West coast politics will certainly kill "attended" fall and spring sports.
- Thread starter Cougsocal
- Start date
11... not sure Pence’s aid was “peeing on him”, nor do I believe anyone peed on him. Not sure trumps valet was peed on, nor do I believe he peed on Trump , unless trump hired a Russian... whoops don’t go there Ed.
It tells you how serious this virus is . How contagious it is. We have t seen anything like this in almost 100 years .
Not sure I disagree with you . I think there are counties in state of Washington that should open up.
I think if WSU opens up in the fall they have the resources to handle it.
The only “concern” I would have for Laramie is if you do have an outbreak you don’t have the resources if 50 people had to be hospitalized at once .
The virus is contagious. I believe I actually may have had it in late January/early February. The virus is not shut down the country fatal - the mortality rate among non-elderly without underlying health issues is insignificant.
At some point the risk/reward assessment has to come into play - and that time is now. Keep the old people hunkered down.
But the rest need to start living and building herd immunity and getting on with their lives. My kids odds of developing anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts in isolation are way greater than being out there doing what youngsters do.
And unless you're old with underlying health issues - there's not going to be a bed shortage so assessing the odds, I"m fine with your offer and would gladly give up 'my bed' to ease your fear. If the fear of running out of beds was real, why didn't Inslee keep Century Link Field Hospital open? Apparently he has no intention of allowing the stadium's use in the near future any way. Or was that just a show for the cameras?
Two part post. First part is how we got here. Second part is where do we go from this point. I'm putting together our company strategy for very, very, very slowly moving back into our buildings, and that is how the 2nd post finishes.
Part 1: If only....
If we had jumped on testing like S Korea...even with an imperfect but quick test...and if in doubt, give the same test a couple of times, to compare the results. And hand in hand with testing, had contact tracing teams to identify those exposed, so they could self isolate. South Korea, Singapore, et al, had an advantage; they went through a similar drill with SARS within recent memory. They learned from history (a novel concept) and were simply more prepared than N America and Europe.
Lacking both adequate testing and adequate contact tracing (blame who you like for that, but the level of utter incompetence in these two areas once the problem was recognized in January is not something that any regional or national epidemic planning ever anticipated), our only alternative was to try to shut down the geometric contact spreading was some form of shutdown. I hope that everybody on this string is bright enough, and well informed enough, to be with me at this point. Our differences probably are more along the lines of "what do we do next?", as opposed to "how did we get here".
I spent a half hour on the phone yesterday with a friend (a police officer) in Switzerland. Their border area with Italy was hit just as hard as the Italians. They shut down everything hard. Their testing was not any better than the Italians, but their contact tracing was pretty Germanic in its thoroughness. They drafted all kinds of folks (including the police) into the contact tracing effort. It took almost 2 months, but they are down to 50 new cases per day now, and more importantly, they feel as though they can identify new outbreaks and choke them off quickly. Their government has announced a new anti-body test that they hope to roll out next week to further that effort. Swiss Air has been grounded throughout but hopes to start limited flights in another month or less. Walmart stores that have both groceries and other stuff have the store shut down other than groceries. They had one small concession; they re-opened liquor & wine stores after a week or two, with the reasoning that it was almost as important as groceries.
We can bemoan our fragmented, area by area response; our slowness to mandate PPE production; the wild west of price gouging for short supply PPE items that our medical personnel need; our lack of testing emphasis; and most unforgivable, our lack of mobilization on contact tracing, which is our only organized, preventive action that can be taken to try to get ahead of things. But all the above is reality. Where do we go from here?
We have two extremes.
At one end, a stampede of folks who want to fully re-open. I hear them saying things about those in nursing homes, those with compromised immune systems, those with diabetes, and those who have lived past 70, and those genetically predisposed to be vulnerable (Pacific Islanders, as an example) which should bring shame upon them. Basically, the "sacrifice them for the greater good" logic. Let 'er rip and who ever is left standing at the end can go on with the great American consumer standard of living. Hard to ignore the images of the white trash with their automatic weapons at rallies where they work themselves up to screaming in the face of police or national guard lines, no doubt spraying liquid as they rant. Unfortunately, few if any of those images have face shields on those being ranted upon.
At the other end, those who want to wait it out for a vaccine, regardless of how long or what happens to the economy. Herd immunity at the current rate is probably some time next spring if nothing changes, so it is an open question whether we get a vaccine or herd immunity first, but either is probably 6 months to a year away. We can't sustain this for a year. A complete economic collapse will also take some lives, one way or the other, so there also lies danger.
