COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)

[pawnman]

8 minutes ago, VMFA187 said:

So should we cease production of garbage processed foods and forced people to exercise then? 

Your actions can't make me eat junk food.  They can make me catch covid-19.  

See the difference?

[SurelySerious]

55 minutes ago, Snuggie said:

We could have a group of people from CMS (Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services) meet and determine what health factors and state of diseases would cause CMS to no longer pay for treatment. Since Medicare pays for a vast majority of health coverage for people over the age of 65 their decisions would reverberate throughout the industry.  I like "panel" but I can't think of a first word that could go in front of it 🤔.

Dark jokes aside I suspect the glibness of the federal COVID response contributed to Trump losing the election. Seniors typically vote heavily Republican but didn't at the same levels this year. I assume the federal message of "only old people are dying from COVID" didn't help. 

Or we could allow society to continue with minor adjustments for social distancing, and let the elderly participate as much or as little as they want based on how much risk they accept for themselves instead of widespread shutdowns that disproportionately affect the working ability of the younger able people who are at lower risk. 
 

Philosophically, restricting the entire society to protect the least productively valuable doesn’t make much sense. 

[SurelySerious]

39 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Your actions can't make me eat junk food.  They can make me catch covid-19.  

See the difference?

No, you could not catch covid by quarantining yourself. You interacting with people puts you at risk. 

[pawnman]

14 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

No, you could not catch covid by quarantining yourself. You interacting with people puts you at risk. 

Yes.  And you deciding to be one of the people I interact with would make you culpable.  Especially if you're unwilling to take basic precautions like get a vaccine or wear a mask.

[Prozac]

13 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

No, you could not catch covid by quarantining yourself. You interacting with people puts you at risk. 

That’s like saying you could avoid second hand smoke by never leaving the house. Look, you argue in your previous post that mass shutdowns aren’t really a feasible option. I’m inclined to agree with you. So let’s take seriously the relatively small sacrifices we’re being asked to make. Wearing a mask in public, or even skipping one Thanksgiving with the family is a pretty small price to pay to keep the economy running. Let’s make the mental and physical investments it’s going to take & get through this thing. 

[SurelySerious]

8 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Yes.  And you deciding to be one of the people I interact with would make you culpable.  Especially if you're unwilling to take basic precautions like get a vaccine or wear a mask.

 

4 minutes ago, Prozac said:

That’s like saying you could avoid second hand smoke by never leaving the house. Look, you argue in your previous post that mass shutdowns aren’t really a feasible option. I’m inclined to agree with you. So let’s take seriously the relatively small sacrifices we’re being asked to make. Wearing a mask in public, or even skipping one Thanksgiving with the family is a pretty small price to pay to keep the economy running. Let’s make the mental and physical investments it’s going to take & get through this thing. 

I minimize my risk be keeping more than 6 fr from other people unless absolutely necessary; that’s far more effective than a mask. And as to skipping thanksgiving, if you do it in a mitigated manner why shouldn’t you be able to visit?

 

Sure, go full LA county and ban outdoor dining. I guess the most interesting thing I’ve observed is that places with mask mandates and curfews are having spikes as bad or worse as places that are less restrictive. 

[Prozac]

35 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

 

I minimize my risk be keeping more than 6 fr from other people unless absolutely necessary; that’s far more effective than a mask. And as to skipping thanksgiving, if you do it in a mitigated manner why shouldn’t you be able to visit?

 

Sure, go full LA county and ban outdoor dining. I guess the most interesting thing I’ve observed is that places with mask mandates and curfews are having spikes as bad or worse as places that are less restrictive. 

The problem is, it’s not just about mitigating your own risk. Think about all the people you come into contact with in day to day life. Coworkers, store clerks, bank tellers, Uber drivers, delivery people, barbers, dry cleaners, etc., etc. Some of those people will likely come into contact with at risk people. Of course, this is a force of nature. We will not be able to stop the spread entirely. But we can use mitigation strategies, and social distancing, masks, and avoiding large gatherings are all strategies that can be effective and that are really not that much of a strain on your personal liberties given what’s at stake. 

