COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

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Dotini
Since the 1930's Americans have received social security benefits. Medicare has been added to that. It used to be that many if not most received pensions, but that is kind of disappearing.

My cousin Karl refuses to wear a mask. Hell, he won't even wear underwear! However, at my insistence and with me giving it to him, he will grudgingly wear a bandana.
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So is the bandana around his face or his man bits? :lol:
 
DesertPenguin
So is the bandana around his face or his man bits? :lol:
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Not bad!
Karl prefers worn and torn Carhartts left over from his trade in carpentry and property development for that job. He's built like a heavyweight boxer, carries a .45 (with concealment permit) and I seldom contradict him even when he does something dumb. :nervous:

Say, did you hear about the drummer who was so depressed he threw himself behind a train?
 
Joey D
I think the biggest issue I might run into is being quarantined. I would hate to get to Michigan and then be stuck there for two weeks. I wonder if I got tested before I left and had the test results with me if I could avoid it? I don't want to skirt the laws,
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I'm thinking that the quarantine issue should be regarded more from a moralistic viewpoint than a legalistic one. About 98% of the world's countries report "Active Cases". Of these, the US ranks #1 in Per Capita Active Cases. See graphic below. We can argue about the fact that this definition may vary somewhat from one country to another, but the fact remains that we are right up there in the most infectious countries in the world. Any travel within the US has a higher than average chance of picking up the infection, so surely it is just respectful to self-quarantine.

Danoff
He's saying "we only have cases because we test" (and what he means is that we only have positive tests because we test), but then he's touting deaths/case as though this is indicative of staying on top of the spread. Well... we only have cases because we test right? Meaning the more we test, the lower the deaths/case. We're not as likely to miss a death as we are to miss a case.

Deaths/population does not put the US at the top of the list though. But we're not "best" in that regard either. We sit better than places like Spain, Italy, and the UK. But not as good as places like South Korea and Germany.
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Its amazing that anyone would assert that deaths per case is more important than deaths per capita. Trump is so stupid that he doesn't realize that his arguments conflict with each other. Jonathan Swan did a great job with follow-on questions, but I think he missed the opportunity to point this out, am I correct?

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GBO Possum
Its amazing that anyone would assert that deaths per case is more important than deaths per capita. Trump is so stupid that he doesn't realize that his arguments conflict with each other. Jonathan Swan did a great job with follow-on questions, but I think he missed the opportunity to point this out, am I correct?
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I didn't watch the whole thing, so I don't know if he did or not. I didn't see him do it. It's not surprising at all for Trump to argue out of both sides of his mouth like this. It's kinda what he does. He might even know what he's doing here, but he appeared so lost that I kinda think he had no idea that he was arguing against himself.
 
GBO Possum
I'm thinking that the quarantine issue should be regarded more from a moralistic viewpoint than a legalistic one. About 98% of the world's countries report "Active Cases". Of these, the US ranks #1 in Per Capita Active Cases. See graphic below. We can argue about the fact that this definition may vary somewhat from one country to another, but the fact remains that we are right up there in the most infectious countries in the world. Any travel within the US has a higher than average chance of picking up the infection, so surely it is just respectful to self-quarantine.
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While I certainly agree, I wouldn't be able to stay in Michigan for 14 days. Between work and my kid, I can't just be out of the picture for two weeks leaving it all up to my wife. I did talk to my mom last night though and have ultimately decided not to go, at least not right now. I'm going to see what everything is like in a month and then reevaluate going. I will be driving though so I have a relatively small window before the weather starts putting a damper on things. I can't do a marathon drive through the Rockies in a snow storm.

It sucks, but at least there's Skype I guess.
 
To clarify my position. I am not in favour of lockdowns. The downsides outweigh the upsides. I have given my reasons for this and they are pretty clear.

I am not in favour of masks. The masks that 99% of people use are unfit for purpose, so basically pointless. Goto 5:20 for the 150 doctors advertised.

The virus herd-immunity threshold in the UK is 20% , not all countries are the same. The reason herd-immunity is at 20% (a lower value than a vaccine herd-immunity) is that more susceptible and more connected individuals have a stand a higher chance of being infected and thus are likely to become immune earlier. The virus struggles to spread itself once these low-hanging pieces of fruit have been removed. As a result, the threshold for herd immunity is lower than it would be for a vaccinations at random. This doesn't mean I go round hugging people.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160762v1.full.pdf Herd immunity study from people who arguably know more than most of the people here.

I was born in the 60's.
 
x3ra
To clarify my position. I am not in favour of lockdowns. The downsides outweigh the upsides. I have given my reasons for this and they are pretty clear.

I am not in favour of masks. The masks that 99% of people use are unfit for purpose, so basically pointless. Goto 5:20 for the 150 doctors advertised.

The virus herd-immunity threshold in the UK is 20% , not all countries are the same. The reason herd-immunity is at 20% (a lower value than a vaccine herd-immunity) is that more susceptible and more connected individuals have a stand a higher chance of being infected and thus are likely to become immune earlier. The virus struggles to spread itself once these low-hanging pieces of fruit have been removed. As a result, the threshold for herd immunity is lower than it would be for a vaccinations at random. This doesn't mean I go round hugging people.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160762v1.full.pdf Herd immunity study from people who arguably know more than most of the people here.

