Covid 19 thread

[Mackeyser]

Again you are arguing something I never said

I didn’t say free, ever

But like you say, if you have insurance you’ll get one if you want one. And if you don’t have insurance you can buy it. When a vaccine(s) are available they will make 100’s of millions of doses.

but to think whomever creates the vaccine isn’t going to want as many people as possible inoculated is silly. So they aren’t gonna charge someone the cost of a Range Rover.

There is literally NOTHING (using all caps since that seems to be the thing here) there is literally nothing that is free in America to anyone who wants it. Not just medicine.

I mean “affordable” and “accessible” are terms you brought up

All I was commenting on was the article that with Fauci, herd immunity, and anti-vaxxers, which was promoting doomsday scenarios - sorta like what you are promoting in your response to me.

Viruses mutate. They exist. We all may die from it. We all may survive it — i wasn’t commenting on that at all

Only that there will be a vaccine soon, and every year after that a newer version to deal with mutations like with other coronavirus vaccines. If you want one you’ll be able to get one. Case closed

That’s the same as saying “Ferrari’s are available. If you want one, you can buy one.”

Guarantee that any vaccine produced will have been made with significant publicly funded research. If they want to cover costs, fine, but to charge thousands per dose when it costs a few dollars to produce is robbery. A $3200 dollar vaccine for someone who’s not used any deductible or for those without insurance, it may as well cost a million.

We eradicated Polio because the patent was sold for a dollar and the vaccine was widely available to everyone...for free. Also, with most insurance being related to jobs and 42 million newly unemployed... gonna be interesting how they work out getting that vaccine out during the eviction crisis that’s started the 1st of July...

 

[Mackeyser]

This just in - @Dieter the Brock and @dieterbrock are two different people.

yeah. And as a dyslexic, I just wanna say thanks for that, fellas... lol.

 

[OC--LeftCoast]

Annnnnd the COVID-19:dropping to death rate level consistent with the common flu is not worth discussing?

Anyone of you fear mongers have a counterpoint?

Loaded question here

 

[OC--LeftCoast]

yeah. And as a dyslexic, I just wanna say thanks for that, fellas... lol.

Dyslexic is on the surface? the least of your problems my man



lol, surely we can laugh

 

[12intheBox]

Annnnnd the COVID-19:dropping to death rate level consistent with the common flu is not worth discussing?

Is it though?

What is the death rate of COVID? Do we actually know?

 

[Mackeyser]

Investor confidence alone can cause a crash. That's a reality irt how long we take to come out of this thing. It's gonna matter so I hope we take a healthy approach wrt our market as much as we can.

But to your question the biggest one right now is small business owners which constitute a healthy portion of the jobs market going forward. How many of them will be able to rebound? Some are doing fine, sure. But to the overall market what percent will disappear along with the jobs that were associated with those businesses. It is almost certain that as we come out of this our jobless rates will hit record figures.

Also the food production industry has been reeling from this from the beginning. Much of their throughput was set based on the restaurant market pulling their weight which has not been the case. Two members of my extended family operate ranches and both are effectively out of the meat business now (both had cattle). Also the packaging is different for restaurants vice groceries and time is ticking on some of their volume behind the scenes not to mention even some of the more durable items like canned goods that are packaged in big cans for businesses.

So behind the scenes right now in food production the yield is being driven down due to more competition which will keep prices low but as we come back from this how many of the companies will have changed their lines to the new reality? This means as we come out food prices are going to skyrocket as restaurants begin pulling their weight again but the production requires time to adjust. I've seen different models but it seems like we're talking a 2 to 4 year period to recover on the production side and that's if the market doesn't see any investor panic.

From a purely market resilience perspective, we have to pull back from having such a heavy reliance on the service sector. A) much can and will be automated and b) service sector jobs have the least security of any jobs. Ask any Zoomer or late millennial about buying a house or even a new car... nope. The next gen of consumers won’t have the buying power or the inclination to really invest in the economy.

We’re already seeing that with casual dining chains really struggling as one of many economic indicators that thismodel isn’t sustainable. It deeply affects everyone as most folks’ wealth if they have any is in their homes and the larger the home, the less it appreciates these days. Forbes, Fortune and Business Insider have all written about the difficulties boomers are having in selling larger homes as they seek to downsize.

There are ways to address some of this, but many factors including student debt and healthcare costs are permanently changing how millennials and zoomers are interacting with the economy and that deeply affects boomers and their long term wealth.

