Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Opening things up slowly, with the least likely to suffer health maladies, in the lesser impacted areas, does not risk blowing out the health care system. It's dipping a toe into the water.

To the extent it causes a few healthy people to be infected, it's a benefit. Each incremental increase in people with immunity helps to push us toward herd immunity.

Conversely, keeping everyone at home indefinitely forces us into a position where we are held prisoner, waiting for a vaccine.

You write this as if everyone is now sheltering in place and we are curbing the spread of the virus, when in fact it is still spreading and numbers are still growing. It would be easier to stomach your posture of hard truth-telling if you were really grappling with the hard truths.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

So do any of you use gloves? They just seem a way to spread the virus to everything you touch. At the market I'm bare handed grabbing stuff, disinfecting before I touch anything (say my debit card) that must stay clean. And I use a dog poop bag when entering my PIN. A dog poop bag seems better for what good a glove can do- not touching stuff that has lots pf people touching it- and the bag throws away easier.

Yeah, no gloves here. Happy to use Apple Pay so I don't have touch anything paying.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Yeah, no gloves here. Happy to use Apple Pay so I don't have touch anything paying.

Someone who sought out sewer restaurants must be devastated by this need to stay away from filth?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You write this as if everyone is now sheltering in place and we are curbing the spread of the virus, when in fact it is still spreading and numbers are still growing. It would be easier to stomach your posture of hard truth-telling if you were really grappling with the hard truths.

YMMV. Here, we could handle a few more disobedients to accelerate reaching herd immunity. The beaches in FL are an experiment in how the disease works in a more spread out community exposed to regular high temps and sunlight. An imperfect analogue for the mid-Atlantic in summer.

If you think this country survives as a functional democracy without an incremental loosening, I don’t know where you’re living. You seem to want to argue with me. Your argument is with reality, with the cards you are dealt.

I hear this refrain a lot: The economy will open when the virus says it can.

Okay. Let me restate that: In 60 more days, at full lockdown, there’ll be no economy, and people will be in the streets anyway, rioting. You’ll have widespread social unrest.

Remember how you wanted to protect lenders? Lock this shit for 60 more days and you can throw your business model out the window.

Clock’s ticking. Pick your devil.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

YMMV. Here, we could handle a few more disobedients to accelerate reaching herd immunity. The beaches in FL are an experiment in how the disease works in a more spread out community exposed to regular high temps and sunlight. An imperfect analogue for the mid-Atlantic in summer.

If you think this country survives as a functional democracy without an incremental loosening, I don’t know where you’re living. You seem to want to argue with me. Your argument is with reality, with the cards you are dealt.

I hear this refrain a lot: The economy will open when the virus says it can.

Okay. Let me restate that: In 60 more days, at full lockdown, there’ll be no economy, and people will be in the streets anyway, rioting. You’ll have widespread social unrest.

Remember how you wanted to protect lenders? Lock this shit for 60 more days and you can throw your business model out the window.

Clock’s ticking. Pick your devil.

I'll pick saving lives over saving lenders and credit ratings, thanks.

What's the economy going to be like when it's reopened, no one is buying shit and we have exponential growth in the death rate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhf9...lda0eWeOSuURdc

And you realize that countries with the earliest most severe lockdowns had low death rates and the ones that just fucked around have had skyrocketing death rates?

Really sorry if preserving life is inconvenient to someone's finances -- Just kidding Actually don't care who goes broke if we are saving lives.

The real problem is that this has never been a functional democracy. If you are rich and can weather the storm you'll get more. If not, here's a dollar, GFY.

And you use the words "herd immunity" like Thanos.

[Icky Thump]

You test, you test, you test. Symptomatic and asymptomatic.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...917-X/fulltext

Again, for those of you who have not been paying attention, the problem with this virus is asymptomatic transmission.

How did "herd immunity" work out for Boris Johnson and the UK? Double the death rate of the US!

[Icky Thump]

fRe3 Mureca

http://nypost.com/2020/04/13/virgini...f-coronavirus/

[sebastian_dangerfield]

I'll pick saving lives over saving lenders and credit ratings, thanks.

So would I. But guess who won't? Lenders.

