Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

wondering if Fauci would consider a Maximus before he gets fired

I'm not sure that Fauci is going to get fired. Trump seems to understand that the virus is a shitshow that he can't bluff his way out of, and he seems to be working hard to be able to blame someone, anyone else. Governors, China, anyone. Even he seems to understand that firing Fauci won't look good.

As with all "this time is different" predictions about Trump, I guess I'm likely to be wrong.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Doctors and nurses are not commodities. They have skills that aren't necessarily useful in this crisis.

And I wasn't defending that fact that administrators preserve themselves, I was just saying it's what they do.

Money is a commodity. And it should be spent wisely and fairly in this situation. I understand some admin is needed. But there are some admin making some pretty crazy salaries who are not as important as docs.

Here's why: If docs or nurses should be overwhelmed or get sick, the next line of people to bring into the hospital are other people with medical training. An orthopedic surgeon might not be the best replacement for an ER doc, but he's all you've got if all the ER docs are sick.

I know in our area nurses in specialty areas have been told if they should be needed, whatever their specialty, they'll be brought back out of furlough to deal with covid patients.

Why are we not paying these people at least something while they are on standby? That seems fundamentally bizarre while we continue to pay some admin of questionable value very fat salaries.

Maybe I'm nuts, but if I ran a hospital, I'd cut all non-essential admin and divvy their salaries up and give them to docs and nurses I'd want to keep on standby.

I'd also give all the docs and nurses facing this thing in the ERs and ICUs enhanced pay. Nobody signs on for what they're seeing. They deserve every extra dollar we can throw at them.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Money is a commodity. And it should be spent wisely and fairly in this situation. I understand some admin is needed. But there are some admin making some pretty crazy salaries who are not as important as docs.

Here's why: If docs or nurses should be overwhelmed or get sick, the next line of people to bring into the hospital are other people with medical training. An orthopedic surgeon might not be the best replacement for an ER doc, but he's all you've got if all the ER docs are sick.

I know in our area nurses in specialty areas have been told if they should be needed, whatever their specialty, they'll be brought back out of furlough to deal with covid patients.

Why are we not paying these people at least something while they are on standby? That seems fundamentally bizarre while we continue to pay some admin of questionable value very fat salaries.

Maybe I'm nuts, but if I ran a hospital, I'd cut all non-essential admin and divvy their salaries up and give them to docs and nurses I'd want to keep on standby.

I'd also give all the docs and nurses facing this thing in the ERs and ICUs enhanced pay. Nobody signs on for what they're seeing. They deserve every extra dollar we can throw at them.

Good stuff. Next, do CEO pay.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If I gave you a revolver with 100 chambers, 2 of which had bullets in them, would you play Russian Roulette to get some semblance of a life back?

Help me here- the 2% is of the people who are identified as infected- but the bulk of the cases are not reported. Mild cases are shrugged off- young people with a bad case are told to just stay home, and never reported. So really the 2% is of the people who get a case bad enough to go in? The actual death rate is likely much lower?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Help me here- the 2% is of the people who are identified as infected- but the bulk of the cases are not reported. Mild cases are shrugged off- young people with a bad case are told to just stay home, and never reported. So really the 2% is of the people who get a case bad enough to go in? The actual death rate is likely much lower?

In the US as of this morning, according to this Washington Post page, there have been 558,000 reported cases and 22,154 reported fatalities. Do the math, and that means that just shy of 4% of the reported cases have already resulted in fatalities. But, (1) more of those people are going to die, (2) we know there have been significant numbers of deaths that are in some real way attributable to Covid-19 that are not counted in those numbers, and (3) there are many people who had the virus who have not tested positive. Obviously, (1) and (2) would increase the 4% figure, and (3) would reduce it.

IIRC, the 2% figure came from studies in China and Korea where there was more more extensive testing, and where they were trying to solve for the unreported-mild-case thing that you are pointing to.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Good stuff. Next, do CEO pay.

Oh, I'm just getting started...

