing to do with sheltering-in-place.

Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 26, Number 7—July 2020
Research
High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2

to quote" Assuming a serial interval of 6–9 days, we calculated a median R0 value of 5.7 (95% CI 3.8–8.9). We further show that active surveillance, contact tracing, quarantine, and early strong social distancing efforts are needed to stop transmission of the virus."

I will look up the long end of incubation period.

I will get back to you on the asymptomatic percentages.

The gain of function is important because there was a lot of basic research done at that time.

Easy.

Are there any countries in the world, or states in the United States, or counties, that have "flattened the curve?" Because flattening the curve means an R(o) of 1.0 or below. The INITIAL R(o) seems, according to the WHO, to have been about 2.0. But the shelter-in-place orders you reject have lowered it to 1.0 or lower in many places. Even at the peak in the US and SK and most of Europe, R(o) was about 1.2.

So you are pretending that COVID was nearly twice as high as the WHO says and that it cannot come down. Reality, however, is different. In many parts of the US R(o) is below 1.0.

Another look at your post indicates that your source directly contradicts your position.

"Assuming a serial interval of 6–9 days, we calculated a median R0 value of 5.7 (95% CI 3.8–8.9). We further show that active surveillance, contact tracing, quarantine, and early strong social distancing efforts are needed to stop transmission of the virus."

In other words, your very source says that remedial actions can and do lower R, which is why in many places the variable is presently at or below 1.0. You write that you are "opposed to the lockdown," but the scientific analysis you cite reaches the opposite conclusion.

I've been busy, but here is another one. From China which I don't really trust because, well its China and their numbers have been all over the place.

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)
Ruiyun Li1,*, Sen Pei2,*,†, Bin Chen3,*, Yimeng Song4, Tao Zhang5, Wan Yang6, Jeffrey Shaman2,†
See all authors and affiliations

Science 01 May 2020:
Vol. 368, Issue 6490, pp. 489-493
DOI: 10.1126/science.abb3221
Article
Figures & Data
Info & Metrics
eLetters
PDF
Undetected cases
The virus causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now become pandemic. How has it managed to spread from China to all around the world within 3 to 4 months? Li et al. used multiple sources to infer the proportion of early infections that went undetected and their contribution to virus spread. The researchers combined data from Tencent, one of the world's largest social media and technology companies, with a networked dynamic metapopulation model and Bayesian inference to analyze early spread within China. They estimate that ∼86% of cases were undocumented before travel restrictions were put in place. Before travel restriction and personal isolation were implemented, the transmission rate of undocumented infections was a little more than half that of the known cases. However, because of their greater numbers, undocumented infections were the source for ∼80% of the documented cases. Immediately after travel restrictions were imposed, ∼65% of cases were documented. These findings help to explain the lightning-fast spread of this virus around the world.

Science, this issue p. 489

There are more if you want.

Longer Icubation period.

February 21, 2020
Presumed Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19
Yan Bai, MD1; Lingsheng Yao, MD2; Tao Wei, MD3; et alFei Tian, MD4; Dong-Yan Jin, PhD5; Lijuan Chen, PhD1; Meiyun Wang, MD, PhD1
Author Affiliations Article Information
JAMA. 2020;323(14):1406-1407. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.2565

Discussion
A familial cluster of 5 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia in Anyang, China, had contact before their symptom onset with an asymptomatic family member who had traveled from the epidemic center of Wuhan. The sequence of events suggests that the coronavirus may have been transmitted by the asymptomatic carrier. The incubation period for patient 1 was 19 days, which is long but within the reported range of 0 to 24 days.4 Her first RT-PCR result was negative; false-negative results have been observed related to the quality of the kit, the collected sample, or performance of the test. RT-PCR has been widely deployed in diagnostic virology and has yielded few false-positive outcomes.5 Thus, her second RT-PCR result was unlikely to have been a false-positive and was used to define infection with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The one point that your first article seems to make is that the R comes down with social distancing, which again indicates that that practice is critically important.