I was born in the 60's.
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The stuff about masks (and the show of hands) is incredibly dumb. If a mask cannot keep out (or in) virus particles because virions are so much smaller than the weave of a typical mask, then how does a mask change the amount of oxygen and CO2 levels being inhaled? The evidence cited in support of that argument is on very shaky ground indeed.

The point about wearing a face mask in public is to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus via aerosols and droplets.

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However, the pre-print on the HIT being ca. 20% in the UK is interesting, and I hope it is closer to the truth than the 60-70% that has been mooted elsewhere.
 
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Touring Mars
However, the pre-print on the HIT being ca. 20% in the UK is interesting, and I hope it is closer to the truth than the 60-70% that has been mooted elsewhere.
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It would help for sure. However, we're probably not anywhere close to even that yet according to the latest (7th Aug) report:
New adjusted seroprevalence estimates based on samples from adult blood donors in the East of England and South East were 6.6% and 3.6% respectively. Adjusted population-weighted prevalence for England is estimated at 5.9% for weeks 27-31.The change in prevalence seen in some regions is likely to be largely driven by changes in the precise locations of sample collection and differences in the donor population as lockdown measures are relaxed. There is also some suggestion that waning immunity may be a contributing factor to declines in prevalence seen in some areas.
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We got new masks at work yesterday that are corporate branded. These have that nose support thing built into them and fit much better than the ones I have had since the beginning. How do you wash these correctly? Maybe wash each half then gently squeeze the water out? You can't wring it out wash cloth style like ones that don't have the nose support.
 
I'm convinced that if the current crop of conservatives was around (and with social media) in the 1930s and 1940s we would not have been able or willing to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Further reading courtesy of Scott Galloway.

America’s involvement in WWII lasted 3 years and 9 months, and 405,399 Americans perished (297per day). US forces have been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years, and we’ve lost 2,285 servicemembers (1 every 3 days). In WWII almost a third of fruits and vegetables were harvested from "Victory Gardens" planted in people’s backyards. You couldn’t find chocolate or nylons. Diapers and food staples were rationed, and you could be kicked off a plane to make room for servicemen.

Despite the formidable financial stress of wartime, households were asked to dig deeper and buy war bonds. Within three weeks of Dec. 7, 1941 Ford, Fisher Auto Parts, and Goodyear Rubber were turning out B-24 and B-25 bombers, using fabricated auto parts. Kelvinator, which made refrigerators, was told by the government to stop and start making propellers and army helmets.

Fast forward to 2020: Americans don’t want to wear masks and expect the government to send them more money. We’ve been unable to produce cotton swabs and personal protective equipment. Most Covid tests still take 5-7 days to yield results, while other countries have had rapid tests since March.

Since the first recorded US case in January, we have lost 159,588 Americans, or 806 people a day. The economic cost of the stimulus will likely surpass the conflict that reshaped the world order. However, we’re not spending this unprecedented amount of money on fighting the enemy, but ensuring the NASDAQ (the net worth of the wealthy) doesn’t decline. Our leadership seems to think a return to school should be doable even though our Covid-19 testing is extremely slow and below need. University leadership is convinced the virus received the memo that the nobility and business model of education should be an immunity, cauterizing spread.

We have a forest fire and are borrowing trillions from future generations to Venmo people sitting at home as the inferno in their neighbor’s yard rages. Personal income was 7.3% higher in Q2 versus Q1 because of stimulus payments and extra unemployment benefits. The personal savings rate hit a historic 33% in April, the highest by far since the department started tracking in the 1960s. Do the 89% of people who still have their job need additional stimulus? It appears, as is the case the last several decades, that the only bipartisan action is reckless spending that flattens the curve for rich people while throwing some funds at the neediest for optics.

And the enemy marches on.

Donald Trump was right, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mistakes. Mistakes that cost us almost 7,000 American souls, 208,102 Iraqi and 111,000 Afghan civilian lives, and $1.9 trillion (inflation adjusted). But Covid-19 will register an even greater toll of American blood and treasure. The response to the novel coronavirus would have been swifter and more disciplined if the pathogen had brown skin and worshiped a different god. Americans can’t seem to wrap their head around an enemy 10,000 times smaller than the width of human hair.

What does success in America look like? Brash, optimistic, a vision for how technology will solve our problems that results in billions of shareholder value. Recently I’ve been participating in Zoom calls with Masters of the Universe and "experts" from various fields to discuss all things pandemic. Some are small groups of CEO and hedge fund titans where I’m the entertainment, while others have had real experts. In June a CEO of a large investment bank assured us the first vaccine would be available by the fall. In July, the CEO of a big tech firm was certain frontline workers would have received the vaccine by September latest.