[Prozac]

2 hours ago, VMFA187 said:

So should we cease production of garbage processed foods and forced people to exercise then? 

I would absolutely be in favor of regulating the amount of sugar in our food and designing our communities to encourage walking or cycling vs driving, but that’s a whole other conversation brotha! 😎

[Negatory]

3 hours ago, brabus said:

Source for all past, present, and future data: CDC

No, legit, I want to see where you found that. As far as I can tell the CDC only does pandemic planning estimates, and they haven't published any data on actual age related morbidity. It doesn't really matter, as I don't really care about the numbers that much, as long as everyone is on the same page: it doesn't kill young people under 60 basically at all, and it does kill old people at an unreasonably high rate.

3 hours ago, brabus said:

So yes, “disclaimer” clearly stated, and you are being deceptive/attempting to discredit data because it doesn’t fit your opinion, and hoping others haven’t actually read my posts and just assume your misrepresentation of such is accurate.

Hey bro, I'll give you credit for the majority of the times you did say it. But the last time you didn't when you said it was a 12% positive test rate for a disease that has a 99.86% survival rate. Saying a "99.86% survival rate" vs a "99.86% survival rate for the majority of the population" are two ENTIRELY different things. Standard "words matter," and you presented it in a way that makes the impact of COVID - the deaths of old people - not part of the discussion.

3 hours ago, brabus said:

Now, to your age group point: making public policy and systemic level decisions based on 10% of the population is unsound my opinion.

Let's pretend we didn't do any decision making based on "10% of the population" (~30 million people). If you didn't do anything and let "herd immunity" make it's way around, about 70-80% of the country would get the virus. So ~22 million old people. Of them, 10%+ would die. 2,000,000+ deaths is incalculable. It's hard to imagine, I'm sure, without being personally affected, but that's almost 10 times the number of US soldiers that died in WW2. It's not "unsound" or "emotional" to consider this. It's a moral imperative to consider loss of life like that, especially when they are your American countrymen drowning to death on a ventilator.

 

With that being said, I think that you're right that policy has to consider the 90% as well. There's multiple compromises that no one seems to talk about. I'm a proponent of a temporary monthly living allowance which would go to those over the age of 67 until a vaccine is created while lifting most restrictions for the rest of the 90%. The purpose would be to help those at risk to isolate and pay for services that would enable them to lower their risk of disease (delivery services, nurses, cleaners, grocery services, etc.) This would likely be on the order of ~$1.5k per month or $18k per year/person (adjusted by income), which would come out to $540b a year for approximately 30M people. This is an expense, obviously, but giving money to people that not only need it but would have to spend it would help the economy AND it would enable the other 90% of the population to continue working. If healthy older folks don't want to quarantine, have at it. They can make the risk call themselves. This is America, after all. This seems like an ethical compromise that would probably be cheaper in the long run than having tons of businesses fail while the economy grinds to a halt. And it's better than just choosing to do nothing at all and accepting needless deaths for the economy.

In the meantime, distribute information about how you can protect yourself and allow people to make decisions. Some people will make good decisions, and others will do whatever they want, but that's America. Your infection rate will go up.

When you get coronavirus - which you probably will - you should be mandated to quarantine until you aren't infectious. It's two weeks, then you are basically good to go. The vaccine will be produced and distributed in 6-12 months, and we're out of the woods. We helped the old people bunker down while still enabling the 90% to pay their rent.

The cost would be increased taxes to pay for it, but it would still be cheaper than the economy grinding to a halt and tons of businesses closing.