I don't want a repeat of the great depression any more than I want a repeat of the spanish flu, and if we don't handle the situation better than we have to this point, there is a realistic chance of moving closer to either of those than I'd like to be (we would not reach the full magnitude of either, but depending upon the decisions we make going forward, we could move more toward one or more toward the other). It is hard to have a national strategy without national leadership...from either party...and this being a presidential election year simply compounds that issue. The states have been told to figure it out for themselves, including competition for PPE...clearly not an optimal approach.
Part 2 is next post.
Part 1: If only....
If we had jumped on testing like S Korea...even with an imperfect but quick test...and if in doubt, give the same test a couple of times, to compare the results. And hand in hand with testing, had contact tracing teams to identify those exposed, so they could self isolate. South Korea, Singapore, et al, had an advantage; they went through a similar drill with SARS within recent memory. They learned from history (a novel concept) and were simply more prepared than N America and Europe.
Lacking both adequate testing and adequate contact tracing (blame who you like for that, but the level of utter incompetence in these two areas once the problem was recognized in January is not something that any regional or national epidemic planning ever anticipated), our only alternative was to try to shut down the geometric contact spreading was some form of shutdown. I hope that everybody on this string is bright enough, and well informed enough, to be with me at this point. Our differences probably are more along the lines of "what do we do next?", as opposed to "how did we get here".
I spent a half hour on the phone yesterday with a friend (a police officer) in Switzerland. Their border area with Italy was hit just as hard as the Italians. They shut down everything hard. Their testing was not any better than the Italians, but their contact tracing was pretty Germanic in its thoroughness. They drafted all kinds of folks (including the police) into the contact tracing effort. It took almost 2 months, but they are down to 50 new cases per day now, and more importantly, they feel as though they can identify new outbreaks and choke them off quickly. Their government has announced a new anti-body test that they hope to roll out next week to further that effort. Swiss Air has been grounded throughout but hopes to start limited flights in another month or less. Walmart stores that have both groceries and other stuff have the store shut down other than groceries. They had one small concession; they re-opened liquor & wine stores after a week or two, with the reasoning that it was almost as important as groceries.
We can bemoan our fragmented, area by area response; our slowness to mandate PPE production; the wild west of price gouging for short supply PPE items that our medical personnel need; our lack of testing emphasis; and most unforgivable, our lack of mobilization on contact tracing, which is our only organized, preventive action that can be taken to try to get ahead of things. But all the above is reality. Where do we go from here?
We have two extremes.
At one end, a stampede of folks who want to fully re-open. I hear them saying things about those in nursing homes, those with compromised immune systems, those with diabetes, and those who have lived past 70, and those genetically predisposed to be vulnerable (Pacific Islanders, as an example) which should bring shame upon them. Basically, the "sacrifice them for the greater good" logic. Let 'er rip and who ever is left standing at the end can go on with the great American consumer standard of living. Hard to ignore the images of the white trash with their automatic weapons at rallies where they work themselves up to screaming in the face of police or national guard lines, no doubt spraying liquid as they rant. Unfortunately, few if any of those images have face shields on those being ranted upon.
At the other end, those who want to wait it out for a vaccine, regardless of how long or what happens to the economy. Herd immunity at the current rate is probably some time next spring if nothing changes, so it is an open question whether we get a vaccine or herd immunity first, but either is probably 6 months to a year away. We can't sustain this for a year. A complete economic collapse will also take some lives, one way or the other, so there also lies danger.
I don't want a repeat of the great depression any more than I want a repeat of the spanish flu, and if we don't handle the situation better than we have to this point, there is a realistic chance of moving closer to either of those than I'd like to be (we would not reach the full magnitude of either, but depending upon the decisions we make going forward, we could move more toward one or more toward the other). It is hard to have a national strategy without national leadership...from either party...and this being a presidential election year simply compounds that issue. The states have been told to figure it out for themselves, including competition for PPE...clearly not an optimal approach.
Part 2 is next post.
Part 2: Moving forward...see previous for Part 1.
I am putting the finishing touches on the message that I'm giving to our 200-ish people (office and field; we are a contractor) this coming week. Most of it relates to the behavior that we have to personally exhibit in order to keep others safe. That is really the point...it isn't so much about keeping ourselves safe as it is about keeping others safe. If we keep others safe, we will be maximizing our personal safety as well. We currently have about a dozen people in our two buildings that would normally hold 70. There is a big push by several to move us back in. Completely. In the next month or so. Frankly, they are out of their minds. Also, we've been monitoring new hospital admittances for the past 3 weeks or so in SoCal. We have to do that, because the news media is too stupid to understand that is the curve that has to be flattened. I'd think this info would be easy to get and widely posted by the media, but other than Johns Hopkins (whose data is often delayed a day or two, depending upon the county involved), we can't find a really good source. I can't plan based on confirmed cases, because our testing is a joke...we have no certain idea how many are infected. I can't plan based on fatalities, because that is a trailing statistic, and potentially a 2-6 week trailing statistic. ICU cases is useful from a medical capacity perspective, but we are not close to maxing that out at this point, so it is not my major item of concern. As a result, we are tracking hospital admittances. At this time they are kinda sorta flat. No sustained swing up or down. Higher than I would like, but like everywhere, we have a bunch of meatheads having big family gatherings (14 cars parked at one house near mine last Sunday), demonstrations at the beach (200-300 people, totally not socially distanced, many drunk or high or both). We've flattened the curve, but we can't seem to turn it down, mostly due to the idiots. I sort of wish we could offer them the voluntary option of confining themselves to a big resort somewhere and let them mutually infect. Let them move us to herd immunity more quickly, since they are not concerned about infecting others.