Clearly, our market is not efficiently allocating capital or wages. The CEO-as-premier-athlete structure is insane. These people are not worth what they are paid. And they get that pay at cost to essential people who are paid far less than they should receive.

Like nurses and doctors.

And investors? Oh my how we'll get to talk about them. But first, let's enjoy watching them burn as this market craters over the next few weeks.

There is no greater obvious perversion in our markets than the fact that GPs make less than some first years associates in law, let alone finance. It's indefensible. We'd better not forget that shit coming out of this mess.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

In the US as of this morning, according to this Washington Post page, there have been 558,000 reported cases and 22,154 reported fatalities. Do the math, and that means that just shy of 4% of the reported cases have already resulted in fatalities. But, (1) more of those people are going to die, (2) we know there have been significant numbers of deaths that are in some real way attributable to Covid-19 that are not counted in those numbers, and (3) there are many people who had the virus who have not tested positive. Obviously, (1) and (2) would increase the 4% figure, and (3) would reduce it.

IIRC, the 2% figure came from studies in China and Korea where there was more more extensive testing, and where they were trying to solve for the unreported-mild-case thing that you are pointing to.

I think as you wash the adjustments upward and downward, the deviation from 2% remains minimal.

But even if it were 4%, at what point does the balancing of interests dictate we follow "wave" rollout of workers to resume living their lives? ...People going back based on healthiest and youngest first, lesser aged and/or healthy groups following in three week increments, old with big co-morbidities last.

We need to do something like that or we are going to have a depression that kills 20X what this disease could kill.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Clearly, our market is not efficiently allocating capital or wages.

Wait, you're saying that markets don't always result in an optimum allocation of resources?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think as you wash the adjustments upward and downward, the deviation from 2% remains minimal.

The adjustments are from the 4% figure, not the 2% figure, and the point is that if you really want to know, you need to actually do some sort of study, which is where the 2% figure came from.

But even if it were 4%, at what point does the balancing of interests dictate we follow "wave" rollout of workers to resume living their lives? ...People going back based on healthiest and youngest first, lesser aged and/or healthy groups following in three week increments, old with big co-morbidities last.

We need to do something like that or we are going to have a depression that kills 20X what this disease could kill.

I'm a little amused at the idea that "we" can just decide that people should go back to work. It doesn't work like that, because people don't want to get sick and they don't want to die.

Also, assume that this disease kills 2% of the people who get it. And assume that "we" can just open up the country and that -- round, conservative numbers here -- 50% of the country gets the virus. So that's a death toll of 1% of the country. How do you get to the idea that the tanking economy is going to kill a fifth of the country?

eta: I guess what I'm implicitly saying is, when you throw numbers like that around, are you even thinking about them at all, or do you just something that sounds good in the moment?

[Hank Chinaski]

So there was an article in the NYT yesterday about being one of the recovered and how odd it is to walk around not worrying. Thing is there are likely millions more who don't know they are recovered. They could go back, EXCEPT we are too stupid to have tests. Yesterday a FB friend posted a home test kit his friend in Germany had mailed him. They are over the counter in pharmacies. What the fuck happened to this country?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The adjustments are from the 4% figure, not the 2% figure, and the point is that if you really want to know, you need to actually do some sort of study, which is where the 2% figure came from.



I'm a little amused at the idea that "we" can just decide that people should go back to work. It doesn't work like that, because people don't want to get sick and they don't want to die.

Also, assume that this disease kills 2% of the people who get it. And assume that "we" can just open up the country and that -- round, conservative numbers here -- 50% of the country gets the virus. So that's a death toll of 1% of the country. How do you get to the idea that the tanking economy is going to kill a fifth of the country?

eta: I guess what I'm implicitly saying is, when you throw numbers like that around, are you even thinking about them at all, or do you just something that sounds good in the moment?

