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Post by millring on Jul 9, 2020 17:14:29 GMT -5
well said.
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Post by james on Jul 9, 2020 17:20:34 GMT -5
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Post by John B on Jul 9, 2020 19:15:07 GMT -5
I take the disease/contagion very seriously, not so much for my sake, but for the sake of others. That said: I will never "shame" someone for masking or not masking. Death rates are dropping steadily. Let's not compound the hysteria and fear by presenting "omigod, Yuuuge spike in Corona!!!!" without even hinting that the numbers could, just could possibly, maybe even maybe be tied to a dramatic increase in testing. And no hint of the dropping death rates. If you wonder why so many are jaded about this whole thing, there it is. Stats are being parsed, fear is being peddled, all the while killing people's businesses, careers, savings, homes. OH, and starvation throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. How about the effect on hospitals? I cherry-picked some paragraphs from this article: www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/us/coronavirus-hospitals-capacity.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=HomepageFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he was sending 100 nurses to help out Jackson Health System in Miami, which said it had already hired 80 extra nurses in the past two weeks. Jackson Memorial, its flagship hospital, has only 28 I.C.U. beds, out of a total of 234, available. Florida is struggling with one of the worst outbreaks in the country, along with Texas, California and Arizona.: 43 intensive care units in 21 Florida counties have hit capacity and have no beds available. In South Carolina, National Guard troops are being called in soon to help insert intravenous lines and check blood pressure. Roper St. Francis Healthcare in Charleston saw a 65 percent increase in coronavirus patients in a single day. In Mississippi, five of the state’s largest hospitals have already run out of I.C.U. beds for critical patients, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer, said on Thursday. “Mississippi hospitals cannot take care of Mississippi patients,” he said.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2020 21:40:15 GMT -5
I take the disease/contagion very seriously, not so much for my sake, but for the sake of others. That said: I will never "shame" someone for masking or not masking. Death rates are dropping steadily. Let's not compound the hysteria and fear by presenting "omigod, Yuuuge spike in Corona!!!!" without even hinting that the numbers could, just could possibly, maybe even maybe be tied to a dramatic increase in testing. And no hint of the dropping death rates. If you wonder why so many are jaded about this whole thing, there it is. Stats are being parsed, fear is being peddled, all the while killing people's businesses, careers, savings, homes. OH, and starvation throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. So your working theory is Drs. Fauci, Birx, Redfield, Adams et al are just crying "wolf"? That they somehow enrich themselves or their reputations by issuing warnings for something we don't need to worry about? That their expertise and experience isn't so, well, expert or experienced?
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Post by epaul on Jul 9, 2020 22:37:19 GMT -5
Ok, I think I'm getting the hang of this. David is using sarcasm and exaggeration in order to... in order to... in order to something Evan. Ok, I don't entirely have the hang of it. I'm not sure what he's trying to do. Ridicule? Not sure.
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Post by epaul on Jul 9, 2020 22:44:52 GMT -5
( I'm fair game for ridicule and exaggeration as I employ those devices, often with great pleasure, myself. Evan however, while he has a worldview that contains some elements that are a complete and absolute mystery to me, is a straight and fair shooter that doesn't dip his toes into the suspect waters that some, most certainly including me, sometimes enjoy splashing about in.)
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Post by epaul on Jul 9, 2020 23:07:13 GMT -5
I agree, the Trump Tulsa rally was a dumbass idea, in theory and in execution. However, the CNN headline (not necessarily the complete article itself) and the heading of this thread has a partisan "nah, nah, I told you so" quality to it that is un-useful (if understandable)..
As the article does state, when read completely, there are several factors of undetermined weight that are responsible for the rise in Tulsa's positive cases, AND, if Tulsa's recent surge were to be compared to several other southern cities of a similar size, (cities which notably didn't have Trump rallies) it is unlikely Tulsa would stand out in any notable way.
