The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)

[teachercd]

I called the local butcher and found out about the deals they were having.

Any good ones?

 

[Enhance]

@knapplc saw this post in the Lounge thread, but my response was going to be a bit political in nature so I figured I'd respond here. 

I'm not sure why there's a push to downplay this virus. Even if it's "just like the flu," when people didn't have any immunity to the Spanish Flu it killed millions in 1918. If this is just like that, and we weren't social distancing, there's no reason to believe millions wouldn't die today. 

I think there are a couple things at play here in a lot of cases. Primarily, the narrative surrounding COVID seems to be shifting more and more along party lines. Anecdotally speaking, it appears more likely for conservative minded folks to push for the economy to get back on track and to downplay the virus, whereas more liberally minded folks are pushing the opposite. That's certainly not always the case (and I hope I don't seem like I'm casting aspersions on anyone here, as that's not my intention) but it's just what I'm noticing in my day to day.

Also, now that the virus is trending down in many areas, and now that just about every COVID storyline has been beat to death, the next logical step for people is to start analyzing the pandemic. I think a lot of people believe that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. This is very much the opinion of some people I know that I've talked to in the last several days.

Ultimately, I think it's dangerous and a bit unfair to start downplaying it.

 

[funhusker]

@knapplc saw this post in the Lounge thread, but my response was going to be a bit political in nature so I figured I'd respond here. 

I think there are a couple things at play here in a lot of cases. Primarily, the narrative surrounding COVID seems to be shifting more and more along party lines. Anecdotally speaking, it appears more likely for conservative minded folks to push for the economy to get back on track and to downplay the virus, whereas more liberally minded folks are pushing the opposite. That's certainly not always the case (and I hope I don't seem like I'm casting aspersions on anyone here, as that's not my intention) but it's just what I'm noticing in my day to day.

Also, now that the virus is trending down in many areas, and now that just about every COVID storyline has been beat to death, the next logical step for people is to start analyzing the pandemic. I think a lot of people believe that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. This is very much the opinion of some people I know that I've talked to in the last several days.

Ultimately, I think it's dangerous and a bit unfair to start downplaying it.

Agree 100%.  

I "think" all reasonable people understand that we can't stay in lockdown forever.  We need to get back to work and resume some type of normalcy.  But instead of having real discussions about what that looks like, people beat each other over the head with opinions like "it's just a bit worse than the flu" or "we can't go outside because we will kill our neighbors!"  

Watching my family members go back and forth on social media is sad.  I think if they sat down at a table with a couple of beers they would all have a good conversation about what we are dealing with.  But instead it is shallow partisan talking points that piss people off and create an air of nastiness.  It's gross.

 

[Jason Sitoke]

Primarily, the narrative surrounding COVID seems to be shifting more and more along party lines.

 

[TGHusker]

At the end of the quotes below it notes that 'only 23% have a high confidence' in what Trump is saying at the daily briefings.

I wonder who those wacky bird 23%ers are.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/three-weeks-of-trump-coronavirus-briefings-under-a-microscope-2-hours-spent-on-attacks-45-minutes-on-self-congratulation-and-412-minutes-of-condolences-for-victims-2020-04-27

Three weeks of Trump coronavirus briefings under a microscope: 2 hours spent on attacks, 45 minutes on self-congratulation — and 4½ minutes of condolences for victims

Monday marks the third day that the White House has not held a regular coronavirus task force briefing — but two reports undertaking systematic studies of the almost daily presidential pressers suggests that the skipped briefings, too, would have been dominated by President Trump attacking Democrats and the media, while praising himself and his administration.

A Washington Post analysis of the 35 briefings held since March 16 finds that the president spoke more than 28 hours across those press conferences. The paper drew on annotated transcripts from the data analytics company Factba.se, focusing on the last three weeks of briefings in particular, which have seen the U.S. death toll climb past 50,000.

And between April 6 and April 24, Trump spoke for 13 hours — more than twice as long as Dr. Deborah Birx, who oversees the administration’s virus response and spoke for almost six hours, or Vice President Mike Pence, the coronavirus task force leader, who spoke for about 5½ hours. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, spoke for just over two hours.

In other words, the president took up 60% of the briefings. The Washington Post report added that Trump answered questions addressed to someone else on the stage more than a third of the time, including queries that had already been answered by the intended official.

So what was the content of Trump’s remarks during those 13 hours? Two hours were spent on attacks — mostly against Democrats (drawing roughly 30 minutes), the media (for around 25 minutes), the nation’s governors (more than 22 minutes) and China (almost 21 minutes), according to the report.

About 45 minutes were spent praising himself and his administration, including three instances in which he played videos that featured support for him and his administration.