20 x 20,154 = 443,080

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

So there was an article in the NYT yesterday about being one of the recovered and how odd it is to walk around not worrying. Thing is there are likely millions more who don't know they are recovered. They could go back, EXCEPT we are too stupid to have tests. Yesterday a FB friend posted a home test kit his friend in Germany had mailed him. They are over the counter in pharmacies. What the fuck happened to this country?

Apropos of which, this is in the NYT today:

https://twitter.com/KevinTCraig/stat...402207749?s=20

I read the article yesterday and found it odd that it just assumed immunity.

Pretty sure Stanford is close to a test that reveals whether you have it (which I read in SF Gate recently), and I'm sure others are too. We could have a federal government that does stuff like that, but a significant part of the population preferred the party run by a reality-TV star.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

20 x 20,154 = 443,080

At the risk of stating the obvious, "20X what this disease could kill" is a much bigger number than 'twenty times the number of reported deaths as of seven hours ago'.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Money is a commodity. And it should be spent wisely and fairly in this situation. I understand some admin is needed. But there are some admin making some pretty crazy salaries who are not as important as docs.

Here's why: If docs or nurses should be overwhelmed or get sick, the next line of people to bring into the hospital are other people with medical training. An orthopedic surgeon might not be the best replacement for an ER doc, but he's all you've got if all the ER docs are sick.

I know in our area nurses in specialty areas have been told if they should be needed, whatever their specialty, they'll be brought back out of furlough to deal with covid patients.

Why are we not paying these people at least something while they are on standby? That seems fundamentally bizarre while we continue to pay some admin of questionable value very fat salaries.

Maybe I'm nuts, but if I ran a hospital, I'd cut all non-essential admin and divvy their salaries up and give them to docs and nurses I'd want to keep on standby.

I'd also give all the docs and nurses facing this thing in the ERs and ICUs enhanced pay. Nobody signs on for what they're seeing. They deserve every extra dollar we can throw at them.

We are keeping our non-Covid-speciality docs in reserve should shit go sideways (it hasn't here yet). In the meantime, we're working on fast tracking a lot of initiatives that would have taken a year or more because docs are busy and getting meetings with them organized is hard. So your ENTs and ortho guys are now sitting in a lot more meetings than they would have had they been able to do stuff on patients.

As for admin people, more of them are on-site trying to keep this ship running than not. I can't imagine our environmental health and safety people have slept more than a few hours in a month. The communications staff as well, because every day something changes and we need to tell 15,000 people in a way that doesn't panic the shit out of them and THEN communicate with a public that is schizophrenic about how we should be reacting. We've had to totally launch a telemedicine practice in a three week period that would have taken a year or more. Our revenue cycle people are trying to figure out how to keep us afloat when no one is billing, plus the payment rules are changing with the new telehealth world we're living in. The procurement folk are trying to figure out ways of getting supplies in a way that doesn't bankrupt us but also keeps us safe. IT hasn't slept either, because of the telmedicine, the telework, everyone and their mother trying to get new software to get this shit going, and the strain on our systems of 8,000 new remote users.

And that's just the healthcare side of things. Research and education are also still a priority, and we are having to figure all of that shit out on the fly too.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The adjustments are from the 4% figure, not the 2% figure, and the point is that if you really want to know, you need to actually do some sort of study, which is where the 2% figure came from.



I'm a little amused at the idea that "we" can just decide that people should go back to work. It doesn't work like that, because people don't want to get sick and they don't want to die.

Also, assume that this disease kills 2% of the people who get it. And assume that "we" can just open up the country and that -- round, conservative numbers here -- 50% of the country gets the virus. So that's a death toll of 1% of the country. How do you get to the idea that the tanking economy is going to kill a fifth of the country?

eta: I guess what I'm implicitly saying is, when you throw numbers like that around, are you even thinking about them at all, or do you just something that sounds good in the moment?

I think the death rate isn't as important as the hospitalization rate. The drain on the resources is hospitalization. The pretty consistent figure I've seen is 20 percent get sick enough to warrant hospitalization. We turn them away, and that death rate starts to get much, much higher.