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COVID-19
- Thread starter Treetop Flyer
- Start date
Apart from your and my risk tolerance (mine's pretty high too), practically speaking the community is going to take this as a big deal, especially if the rest of the week shows it is not an aberration.
I wonder why.
Plots of daily infections. Plots aren't to the same scale (our us much bigger).
I got called out for the same thing by my COVID-doubting neighbor when I was walking by myself with my mask on. Maybe I’m acclimated to wearing my mask (I had just left another neighbor’s garage sale where they asked everybody to wear masks) and I don’t feel like touching my mask again until I’m ready to take it off. Either way, who the fuck cares?!?!
Well, obviously you do in fact care since you felt the need to share that story and your opinion...
I know we’re not having an intelligent conversation right now, but I sincerely appreciate the window into how the other half thinks. Scares me to death, but I’d rather be cautious and wrong than careless and sick (or get anyone else sick).
What, exactly, scares you to death?
I also appreciate the insight into how the other half thinks, and I think it’s a shame that you have to live in such fear right now.
I will say that in my opinion, Dr. Fauci does not share your concern, as evidenced by the fact that he did not wear his mask the whole time, nor did he feel the need to socially distance in an otherwise-empty baseball stadium.
The only thing scarier to me than this disease is the number of people not taking it seriously. Dr. Fauci is just a human, a fallible one at that. He set a poor example, even if it was only for a moment.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Some people look at a 0.04% population fatality rate that is heavily skewed toward senior citizens and people with chronic illnesses in urban and dense suburban areas and say 'meh.' Others are ticked off that their lives are impacted in a significant way for what they see is a minuscule risk to their health. I can't really fault them for that.
In hindsight, the TR had 3 sailors hospitalized and lost 1 sailor out of a crew of over 5600. Did they really need to pull off station for that? Would a medevac for those four sailors been any less effective at getting them treatment?
Dr Fauci and the political leaders' flaw isn't their example, but rather their messaging. They sold the country on an idea that locking down for a few months would reduce the amount of people who died, which is a load of horseshit. It just makes the pandemic last longer with the same amount of people dying.
Now people are frustrated that it's almost August and restrictions are in place... Because the original sales pitch was to open by Easter, which became June 1, which became never. In fact, governors are still implementing more restrictions like masks and travel bans 4 months into the pandemic. Education for children is somehow not essential while McDonald's is open. It's okay for teenagers to work in stop and shop for $10/hr, but heaven forbid teachers with full time living salaries and benefits put themselves at risk. These inconsistencies are going to make people question their leadership's credibility. In addition, there are people with significantly impacted finances frustrated that a short term sacrifice to save lives has turned into a long term sacrifice that is marginally effective.
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The common cold and flu can cause upper respiratory infections. Those can and do lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia kills the elderly and the infirm. You can spread the common cold and the flu asymptomatically. Have you worn a mask every year prior to this during cold and flu season?
Will you dedicate yourself to doing that going forward?
We squandered it.
We went from lockdown to bars open with people elbow to elbow not wearing masks, and we did it before we'd beaten down the virus to the point that we could test and trace.
Lots of other countries have successfully dealt with this, and are safely back open while testing and tracing the flare-ups.
@Spekkio - Shack!
At what point do we acknowledge the scientific indicators that the virus was likely manipulated in a lab environment (called “gain of function”) at the Wuhan BSL4 for research purposes? It may never happen, because the U.S. NIH had given grant money to Wuhan to research bat coronaviruses, so the blame is not singular. If one were a cynic, one might think that the NIH thought the research had value to the scientific community but was too risky to conduct on U.S. soil, so it outsourced it to a country willing to take on the risks/ be nontransparent if anything happened.
At what point do we acknowledge the scientific indicators that the virus was likely manipulated in a lab environment (called “gain of function”) at the Wuhan BSL4 for research purposes? It may never happen, because the U.S. NIH had given grant money to Wuhan to research bat coronaviruses, so the blame is not singular. If one were a cynic, one might think that the NIH thought the research had value to the scientific community but was too risky to conduct on U.S. soil, so it outsourced it to a country willing to take on the risks/ be nontransparent if anything happened.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
For elimination to be effective, it has to occur worldwide. Otherwise you're delaying the inevitable.
The 'many countries' you speak of just haven't had an outbreak yet. Some of them - because of their geography, population density, or global economic roles - can continue to isolate themselves indefinitely. The US can't do that without severe negative repercussions.
The US strategy was never elimination, it was spreading the peak (a strategy we are increasingly finding wasn't necessary based on actual very low hospitalization rates and very high fatality rates for people who are hospitalized).
The fact that you think our country's strategy was ever elimination speaks to the poor messaging I mentioned above.
Take a look at the charts of countries below, the green and yellow (we are red, of course). Plenty of them had outbreaks but responded and brought it down to test & trace level. Lots of them have more international borders than we do.
Our path combines the worst of Norway and Sweden. Lockdown to maximize negative economic impact, then fully open with a poor testing & tracing regimen to maximize death rate. Dumb.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Again, messaging. You still are clinging to the false assumptions that elimination is feasible and that the pandemic is over this year.
This virus is here to stay permanently. It doesn't just vanish. People are still getting swine flu. Without a vaccine, COVID-19 will continue to spread until a PFR of 0.07-0.15% is reached.
Any heat map that shows Sweden as 'yellow' and the US as 'red' when Sweden has a 25% higher PFR is immediately discarded. Their response has not been effective at all. They are simply seeing herd immunity sooner because they didn't choose to 'flatten the curve.'
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In a nutshell, I think this is why Americans are so upset:
- Americans were not told that "flatten the curve" = elongate the problem.
- Americans were not given a choice about a "flatten the curve" decision. We were simply told by the CDC there was no choice. The CDC was allowed to make the call - they did it from the WH press podium. No one in government or the news media entertained the alternative perspective of the economy, workers, small business, taxpayers, and parents with kids in schools.