What's the economy going to be like when it's reopened, no one is buying shit and we have exponential growth in the death rate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhf9...lda0eWeOSuURdc

I'd credit that guy a lot more if he'd put a date on when he thinks it'll be safe to relax lockdown strictures. But he's not. He's just making an argument of absolutes with no benchmarks. He argues that until we have a vaccine or a dependable treatment, we can't open. And in the next breath he suggests that people who want to relax directives are going to destroy the country.

What he misses is that if we wait for a vaccine or dependable treatment, we will destroy the country. He's full of strong sentiment, but not much logic or science.

And you realize that countries with the earliest most severe lockdowns had low death rates and the ones that just fucked around have had skyrocketing death rates?

Yes. I think a severe lockdown in my state saved lives. But that's not an argument for why, having now bent the curve, we shouldn't consider relaxing directives a bit and letting people resume their lives in small reversible increments over the next thirty or so days.

I'm only arguing we start dipping a toe in the water. This guy is arguing against the idiots protesting in Michigan. My argument is nothing like theirs.

Really sorry if preserving life is inconvenient to someone's finances -- Just kidding Actually don't care who goes broke if we are saving lives.

Who do you think goes broke here? Lenders? Eventually, yes, some. But not first. Here's how the cycle works. Assume we're talking about a dermatology clinic, or a restaurant. Assume as the guy in the video says, consumers don't show up for a few months.

1. Business defaults on lease;
2. Landlord w/o revenue defaults on mortgage;
3. Lender sues on mortgage;
4. Landlord sues business;
5. Business is closed, so landlord cannot recover anything;
6. Landlord goes bust and loses building;
7. Building is sold to bottom feeder backed by, if not a division of, private equity (private equity has $1.5 trillion in dry powder right now) as part of REO portfolio wholesaled by lender.

You can use this same spin cycle on the residential real estate side (single and multi-unit structures).

The problem is lenders. Lenders are blunt thinkers, employing blunt instruments. They don't care that the world has frozen because of a pandemic. They want their fixed payment, and if they don't get it, they seek their collateral.

Now, all of this could be fixed, and we could wait the necessary time we need to get to a vaccine or dependable treatment. But you know who will never wait out the time needed? Lenders. Wall Street. Private equity.

What I described above is exactly how Mnuchin, a talentless but connected kid of an ex-Goldman partner, made $400 million after the 2008 crash by throwing people out of their homes and flipping or renting them to others.

I'm not trying to save lenders or investors. You've heard me argue numerous times about a need for forgiveness or extended forbearance. I'm arguing for the people who are going to get killed here, which you accurately note are The Poor and Working Class.

Because lenders and private equity shits will not wait, businesses have to be opened sooner to shorten the time frame in which they cannot meet expenses. Sick as it sounds, we need consumers to be more aggressive and risky rather than neurotic. And if FL's beaches yesterday are an indication, it looks like a lot of them will be happy to oblige. Coupled with a decrease in virus spread accruing from warmer weather and UV light, a hopeful sentiment might buy businesses a boom in the summer to build up reserves for a potential second spike in the fall or winter. If we stay closed all summer and delay that boom into 2021, you don't want to live in this country anymore. It'll be ugly in a way Hollywood script writers can't imagine.

The real problem is that this has never been a functional democracy. If you are rich and can weather the storm you'll get more. If not, here's a dollar, GFY.

Agreed.

And you use the words "herd immunity" like Thanos.

It's a harsh reality, but thinking we can or will wait for a vaccine or a dependable treatment is delusional utopianism. Unless, of course, you know a way to stop Wall Street and private equity from turning this into a predator's bonanza. Do you? Are you aware of any policy that'll keep them from defaulting everyone they can and gobbling the assets at fire sale prices? Because that's what they're licking their chops and waiting to do right now.

Personally, I think a national renters' strike and mortgage strike would bring lenders and Wall Street to their knees and rob them of leverage. But the Prisoners Dilemma built into that makes it seem unlikely.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

You test, you test, you test. Symptomatic and asymptomatic.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...917-X/fulltext

Again, for those of you who have not been paying attention, the problem with this virus is asymptomatic transmission.

How did "herd immunity" work out for Boris Johnson and the UK? Double the death rate of the US!