So, since I am dealing with this issue right now, here is where I find myself.
- We do nothing that can't be considered to be safe behavior. I'm 62 and my wife has had chemo twice, so her immune system is not awesome. I've been one of the few that remained in the buildings, with the idea that if we lowered the density of people enough, we were probably almost as safe there as anywhere other than home.
- I can support baby steps in slowly moving back in the buildings, in a limited way. Rotating days or something similar. We have to pick an arbitrary number to start. I am thinking something like no more than 20 in the buildings (out of our "normal" 70) in a particular day. There should not be another occupied personal area within probably at least 12'; and more likely 15'; of anyone else. We jumped on the remote workplace early and our main reasons for wanting to move back toward restoring more personal contact relate to the drop off in communication efficiency and collaboration in its many forms. Remote is simply not as good as in person, at least in what we do for a living.
- You are confined to your desk area (office, cubicle, what ever), the rest room, copy/scan area and the coffee/microwave area. We already have had "touch nothing" in effect since late February (lots of paper napkins being used on everything, including copy/scan machines, door handles, etc.). Constant common touch surface disinfecting.
- You do not enter anyone else's desk/office/cubicle area. You touch nothing outside your personal area. There is no excuse for touching something in someone else's personal area.
- Masks. This is a biggie, because you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I won't go into the whole litany of the pro vs. con arguments with masks; suffice it to say that my position is going to be that you only touch your ear connection points and you can take it off in your personal space. You leave your desk, at least during normal hours when others are around, and you have to put on your mask. Period. To protect others. The more dense the population in the buildings, the more critical this is. We've issued at least 3 cloth masks to everyone in the field and those of us who have remained in the office (so you should always have a clean one for the day). We still have to have more as we move people back in the office, so everybody has at least 3.
- If you have to talk with someone, do it from the hallway/common area. If it is private, you can both go outside. Speaking of going outside, we either leave the doors open while people are in the building, or use a door stop to prevent full closure so you can open the door without using a latch. And you carry your napkins (I always have a few in a pocket) for use if you find yourself having to pull on something.
- I can tell you from personal experience that using the padlocks on our parking lot gates is a pain in the neck, but it can be done with napkins if you are careful and take a couple of minutes. I don't directly touch light switches any more, and that is a hard habit for me to break. We've been adding motion sensors literally everywhere for this reason. If we don't go to that extreme in avoiding contact surfaces, putting people back into close proximity will explode transmission.
- When we have an exposure case (we will, eventually), we have to identify who was in contact and those individuals will have to get tested, and self isolate until they either test as being clear, or have 14 days without symptoms. Given what we are learning about asymptomatic carriers, we may need a test regardless...still working our heads around how that works. We have one person who got sick just before we understood all of this (about March 1) and now the antibody test shows she had it at some point. One of her co-workers heard her cough a couple of times and told her to get out...we'd already told everyone to stay away if they felt sick. Looks like we probably dodged a bullet that time.
- Hipaa is a pain in the a$$ in this area. It is somewhat of a mine field in terms of what you can ask. Our method thus far in handling the issue is to encourage people to tell us if they have had it so we know we don't have to worry about them in the near future (at least that is what we are telling ourselves, current news reports not withstanding). No stigma at all; in fact we welcome knowing that they are past this issue. I see no downside in being honest about that, and thus far we have not had anyone express concern about that issue.
I'm open to any other specific suggestions. This is a bridge that we will all have to cross at some point. I can't see us moving much beyond roughly 1/3 of normal density in office buildings for a while, but I suspect that in SoCal we will be seeing that level soon. And always watching the hospital admittance rate as we do so...because we can't afford to see that curve do a "New York". Granted, we don't have a ton of mass transit, so we have avoided the largest single virus disseminator opportunity. Still, the selfish "let them die if they are going to" meatheads could destroy the path forward, and we have a lot of meatheads. We also have a significant homeless population, some of whom practice extreme social distancing and some of which are incapable of doing so...but all of whom use common restroom facilities.
Lots of challenges. Baby steps.