 

EDIT: Just looked and we've already spent almost $3T on this, with most of it going to where? You and I got $1200, but that only accounts for <10% of the total stimulus. Tax breaks for big companies and millionaires are ruining/diluting actions the government could take to help. Imagine if the government spent half of $3T on ventilators/medical training/medical supplies and gave the rest to individuals at risk to isolate using their own personal liberty and judgment. Here's a pretty good breakdown on how this spending plan unfairly benefits those that it shouldn't (millionaires and billionaires that don't need assistance) https://www.propublica.org/article/the-cares-act-sent-you-a-1-200-check-but-gave-millionaires-and-billionaires-far-more Classic tax cuts for the rich in a pandemic, thanks trickle down economics/Ronald Reagan.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Negatory

[SurelySerious]

43 minutes ago, Prozac said:

The problem is, it’s not just about mitigating your own risk. Think about all the people you come into contact with in day to day life. Coworkers, store clerks, bank tellers, Uber drivers, delivery people, barbers, dry cleaners, etc., etc. Some of those people will likely come into contact with at risk people. Of course, this is a force of nature. We will not be able to stop the spread entirely. But we can use mitigation strategies, and social distancing, masks, and avoiding large gatherings are all strategies that can be effective and that are really not that much of a strain on your personal liberties given what’s at stake. 

I just said I take responsibility for mitigating my own risk instead of expecting everyone else to do it for me. Way different philosophy. 

[Negatory]

3 hours ago, brabus said:

But what about the hospitals? I agree, that’s an important question to ask/valid data point to take into account when making decisions. As of 14 Nov, COVID hospitalization rate is 228.7 per 100k population. Breaking it down to specifically COVID cases relative to number of those that end in hospitalization - 0.59%. All from the CDC, covering the entire age range.

I think you made a mistake here.

228.7/100k means with 330,000,000 people, you have had 755k hospitalizations. We've had ~13M cases in America, which means that 755k/13M = 5.8% of people with COVID have been hospitalized. Not 0.59%.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Negatory

[jazzdude]

I would absolutely be in favor of regulating the amount of sugar in our food and designing our communities to encourage walking or cycling vs driving, but that’s a whole other conversation brotha!

Why? It's their freedom to eat what they want. Why would you want the government to regulate that, but do nothing for COVID? It's the same line of reasoning...

[Prozac]

30 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

I would absolutely be in favor of regulating the amount of sugar in our food and designing our communities to encourage walking or cycling vs driving, but that’s a whole other conversation brotha!

Why? It's their freedom to eat what they want. Why would you want the government to regulate that, but do nothing for COVID? It's the same line of reasoning...

I think you might be misinterpreting my position on COVID mitigation. 

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, SurelySerious said:

I just said I take responsibility for mitigating my own risk instead of expecting everyone else to do it for me. Way different philosophy. 

It's not just your risk.  That's the point.

[Snuggie]

2 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

I just said I take responsibility for mitigating my own risk instead of expecting everyone else to do it for me. Way different philosophy. 

If we had enough N95 mask for everybody I would agree with you. Those who are concerned could wear a N95 and protect themselves while everybody else could live their best lives. I purchased KN95 mask (not exactly the same but a step up from a surgical mask) specifically to use when I am forced, due to job requirements, to sit two feet away from another person for two hours at a time. 

But we don't N95s for everybody. The studies on mask usage varies on how well they work but everything points to masks reducing the number of COVID virus particles that a sick person (even if asymptomatic) pushes in the air and the mask helps those who are not sick. So those few times I do have to go out and interact with others I can only increase my protection by you taking an action. It's the swiss cheese theory, it's another slice that can prevent the virus from spreading. 

5 hours ago, 08Dawg said:

I do find it damned peculiar that Burgum issued the state wide mask mandate...right after he got re-elected.  Something is rotten in Denmark. 

That's because the SD and ND governors are looking at elections for their actions. The ND gov did his mask mandate once his election is done and the SD governor is refusing to because she thinks it will help her in Iowa in 2024. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by Snuggie
Grammar is hard

[SurelySerious]

1 hour ago, pawnman said:

It's not just your risk.  That's the point.

If I’m staying distanced from others...how are you at risk? 