Right. And a whole lot more people appear to have it than confirmed numbers suggest. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...iously-thought

There is also a good bit of limited thinking at work here:

1. People flip about about acute and sudden deaths but don't focus on deaths over time (9/11 effect; school shooting effect, etc.);
2. People are highly suggestible when shown doom porn, and the media is feeding them a steady diet of that: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4...d-help-reelect
3. Americans are generally confused by math: https://theconversation.com/math-mis...ovid-19-134520

The unknown denominator is a devil here. We know it's really fucking high based on all studies of controlled groups to date (the cruise ship was something like 50% asymptomatic). But we also know the death rate is under-reported, and adjustments in the numerator change findings more than small changes in the denominator.

But we know that even if there were a lot of covid deaths attributed incorrectly to other causes, it still was not a significant amount. You saw no news stories in January or February talking about strange upticks in deaths. You did hear stories about a nasty flu, but even then, the flu death numbers weren't unique.

We had to flatten the curve, and we have to protect doctors. But there is a much needed discussion about how long and to what extent such efforts have to be kept in place. And people need to get over this kneejerk emotional need to make everything an argument of absolutes. This is an argument about balancing things moving forward. Which is a very positive message. People screaming, "If we go back, we're doomed!" are not helping anything. The question is to what extent and in what fashion do we start wading back into the pool?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Right. And a whole lot more people appear to have it than confirmed numbers suggest. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...iously-thought

Everyone understands that the number of real cases much exceeds the number of reported cases, which was one of the main issues in The Atlantic piece I linked a few days ago. There seem to be some rather fundamental problems with the Stanford/Santa Clara study reported in the Guardian piece, which you can find discussed all over the place if you care to look.

There is also a good bit of limited thinking at work here:

1. People flip about about acute and sudden deaths but don't focus on deaths over time (9/11 effect; school shooting effect, etc.);
2. People are highly suggestible when shown doom porn, and the media is feeding them a steady diet of that: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4...d-help-reelect
3. Americans are generally confused by math: https://theconversation.com/math-mis...ovid-19-134520

I am old enough to remember six weeks ago when some of us were flipping out about what we were hearing from informed medical sources, and others of us were telling everyone that this is just flu. You can put that episode in your "limited thinking" files.

The unknown denominator is a devil here. We know it's really fucking high based on all studies of controlled groups to date (the cruise ship was something like 50% asymptomatic). But we also know the death rate is under-reported, and adjustments in the numerator change findings more than small changes in the denominator.

In other words, it's both the numerator and the denominator that are uncertain.

But we know that even if there were a lot of covid deaths attributed incorrectly to other causes, it still was not a significant amount. You saw no news stories in January or February talking about strange upticks in deaths. You did hear stories about a nasty flu, but even then, the flu death numbers weren't unique.

To the contrary, we have seen solid reporting that the actual deaths from the virus can be 10x the numbers of people who are tested, in places like Italy, Spain and New York.

And now more than .1% of the population of NYC is dead, which shows both that the disease is much deadlier than the flu and that it hasn't been circulating widely yet undetected in other parts of the country.

We had to flatten the curve, and we have to protect doctors. But there is a much needed discussion about how long and to what extent such efforts have to be kept in place. And people need to get over this kneejerk emotional need to make everything an argument of absolutes. This is an argument about balancing things moving forward. Which is a very positive message. People screaming, "If we go back, we're doomed!" are not helping anything. The question is to what extent and in what fashion do we start wading back into the pool?

"We" have been having this conversation, in the sense that "we", by which I mean both Icky and myself, have said you can't get anywhere close to normal until you have really widespread testing and the ability to isolate people who test positive and do contact tracing. That is "the fashion" in which we start wading into the pool. I'm more optimistic that this will happen in California than anywhere else in the country, because our infection rate seems to be low, our state and local authorities have done a good job, and it's pretty easy to stop people at the border and test them.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Everyone understands that the number of real cases much exceeds the number of reported cases, which was one of the main issues in The Atlantic piece I linked a few days ago. There seem to be some rather fundamental problems with the Stanford/Santa Clara study reported in the Guardian piece, which you can find discussed all over the place if you care to look.

. . .

