Objectively intelligent.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Both wonderful. I have a friend and client who is in to these, and was starting to get to know them better during the last couple of years of before-times.

I have to focus on them at restaurants, as my wife is not up to more strong Italians. She gets enough of that by injection!

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

How are you so sure? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mar...ing-2020-08-24

Look up the cases for Sweden and Norway, neighboring countries. Sweden's population is half Sweden's. You'll see fairly similar curves. Then look to the left and see what the numbers are for those curves. You'll see that Norway's peak cases is just about where Sweden's cases are now. Sweden is a shit show, though it pales in comparison to the American shit show.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

If you like Barolas, try Amarones.

This was supposedly a good place to grab barolos and barbarescos in bulk: https://www.wtso.com/

Don’t know if that still holds true.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Look up the cases for Sweden and Norway, neighboring countries. Sweden's population is half Sweden's. You'll see fairly similar curves. Then look to the left and see what the numbers are for those curves. You'll see that Norway's peak cases is just about where Sweden's cases are now. Sweden is a shit show, though it pales in comparison to the American shit show.

Need to look in a year. Sweden’s decision was made knowing they’d have cases. The question is will Norway (and everywhere else) catch up next year?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Another two identified today

Again they seem to harp on the "No real antibodies" and "second time asymptomatic" shtick but there are other cases where the second bout was worse.

Let’s simplify the the assessment:

1. You get it and don’t die;
2. You get it again and your immune system’s T cells mount a response from memory, or they don’t, in which case you are given a therapy, numerous of which are working, and will only improve (as dropping death rates partially indicate);
3. Repeat #2

Or,

1. You get it and die (unlikely)

Eventually, humans will adapt and we’ll acquire defenses and/or the virus will develop weaknesses or mutate simply to survive (can’t live if you keep killing the host). A number of us will die, but statistically, judged against the 7 billion of us, it won’t be anywhere near huge.

I suspect the angst of today would have existed in 1918 had we had social media and 24/7 news then as well.

Life’s terminal, as Warren Zevon sang. Do your best to put off the result as long as possible. Covid’s just one more thing with which we mortals will dance. Selah. And blame ain’t gonna change that.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If it's near impossible even if we tried, what did we lose from having not tried?

He's a coward, and he's playing this for political gain, but the dice were rolled long ago. We had no infrastructure for testing and creating it out of thin air once this pandemic started was impossible. Trump hasn't failed because of his reaction to the crisis. He failed because his administration did nothing to try to make us prepared for it.

It's like climate change. He sucks on climate change. But the policies that needed to be implemented to address climate change had to be implemented long ago. He should be criticized for making it worse, but you can't attack a current administration for a lack of policies that had to be implemented decades ago.

Who said, “near impossible?” There’s a whole lot of margin btwn where we are where’d we’d have been with a perfect response.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You don’t know that herd immunity cannot be achieved. You’re using conjecture as fact. (I don’t know if it can be, but herd immunity to viruses is a proven thing, so it can happen, whereas the rarity of a virus not being susceptible to herd immunity is a novel and more likely improbable notion.)

Yeah, that’s what I said, coupled with the fact that nowhere is anywhere near the rate of infection needed for herd immunity, if it’s even possible.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

How are you so sure? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mar...ing-2020-08-24

Yup. Even their own numbers don’t support the idea that 60-70% have been exposed.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

Yup. Even their own numbers don’t support the idea that 60-70% have been exposed.

Did I see CDC numbers that only 10% of the infected get tested?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Need to look in a year. Sweden’s decision was made knowing they’d have cases. The question is will Norway (and everywhere else) catch up next year?

Sure, we'll only know in retrospect. But I'd put my money on Norway right now.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Let’s simplify the the assessment:

1. You get it and don’t die;
2. You get it again and your immune system’s T cells mount a response from memory, or they don’t, in which case you are given a therapy, numerous of which are working, and will only improve (as dropping death rates partially indicate);
3. Repeat #2

Or,

1. You get it and die (unlikely)

Eventually, humans will adapt and we’ll acquire defenses and/or the virus will develop weaknesses or mutate simply to survive (can’t live if you keep killing the host). A number of us will die, but statistically, judged against the 7 billion of us, it won’t be anywhere near huge.

