Objectively intelligent.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I've had one bottle of decent Calabrese red, but not in Italy. In Calabria, in Caulonia the local wine is so bad, my cousins pour Sprite in it.

I can't figure out why they persist. Those fields would grow many other things phenomenally well, why drink bad wine?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I can hold forth on numerous topics, foods, art, sports, but I am a terrific Philistine when it comes to wine.

I'll tempt your gag reflex by admitting I was quite happy to enjoy Conundrum rose blend sparkling wine with dinner last nite.

I can tell good from bad, and my folks were wine nuts when I was a kid, so I've tried many decent ones. It's just never excited my palate. The complexities aren't lost on me, but do find myself incapable of astonishment with even the finest stuff.

I also hate the wine hangover. Nothing worse.

Good whisky, OTOH, I could taste and assesses the nuances of endlessly.

I feel sorry for you, but thank you for supporting the wine industry and giving them something to do with the bad grapes.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I can't figure out why they persist. Those fields would grow many other things phenomenally well, why drink bad wine?

I Calabresi sono teste dure.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Is 'locked down to eliminate" realistic? Australia did a great job and was ready to reopen. Now Melbourne is under very strict lock-down. I just don't see an end that way.

As to reinfection, there are about 24 million cases so far Worldwide. If reinfection were going to be a real danger wouldn't there be no question by now, and thousands of reinfections?

Locking down to eliminate is impossible. Sooner or later, you have to open up again. There will be deaths. Lots and lots of deaths. There's just no way around that. NZ is a test case in this sort of thinking. If a vaccine comes to markets and it works within the next year, NZ will be able to acquire it and will have avoided many deaths. If a vaccine does not work, NZ will be left with a nasty choice:

1. Open and deal (with the disadvantage of being farther behind other nations that have at least theoretically started acquiring herd immunity);
2. Become a hermit state

There is no hide until it's safe way out of this thing. I don't know why people insist that's an option. Live your life, take precautions to keep yourself and others safe, and hope you don't have a bad result if you happen to acquire it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I feel sorry for you, but thank you for supporting the wine industry and giving them something to do with the bad grapes.

I didn't say I wasn't trying to surmount my handicap. I remain doggedly determined to do so by repeated consumption of various grades of wine. Someday, I have faith, I will overcome.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Locking down to eliminate is impossible. Sooner or later, you have to open up again. There will be deaths. Lots and lots of deaths. There's just no way around that. NZ is a test case in this sort of thinking. If a vaccine comes to markets and it works within the next year, NZ will be able to acquire it and will have avoided many deaths. If a vaccine does not work, NZ will be left with a nasty choice:

1. Open and deal (with the disadvantage of being farther behind other nations that have at least theoretically started acquiring herd immunity);
2. Become a hermit state

There is no hide until it's safe way out of this thing. I don't know why people insist that's an option. Live your life, take precautions to keep yourself and others safe, and hope you don't have a bad result if you happen to acquire it.

How are we this far into this and still this unsophisticated in our thinking? You lock down to control community spread, then reopen with testing and contact tracing (ETA: I left out isolating those who may have been exposed) so that you have minimal continual spread. New Zealand and Australia are examples. They can't keep it out entirely, but they have tiny fraction of the cases of places like the US who have done next to nothing.

ETA: Nowhere is on a meaningful path to herd immunity, which we still don't know is even possible. This virus seems to fit in a spot where it's not transmissible enough to quickly spread through the population and not deadly enough to burn itself out. Dr. Osterholm has been suggesting that we may need to think about this as more like HIV than influenza (i.e., so transmissible that it peaks and then dies down because there are no more people to infect) for awhile. That means continuing efforts to manage the spread until there is a vaccine.

We missed out opportunity for that to mean mostly open with masks, temperature screens, testing, tracing and isolation, because we didn't take it seriously for month when we had the chance.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

How are we this far into this and still this unsophisticated in our thinking? You lock down to control community spread, then reopen with testing and contact tracing so that you have minimal continual spread. New Zealand and Australia are examples. They can't keep it out entirely, but they have tiny fraction of the cases of places like the US who have done next to nothing.

Right. And if they get a vaccine in near term, that approach will have worked. If not, they must remain in some form of hyper-vigilance/lockdown indefinitely. How's that going to work out for them?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Right. And if they get a vaccine in near term, that approach will have worked. If not, they must remain in some form of hyper-vigilance/lockdown indefinitely. How's that going to work out for them?

But they aren't. (See, also, Germany). They're mostly open and normal, except where they have to, sometimes only locally, lock down again for a bit to control community transmission again.

There are examples all over the world - including China - where things are mostly reopened with precautions, because they locked down enough to control community spread and then tested, traced and isolated.