[SurelySerious]

15 minutes ago, Snuggie said:

If we had enough N95 mask for everybody I would agree with you. Those who are concerned could wear a N95 and protect themselves while everybody else could live their best lives. I purchased KN95 mask (not exactly the same but a step up from a surgical mask) specifically to use when I am forced, due to job requirements, to sit two feet away from another person for two hours at a time. 

But we don't N95s for everybody. The studies on mask usage varies on how well they work but everything points to masks reducing the number of COVID virus particles that a sick person (even if asymptomatic) pushes in the air and the mask helps those who are not sick. So those few times I do have to go out and interact with others I can only increase my protection by you taking an action. It's the swiss cheese theory, it's another slice that can prevent the virus from spreading. 

That's because the SD and ND governors are looking at elections for their actions. The ND gov did his mask mandate once his election is done and the SD governor is refusing to because she thinks it will help her in Iowa in 2024. 

Forget masks, just distance people. 

[Grabby]

10 hours ago, Negatory said:

You have to put a disclaimer with your “99.86%” every time you write it or else you are being intentionally deceptive. What you meant to say was a 99.86% survival rate for people up to the age of 40, I assume. Also, let’s see your sources.

The problem with this talking point is that it entirely skews the whole problem. Literally everyone has known for months now that young people will be okay. But as soon as you hit 50-59 your case fatality rate hits 0.5-1.0%. 60-69 is 2-4%.

The real problem, though, is that 70 year olds have a 5-10% mortality rate and 80 year olds have a 15%+ mortality rate. And you’re ignoring that?

This is the actual issue, and you can’t just gloss over the portion of mortality that doesn’t fit your narrative because it’s convenient. Although I have noticed talk radio loves to try. It’s akin to saying “Cancer/heart disease/[insert literally 90% of diseases] isn’t important to study because it largely doesn’t affect young people.”

Now if you want to say that you’ve accepted the risk of older people dying - that that is a sacrifice we should make as a society - then at least you’re being genuine. Realistically there obviously has to be balance, but saying this isn’t a disease that’s more fatal than the flu and trying to discredit it with misleading statistics adds nothing to the conversation.

Heres an actual source with case fatality rates: https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid

Warning: Long Rant

What has anyone said that closely resembles the highlighted?  While I may or may not agree with Brabus on some of his thoughts, his main point is that the response is overkill considering that the average age of death from COVID is essentially the average life span.  You disagree, which is fine.  I think the issue is that some people want to loudly force draconian measures on the entire population, whereas many want to be left alone while quietly letting you do what you feel is best.

I suggest people rework the numbers to a more manageable scale, and understand that with the size of the global population there will always be anecdotal and wildly improbable events that tug at our hearts more than our heads.  I like to consider the following scenario to put things into a better perspective: 

A town of 3,300 people (i.e. Unadilla, GA) has an identical population spread as the U.S..  A new virus is going around and over the course of nearly a year had claimed the lives of 3 elderly, 2 of which had co-morbidities.  The three died at an average age of 75, 3 years before their expected age of death.  In an effort to counter the virus the city council mandated that life as we know it come to a halt.  Social distancing, closure of many businesses and most schools, no sports, etc.  

Additionally, the same council opened the coffers and spent $22,000,000 they didn't have towards stimulating the local economy of 3,300 residents.  Each adult received up to $1200, and children $500.  Every single person owed an average of $6,700 towards the loan, though, and over 200 working adults lost their jobs in the meantime.  That means 1 out of every 10 working age adults became unemployed.

The final oddity is that many emotionally charged residents spend a large portion of their days chiding the other residents for not doing enough, or for doing too much, to stop this virus.  In fact some are openly hostile to anyone who couldn't understand the unprecedented aspects the city council (who incidentally averaged over 60 years of age, while the highest ranking were in their 70's and 80's and extremely wealthy) demanded.  