Just 4½ minutes were spent expressing condolences for coronavirus victims.

The latest John Hopkins University data as of Monday morning finds that the U.S. has the highest COVID-19 case toll in the world at 965,933, and the highest death count at 54,877.

Similarly the New York Times released a report on Sunday that reviewed more than 260,000 words spoken by Trump during the pandemic since March 9. It also found that self-congratulations were common (counting roughly 600 examples), while the commander-in-chief displayed empathy or appealed to national unity 160 times, or only about a quarter of the times that he complimented himself or a member of his team.

The Times went on to tabulate at least 130 examples of falsehoods or exaggerations. The Washington Post also claimed that almost one in four of the president’s statements or responses to questions contained false or misleading information, adding up to 47 minutes. That included promoting the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a prospective COVID-19 game changer in at least eight of his comments, despite there being no hard medical evidence to support it. And the president was widely criticized late last week for suggesting that his coronavirus response team study injecting disinfectant and UV light into patients to fight the coronavirus.

Related: Only 23% of Americans have high levels of trust in what Trump is saying about the coronavirus: poll

 

[Mierin]

@knapplc saw this post in the Lounge thread, but my response was going to be a bit political in nature so I figured I'd respond here. 

I think there are a couple things at play here in a lot of cases. Primarily, the narrative surrounding COVID seems to be shifting more and more along party lines. Anecdotally speaking, it appears more likely for conservative minded folks to push for the economy to get back on track and to downplay the virus, whereas more liberally minded folks are pushing the opposite. That's certainly not always the case (and I hope I don't seem like I'm casting aspersions on anyone here, as that's not my intention) but it's just what I'm noticing in my day to day.

Also, now that the virus is trending down in many areas, and now that just about every COVID storyline has been beat to death, the next logical step for people is to start analyzing the pandemic. I think a lot of people believe that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. This is very much the opinion of some people I know that I've talked to in the last several days.

Ultimately, I think it's dangerous and a bit unfair to start downplaying it.

People are being bats#!t crazy. We've maybe gotten to our peak but it's only going to be a first peak (and a small one) if we suddenly open up before the slope starts going down.

 

[TGHusker]

Karma

https://www.the-sun.com/news/745476/coronavirus-protest-leader-positive-north-carolina-lockdowns/

 

[Enhance]

People are being bats#!t crazy. We've maybe gotten to our peak but it's only going to be a first peak (and a small one) if we suddenly open up before the slope starts going down.

Not to mention, I don't think a second shutdown is feasible. Reopening businesses = rehiring staff/filling open positions. Plenty of businesses didn't survive this first round. Plenty of those that did wouldn't survive a second.

A commitment to reopening now is a commitment to the consequences. This has always sort of been a conversation of life vs. money, and I think the pendulum is swing towards the latter now.

 

[TGHusker]

2 items:

1.  Chinese scientists believe that the C-19 virus will become like the flu - a seasonal

2. I wonder if we should have gone the Sweden route - protect the most vulnerable and allow herd immunity to do the rest. 

Sweden hasn't shut down their economy.  They are a much smaller country so it may be an unfair comparison.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/04/28/coronavirus-covid-19-sweden-anders-tegnell-herd-immunity/3031536001/

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/494975-chinese-scientists-predict-coronavirus-wont-be-eradicated

Chinese scientists said this week that they believe the novel coronavirus will not be eradicated, predicting that the disease could possibly return periodically like the flu.   

A group of Chinese viral and medical researchers told reporters in Beijing on Monday that the virus will likely not disappear like SARS because it can infect asymptomatic carriers, Bloomberg News reported, so people can spread the virus without experiencing symptoms like a fever and cough.

The researchers said Chinese health officials are still confirming dozens of asymptomatic carriers every day, the news outlet reported.  

“This is very likely to be an epidemic that co-exists with humans for a long time, becomes seasonal and is sustained within human bodies,” Jin Qi, director of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said.

Health officials and leaders worldwide have projected that the virus is unlikely to be completely eliminated, despite lockdowns, stay-at-home orders and other measures being enforced around the world.

The Chinese experts said Monday that they have found no evidence that the virus’s spread will slow during the summer as temperatures continue to rise in the northern hemisphere, according to Bloomberg.

 

[Danny Bateman]

@knapplc saw this post in the Lounge thread, but my response was going to be a bit political in nature so I figured I'd respond here. 

I think there are a couple things at play here in a lot of cases. Primarily, the narrative surrounding COVID seems to be shifting more and more along party lines. Anecdotally speaking, it appears more likely for conservative minded folks to push for the economy to get back on track and to downplay the virus, whereas more liberally minded folks are pushing the opposite. That's certainly not always the case (and I hope I don't seem like I'm casting aspersions on anyone here, as that's not my intention) but it's just what I'm noticing in my day to day.