 

[RamBall]

Is it though?

What is the death rate of COVID? Do we actually know?

The only thing we know is that it is lower than the numbers we have would put it. There have been far more people that had it than we have confirmed cases. And with many if not most people not even knowing they had it, it just looks less and less deadly. We should have protected the high risk population and kept as much of our economy opened as possible, like many said months ago.

 

[OC--LeftCoast]

Is it though?

What is the death rate of COVID? Do we actually know?

Fair enough

However there appears to be incentive for hospitals to report...as my previous job long time ago referred to as “gun decking” death certificates

Pretty sure this is well established

We could go round and round on that, but wait this is page 98

C’mon, are you really implying you don’t see the US death rate % at less than .05% recently?

This is really good news, why can‘t we at least acknowledge this, good god man

Honest question

 

[12intheBox]

Fair enough

However there appears to be incentive to hospitals to report...as my previous job long time ago referred to as “gun decking” death certificates

we could go round and round on that

But c’mon, are you really implying you don’t see the US death rate % at less than .05% recently?

Honest question my man

Honest answer - I don’t know how a death rate is determined other than to divide the number of deaths by the number of cases. That’s the only way I know how to do it.

So using the John Hopkins data -

Total Confirmed
12,238,034
Total Deaths
554,843

That gives me a death rate of ....

4.5 percent

That’s worldwide data - not date specific.

For the U.S. only

3,219,999 cases
135,822 dead

4.2 percent

So, honest question back at you - how did you come up with .05%?

 

[12intheBox]

The only thing we know is that it is lower than the numbers we have would put it. There have been far more people that had it than we have confirmed cases. And with many if not most people not even knowing they had it, it just looks less and less deadly. We should have protected the high risk population and kept as much of our economy opened as possible, like many said months ago.

Do we not learn anything from what is happening in Florida and Texas and Arizona right now?

Can nothing be surmised from comparing the U.S. to other countries that took a more aggressive approach to shutting this thing down?

 

[OC--LeftCoast]

Honest answer - I don’t know how a death rate is determined other than to divide the number of deaths by the number of cases. That’s the only way I know how to do it.

So using the John Hopkins data -

Total Confirmed
12,238,034
Total Deaths
554,843

That gives me a death rate of ....

4.5 percent

That’s worldwide data - not date specific.

For the U.S. only

3,219,999 cases
135,822 dead

4.2 percent

So, honest question back at you - how did you come up with .05%?

We hell, I feel like that nerd on office space

my bad, thanks for the correction damn decimals made a pontifcating ass outta me

that being said, pretty sure we’re at flu like numbers

lol, did I mention I hate litigators

 

[12intheBox]

We hell, I feel like that nerd on office space

my bad, thanks for the correction damn decimals made a pontifcating ass outta me

that being said, pretty sure we’re at flu like numbers

lol, did I mention I hate litigators

Isn’t the flu something like .1%?

What makes you pretty sure we are in that ballpark?

Btw - I don’t think the actual death rate is 4% - but that is mainly because I don’t hear any experts saying that they think that is where it is. Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be much agreement as to what the death rate is - there are too many unknowns at this point.

 

[Mackeyser]

It absolutely is not 0.05%. I mean, we’d be approaching that number if everyone in the US were already confirmed to have contracted it... which is definitely not the case.

That is a ridiculously low number.

Do we know the full numbers? No. Different areas report differently and many areas outright are lying about numbers. A reporter in FL discovered from multiple sources that the FL Dept of Health was falsifying public reporting numbers and specifically changing numbers lower to justify opening the schools and economy. And that doesn’t include the purposeful misrepresentation of COVID deaths as other deaths...mostly pneumonia.

The important thing to remember is that the virus will be the virus no matter what. Our opinions don’t matter. Science is what will let us resume our lives.

 

[OC--LeftCoast]

Isn’t the flu something like .1%?

What makes you pretty sure we are in that ballpark?

Btw - I don’t think the actual death rate is 4% - but that is mainly because I don’t hear any experts saying that they think that is where it is. Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be much agreement as to what the death rate is - there are too many unknowns at this point.

okay so how does the CDC factoring in that COVID-19 is 10x the test rate?

Those people mysteriously dying too, lol not yet

How does that affect the numbers?

Neither of us know for sure

Period

 

[OC--LeftCoast]

It absolutely is not 0.05%. I mean, we’d be approaching that number if everyone in the US were already confirmed to have contracted it... which is definitely not the case.