We didn't, so we're still in uncontrolled community spread. Too many people have it and are spreading for us to be able to contact trace and isolate. We are a failure.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

But they aren't. (See, also, Germany). They're mostly open and normal, except where they have to, sometimes only locally, lock down again for a bit to control community transmission again.

There are examples all over the world - including China - where things are mostly reopened with precautions, because they locked down enough to control community spread and then tested, traced and isolated.

We didn't, so we're still in uncontrolled community spread. Too many people have it and are spreading for us to be able to contact trace and isolate. We are a failure.

There is no "we" here. Certain areas here have experienced wide community spread. Others have not.

I'm right next two two of the biggest hotbeds of Covid when it first appeared. Our governor imposed a strong lockdown and life here has pretty much gone on with minimal interruption (even during the lockdown).

Florida, OTOH, chose a different path, and, well... we know how that worked.

We were never going to be able to contact trace adequately in a country this large. China was only able to do it because it's authoritarian and could control its population within the cities where the virus appeared.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

There is no "we" here. Certain areas here have experienced wide community spread. Others have not.

I'm right next two two of the biggest hotbeds of Covid when it first appeared. Our governor imposed a strong lockdown and life here has pretty much gone on with minimal interruption (even during the lockdown).

Florida, OTOH, chose a different path, and, well... we know how that worked.

We were never going to be able to contact trace adequately in a country this large. China was only able to do it because it's authoritarian and could control its population within the cities where the virus appeared.

We were never going to be able to do it because our leadership didn't even try to deal with this.

Yes, timing was going to vary be state. There was zero reason for response criteria to do so as well. Actual leadership would have avoided Florida and Sturgis being cross-border super spreaders, but the coward in the White House thought he would be better off trying to avoid accountability.

Yes, our size and diversity makes it a much bigger task, and we may still have not done very well, but we - meaning our federal leadership - did not try.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

But they aren't. (See, also, Germany). They're mostly open and normal, except where they have to, sometimes only locally, lock down again for a bit to control community transmission again.

There are examples all over the world - including China - where things are mostly reopened with precautions, because they locked down enough to control community spread and then tested, traced and isolated.

We didn't, so we're still in uncontrolled community spread. Too many people have it and are spreading for us to be able to contact trace and isolate. We are a failure.

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...ules-explained the entire city of Melbourne has an evening curfew and you are not allowed to travel more than 5km from one's home. You can run as an example, but must stay with 5km. I mean that's fine for Penske, but I go longer.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

We were never going to be able to do it because our leadership didn't even try to deal with this.

Yes, timing was going to vary be state. There was zero reason for response criteria to do so as well. Actual leadership would have avoided Florida and Sturgis being cross-border super spreaders, but the coward in the White House thought he would be better off trying to avoid accountability.

Yes, our size and diversity makes it a much bigger task, and we may still have not done very well, but we - meaning our federal leadership - did not try.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...ules-explained the entire city of Melbourne has an evening curfew and you are not allowed to travel more than 5km from one's home. You can run as an example, but must stay with 5km. I mean that's fine for Penske, but I go longer.

Everyone here wears masks and behaves. We're a shit state, but at least we've some common sense and decency toward one another. And so things are working well for us.

If another state decides it wants to eschew masks and open parks and bars, it'll learn the hard way.

The argument we'll need some massive lockdown again, or that we should have some massive lockdown to save lives is a canard. "We" here in my area do not need to do that. If your area is filled with selfish science-deniers, and consequently, you've outbreaks, that's your problem. I'm sorry for you. But don't suggest I should curtail my lifestyle because your neighbors can't behave themselves, or as a part of some mass tracing experiment.

[Hank Chinaski]

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.

he dismantled Obama's pandemic teams didn't he?

My governor is likely tied with Cuomo for "most-hated by Trump" for her covid responses. She did well, at first, in communicating- we have to flatten the initial spike so hospitals can deal with the cases. Meanwhile EVERYONE I heard was saying then hope it stays low boil. We did a good job in Michigan after a sharp early spike. And now we are among the best, at least on covidactnow.org But when new cases went up form 200/day to 400/day after reopening she keeps threatening going back. Our ICU occupancy remains around 13%. Meanwhile she articulates no end game. I mean if we are going to put all bars and restaurants out of business with repeated on/off lockdowns let's just get it over with.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Right. And if they get a vaccine in near term, that approach will have worked. If not, they must remain in some form of hyper-vigilance/lockdown indefinitely. How's that going to work out for them?

Neither country is locked down. Is "hyper-vigilance" like paying attention to what's going on around you, but without your head stuck up you ass, like so many Americans? I'm not sure what you think is bad about hyper-vigilance, but it doesn't sound like a huge problem to me.