Also, now that the virus is trending down in many areas, and now that just about every COVID storyline has been beat to death, the next logical step for people is to start analyzing the pandemic. I think a lot of people believe that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. This is very much the opinion of some people I know that I've talked to in the last several days.

Ultimately, I think it's dangerous and a bit unfair to start downplaying it.

I don't think it's necessarily being glib to say that the GOP has always been a good deal more hostile to science and at times, expertise in general, than the Democrats. There have always been a group of conspiracy-prone folks regardless of party and I'd argue this type of thinking has exploded in the GOP with Trump as their leader because he so frequently traffics in it himself.

That's why you're seeing it break the way it is within society. The parties promote very different values and people are taking their cues from different leaders.

I would also agree a second shutdown would be very difficult to stomach. Especially if it comes in the fall, I'm 110% Trump will be howling that people are pushing for it to hurt his re-election chances. But if we're going with the alternative and we're just going to power through this despite the consequences, it makes me wonder how it actually shapes spread of the disease. Scientists are predicting a likely second wave of outbreaks in the fall regardless of what we do.

 

[funhusker]

Not to mention, I don't think a second shutdown is feasible. Reopening businesses = rehiring staff/filling open positions. Plenty of businesses didn't survive this first round. Plenty of those that did wouldn't survive a second.

A commitment to reopening now is a commitment to the consequences. This has always sort of been a conversation of life vs. money, and I think the pendulum is swing towards the latter now.

It has.  But it shouldn't be.  Instead of pitting the two against each other, they should be looked at as two concerns that need to be simultaneously addressed.

People are going to get sick and people are going to die.  Our goal as a society is to minimize the impact as much as we can, but we must continue to be a society.  We have to adapt, and maybe even change the most familiar routines.  But sitting in isolation and waiting for something to "just go away on its own" isn't a valid option.  To be clear: I am NOT saying we need to go back to the way things were in February and let the chips fall where they may.  But there does need to be active conversations about how we allow people to provide for themselves.  This has to be done responsibly, and with the greater good in mind.  But it has to be done.

I've never felt that social distancing and guidelines were to "keep people from getting sick, and getting rid of the virus."  I've always been under the impression that it was to turn the "flood" of sick people into a "trickle" so our medical services could save as many people as possible.  I believe social distancing is good and guidelines should be followed.

But if we can create a scenario where business can re-open and people can work and/or spend money, that is also good.  This takes coordination between health departments, adequate testing, and a buy-in from everyone that "normal" will only last until the next outbreak.  And to prevent that, we have to be smart about how we interact in public.

Bottom line, if we wait until no one dies because of this disease to re-open (however that might look), we are going to be working from home for a long, long, long time.  No one wins that Facebook argument...

 

[Jason Sitoke]

Not to mention, I don't think a second shutdown is feasible. Reopening businesses = rehiring staff/filling open positions. Plenty of businesses didn't survive this first round. Plenty of those that did wouldn't survive a second.

A commitment to reopening now is a commitment to the consequences. This has always sort of been a conversation of life vs. money, and I think the pendulum is swing towards the latter now.

Life vs money. That just sums it up, huh?  Wouldn’t it be amazing if the situation wasn’t quite that simple and there might be options worth exploring that value life AND livelihood?

 

[Enhance]

Bottom line, if we wait until no one dies because of this disease to re-open (however that might look), we are going to be working from home for a long, long, long time.  No one wins that Facebook argument...

100% agree. I think most people are understanding of this (or, at least, I'd hope they are. It's always tough to judge public opinion in the social media age since usually the loudest people have the strongest voice, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the prevailing opinion).

As with most things in life, there's a middle ground to the situation. One of the primary reasons we went into quarantining and social distancing was to lessen the impact of the virus on the healthcare system. Being able to alleviate the stress those folks are under is a huge step (perhaps the biggest) in returning to a relatively normal lifestyle.

 

[schriznoeder]

Based on sheer population, comparing New Zealand to the US is an unequal comparison (5 million vs. 329 million). But on a population density basis, we're really not that far apart. New Zealand ranks 167th in the world at 48 people/square mile, whereas the US ranks 145th in world at 87 people/square mile. And yes, I realize the densest city in New Zealand (Auckland)) is 1/10th as dense as the densest city in the US (NYC), but New Zealand's mortality rate/100k  population is a whopping 44 times lower than ours (0.39 vs 17.2). The Kiwis' are obviously doing something right.

 

[knapplc]

At every step, a failure to act properly.