I am putting the finishing touches on the message that I'm giving to our 200-ish people (office and field; we are a contractor) this coming week. Most of it relates to the behavior that we have to personally exhibit in order to keep others safe. That is really the point...it isn't so much about keeping ourselves safe as it is about keeping others safe. If we keep others safe, we will be maximizing our personal safety as well. We currently have about a dozen people in our two buildings that would normally hold 70. There is a big push by several to move us back in. Completely. In the next month or so. Frankly, they are out of their minds. Also, we've been monitoring new hospital admittances for the past 3 weeks or so in SoCal. We have to do that, because the news media is too stupid to understand that is the curve that has to be flattened. I'd think this info would be easy to get and widely posted by the media, but other than Johns Hopkins (whose data is often delayed a day or two, depending upon the county involved), we can't find a really good source. I can't plan based on confirmed cases, because our testing is a joke...we have no certain idea how many are infected. I can't plan based on fatalities, because that is a trailing statistic, and potentially a 2-6 week trailing statistic. ICU cases is useful from a medical capacity perspective, but we are not close to maxing that out at this point, so it is not my major item of concern. As a result, we are tracking hospital admittances. At this time they are kinda sorta flat. No sustained swing up or down. Higher than I would like, but like everywhere, we have a bunch of meatheads having big family gatherings (14 cars parked at one house near mine last Sunday), demonstrations at the beach (200-300 people, totally not socially distanced, many drunk or high or both). We've flattened the curve, but we can't seem to turn it down, mostly due to the idiots. I sort of wish we could offer them the voluntary option of confining themselves to a big resort somewhere and let them mutually infect. Let them move us to herd immunity more quickly, since they are not concerned about infecting others.
So, since I am dealing with this issue right now, here is where I find myself.
- We do nothing that can't be considered to be safe behavior. I'm 62 and my wife has had chemo twice, so her immune system is not awesome. I've been one of the few that remained in the buildings, with the idea that if we lowered the density of people enough, we were probably almost as safe there as anywhere other than home.
- I can support baby steps in slowly moving back in the buildings, in a limited way. Rotating days or something similar. We have to pick an arbitrary number to start. I am thinking something like no more than 20 in the buildings (out of our "normal" 70) in a particular day. There should not be another occupied personal area within probably at least 12'; and more likely 15'; of anyone else. We jumped on the remote workplace early and our main reasons for wanting to move back toward restoring more personal contact relate to the drop off in communication efficiency and collaboration in its many forms. Remote is simply not as good as in person, at least in what we do for a living.
- You are confined to your desk area (office, cubicle, what ever), the rest room, copy/scan area and the coffee/microwave area. We already have had "touch nothing" in effect since late February (lots of paper napkins being used on everything, including copy/scan machines, door handles, etc.). Constant common touch surface disinfecting.
- You do not enter anyone else's desk/office/cubicle area. You touch nothing outside your personal area. There is no excuse for touching something in someone else's personal area.
- Masks. This is a biggie, because you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I won't go into the whole litany of the pro vs. con arguments with masks; suffice it to say that my position is going to be that you only touch your ear connection points and you can take it off in your personal space. You leave your desk, at least during normal hours when others are around, and you have to put on your mask. Period. To protect others. The more dense the population in the buildings, the more critical this is. We've issued at least 3 cloth masks to everyone in the field and those of us who have remained in the office (so you should always have a clean one for the day). We still have to have more as we move people back in the office, so everybody has at least 3.
- If you have to talk with someone, do it from the hallway/common area. If it is private, you can both go outside. Speaking of going outside, we either leave the doors open while people are in the building, or use a door stop to prevent full closure so you can open the door without using a latch. And you carry your napkins (I always have a few in a pocket) for use if you find yourself having to pull on something.
- I can tell you from personal experience that using the padlocks on our parking lot gates is a pain in the neck, but it can be done with napkins if you are careful and take a couple of minutes. I don't directly touch light switches any more, and that is a hard habit for me to break. We've been adding motion sensors literally everywhere for this reason. If we don't go to that extreme in avoiding contact surfaces, putting people back into close proximity will explode transmission.
- When we have an exposure case (we will, eventually), we have to identify who was in contact and those individuals will have to get tested, and self isolate until they either test as being clear, or have 14 days without symptoms. Given what we are learning about asymptomatic carriers, we may need a test regardless...still working our heads around how that works. We have one person who got sick just before we understood all of this (about March 1) and now the antibody test shows she had it at some point. One of her co-workers heard her cough a couple of times and told her to get out...we'd already told everyone to stay away if they felt sick. Looks like we probably dodged a bullet that time.
- Hipaa is a pain in the a$$ in this area. It is somewhat of a mine field in terms of what you can ask. Our method thus far in handling the issue is to encourage people to tell us if they have had it so we know we don't have to worry about them in the near future (at least that is what we are telling ourselves, current news reports not withstanding). No stigma at all; in fact we welcome knowing that they are past this issue. I see no downside in being honest about that, and thus far we have not had anyone express concern about that issue.