I suspect the angst of today would have existed in 1918 had we had social media and 24/7 news then as well.

Life’s terminal, as Warren Zevon sang. Do your best to put off the result as long as possible. Covid’s just one more thing with which we mortals will dance. Selah. And blame ain’t gonna change that.

I think you are being too pessimistic. I heard from a reliable source that, at most, the U.S. would have a couple thousand COVID deaths.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

I think you are being too pessimistic. I heard from a reliable source that, at most, the U.S. would have a couple thousand COVID deaths.

People are saying it will just magically go away.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

I think you are being too pessimistic. I heard from a reliable source that, at most, the U.S. would have a couple thousand COVID deaths.

Yeah, I was wrong.

But even at a loss of two million lives, statistically, it's not enormous: .00608273 (2mil/328.2mil)

Then you have to factor in how many of those deaths were among the significantly aged, to assess life years lost. Increasingly, you get a picture, particularly in Sweden, of a disease that has hunted the old and co-morbidity-riddled most perniciously.

Is that acceptable here (as it is among policy makers in Sweden)? Most would say if it were preventable, no. If this was not preventable save pre-emptive actions that had to have been taken long ago and could not be taken fast enough when we were caught flat footed, you'd have to list those deaths as largely unpreventable. They'd be sad consequences of policy inaction. But netted against them must be the offset for life years lost, and when you consider this disease thankfully does not end many young lives or healthy lives with many future life years to look forward to, you see a reason to make the argument, "This is not good, and not acceptable, but it's also not an apocalypse, and people should be a bit less alarmist and more circumspect in their thinking about the situation."

"But we must do all at any cost to save lives!" is a comment I hear a lot. It's a great emotive response to someone asserting that we need a balanced approach that takes the economy and the value of preserving some normalcy into account. I'd say wearing masks and observing social distancing while the scientists develop more therapies and hopefully a vaccine seems a reasonable way to approach life right now. I have no patience for anyone who refuses to wear a mask. It's ludicrous. But I also have no patience for anyone who asserts that this was entirely preventable or that we should engage in national or even regional lockdowns bacause "lives!!!"

This is bad. But as grandmother (mine lived thru the 1918 flu) would have said, "stiff upper lip." It doesn't take much to be careful. Do so.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Look up the cases for Sweden and Norway, neighboring countries. Sweden's population is half Sweden's. You'll see fairly similar curves. Then look to the left and see what the numbers are for those curves. You'll see that Norway's peak cases is just about where Sweden's cases are now. Sweden is a shit show, though it pales in comparison to the American shit show.

Run the numbers in terms of future life years lost in Sweden. It's removing the old:

Upwards of 70% of the Covid19 death toll in Sweden has been people in elderly care services (as of mid-May 2020). We summarize the Covid19 tragedy in elderly care in Sweden, particularly in the City of Stockholm. We explain the institutional structure of elderly care administration and service provision. Those who died of Covid19 in Stockholm’s nursing homes had a life-remaining median somewhere in the range of 5 to 9 months. Having contextualized the Covid19 problem in City of Stockholm, we present an interview of Barbro Karlsson, who works at the administrative heart of the Stockholm elderly care system. Her institutional knowledge and sentiment offer great insight into the concrete problems and challenges. There are really two sides to the elderly care Covid19 challenge: The vulnerability and frailty of those in nursing homes and the problem of nosocomial infection—that is, infection caused by contact with others involved in the elderly care experience. The problem calls for targeted solutions by those close to the vulnerable individuals.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7369443/

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Did I see CDC numbers that only 10% of the infected get tested?

CDC estimated total infections at 10X of reported numbers a month ago. I assume this has gone up since the shitshow in the South of the past two months.