To the contrary, we have seen solid reporting that the actual deaths from the virus can be 10x the numbers of people who are tested, in places like Italy, Spain and New York.

https://www.mdedge.com/dermatology/a...en-cruise-ship

If you use their adjustment for people who never experience symptoms, you get a roughly 1/5 increase in denominator. The denominator in the death/hospitalization ratios is many many multiples of the numerator. Italy has 180k cases and 24k deaths (rounded up). That's a thirteen percent death rate. 10X of that is impossible because that number of people, 240k, haven't died of all combined cuases in Italy during the entire time the virus has been present.

Here's the math: Italy has 60 million people. In 2019, deaths per 1000 residents were 10.56. Cite: https://www.macrotrends.net/countrie...aly/death-rate That means deaths per all 60 million residents in 2019 were just just over 60,000.

That's over a whole year. Covid has been savaging Italy for a quarter. So adjust the national death rate down to 15k. If Covid is killing 10X more than reported (143k [13k x 10 + 13k]), then it is killing nearly 10X more than all aggregate causes killing Italians during a typical quarter.

I don't have total deaths in Italy for this year so far, but that stat cannot be close to true.

And now more than .1% of the population of NYC is dead, which shows both that the disease is much deadlier than the flu and that it hasn't been circulating widely yet undetected in other parts of the country.

I'm not arguing the disease is not more deadly than the flu.

"We" have been having this conversation, in the sense that "we", by which I mean both Icky and myself, have said you can't get anywhere close to normal until you have really widespread testing and the ability to isolate people who test positive and do contact tracing. That is "the fashion" in which we start wading into the pool. I'm more optimistic that this will happen in California than anywhere else in the country, because our infection rate seems to be low, our state and local authorities have done a good job, and it's pretty easy to stop people at the border and test them.

I'd be optimistic about CA as well. And I'm optimistic for my state, as we have not even come close to maxing out medical capacity. Hence, I suggest we can incrementally, in a reversible fashion, introduce robust populations back into the work force in thin slices, in order of least likelihood to be hospitalized if infected. While also expanding testing. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. They are actually complimentary.

ETA: Also adjust US deaths (37k) to remove nursing home deaths (7k) and you have a death rate under 1% (30k v. 330mil US citizens): https://abcnews.go.com/Health/inside...ry?id=70225836

Italy is an old country (22% old to elderly) where people live in close quarters. It's more analogous to our nursing homes in many regards than our broader population, particularly in the cities in the north where it really got slammed, which tended to have uniquely old populations even in that country.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

. . .

If you use their adjustment for people who never experience symptoms, you get a roughly 1/5 increase in denominator. The denominator in the death/hospitalization ratios is many many multiples of the numerator. Italy has 180k cases and 24k deaths (rounded up). That's a thirteen percent death rate. 10X of that is impossible because that number of people, 240k, haven't died of all combined cuases in Italy during the entire time the virus has been present.

Here's the math: Italy has 60 million people. In 2019, deaths per 1000 residents were 10.56. Cite: https://www.macrotrends.net/countrie...aly/death-rate That means deaths per all 60 million residents in 2019 were just just over 60,000.

That's over a whole year. Covid has been savaging Italy for a quarter. So adjust the national death rate down to 15k. If Covid is killing 10X more than reported (143k [13k x 10 + 13k]), then it is killing nearly 10X more than all aggregate causes killing Italians during a typical quarter.

Covid has not been savaging Italy. Last I looked there were fewer than 250 cases for all of Calabria as an example. I think it hit hard in the North but not so bad elsewhere. Rerun your numbers focusing only on the Province where Milan is.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Covid has not been savaging Italy. Last I looked there were fewer than 250 cases for all of Calabria as an example. I think it hit hard in the North but not so bad elsewhere. Rerun your numbers focusing only on the Province where Milan is.

Good point. This raises another argument. Different areas of the country are able to dip their toe into resuming activities better than others.

NYC is screwed for a long time because it is densely populated. But CA and FL are not. (FL, despite widespread rejection of social distancing, only has 1400 deaths.*) My state in the burbs is not. Actually, even Philly has done pretty well.

Those of us who can wade back into normalcy, carefully, while testing, should be allowed to do so. And all of the money that is being sprayed around the entire country should instead be focused on the people who really need it in densely populated areas.