I'm open to any other specific suggestions. This is a bridge that we will all have to cross at some point. I can't see us moving much beyond roughly 1/3 of normal density in office buildings for a while, but I suspect that in SoCal we will be seeing that level soon. And always watching the hospital admittance rate as we do so...because we can't afford to see that curve do a "New York". Granted, we don't have a ton of mass transit, so we have avoided the largest single virus disseminator opportunity. Still, the selfish "let them die if they are going to" meatheads could destroy the path forward, and we have a lot of meatheads. We also have a significant homeless population, some of whom practice extreme social distancing and some of which are incapable of doing so...but all of whom use common restroom facilities.
Lots of challenges. Baby steps.
Well, the hospital in Laramie has 86 staffed beds. Plus, whatever measures have been taken to accommodate a surge.
I think the issue of concern is staffed ICU beds and available ventilators. Usually only a fraction of available beds are ICU beds. That being said, Laramie may well be ok. I don’t know much about the place.
That’s not the way it works, but if it does, homelessness needs to become illegal. I’m all for playing hardball, but we need to start with the millions of street addicts and disease harborers FIRST.
You haven’t stated this, but in addition to the social distancing, clean commonly touched surfaces periodically. Doorknobs, copy machine, light switches, etc. Presumably there are plenty of cleaning services available.
Just remember... You can die of a car wreck, suicide or terminal cancer at the end of life. And when they do the autopsy on you, if you have covid-19 system you're added to the death toll for covid-19 virus death. Numbers are numbers but they don't always tell the whole story.
Not everyone that needs hospitalization needs ICU care, and not everyone in the ICU needs a ventilator. Ed can move the goal posts and revise his statement from what he said to what he later claims that he meant. Fifty people can go to the local hospital right now in Laramie.
Most COVID patients aren’t hospitalized until they develop pneumonia. At that point most are put in ICU and many of those need ventilators.
Not true. At least not widely. Covid is only added to your cause of death if it was connected to the actual cause. If you die from blunt force trauma in a car accident , that’s what’s going on the death cert. COVID is irrelevant, and not a contributing factor. It’s doubtful you’ll even be tested.
Now, if you died from respiratory or cardiac distress, you might be tested post-mortem...and then odds are that COVID will be listed as a contributing factor.
We’ve got similar issues and generally similar plans. With the added complication of trying to figure out what to do with classrooms.
A note of what can be done, and done well.
In California, about half (49%) of the fatalities are in elderly homes. Yet, we have 8 VA vet's homes with over 2,000 residents, and only 2 (yes, TWO) fatalities. Great story today in the Times on what was done, and when. We may need to do some of these things also when we move back in. It is a great read; nice to see an organization with an effective leader. Especially considering that he was a political appointee. There is the usual California story's initial BS about who he is and where he came from. But then they get to what he actually did, and that is impressive. Some lessons there for the rest of us.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-10/coronavirus-california-veterans-safe-homes
In California, about half (49%) of the fatalities are in elderly homes. Yet, we have 8 VA vet's homes with over 2,000 residents, and only 2 (yes, TWO) fatalities. Great story today in the Times on what was done, and when. We may need to do some of these things also when we move back in. It is a great read; nice to see an organization with an effective leader. Especially considering that he was a political appointee. There is the usual California story's initial BS about who he is and where he came from. But then they get to what he actually did, and that is impressive. Some lessons there for the rest of us.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-10/coronavirus-california-veterans-safe-homes
Man, that's hilarious. 90% bullshit, 10% content in that story. Can't even imagine if he happened to have been born to undocumented parents, too. Story would have been 3x as long. But good to see the efficacy of his approach.
It kind of sounds like you are offended that the guy featured in the article is an immigrant. Maybe you can pretend he’s a white guy named Sean who grew up in the foster system and lived as a surf bum for several years before he found his calling.
It kind of reads like you have your own loaded views and assumptions. I wouldn't give a shit about pages of impertinent, distracting background on Sean, either, should that be of assistance to you in wrapping your mind around these complex issues.
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A short listen that highlights the issues with bureaucratic bloat, nepotism, greed, and myopia.(i read between the lines - NPR is too cowardly to bite the hand that feeds.)
Listen to: Episode 981: How To Test A Country - (how covid testing got screwed up)
Listen to: Episode 981: How To Test A Country - (how covid testing got screwed up)
Maybe, but the article we are arguing about is really standard journalism as it has been practiced for decades. The headline teases the point of the story. The article itself inserts some human interest stuff that hopefully is interesting enough to keep the reader engaged and gets to the point only after forcing you to turn the page and maybe see a few more adds. For what it’s worth, most broadcast news shows do the same thing. Imagine if Sean Hannity just got right to the point. Each show would be about 5 minutes long, he would sell little to no advertising and probably no one would watch.