The second seems to say that there is a larger range around the average point at which the infection manifests. I accept that although it doesn't contradict the general belief that the incubation period is generally 10-14 days.

I'm all for social distancing. In fact I am very introverted and live a social distancing life. I am also a self employed essential worker.

I am going to tell you something that you can believe or not. There is research for public consumption and then there is research that is not for public consumption. I have degrees in microbiology and chemistry. My room mate from college does also. After college we both went into the army. I took the voluntary RIF when I was a captain and he stayed in. He also got a PhD in virology and does research for the DOD, what it is he won't say. From him and other people that I know that are still in, by mid January I knew that there were 2 strains, the L strain was deadly but it quickly degenerated to the S strain. The worst case scenario was 3% mortality with 50% rate of infection, with an R0 of 6-8. They were also predicting a majority of the infections being asymptomatic. No of this was for public consumption, but not secret either because there were some media sources reporting on each of these things.

The gain of function studies are important because when the mechanism of infection that is used by COVID 19 was reversed engineered and put into a mouse coronavirus, the 10 day old mice survived where the aged mice began to die. Furthermore, the vaccines created did not protect the aged mice. This was done in 2015 at UNC and then at the Wuhan Institute of virology. The S strain is acting a lot like SHC014 MA15 sample 2b.

Do you have sources on the material in your final paragraph? If so, I'd like to read them.

Thanks in advance.

Specifically to your request

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2020.1733440
SL-SHC014-MA15 virus is not related to COVID-19

As regards S and L strains

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463?searchresult=1

Open the PDF for full article

"In this work, we propose that SAR-CoV-2 can be divided into two major types (L and S types): the S type is ancestral, and the L type evolved from S type. Intriguingly, the S and L types can be clearly defined by just two tightly linked SNPs at positions 8,782 (orf1ab: T8517C, synonymous) and 28,144 (ORF8:C251T, S84L).
However, it is currently unclear whether L type evolved from the S type in humans or in the intermediate hosts. It is also unclear whether the L type is more virulent than the S type"

"In summary, our analyses of 103 sequenced SARSCoV-2 genomes suggest that the L type is more aggressive than the S type and that human interference may have shifted the relative
abundance of L and S type soon after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak."

For a non-technical discussion

https://www.newsweek.com/more-aggressive-coronavirus-evolved-1490623

"The researchers wrote in their study: "We propose that, although the L type newly evolved from the ancient S type, it transmits faster or replicates faster in human populations, causing it to accumulate more mutations than the S type. Thus, our results suggest the L might be more aggressive than the S type due to the potentially higher transmission and/or replication rates."

Jones argued the scientists were ill-advised to use to term "aggressive, which doesn't mean much biologically."
"What they mean is that the virus transmits more easily, not that it causes worse disease," he said. "In addition the 70/30 split in the types is not that great and some of their data show both types in the same patients"

Also

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-looking-at-whether-there-are-two-strains-of-the-novel-coronavirus/

“What they seem to be saying is that after SARS-CoV2 first crossed into humans, the ancestral strain (S) subsequently evolved into another lineage (L). Both of these are now apparently circulating. The newer lineage was initially more prevalent, but is now reducing – the authors speculate that this lineage was more affected by human intervention as a result of it being better at spreading/more pathogenic. The older (S) lineage appear less affected by preventative measures, due, say the authors to it being less virulent and so producing a lower level of more stable infections."

Thanks.

I should add that knowing you are [|] makes it a lot easier to accept what you posted anonymously. I look forward to learning some things.

Nat Med. 2015 December ; 21(12): 1508–1513. doi:10.1038/nm.3985.

SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronavirus pose threat for
human emergence
Vineet D. Menachery1, Boyd L. Yount Jr1, Kari Debbink1,2, Sudhakar Agnihothram3, Lisa E.
Gralinski1, Jessica A. Plante1, Rachel L. Graham1, Trevor Scobey1, Xing-Yi Ge8, Eric F.
Donaldson1, Scott H. Randell4,5, Antonio Lanzavecchia6, Wayne A. Marasco7, Zhengli-Li
Shi8, and Ralph S. Baric1,2
1Departments of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
2Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
3National Center for Toxicological Research, Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR, USA
4Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel
Hill, NC, USA 5Marsico Lung Institute/Cystic Fibrosis Center, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA 6
Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona, Switzerland
Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 7Department of Cancer Immunology
and AIDS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School,
Boston Massachusetts, USA 8Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China

I don't have time now, but the denials that covid 19 did not come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are a little hollow. But who would want to admit that the monster came from their lab?

China is something I know better than microbiology. And yes, I think that 1) the fact that the virus was under study in Wuhan whereas otherwise it would probably come from Yunnan, and 2) that China is suppressing so much evidence, are highly suggestive.

I originally (when discussing things with Simon Southerton) thought the odds of a lab escape were perhaps 10%. China's behavior makes me think we may be approaching 50%.

Thanks for schooling me on COVID. I read widely on this stuff but don't have your expertise.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7054935/

"According to what has been reported [1–3], COVID-2019 seems to have similar clinical manifestations to that of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by SARS-CoV. The SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence also has ∼80% identity with SARS-CoV, but it is most similar to some bat beta-coronaviruses, with the highest being >96% identity [4,5].

Currently, there are speculations, rumours and conspiracy theories that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin. Some people have alleged that the human SARS-CoV-2 was leaked directly from a laboratory in Wuhan where a bat CoV (RaTG13) was recently reported, which shared ∼96% homology with the SARS-CoV-2 [4]. However, as we know, the human SARS-CoV and intermediate host palm civet SARS-like CoV shared 99.8% homology, with a total of 202 single-nucleotide (nt) variations (SNVs) identified across the genome [6]. Given that there are greater than 1,100 nt differences between the human SARS-CoV-2 and the bat RaTG13-CoV [4], which are distributed throughout the genome in a naturally occurring pattern following the evolutionary characteristics typical of CoVs, it is highly unlikely that RaTG13 CoV is the immediate source of SARS-CoV-2. The absence of a logical targeted pattern in the new viral sequences and a close relative in a wildlife species (bats) are the most revealing signs that SARS-CoV-2 evolved by natural evolution. A search for an intermediate animal host between bats and humans is needed to identify animal CoVs more closely related to human SARS-CoV-2. There is speculation that pangolins might carry CoVs closely related to SARS-CoV-2, but the data to substantiate this is not yet published (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00364-2).

Another claim in Chinese social media points to a Nature Medicine paper published in 2015 [7], which reports the construction of a chimeric CoV with a bat CoV S gene (SHC014) in the backbone of a SARS CoV that has adapted to infect mice (MA15) and is capable of infecting human cells [8]. However, this claim lacks any scientific basis and must be discounted because of significant divergence in the genetic sequence of this construct with the new SARS-CoV-2 (>5,000 nucleotides)."

We also know the lab's security practices are lax and that there have been at least a couple previous virus leaks.

Thank you so much for posting all of this. I really appreciate it. I have to go, you gave me a lot of reading material.

Good news from the CDC.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/Provisional-Death-Counts-COVID-19-Pneumonia-and-Influenza.pdf

These are the latest numbers (May 1st) from the CDC.

This is crazy.

You say "These are the latest numbers (May 1st) from the CDC." but the document you provide explicitly says "Data as of 4/16/2020." And there are two more recent publications.

In addition, your document states that "Data during this period are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes."

So no, the total number of deaths from COVID in the United States is not 11,356.

time after time, issue after issue, Donnie can ONLY deal with things as he'd prefer them to be, he's created his own bubble, but has plenty of followers - supporters.

How do US infection and mortality rates compare to Sweden? Wouldn’t that tell us the effectiveness of the lockdown?

Sweden is not doing well relative to the United States.

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-coronavirus-rate-1501250

The death rate in the U.S. is about 5.8%, China has been 5.6%, and Sweden's is over 12%.