Yeah, hope so …

But even if these men are right, does a vaccine defeat the enemy? Let’s ignore the fact we may not get a vaccine (HIV, 40 years and counting). Let’s assume that, despite formidable production and distribution hurdles, we get a vaccine in reasonably short order. If we have the silver bullet, does it get fired? The journal Science reported that 50% of Americans say they will not take the vaccine. We need at least 70% of Americans to take the vaccine. To be clear, I will take it and advocate for others to do the same.

But we should be fighting on multiple fronts. In the middle of the last century, 120,000 Americans spent 4 years and more than $23 billion to find a vaccine for tyranny. The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during WWII that produced the first nuclear weapons. The successful splitting of the atom would end the war, and we had reasonable confidence we would get there. However, between 1942 and 1945, we still built 297,000 aircraft and 86,000 tanks. We still sent young men to die on the beaches of Dunkirk and the island of Luzon. Keep in mind, this enemy, at present, has a greater toll on American lives each day than WWII. We are lacking a unity of purpose.

We seem to have developed immunities to learning from others. Specifically what’s worked elsewhere — non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). A fancy way of saying "distancing and masking." Restricting a virus of proximity to another organism for 14 days is what Valyrian Steel is to the Dark Knight. Yet 3 in 10 Americans "sometimes, rarely, or never" wear a mask. We can wait for the splitting of the atom, or we can … distance and wear a mask.
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A proposal for a 14 day complete lockdown to just end this ****:

There are 129 million households. Corporations have enjoyed the greatest profits in history, and the 1% have seen their wealth increase during the pandemic. I believe corporations and citizens are capable and willing to be the key instruments of a battle to change the course of this war. People decry the lack of leadership, but is it time to lead from the bottom up? The president has decided "it is what it is," and Speaker Pelosi and Representative Jim Jordan are purposefully undermining the credibility of Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci.

About half of US households have an occupant who works for a company with more than 2,500 people. Let’s call these firms "guardians." I’m suggesting they adopt their employees’ households for two weeks. We can also enlist volunteers from the top 10% income-earning households, and those that have the resources (time, money, organizational skills) to adopt the other "citizen" households. Connections could be coordinated/assigned by state and local health agencies to establish a dialog and provide support. Under guidelines issued by the CDC, each household works with their "guardian" or "citizen" to prepare for a 14-day lockdown. This guardianship would include, but not be limited to:

  • 14 days of supplies/groceries
  • Living space that is adequate (if not, the guardian finds other living quarters)
  • Broadband
  • Remote medicine/therapy where needed
  • Streaming video platforms
  • Content/learning programming for kids, including daily play dates for kids under 10 where kids and chaperones observe safety measures
  • Smartphone with an app that schedules, manages walks outdoors and exercise that is distanced from all other quaranteams (or a shared Google calendar)
  • Enforcement. People in Germany who violate mask orders are fined up to 10,000 euro. Better yet, why wouldn’t we make any form of assistance (PPP/Cares/unemployment) dependent on adherence to the great distancing guidelines? Shouldn’t these lovers of freedom be released from the tyranny of government assistance?

And then we lock down. You know, similar to every other country that has crushed the curve. But, Americans are too fond of their individualism and freedom, no? A fraction of leadership (from the government or citizenry) would meet pockets of resistance, but a groundswell of support would rise as the chaos that is fall in the US comes into plain view.

We’d also need an army of tracers equipped with handheld technology, a US Corona Corps armed with rapid tests, which have yet to be widely available. We know the monster’s weakness. Haven’t we conflated "freedom" with weakness and an unwillingness to make short-term sacrifices for the good of the commonwealth? Can you imagine people in 1944 refusing to wear a mask, or ignoring orders to tune their lights out during a bombing raid?

....


It’s overwhelming to try to fathom the pain, despair, and loneliness tens of millions of households are struggling with right now. And we didn’t need to be here. America is about generosity, grit, innovation, and a willingness to sacrifice for one another and future generations. There’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed with what’s right with America. However, at this moment, our nation has never been less American.

Our optimism and technology will not replace sacrifice. In order to, again, embrace life and each other, we need a great distancing.
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DesertPenguin
Yea the first world war was finished because everyone got sick and had to go home. Oh boy...
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Yeah don't you remember? It's all right there in General Pershing's memoirs. "We sailed to France in 1917, arrived, looked all around and there was no fighting". "I asked a local resident where was the war?" and he replied, "Oh everybody got sick and they had to go home, didn't they send you a telegram?" To which I said, "No nobody sent us anything". "I just shrugged my shoulders and said, OK BOYS BACK ON THE BOAT and we came back home".

I mean it's all there in the history books. I'm surprised you don't remember it the way Trump does.
 
He's obviously joking; you guys just don't get Trump's sense of humor. Right now, antagonizing & owning the Libs over the election is more important than the Fake News WuTang Virus.
 
Tornado
GUYS CAN'T TRUMP SPECULATE IN PEACE WITHOUT YOU JUMPING DOWN HIS THROAT?
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No, he cannot. The president should not be saying random bits of speculation. They need to and are expected to only mention facts. People believe what the president says, he cant just stand up there and "think out loud".
 

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