When perspective is applied, the CNN headline and this thread's headline both over-weigh (assign too much credit to) the effect of the Trump rally on what is clearly a widespread surge in positive cases amongst southern cities that have "re-opened".
The partisan intent is clear and unhelpful as it just encourages a suspicion of intent and a hardening of positions. It really is a "Nah, nah, I told you so...dumb ass" sort of deal.
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Post by epaul on Jul 9, 2020 23:23:12 GMT -5
Ignoring partisan gamesmanship and blamegaming, what is Covid interesting is: Why the South and not the North?
Southern states and cites have caseloads rocketing up while northern states and cities have cases going down, down, down. (Minnesota has been reporting daily deaths of five and six for the last couple weeks, as compared to the upper 20s and low 30s reported daily in March and May, and North Dakota hasn't had any deaths for the last ten days or so. And hospitalizations and hospitalization durations are similarly down, way down.
Is the North's turn coming or is there something else at play? What is clear is there is, at the moment, a clear Covid dichotomy between North and South.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Jul 10, 2020 0:02:23 GMT -5
Oregon is northern state last time I looked. We just recorded our highest positive one day rate today.
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Post by epaul on Jul 10, 2020 0:12:57 GMT -5
Well, maybe it's coming, then. If there is a constant to Covid-19 it is that there is no consistency. It is capricious. By all that is currently known, it is perfectly capricious.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2020 2:51:38 GMT -5
Ok, I think I'm getting the hang of this. David is using sarcasm and exaggeration in order to... in order to... in order to something Evan. Ok, I don't entirely have the hang of it. I'm not sure what he's trying to do. Ridicule? Not sure. I refer to it as “reductive sarcasm”.... Evan’s comment was this: If you wonder why so many are jaded about this whole thing, there it is. Stats are being parsed, fear is being peddled, all the while killing people's businesses, careers, savings, homes.Firstly, nobody is saying the economic damage/impact isn’t important. But the health crisis is more threatening, and that’s what Drs. Fauci, Birx, Redfield et al — you know, the experts we put in charge of this thing — have been telling us. Maybe we’re all short-term thinkers and they are looking at the long-term survival-of-society aspects. We had a program for helping folks out, and while you were getting your $1,200, megachurches, Kanye, Dr. Phil, lobbyists with connections to Trump were getting millions. It was a test of priorities and we said where ours were. We figured Kanye, with an estimated net worth of $1.3 BILLION needed up to $5 million for his tennis shoe company. That type of story was repeated over and over. I wonder what factors led to rejection of various loans....
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Post by jdd2 on Jul 10, 2020 3:57:10 GMT -5
If tulsa/oklahoma put out some testing numbers, that might help. What were were the numbers in the couple weeks BT (before trump), and then in the couple weeks after?
That would either confirm or lay to rest the wink/nod reference to "it might be due to increased testing." Same with hospitalizations.
And then, contact tracing. Tho they'd abhor doing it, the campaign has the contact info for all the attendees--it'd be pretty easy to poll those 6200 people to see how they're feeling. edit: along with those who worked the event.
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Post by millring on Jul 10, 2020 4:04:28 GMT -5
Yes, the news reaction to the rally was predictable as rain. They were going to find a way to tie the rally to an outbreak. It is an impossibility that they would not.
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Post by theevan on Jul 10, 2020 4:08:39 GMT -5
David, I think the balance that must be struck between public safety and economic impact/damage is the legitimately arguable issue. To say one is more important than the other is vague.
I don't think the problem lies so much with Faucci or other public health figures. I think the problem is information. People are not being given the whole picture.
Which should lead one to wonder why, right? That's one of the basic questions of journalism, yes?