Even a death rate of 5.8% is shockingly high -- perhaps twice that of the Spanish flu, which killed 675,000 Americans. We just lost about 60,000 Americans to Covid-19 within about a month's span, and that is with shutdowns, stay at home orders, and social distancing in place.

Not a tough call, is it.

"Give me liberty AND give me death!!"

No!

Picture this epitaph: “I died for their freedom”. It’s almost like you’re a hero.

So much for my hypothesis that ABBA music could act as a prophylactic.

I don’t know why the conspiracy theorists ignore the fact that every country on the planet, except places like Vanuatu, is having the same problem. Maybe for the same reason TBMs ignore the gaping holes in Mormonism. A certain percentage of the population will keep their bogus beliefs no matter the evidence. Then you get these redneck marches.

In Mexico when there’s a grizzly car wreck, they put the pictures on the front page of the newspaper as a deterrent. There are probably legal reasons we don’t see a COVID19 patient’s death rattle on the evening news, but I think it would help drive home how serious this is.

Yes this is a very sad picture. Governors being threatened by armed men and pushed towards opening up, when the first wave is by no means over - it looks like it has plateaued and may be slowly moving downwards.

If states are going to reopen, they must get contact tracing and then mandatory isolation measures in place or the infection rate will go through the roof again.

I'd also start to think about reducing access to government buildings by people carrying heavy weaponry.

. . . come the anti-vaxxers. They have been assailing the possibility of a vaccine, which would of course be a government plot, and now they are joining the protests against shelter-in-place measures. We thus see the emergence of an unholy alliance of right-wing militia groups, anti-vaxxers, other science skeptics, and the Black Helicopter brigade.

It was so perfectly predictable. . .



https://www.businessinsider.com/anti-quarantine-protesters-mewe-facebook-groups-conspiracy-theorists-social-media-2020-5

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/05/03/anti-vaccination-activists-are-a-growing-force-at-virus-protests

You say that like it’s a bad thing. What if they’re right? Then they would be like the people opposing Hitler back in the 1930s.

Well, the medical and scientific research about vaccines is clear. So there's that.

As for anti-vaxxers being like the opponents of Hitler, I'm having a hard time picturing Fauci and Brix as the aspiring murderers of six million Jews. Do you really see them that way?

Of course not. They are professional stooges, which doesn’t engender the confidence of the black helicopter crowd. This is America. People have a right to think whatever they think. The loonies are the price we pay for our divisive culture.

That doesn’t even include the mentality ill, which are immune from “stay at home” orders because they’re dumped on the street.

Science is right when it’s followed. Politics corrupts science, which is important in the current situation as well as the institution itself. A lot of scientists are expressing doubts.

But that’s beside the point. Dissent is as American as apple pie. That’s the horse we rode in on. You want to stop dissent just because there’s a pandemic? That’s like re-making the bed while you’re sleeping in it.

I really hope you’re right, because the alternative is sphincter factor 11.

To expand on science in medicine, it’s been proven that most of it is sham science. Not only that, but they get away with it. There’s too much money to not look the other way. Now we’re trusting this same industry to make these huge economic and political decisions. Wouldn’t you smell a rat?

> To expand on science in medicine, it’s been
> proven that most of it is sham science.

That assertion is absurd.

Hmm.

No one wants to suppress dissent. Insisting that people express dissentience legally and constitutionally is not the same thing as suppression. And your confounding of restraints on where and how dissent is registered with Nazism is irrational at best.

As for "sphincter factor 11," I don't know what that means but it doesn't sound very well thought out.

You don’t think we suffer the same ideological possession as the third reich? Then why did we elect a demagogue?

What I think is that the Ponzi scheme known as the financial markets was so unsustainable that a major crisis needed to be manufactured to avoid an uncontrolled crash. So maybe it’s not as scary as it’s made out to be. Just because there’s a conspiracy doesn’t mean they’re monsters. Nobody wants to burn the kind of wealth that has been burned.