The final objective outcome:  9 years of total life are lost.  The town of 3,300 could have reasonably expected to live a combined 259,050 years, but instead only lived 259,041 years.  In other words the town is only going to collectively live 99.997% as long as they expected to.  On the other hand, 10% of working adults became unemployed and every resident took on $6,700 of city council debt.  Kids school years were cancelled.  Almost all QOL was negatively impacted.  Even Thanksgiving dinners amongst family and friends are vilified.  Maybe the saddest part is that half the population thinks it's ing absurd that so much was spent in money and alterations to daily activities for such a meaningless loss of life, while the other half openly rebukes the city council and their fellow citizens at how little was done to handle the situation, and that nobody is doing nearly enough to stop the spread of the virus.

TL;DR - If you don't think your fellow Americans have done enough to combat COVID, or that they are being flippant and selfish by wanting life to continue, I don't see how others like me can ever take you seriously.  It makes one wonder if objectivity is dead in the age of social media and shock news.

 

[brabus]

5 hours ago, Negatory said:

I want to see where you found that. As far as I can tell the CDC only does pandemic planning estimates, and they haven't published any data on actual age related morbidity. It doesn't really matter, as I don't really care about the numbers that much

The CDC has shit tons of data, way more than the planning estimates. I’ve probably spent way too much time digging through it, but on the other hand apparently a lot of people should spend more (or even some) time looking through it, vs. taking numbers from social media/MSM. But, your statement of “I don’t really care about the numbers” tells me you don’t care about the unemotional data and prefer emotion (also an extension of politics much of the time) to drive policy decisions. It also tells me you will not spend time doing real research on the CDC website either out of apathy, or fear you will only see numbers that do not support your current conclusion on this subject.

5 hours ago, Negatory said:

you presented it in a way that makes the impact of COVID - the deaths of old people - not part of the discussion.

Here’s my direct quote: “ yet here we are pretending 12% positive rate and 99.86% survival rates (US under 70) are Ebola reincarnated. For comparison, last year the positive test rate for the flu was 52% and death rate was ~ .02% for under 70. So quite literally, the risk to your average, healthy person under 70 is .12% higher than the flu. Clearly risk goes exponentially up or down to age groups above and below the 70 line.”

I think I made it abundantly clear which age demographic I was talking about, including acknowledging said percentages change for going outside that demographic. So no, I did not exclude the acknowledgment of it impacting the 70+ crowd worse (in fact, I even used the word exponentially to describe the increased threat). 
 

6 hours ago, Negatory said:

Let's pretend we didn't do any decision making based on "10% of the population" (~30 million people)...

In early summer did you also say we’d have 3+ million US deaths by end of the year? Because lots of people did, including several of my intelligent friends who said I was out of my mind to think we wouldn’t, “because science.” Your doomsday math is not steeped in fact and serves more for hyperbole purposes than anything. However, through the hyperbole I do understand your point that lives matter to some unmeasurable extent and you can’t just disregard an entire age demographic. I agree with you and others on that point. To that point....

 

6 hours ago, Negatory said:

The purpose would be to help those at risk to isolate and pay for services that would enable them to lower their risk of disease (delivery services, nurses, cleaners, grocery services, etc.) This would likely be on the order of ~$1.5k per month or $18k per year/person (adjusted by income), which would come out to $540b a year for approximately 30M people. This is an expense, obviously, but giving money to people that not only need it but would have to spend it would help the economy AND it would enable the other 90% of the population to continue working. If healthy older folks don't want to quarantine, have at it. They can make the risk call themselves.

Very interesting and I am not at all opposed to an idea like this, provided obviously the details are well researched/supported and we can find a smart way to fund it. I think it makes general sense though. I think something like this is certainly better than a lot of other garbage projects/programs the gov spends money on. And I haven’t done the financial research on the $3T you mentioned, but I have to imagine something like your idea could have been funded out of that 3T in place of some bullshit that happened instead. 

5 hours ago, Negatory said:

228.7/100k means with 330,000,000 people, you have had 755k hospitalizations. We've had ~13M cases in America, which means that 755k/13M = 5.8% of people with COVID have been hospitalized. Not 0.59%.