Our nonemergency healthcare service revenue stream is not abating. People still want the services, including the most elective of them. They keep calling and asking when they can get them. And they inform my suspicion that, while shit's not going to be normal for a long time, a very large portion of society who have not seen carnage like NYC are ready to lean into resuming their lives.

_________
* This may confirm the heat impact on Covid, but it's also because FL is a spread out state. If you look at who dies most frequently from this disease, aside from the old generally, it's people with compromised health living in densely populated areas.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"We" have been having this conversation, in the sense that "we", by which I mean both Icky and myself, have said you can't get anywhere close to normal until you have really widespread testing and the ability to isolate people who test positive and do contact tracing. That is "the fashion" in which we start wading into the pool. I'm more optimistic that this will happen in California than anywhere else in the country, because our infection rate seems to be low, our state and local authorities have done a good job, and it's pretty easy to stop people at the border and test them.

I don't know what I'm talking about with what follows, but it makes sense to me-

What I've heard is that when you have a pandemic there is a first spike. The goal to date has been to keep that as small as possible so that health care can cover it. Some places have done a better job than others. NYC and Detroit didn't do so well, but both seem to have leveled.

Everything I've heard is there will be subsequent, smaller peaks, and they will be more manageable. But everything I've heard is there will be more cases coming, regardless. Given the widespread numbers in the places that screwed up, I think you could make an argument their subsequent peaks might look better than the places that did a better job?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

. . .



https://www.mdedge.com/dermatology/a...en-cruise-ship

If you use their adjustment for people who never experience symptoms, you get a roughly 1/5 increase in denominator. The denominator in the death/hospitalization ratios is many many multiples of the numerator. Italy has 180k cases and 24k deaths (rounded up). That's a thirteen percent death rate. 10X of that is impossible because that number of people, 240k, haven't died of all combined cuases in Italy during the entire time the virus has been present.

Here's the math: Italy has 60 million people. In 2019, deaths per 1000 residents were 10.56. Cite: https://www.macrotrends.net/countrie...aly/death-rate That means deaths per all 60 million residents in 2019 were just just over 60,000.

That's over a whole year. Covid has been savaging Italy for a quarter. So adjust the national death rate down to 15k. If Covid is killing 10X more than reported (143k [13k x 10 + 13k]), then it is killing nearly 10X more than all aggregate causes killing Italians during a typical quarter.

I don't have total deaths in Italy for this year so far, but that stat cannot be close to true.

I said actual deaths from Covid "can be" 10x reported deaths, which has been true in specific places in Italy, Spain and New York, not that they are always that high.

I'm not arguing the disease is not more deadly than the flu.

Since it is more deadly than the flu, and there were not reports of an inexplicable uptick in flu-like deaths in January and February, that suggests it was not spreading widely during that time.

I'd be optimistic about CA as well. And I'm optimistic for my state, as we have not even come close to maxing out medical capacity. Hence, I suggest we can incrementally, in a reversible fashion, introduce robust populations back into the work force in thin slices, in order of least likelihood to be hospitalized if infected. While also expanding testing. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. They are actually complimentary.

Play this out. You ease up on social distancing and try to re-open some businesses. Infections rise and people get sick. They infect family, some of who are less robust. (In China, the biggest source of infections was family, so they forced people out of their homes into "hospitals" that were more about quarantining people than treating them.) Without testing, how to do you manage that spread? When you have the resulting spike in cases and deaths, how do you persuade people to go to the re-opened businesses? When people get sick at work, do they get to sue their employer? If so, how can a business afford to open? If not, how can a business persuade workers to work?

The number of reported cases in Pennsylvania has doubled in less than two weeks. Without any change, is there any reason to think it won't double again in the next two weeks? The number of deaths has doubled in the last week, without any change, is there any reason to think it won't double again soon? Why is this the right to accelerate those growth rates?

I'm more optimistic about California because we have had spread for longer, and because we are managing it better. Pennsylvania has nearly 4x the per capita death rate that we did, and things are getting worse faster. Also, once we get our testing program together, we can limit control to the state. There are already agricultural control checkpoints at the borders. Much harder to manage that in Pennsylvania.