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Strangest COVID-19 stuff you have witnessed


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On 6/5/2020 at 3:38 PM, ATXZJ said:

So far it seems nobody in the neighborhood has come down with covid, and they way these hens cackle, we'd know by now. 

That changed last night. Got an email from the country club stating three servers tested positive for covid. Pretty sure the blue hairs are proper shitting right now. 

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And to jump back to the “of course the case numbers are going up, but that is a function of testing...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/15/despite-trumps-claim-increase-new-coronavirus-cases-isnt-just-function-testing/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9

Nope, we’re hosed. Texas testing went up 5%, but our cases spiked by 50%+. So folks, this is not a function of testing, it is a function of infection. I’d hate to see what our actual numbers are.

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6 hours ago, AustinBike said:

 instead we have hit a plateau

Wasn't that the entire point of the lockdown? Flatten the curve to avoid overburdening hospitals? Isn't a plateau exactly what we want? We always knew that we couldn't stop it outright, just slow it down while a vaccine is worked on. A plateau means we succeeded in that purpose.
 

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Only if you believe that ~1000 deaths a day is an "acceptable number of deaths."

In reality the economy will not come back unless you do a good job of wiping out the virus. All those that screamed that we were killing the economy with the lockdown are about to find the uncomfortable truth - shutdown and reopen hurts. Shutdown, reopen, shutdown, reopen, shutdown, reopen REALLY huts a lot more.

Imagine you have a restaurant. You have to shut down for 60 days and then you reopen. If you can make it through that you'll probably be OK. But if you shut down for 60 days, open for 3 weeks, shut down for a week, open for 4 weeks, shut down for 2 weeks, etc. what happens? Your business goes under. We're seeing restaurants and bars temporarily re-closing because of COVID outbreaks. What happens to employees? Do suppliers get paid? What is the cost of short term shut downs? Customers eventually think the place is too dirty and give up on it.

We're going to learn, the hard way that reopening too soon was a mistake. 

1650490782_ScreenShot2020-06-16at7_16_38AM.thumb.jpg.1ecb757a742a64f874fae7562818db44.jpg

We did not "flatten the curve" we just pushed it to the right.

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1 hour ago, AustinBike said:

Only if you believe that ~1000 deaths a day is an "acceptable number of deaths."

In reality the economy will not come back unless you do a good job of wiping out the virus. All those that screamed that we were killing the economy with the lockdown are about to find the uncomfortable truth - shutdown and reopen hurts. Shutdown, reopen, shutdown, reopen, shutdown, reopen REALLY huts a lot more.

Imagine you have a restaurant. You have to shut down for 60 days and then you reopen. If you can make it through that you'll probably be OK. But if you shut down for 60 days, open for 3 weeks, shut down for a week, open for 4 weeks, shut down for 2 weeks, etc. what happens? Your business goes under. We're seeing restaurants and bars temporarily re-closing because of COVID outbreaks. What happens to employees? Do suppliers get paid? What is the cost of short term shut downs? Customers eventually think the place is too dirty and give up on it.

We're going to learn, the hard way that reopening too soon was a mistake. 

1650490782_ScreenShot2020-06-16at7_16_38AM.thumb.jpg.1ecb757a742a64f874fae7562818db44.jpg

We did not "flatten the curve" we just pushed it to the right.

*edit* Not trying to be an asshole here or anything so if I come across that way, it's not my intent and I apologize. Tone doesn't come across well on message boards and I've already edited a few things that I wrote poorly. I'm only trying to work through this thing like everyone else with as much data as possible. *edit*

You can't take one data point like Travis County and say everything is a disaster and we screwed up. That's not how stats works. I could just as easily give you the example of Presidio County with its 2 confirmed cases and 0 deaths and say we have absolutely zero issues with COVID at all. But that's just as bad as you only using Travis County. There will be data points with higher rates and there will be data points with lower rates and each of those data points will have their own slope trend. Anyone can cherry pick a single data point like you have with Travis County and make some claim that fits their agenda but again, that's not how statistics work.

Taking all data points, including the downward trends in NY, NJ, and PA shows the curve has been flattened. Hospitals are not even close to capacity right now and we've accomplished the flattening of the statistical curve of the nation as a whole. Are there a few hot spots popping up with positive slopes? Yes. Are there spots where infection was high but now have a negative slope? Yes. Are there spots where the infection is essentially zero? Yes.

I don't see another shutdown happening unless hospitals start to get overwhelmed which never happened in the first place outside of NYC. As for shutting down and reopening, I would much rather work and get paid for 30 days and then be off for 30 back and forth so at least I get paid half the time. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and I guarantee they would rather work half time rather than not at all. Although with the extended unemployment benefits and stimulus that changes things bit. Of course that's a whole other can of worms that I won't even get into.

Now could we have completely eradicated the virus if we had an oppressive government like China willing to completely forget about basic human rights and run a police state? Possibly. But I'd rather die of COVID right now that live under a government like that. I have first hand takes from many Chinese immigrants with whom I work and they have horror stories from their families back in China of what the CCP has done to "lock down" and eliminate the virus. Yet even with a police state and an oppressive regime, they still haven't succeeded. We are too free of a country to be able to lock things down like that whether you like it or not. It's just not who we are as Americans and what China can do will not work here. We would see mass revolt. You think the Floyd protests were bad? What do you think would happen if we suddenly had a CCP like police force locking things down for EVERYONE? 

So I guess we'll just buckle up and wait two weeks when the shit hits the fan, right? But you know what? I've been told to buckle up and just wait two weeks for 3 months now. I waited two weeks after the chicken littles screamed about kids on spring break causing the deaths of millions, then it was two weeks after everyone got together over Easter weekend when we would see massive deaths, then it was two weeks after Cinco de Mayo, then it was two weeks after Memorial Day weekend, then two weeks after the protests started.