No, I’m correct, but here’s the explanation...

228.7/100k is number of hospitalizations per population value, NOT per number of COVID cases. The .59% comes from 74,573 COVID hospitalizations out of a total of 12.7M COVID cases.

[Negatory]

1 minute ago, brabus said:

No, I’m correct, but here’s the explanation...

228.7/100k is number of hospitalizations per population value, NOT per number of COVID cases. The .59% comes from 74,573 COVID hospitalizations out of a total of 12.7M COVID cases.

Alright homie, let's do the math. (I always used the population value not the number of covid cases)

228.7 per 100k equals

2287 per 1M equals

22870 per 10M equals

228700 per 100M

We have 330M population in the US, that's 3.3 times the 228700, or 745710 hospitalizations in the US of A.

745710 hospitalizations divided by 12.7M = 5.9%

[Negatory]

23 minutes ago, brabus said:

In early summer did you also say we’d have 3+ million US deaths by end of the year? Because lots of people did, including several of my intelligent friends who said I was out of my mind to think we wouldn’t, “because science.” Your doomsday math is not steeped in fact and serves more for hyperbole purposes than anything. However, through the hyperbole I do understand your point that lives matter to some unmeasurable extent and you can’t just disregard an entire age demographic. I agree with you and others on that point. To that point....

Nope, there are nutters for every perspective. In fact, one side had folks that thought this would all be over by April when it "warmed up." Back in April, the President said that a mere 50-60k in total would die from Coronavirus. Seems a little incorrect now, doesn't it?

And here's a hypothetical for you to wrap your mind around. How do you know we wouldn't have had 3 million US deaths if we hadn't all worn masks and done these draconic lockdown measures? Unfortunately, this is a real catch-22, as you can't rerun the simulation.

23 minutes ago, brabus said:

Here’s my direct quote:

"Does a 12% positive test rate and a 99.86% survival rate warrant all of the current things going on?" - That's the one that I took issue with. Not the one where you actually included the whole picture. We're in semantics at this point. You're right that you said it multiple times beforehand, and I just don't like it when things that don't include all the information are said.

In regards to the CDC data, I still don't think you will find age mortality data. It's not there. I think this because I've spent dozens of hours looking at the CDC data. I'm sure you have as well, so let's not stoop to saying that we don't care. I believe you're well informed, and I think that you have interesting opinions. Of course I actually care about the data, but the more important thing in this discussion is to get on the same page.

40 minutes ago, Grabby said:

Warning: Long Rant

I respect your opinion, but I still disagree. The point made by you and Brabus was that this virus isn't that big of a deal in the big scheme of things because it kills older people that are already close to their expected end of life. A lot of viruses do that, including Cancer, heart disease, alzheimers, actually... almost all of them. Why do we care about them then? The comparison actually works fine, I believe.

The rest of your rant is about how the government is trying to take liberty away from you in draconian ways that make no sense and don't actually help. I agree with you. I never said anything opposite of that. In fact, we should definitely be balancing liberty with our COVID response, but it's a balance of the two. I simply said that you don't get to twist a narrative by asking "Does a 12% positive test rate and a 99.86% survival rate warrant all of the current things going on?" That's not the whole story. The actual question is "Does a 12% positive test rate and a 99.86% survival rate for those under 70 and a 10% mortality for those over 70 warrant all of the current things going on?"

40 minutes ago, Grabby said:

TL;DR - If you don't think your fellow Americans have done enough to combat COVID, or that they are being flippant and selfish by wanting life to continue, I don't see how others like me can ever take you seriously.  It makes one wonder if objectivity is dead in the age of social media and shock news.

I do believe it's selfish and flippant to want to just continue on with life without having a plan for how those actions will kill hundreds of thousands of people. Because the liberty crowd by large doesn't have a gameplan, they just want to open up. The general talking point is "old people and at risk people should figure it out and self-isolate, I demand my freedom and I want to go to Cancun." Give me a plan to take care of your fellow Americans' welfare while balancing this and I would love to discuss. Finally, I don't see how others like me can ever take you seriously based on what you said (just kidding, that is a super dramatic thing that you wrote though lol).