You can shoot the messenger all you want. I’m having fun. Maybe I shouldn’t enjoy myself so much in these dire times. But I’m not fiddling while Rome burns. I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem.

> You don’t think we suffer the same ideological
> possession as the third reich? Then why did we
> elect a demagogue?

Lots of countries have elected demagogues and only one of those countries was Nazi Germany. So no, I do not in any way think that the United States "suffers the same ideological possession" as 1930s Germany.


---------------
> What I think is that the Ponzi scheme known as the
> financial markets was so unsustainable that a
> major crisis needed to be manufactured to avoid an
> uncontrolled crash. So maybe it’s not as scary
> as it’s made out to be. Just because there’s a
> conspiracy doesn’t mean they’re monsters.
> Nobody wants to burn the kind of wealth that has
> been burned.

I don't buy this. 2007-2009 was a financial crisis stemming from a financial cause and the US government reacted with unprecedented speed and force. I have no doubt that if another enormous crisis arose naturally from the economy, the governmental response would have been at least as aggressive as in the Great Recession. There was no need to manufacture a pandemic.


--------------
> You can shoot the messenger all you want. I’m
> having fun. Maybe I shouldn’t enjoy myself so
> much in these dire times. But I’m not fiddling
> while Rome burns. I’m part of the solution, not
> part of the problem.

I am not shooting the messenger, just questioning the message.

“There was no need to manufacture a pandemic.”

So it’s a good old fashioned cash grab. This is going a bit off topic. I thought the discussion was about science denial (derogatory term for lockdown dissent) undermining containment measures. I said what if they are right and the discussion went off on a tangent.

All we can do is speculate why governments are implementing scorched earth economic policies. One day the economy is way more important than people. The next day they’re killing the economy “to save lives” in a massive change of heart. Yeah, I don’t buy it.

I’m willing to think there’s no conspiracy. Crony capitalism is just dumb enough to keep guns pointed at its feet, locked and loaded. In that case, people have to take economic circumstances into their own hands anyway because that’s how this is rigged.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2020 10:43PM by bradley.

I'm thinking the anti-vaxxer situation will sort itself out in time. :/

"The death rate in the U.S. is about 5.8%, China has been 5.6%, and Sweden's is over 12%."

Percent of what?

As I understand, death rate should be percent deaths out of all covid infected persons, not percent deaths of test positives. Though deaths can be counted as covid without testing for it, per CDC rules.

Some recent serologic surveys suggest the actual number of persons that have been infected are about 50 times more than have tested virus positive, because so many infections are asymptomatic or mild, and never tested. Which puts the death rate around that of seasonal influenza. Of course, this is not reported.

Actually, our news channel reported the studies, but omitted the researchers primary conclusion on death rates. Our news only mentioned the higher infection rates, to increase fear and ratings.

Speaking of denial, many want to ignore the deaths from the shutdown, which will only get worse. Besides worse medical care resulting in deaths from non-virus causes (e.g. heart attack victims afraid of hospitals), suicides and other deaths will increase. The Yale professor in video below mentions that the suicide rate increases 1% for each 1 million unemployed, which is now around 30 million.

He and many others are trying to propose opening up economy while protecting the most vulnerable, but those in denial will not listen.

Saw an article this morning saying the virus will be around for 2 years. So apparently, if you don't want to be labeled a "science denier", we will have to be shut down for 2 years. Otherwise, you will be accused of wanting to kill grandma. The new zero death policy, meaning shutdowns every year for influenza, considering 80,000 died from it a couple winters ago.


I'm in eastern WA, and I don't know anyone that has is covid positive, let alone died, despite many still working and going to stores. I ask everyone I know and they don't know anybody either. I've sent workers with respiratory symptoms to the doctor for testing per company policy, and they haven't met criteria for testing.

So apparently there are hotspots of illness upon which national policy is based. If you are in an area with nothing happening, it is still considered heresy if you question the continued shutdown and destroyed businesses, including some hospitals in our area that will go under because they have nothing going on. They would love to have some covid patients for income, especially since you are paid well for them.