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Post by millring on Jul 10, 2020 5:11:26 GMT -5
For instance, why is the infection rate leading the news when the bigger story could just as easily be (and probably should be) the dramatically falling death rate?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2020 7:14:09 GMT -5
David, I think the balance that must be struck between public safety and economic impact/damage is the legitimately arguable issue. To say one is more important than the other is vague. I don't think the problem lies so much with Faucci or other public health figures. I think the problem is information. People are not being given the whole picture. Which should lead one to wonder why, right? That's one of the basic questions of journalism, yes? People are getting the whole picture. Or at least they are capable of getting it. The problem is that they want to cherry-pick the information they pay attention to, and dismiss evidence/information that doesn't jive with their opinion. Add to that the fact they have no expertise in the field (and it is a very specialized field) and they've been told their "feelings" or uninformed opinions carry just as much weight as actual facts. So we have people who swear they can't wear a mask because their oxygen levels go down, although somehow surgeons are able to do heart transplants and brain surgery while wearing them. I've had friends who barely made it out of high school biology (and never went to college) try to explain the finer points of epidemiology and statistics to me. That doesn't work for me. Drs. Fauci, Birx and Redfield (and nearly any ICU nurse) are telling us the house is on fire, and we're debating the nature of smoke.
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Post by epaul on Jul 10, 2020 8:35:54 GMT -5
It wouldn't take much work for a reporter to determine if the Trump rally in Tulsa had a significant impact on the rising case loads in the city. Positive Covid-19 cases are categorized by age, sex, and ethnicity. This information is public and is released. The recent rise in positive cases has been fueled largely by the young, Hispanics, and Blacks (and in that order). A competent reporter would instantly realize that this isn't the demographic that attended the Trump rally in Tulsa. A good reporter would then compare the age and ethnicity profiles of the the last two weeks of reported cases in Tulsa and see if the profile differs in any significant way from a basket of similarly-sized southern cities that have also seen increases of positive cases.
If the control group of cities showed the recent increase of case to be driven primarily by the young, Hispanics, and Black while Tulsa's to led by a bunch of 50 and 60-year-old whites, then by gum, you got yourself a headline.
Where are such reporters? CNN?
It is possible, if there is real, not partisan, interest, to determine what effect the Trump rally had on this recent rise of positive cases in Tulsa.
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Post by theevan on Jul 10, 2020 8:39:27 GMT -5
David, I think the balance that must be struck between public safety and economic impact/damage is the legitimately arguable issue. To say one is more important than the other is vague. I don't think the problem lies so much with Faucci or other public health figures. I think the problem is information. People are not being given the whole picture. Which should lead one to wonder why, right? That's one of the basic questions of journalism, yes? People are getting the whole picture. Or at least they are capable of getting it. The problem is that they want to cherry-pick the information they pay attention to, and dismiss evidence/information that doesn't jive with their opinion. Add to that the fact they have no expertise in the field (and it is a very specialized field) and they've been told their "feelings" or uninformed opinions carry just as much weight as actual facts. So we have people who swear they can't wear a mask because their oxygen levels go down, although somehow surgeons are able to do heart transplants and brain surgery while wearing them. I've had friends who barely made it out of high school biology (and never went to college) try to explain the finer points of epidemiology and statistics to me. That doesn't work for me. Drs. Fauci, Birx and Redfield (and nearly any ICU nurse) are telling us the house is on fire, and we're debating the nature of smoke. The whole picture is not being presented. That is the problem. How many current news reports are balancing the spike with a decrease in death rates? I have to wonder why. Don't you? Could there be an agenda? I'm not debating. I'm wondering what is going on. I'm not particularly keen on being asked to shut up and just trust us.
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Post by james on Jul 10, 2020 8:41:05 GMT -5
For instance, why is the infection rate leading the news when the bigger story could just as easily be (and probably should be) the dramatically falling death rate? The rising infection rate is a quite good indicator of the rising rates of debilitation and death that will follow and for which society must brace itself.
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Post by dradtke on Jul 10, 2020 8:48:54 GMT -5
Evan however, while he has a worldview that contains some elements that are a complete and absolute mystery to me, Like putting Tabasco on an Iowa pork tenderloin...
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