Edited November 26, 2020 by Negatory

[Negatory]

I found it, finally. But you have to calculate it yourself.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics

That has total cases by demographics and total deaths so you can get death rate by dividing the two.

0-4: 0.03% death rate

5-17: 0.01% death rate

18-29: 0.05% death rate

30-39: 0.16% death rate

40-49: 0.41% death rate

50-64: 1.50% death rate

65-74: 5.59% death rate

75-84: 13.15% death rate

85+: 24.26% death rate

 

So for your first statistic, that those under 70 had a 99.86% survival rate, I technically can't evaluate based on the ages. But we can look at 0-64 and 0-74 and see if you're somewhere in between. Turns out that there is a 0.47% death rate for the whole population 0-64 (or a 99.53% survival rate). 99.53% may look the same/insignificant, but it's actually a 230% higher death rate than your stat you threw out. If you go 0-74, then it's a 0.89% death rate for that population, which is a 530% higher death rate than your stat. It matters, because people throw out flu morbidity all the time, which is closer to 0.1%.

Add in all the cases for the whole population of every age (as the flu's 0.1% does, by the way), and COVID, right now, today, has a 2.03% mortality rate, which is approximately 20 times higher than the flu. I totally understand that in the future they will say that this doesn't include all asymptomatic cases, so I expect this to go down, but there's the current "truth data" to go off of.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Negatory

[Grabby]

36 minutes ago, Negatory said:

I do believe it's selfish and flippant to want to just continue on with life without having a plan for how those actions will kill hundreds of thousands of people. Because the liberty crowd by large doesn't have a gameplan, they just want to open up. The general talking point is "old people and at risk people should figure it out and self-isolate, I demand my freedom and I want to go to Cancun." Give me a plan to take care of your fellow Americans' welfare while balancing this and I would love to discuss. Finally, I don't see how others like me can ever take you seriously based on what you said (just kidding, that is a super dramatic thing that you wrote though lol).

"Take you seriously" was definitely overly dramatic, and in retrospect I would have altered what I wrote.  It doesn't accurately portray what I feel and I'm glad you called me on it.

That said, the reason I used a micro scale was to put it into a perspective that people can relate to.  Hundreds of thousands is a big number, no question.  But at some point we have to understand that the world population is fairly unfathomable to the human brain, as is the U.S. population, and in my eyes trying to ensure no one dies for any remotely avoidable reason is no reason to base policy when it comes at the expense of what makes life worth living. 

I cry at movies, get teared up when others suffer, and generally love people, especially old people.  But the most rational, objective part of my brain that I can access tells me that what we are doing is borderline insane.  I, by a large margin, prefer quality over quantity in nearly every aspect of life, to include life itself.  I don't demand that others feel the same way, but I find it frustrating when our quality of life is diminished to the extent is has been to marginally extend the lives of a very small amount of people, relatively speaking.  

My biggest question for those saying we don't have a plan is:  based off the incredibly marginal loss of total years of life, what is a good plan?  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  But is a pound of prevention worth an ounce of cure?

[Negatory]

I like your way of looking at the problem and making it into a comparable scenario for a small city. It definitely highlights some of the absurdities, especially of how terrible stimulus bills are when it comes to actually helping out the people it's supposed to help: the American people. Other things that would be important, though, in that analysis would be that out of the 3300 people, 195 of them would be hospitalized at some point. 39 of them would need an ICU bed. There is only 1 ICU bed total in the town. 10 of them need a ventilator. There is only 1 ventilator.

From this analysis, you can now see that there is a timing problem. And, for a slightly different opinion, I honestly think that we all should have to pay some money to get through this. Probably a couple grand. It sucks, but that's a small price to pay to ease the burdens of mother nature on society, in my opinion.

[Guardian]

Why is there only 1 ventilator?