I'll start by saying that I love TRUMP....he may not be the man we like but he is the MAN WE NEED....
and yes, I would not expect someone that hates Trump to sit down with two people for lunch who are not also thinking they hate Trump...so their opinions mean exactly nothing....
our hospitals are losing money hand over foot because they have no patients, there was no surge, and there will be many hospitals or clinics closed due to bankruptcy.....they're all just waiting for our almighty governor to "allow" them to actually do health care....scopes, surgeries, etc....
isolation has prevented NOTHING....nothing except preventing a natural herd immunity to develop...
you can not prevent a virus....we have no vaccine for the common cold, also a coronavirus, and our flu vaccines are maybe at best preventing 50% of flu. you know, its called LIFE.....
so you get to stay home and work and still make a good living?....that's so nice for you.....
so your rich friends are also enjoying the shutdown....marvelous...
I find the opinions on this LOCKDOWN are based on whether one has a nice easy desk job sitting at home getting paid or they are a govt worker as opposed to essential workers who MUST go to work and those out of work and those who' s small business has been irreparably harmed...
the covid is a novel virus that none of us had immunity to and what did we do?....instead of telling the vulnerable to self isolate we isolated everybody else.....insanity....
btw, the numbers for deaths are exaggerated...evern Birx said that .....
I do beleive this was a serious virus and many people have died, average age well over 70 , but not one thing we've done has prevented that...not one...but we have ensured that our sick frail elderly die utterly alone without family....nice going.....
but, lets not get political....
[
and yes, I would not expect someone that hates Trump to sit down with two people for lunch who are not also thinking they hate Trump...so their opinions mean exactly nothing....
our hospitals are losing money hand over foot because they have no patients, there was no surge, and there will be many hospitals or clinics closed due to bankruptcy.....they're all just waiting for our almighty governor to "allow" them to actually do health care....scopes, surgeries, etc....
isolation has prevented NOTHING....nothing except preventing a natural herd immunity to develop...
you can not prevent a virus....we have no vaccine for the common cold, also a coronavirus, and our flu vaccines are maybe at best preventing 50% of flu. you know, its called LIFE.....
so you get to stay home and work and still make a good living?....that's so nice for you.....
so your rich friends are also enjoying the shutdown....marvelous...
I find the opinions on this LOCKDOWN are based on whether one has a nice easy desk job sitting at home getting paid or they are a govt worker as opposed to essential workers who MUST go to work and those out of work and those who' s small business has been irreparably harmed...
the covid is a novel virus that none of us had immunity to and what did we do?....instead of telling the vulnerable to self isolate we isolated everybody else.....insanity....
btw, the numbers for deaths are exaggerated...evern Birx said that .....
I do beleive this was a serious virus and many people have died, average age well over 70 , but not one thing we've done has prevented that...not one...but we have ensured that our sick frail elderly die utterly alone without family....nice going.....
but, lets not get political....
[
Well, yeah. This seemed excessive, though, which cr8zyncalif pointed out and I agreed with. Seems like the noise / info ratio is especially high in the LA Times.
I get the point generally. Just wouldn't want it assumed I'm a Fox News viewer who can't handle some guy being an immigrant. I detest reams of human interest content about all of humanity, not just segments of it.
Just the facts for me, please (or, if needed, some human interest stuff for a hook but not pages and pages that are irrelevant to the main thrust of the piece).Agree, that article kind of overdid it.Well, yeah. This seemed excessive, though, which cr8zyncalif pointed out and I agreed with. Seems like the noise / info ratio is especially high in the LA Times.
I get the point generally. Just wouldn't want it assumed I'm a Fox News viewer who can't handle some guy being an immigrant. I detest reams of human interest content about all of humanity, not just segments of it.
I read an article a couple days ago that revealed Stanford (whom I feel has been the most reliable in getting useful information out about this virus) had conducted a random sampling and testing on 3,300 people out of Santa Barbara CA for CoronaVirus Antibodies. The numbers they saw indicated that the rate of infections to deaths caused by Covid-19 are FAR less than what we know now. The actual mortality rate falls well below 1% based on their results. This test makes total sense solely due to the fact there are many people who have had it and never knew because they didn't show any symptoms or never had any sort of sickness associated while their immune system quietly fought the virus off. The focus now has been solely on finding out who has it and not who has had it and this is causing the numbers to be greatly skewed IMHO. This continued reaction/lockdown by the sh!ttiest governor in WA state's history is mind-numbingly stupid. Open the state back up and stop villainizing those who want to provide for themselves and not have to be forced to feed off the government tit.