That is a ridiculously low number.

Do we know the full numbers? No. Different areas report differently and many areas outright are lying about numbers. A reporter in FL discovered from multiple sources that the FL Dept of Health was falsifying public reporting numbers and specifically changing numbers lower to justify opening the schools and economy. And that doesn’t include the purposeful misrepresentation of COVID deaths as other deaths...mostly pneumonia.

The important thing to remember is that the virus will be the virus no matter what. Our opinions don’t matter. Science is what will let us resume our lives.

You have absolutely nothing to back that up my man, that is your pneumonia claim, I mean nothing, c’mon now, set your politics aside or bring hard evidence

i was mistaken with the .05, turns out it’s just over 4% confirmed, not counting the CDC suspects our positive count x 10

factor that in son

( lol you’re 10 yrs my junior)

 

[XXXIVwin]

If we all hide in our houses for 2x years the virus will still be waiting, this thing is not going away. So let's face it. Let's fuckin party.

Oh, come on, man! Merlin, you are one of my all-time favorite posters....your Rams analysis is second -to-none... and your points about economics are completely valid... but the attitude of “Let’s freaking party” is just.... just... I mean, “Come on, man!”

(Disclaimer: I know I seriously overreacted to one of your other posts regarding prisoners... my bad. Please trust that I’m tryin to express disagreement with you on this in a lighthearted way, ok?)

On the surface, sure, one could say, “Heck, let’s get this herd immunity over with sooner than later, just let it infect tons of people.” But we CAN’T do that with Covid-19. We CAN’T. If we do that, MILLIONS will die. And NOBODY believes that’s a good idea... well hardly anyone...

Seriously... there are a crap-ton of articles out there that definitively eliminate the idea of achieving herd immunity the “old fashioned way” by just letting it spread. This virus is just too deadly, we can’t handle the body count. The article posted earlier by @bluecoconuts (about herd immunity) was a good one. One sentence from that article was:

“Absent the existence of a COVID-19 vaccine, any reasonable extrapolation of the data -- even at half the current case fatality rate, means we will see a seven-figure body count that exceeds 5 million deaths before we can attain herd immunity.”

Five million deaths in just the USA alone!!! NO, the answer is NOT to fuckin party!

And BTW, nobody is arguing we should “hide in our houses for 2 years.” The whole world has opened up, more or less. The only simple question is, “how many more infections and deaths are we gonna have until the vaccine comes along in January to save the freaking planet?”

The ONLY thing that has a chance to save us is the freaking vaccine. We’ve gotta muddle through as best we can, and then in about six months (when hundreds of millions of doses will “probably” be available), THEN we can frickin’ party!! The vaccine is Aaron Donald vs Duke:


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YSlvm7kMGBg


Once the vaccine arrives in early January, THEN we have a chance at achieving herd immunity (as long as the great majority of us are willing to take it). The number of people who get infected BEFORE January is just irrelevant... there’s just no chance in hell we’re gonna have anywhere NEAR enough infections to get anywhere close to herd immunity before January.

So, if “only” 180k ppl die before January... we can still achieve herd immunity once we get the vaccine.

But if 1,180,000 ppl die before January... we will STILL be in basically the same situation, with a chance to achieve herd immunity with vaccine. The only difference being that one million extra people die UNNECESSARILY.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this right, but I’m doing the best I can. But when you wrote stuff like the following, I wanna pull my hair out:
“This is why whenever I see big groups of young kids like the spring break types I think it's a good thing. Building that immunity base in the healthiest portion of the population would be a good common sense approach to me at least.”

Again, I get the “common sense” reasoning of your argument. But taken to its logical conclusion, we should ENCOURAGE young healthy people to get exposed to it, right? Right? (“If you’re under 30, go cough on your friends!”)

NO! We as a people simply can’t handle to body count that trying “natural herd immunity” would provide. There’s just no freaking way we can handle going down that road. And going HALFWAY down that road is pointless. You gotta go all the way or not at all. All the extra infections and deaths are unnecessary.

Anyway, not sure if I explained my POV as best I can but I gave it a shot.

Totally understand the POV of folks who say, “we can’t afford to keep things locked down. We gotta open up the economy.” Totally valid. Totally makes sense. But we gotta do it while DOING OUR BEST TO CONTAIN THE SPREAD. Just throwing off our masks, and saying to hell with social distancing, and let’s let a big chunk of our young folks contract it... just NO. It’s just way too risky, way too many young folks will end up infecting middle-aged and older folks...it’s just inevitable.