Stanford professor on fatality rate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-saAuXaPok

Yale professor on total harm minimization, deaths from shutdown and from virus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK0Wtjh3HVA&t=762s


Another epidemiologist, former professor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Q4naYOYDw


Many references

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

A few more thoughts.

Many are true believers in all things shutdown, assuming it can do no harm.

The Yale professor above mentions for one thing, sending college kids home was dumb. Instead of keeping them at college, where they could become infected and immune and no longer a threat to others, we sent them home to visit grandma and kill her off.

Deaths will end up the same from the virus, with or without shutdown, just spread out more, and while increasing deaths from the shutdown.


And as the CDC director said, we're setting up for a second wave of covid at the same time as the flu season.

BTW, the shutdowns happened after the peak in infections had already occurred, as Wittkowski shows above. May have slowed infections some, but not nearly as much as claimed. Especially considering people still go to stores and mingle among friends.

In references above, there's a study in journal Lancet discussing limited effectiveness of school closures, as kids still mingle. I see that on our street. Teens aren't stuck in their rooms. And they also spend more time visiting grandma and the vulnerable when not in school.

I also wonder how much increased obesity from sitting at home. I saw that beer sales are up 44%. How many more pregnancies? What are teens doing all day?


Anyway, things are going to get even more ugly with economy and prolonged epidemic.

As Wittkowski said, instead of shutdown, we could have isolated nursing homes, paid workers big money to live there for a few weeks until this blew over. $2 trillion dollars would have gone a long ways - that is 2 million millions.

Of course, we're not allowed to question things.

Reminds me of church.

I quoted numbers from the Newsweek article directly above my comment.

The seasonal flu does not kill 60,000+ Americans in one month despite shutdowns, stay-at-home orders, etc. Some examples from NYC -- the seasonal flu does not cause hospitals to have refrigerated semis outside to hold the dead. It does not cause relatives to be so afraid to pick up their loved ones bodies that a mass grave will be required. It does not impel hospital workers to wear hazmat suits. This is not the seasonal flu. This is a whole new beast that is demanding our full attention.

>>So apparently there are hotspots of illness upon which national policy is based.

What national policy? All the feds asked for was two weeks of declining numbers, and a lot of states felt that was too much to ask. If you are living in an area (eastern Washington state) that is relatively CV-19 free, then that is a matter between you and your state officials.

There is starting to be some discussion in Maryland because a couple of our westernmost counties (close to West Virgina) are doing relatively well, and the same might be true for our rural eastern shore. Central Maryland (in which two major cities, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. are dominant influences,) continues to be a disaster even though we've had strong leadership from our wonderful governor and some of the best medical minds this country has to offer. So central Maryland is not ready to reopen, nor should it be.

I'm at the point where if states want to ignore the more than reasonable federal guidelines, that's on them. I sincerely wish those people well, and I'll be watching from a safe distance.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2020 10:41AM by summer.

I'm not sure what the point is in responding to Free Man. In a week he'll be back, posting the same arguments with a few references to exactly the same minority scientists expressing the same minority views and ignoring all the mainstream evidence presented by others. It's as if he believes, along with a couple of our other posters, that repetition makes the falsehood truer.

I wish I could join you in sitting back and watching from a safe distance. As long as there are roads from one state to another, a "safe distance" is as illusory as a "national policy."

I take your meaning on "safe distance," but realistically, Maryland will be one of the last states to reopen. People can cross the state line, but there's literally nothing to do here right now except go grocery shopping.

Better the last to reopen than the first to re-close. The dance has just begun.

“It's as if he believes, along with a couple of our other posters, that repetition makes the falsehood truer.”

Why not? It works for all the news channels.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> “It's as if he believes, along with a couple of
> our other posters, that repetition makes the
> falsehood truer.”
>
> Why not? It works for all the news channels.

All, bradley?

Surely there are a few...