The current reported mortality rate (typically 5% or above) is based on the number of known covid deaths divided by the number of positive covid tests. This is CLEARLY a massive overestimate, since testing is still limited only to those who are obviously sick, and neglects those with mild symptoms...or no symptoms at all.
Based just on the number of infected people that aren’t being accounted for in the denominator, it’s extremely likely (and has been since the beginning) that the mortality rate is more like 0.5%, not 5%.
Get used to Inslee. King county has deified him, and will elect him all by themselves.
I would hope anyone, (Inslee, John Spellman or name the person) would have prepped for a hospital overload. Sorry as you seeing that as a photo op instead of prepping for the worst, hoping for the best.
Second, here is an issue that I do struggle with. What we are saying is people who fought in WWII, Vietnam, Korea....FU...you lived your life and we have the ability to tell you when you are done. Marines have a credo, leave no man or woman behind. They DIE to make sure no person is left behind if that is what it takes. And what you are saying is our kids can't social distance for two f-in months to try to keep this thing from spreading beyond control? For what the older people have done for the country nice way to repay them.
If I was single and dating I don't "fear" I will get someone pregnant who tells me they are on the pill or have had their tubes tied, I don't fear I will get herpes or some other transmittable disease, but there is a precaution I can take. So I appreciate if there is one bed left, and I was one who used a little more precaution that you will give up the bed and if need be the ventilator. Think of it as a hedge on my behalf. And if you get pneumonia and die Ill send flowers and chalk it up to you being a causality of war.
Look, I get the financial toll. Almost everyone is paying the price. There is a segment of the population who don't get it, but those are 1% or less.
I also hate to say this but even without the stay at home order bars and restaurants aren't coming back until there is a vaccine. They will have to scale back to probably 30% of what there business is. That means landlords will take it heavy in the shorts, high unemployment regardless of the stay at home order.
There will be a lot of employers slow to hire people back because they have found a method to make them nearly as productive with fewer employees.
This may change the lending biz forever for example. Companies are working from home, and they are setting record numbers. Why do they need to pay for expensive real estate in Seattle and Bellevue?
Finally, you spoke to something that is important. It does need to be recognized but also put into context. I have a junior in college and a senior in high school. The younger one (all seniors) was unable to tour schools to make sure it was a right fit. They are missing prom, they are missing a graduation ceremony, they are missing getting their yearbooks signed. They are missing track, golf, men's soccer and all the other things. So there is a sacrifice all the way around from financial to social.
I have heard the numbers are "exaggerated", so the reported number is over 80k in three months, what do you feel is the correct number? 10k? 20k.
Also, let's say in the fall 1/2 the WSU campus get covid, and we lose 10 kids, is that acceptable? Where is the line for acceptable losses from a disease we don't seem to have perfect information on?
It's door knobs. Not doorknobs...since you're the resident grammar police and all.
Well, if Ed is worried that 50 people will need ICU that means a few thousand new cases breaking out in Laramie, Wyoming. Right now, the entire state of Wyoming has 504 lab confirmed cases and another 158 probably cases, with 110 lab confirmed in Laramie county and another 54 probable and one death. The hospitalization rate for the lab confirmed cases appears to be 13.1 percent, 18.5 percent unknown and the remainder with no hospitalization. So, for Ed's number (however it may or may be intended) to come true, either Laramie has to become the new epicenter for the disease, or country will have become so overwhelmed by the disease that society will be breaking down and ICU beds and ventilators will be meaningless because there will be no nurses or doctors.
https://health.wyo.gov/publichealth...ovel-coronavirus/covid-19-map-and-statistics/
Ed, the thing is, you say that you get the financial hit, but I'm not sure you do. Even if you do, it doesn't seem that you are putting that into human terms. It's not "just money" or about just enriching some fat cats.
An economic depression, and even a recession -- this is much more than a typical recession -- has a massive human impact. I'm not endorsing this study or its methodology, for example, but this study predicts 75,000 "despair deaths" due to alcoholism, drug abuse, or suicide, potentially up to 150,000 if the recovery is slow. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marlam...rom-coronavirus-pandemic-impact/#713ee02d6472
That's just deaths, and just owing to a few causes. I think it underestimates these issues, frankly. It doesn't include things like sexual abuse, which can leave someone scarred for life, or other life-changing, potentially life-ruining things like having a business destroyed, losing a home, divorces, spousal and child abuse, and myriad other stuff -- not to mention just being miserable or depressed -- which could impact *millions* of people in significant ways. It's not just about a slightly lower standard of living. We're talking about severe impacts on wellbeing and ability to function in society, some of which could impact generations of people. Not to distract you or take this further afield, but even if one thinks the government can solve it through transfer payments, there likely will be an ultimate cost to many of us there, too, and limits on our growth ... which, again, all impacts peoples' lives, not just the balance sheets of millionaires. The lockdown also is having effects like preventing people from seeking health care for anything else, and preventing things like cancer screening. Again, don't get distracted by that or fixate on it. It's a secondary point.