Again, cheers to you Merlin (and to all others in this thread with whom I respectfully disagree.)

 

[XXXIVwin]

Never know, this will make it quicker to herd immunity so...........................

Lol. Meant with goodwill and all due respect.

But virtually NO ONE thinks that “more infections is a good thing.”
Not me and the “fear-mongering commies” (as OC likes to call us). Virtually no one on the other side, either, as far as i know.

I understand that my buddy @dieterbrock has different interpretations of the numbers. But let’s not play upside-down world and pretend that lots of infections is a GOOD thing.

Low death numbers? Good. Low infection numbers? Also good. Maximizes our chances of keeping our death numbers low.

More infections (and the inevitable deaths that follow)
WILL NOT get us anywhere meaningfully closer to herd immunity.

Please refer to my long-winded and rambling diatribe in response to Merlin, posted above.

Nothing personal at all, Ramhusker, I just get frustrated that it’s so hard for all of us to agree on common ground. Can’t we all AT LEAST agree that “more infections is a bad thing?”

[Again, I get the common sense impulse behind “wanting” more infections of young healthy people. But all the research out there suggests this would be a terrible, terrible way to go.]

 

[-X-]

I'm really trying to limit my time in this discussion so as to avoid being perceived as insensitive. I get that there are a lot of deaths, but I'm having a hard time trusting the numbers - due primarily to so many different "isolated cases" of numbers tampering. I'm not sure if they'll ever be accurate, but in a few years I'd love to see how the averages of diseases now being attributed to Covid-19 have tracked. Meaning, looking *back* to 2020, were there a whole lot less diabetes-related deaths, respiratory-related deaths, heart-disease deaths, influenza deaths, TB-deaths, etc., while this pandemic was going on? I'm genuinely curious because of how deaths are being coded now.

I'll give you another small example of my skepticism here. I'm an elevator mechanic, yeah? So I work at a number of hospitals (because, duh, hospitals have elevators). One of them (St Francis) is an interesting case study. I work there nearly everyday. Well, one day I went there (back in April) and they had a giant container outside of the loading dock. I asked one of the engineers (that's what maintenance guys call themselves now, lol) what it was, and he informed me it was a freezer to put bodies in because of fears the body count is going to get too high. There was just no place to store them all. So after I came down from my initial shock, I asked if the ICU was at capacity. "No, it's not even at 30%". Okay, I thought, and went on with my day. That 'freezer' was there for two months before it was removed. Never used. The ICU never even came close to capacity. Well, here's the side-story to all that. Our company gave St Francis a proposal to modernize a couple of really shitty elevators in there and it came to around $160,000.00. They've had that proposal for YEARS (with annual adjustments on price), but never pulled the trigger because of budget constraints. I was the biggest advocate for that modernization because I was responsible for keeping those pieces of shit running despite their unreliability. Well. Wouldn't you know. They signed that proposal a week ago for $177,000.00. Where did this sudden windfall come from? I have it on good authority that they were paid a substantial amount of money to keep that freezer there, and of course the money for every Covid case they reported. So not only were they not overrun with Covid deaths, but they actually turned a nice little profit from the hysteria. Good for them, good for me (because those pieces of shit are being torn out), but bad for the legitimacy of these numbers. But again, this is only an 'isolated incident' of numbers tampering and profiting off of the pandemic.

I'm too far down the rabbit hole on this one to be considered a productive contributor to this discussion. I'm uncovering some stuff that doesn't pass the smell test, and efforts to discredit / cover it up are disheartening. But let me just also say that I appreciate how you guys are handling it here. Things can get heated on issues like this, and y'all are doing a pretty good job of keeping it civil and productive. Could it be better? Sure. But all things considered, I'm pretty proud of the level of civility being displayed here.

 

[12intheBox]

okay so how does the CDC factoring in that COVID-19 is 10x the test rate?

Those people mysteriously dying too, lol not yet

How does that affect the numbers?

Neither of us know for sure

Period

Right - neither of us know for sure.

I could have sworn this exchange began with your claim that the death rate was basically the same as the flu and calling out “fear mongers” as not wanting to discuss that.

Me, being the good monger that I am, think it is worth discussing. Now, do we have any basis at all for saying that the death rate is in the flu ballpark?