As this writer at Stanford opines, the overwhelming evidence here shows that a clearly defined group -- the elderly and those with underlying conditions -- are the ones who should be protected here. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...-end-the-total-isolation#.XrhHMjpvurA.twitter Check out some of the numbers in there. It's consistent with everything I've seen and heard from those in the medical field actually treating this.
I don't mean to imply those who disagree with this are stupid, nor am I one of these idiots holding a machine gun in Michigan. It's obviously understandable to want to not have anyone suffer from this disease. I just think people ignore the real cost of negative economic impacts and, at least in many cases, overestimate the risks, with the latter in large part due to the media. People forget this country is the third-largest in the world, behind only China and India, with a massive 330 million people, and they hear numbers about thousands of cases or deaths and just don't put it in context.
An economic depression, and even a recession -- this is much more than a typical recession -- has a massive human impact. I'm not endorsing this study or its methodology, for example, but this study predicts 75,000 "despair deaths" due to alcoholism, drug abuse, or suicide, potentially up to 150,000 if the recovery is slow. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marlam...rom-coronavirus-pandemic-impact/#713ee02d6472
That's just deaths, and just owing to a few causes. I think it underestimates these issues, frankly. It doesn't include things like sexual abuse, which can leave someone scarred for life, or other life-changing, potentially life-ruining things like having a business destroyed, losing a home, divorces, spousal and child abuse, and myriad other stuff -- not to mention just being miserable or depressed -- which could impact *millions* of people in significant ways. It's not just about a slightly lower standard of living. We're talking about severe impacts on wellbeing and ability to function in society, some of which could impact generations of people. Not to distract you or take this further afield, but even if one thinks the government can solve it through transfer payments, there likely will be an ultimate cost to many of us there, too, and limits on our growth ... which, again, all impacts peoples' lives, not just the balance sheets of millionaires. The lockdown also is having effects like preventing people from seeking health care for anything else, and preventing things like cancer screening. Again, don't get distracted by that or fixate on it. It's a secondary point.
As this writer at Stanford opines, the overwhelming evidence here shows that a clearly defined group -- the elderly and those with underlying conditions -- are the ones who should be protected here. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...-end-the-total-isolation#.XrhHMjpvurA.twitter Check out some of the numbers in there. It's consistent with everything I've seen and heard from those in the medical field actually treating this.
I don't mean to imply those who disagree with this are stupid, nor am I one of these idiots holding a machine gun in Michigan. It's obviously understandable to want to not have anyone suffer from this disease. I just think people ignore the real cost of negative economic impacts and, at least in many cases, overestimate the risks, with the latter in large part due to the media. People forget this country is the third-largest in the world, behind only China and India, with a massive 330 million people, and they hear numbers about thousands of cases or deaths and just don't put it in context.
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There is no doubt there are real economic impacts and those impacts are devastating to those most affected. And there is some merit to the argument that as many may die of recession related causes as will die from COVID.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it can be fixed by simply declaring that we are reopening the economy. You still need customers to return to their previous way of life. Some will right away. Some will after several months if there is no resurgence of disease. Some likely never will. Many small business will have a difficult time surviving if their number of customers is reduced by even 20 percent or so. Also, international tourism is gone for the foreseeable future - maybe for our lifetimes. That may not seem like a big deal but I have read that 70 million foreign nationals visit each year and are directly responsible for several million US jobs.
Seems to me we need a plan. And we don’t have one.
Trust me I get it. You want to know who it doesn't affect? The 1%. The one's who flat out told me they didn't need the tax cut, that the tax cut would go stock repurchasing, and they are some of the people who were first in line for the PPP money.
You are also correct there comes a time when we have to make that hard decision, economy or quality of life or life itself. What does shock me is it comes 30 days in to quarantine.
You are also correct, those folks on the capital with machine guns, pro life signs, pro gun signs and claiming their rights are violated don't do anything to help the cause.
Come on, man. So your three responses to that are:
- Referring to some in the 1% you know not needing a tax cut years ago, yet saying they need PPP money (nice anecdote, I guess, but not sure what your point is or how that relates to the broader discussion)
- An inaccurate point about the quarantine having been in effect for 30 days (California will hit 2 months as of the end of this week, and most other places had it in place by the end of March at the latest, with various degrees of lockdown prior)
- Piling on that those protesters in Michigan are counterproductive (not in dispute)
Are you trying to just piss people off, and do you find that enjoyable in some way? You just seem like someone looking to argue endlessly and without any real purpose, largely along partisan lines. And that's if I give you as much credit as I could muster.