The wait two weeks people have said that so many times over the past few months that "wait two weeks" is a running joke on the internet now. I still see a flat curve that is actually slightly decreasing in deaths per day in Texas. It's been 3.5 weeks since Memorial Day weekend and 2.5 weeks since the protests started. We opened up 7 weeks ago. There has been no massive spike on average for Texas. It is very possible the curve will tick back up a bit but I would be utterly shocked if we see massive increase in the death rate.


image.thumb.png.1cda5a3fae44e16c86729044b4626a28.png

Edited by quixoft
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13 minutes ago, quixoft said:


You can't take one data point like Travis County and say everything is a disaster and we screwed up. That's not how stats works. I could just as easily give you the example of Presidio County with its 2 confirmed cases and 0 deaths and say we have absolutely zero issues with COVID at all. 

We live in Travis county, we do not live in Presidio county. Their stats are important to their people, and our stats are unimportant to them.

Also, you are looking at a death chart to say that we have leveled off, when you look at an infections chart you see the problem. Deaths are a lagging indicator. Infections are on the way up.

1019282290_ScreenShot2020-06-16at8_46_11AM.thumb.png.ed40495ea3093b857f491a04cd9a180a.png

I don't see a "flattening" here

 

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5 minutes ago, AustinBike said:

We live in Travis county, we do not live in Presidio county. Their stats are important to their people, and our stats are unimportant to them.

Also, you are looking at a death chart to say that we have leveled off, when you look at an infections chart you see the problem. Deaths are a lagging indicator. Infections are on the way up.

1019282290_ScreenShot2020-06-16at8_46_11AM.thumb.png.ed40495ea3093b857f491a04cd9a180a.png

I don't see a "flattening" here

 

You are correct, deaths are a lagging indicator. But see the moving average death chart in my post above. The rate just isn't climbing right now and that's after 7 weeks of opening up, 6 weeks after Cinco, 3.5 weeks after Memorial Day, and 2.5 weeks after massive protests across the country(and in Travis County). I'm sure it will start increasing again but I don't believe it will be a huge spike.

Where are you getting your data? I like those charts and would like to dig in more. Always good to have more data sources.

 

Edited by quixoft
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Here are my sources:

Johns Hopkins (the Bible): https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html - this is where I pulled my chart from

Travis County Dashboard: https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/39e4f8d4acb0433baae6d15a931fa984

Travis County Stages and trending: https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3I7Mhv2Yfm5IHpPskLKc1DwYv2ZWjgnc71Zq7hJvtlHYwsHM9yifsgdkE#/0ad7fa50ba504e73be9945ec2a7841cb

Texas Hospitalization Dashboard: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/0d8bdf9be927459d9cb11b9eaef6101f

I am facing a surgery in 2 weeks and my wife is facing one in 6 weeks. The governor has already indicated that if the numbers keep going up, elective surgeries are at risk of being cancelled, so this issue is VERRRRRRRYYYYYYY personal to my family. This is not about a haircut or getting chips and salsa with a waiter.

I obsess on this stuff, maybe too much, because it is really important to me.

Note that the Johns Hopkins data is the best set of data that all of the experts agree to. People will try to parse it to help make their points, but that stuff is the Bible as far as most are concerned. I have my own concerns that Abbott and company are trying to soft-peddle the info. On one hand he has the national media (rightfully so) talking about the spike in infections. This is a real issue. So his counters are a.) we have lots of medical capacity (until we don't) and b.) look at how low our death rate is. Yes, death rate is lower in Texas, but what we are not seeing is "excess death rate data." If you look at all of the countries around the world you see a pretty flat average death rate and then a systematic huge spike. Some of this is COVID but some is just termed "excess death rate." No explanation beyond that. This is concerning.

There are few data points out there that point to Texas not being in bad shape right now. Cases went up by 52% in the last week or so, testing only went up ~5%. This shit is serious because we just don't have a good handle on it.

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Ok. I'll say it.

While everyone is laser focused on how our neighbors are going to kill us, does anyone wonder if this is a distraction so we don't look at the real problems? Is there any organization who can launch a pandemic that might be bad, but not that bad? Is there any way to blow it out of proportion? Who is mis-informing whom? Is there an organization who can start riots and destroy things? America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

Asking for a friend.

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12 minutes ago, JMR said:

America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

No matter what side of the fence you’re on and who you’re personally blaming for the bulk of these countless issues, we are a complete fucking train wreck right now. 

I am looking forward to exercising my right at the polls in November. 

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25 minutes ago, JMR said:

Ok. I'll say it.

While everyone is laser focused on how our neighbors are going to kill us, does anyone wonder if this is a distraction so we don't look at the real problems? Is there any organization who can launch a pandemic that might be bad, but not that bad? Is there any way to blow it out of proportion? Who is mis-informing whom? Is there an organization who can start riots and destroy things? America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

Asking for a friend.

I think if you hang out in the checkout lane of your local grocery store, you'll find various publications which can answer those questions for you.

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31 minutes ago, JMR said:

Is there any organization who can launch a pandemic that might be bad, but not that bad? Is there any way to blow it out of proportion? Who is mis-informing whom? Is there an organization who can start riots and destroy things? America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

America is dysfunctional. Canada must be looking over at us like people who are renting an apartment upstairs from a meth lab.

I think different groups always use crises as distractions from bigger issues. it's more complex than a simple conspiracy theory. it's a constantly changing, woven tapestry of BS that makes it hard to see how things are changing from one minute to the next. there is no smoke-filled room full of Jews, Illuminati, Antifa, Deep State, Q-Anon ... whatever tinfoil hat thing people tell themselves to make it simple enough to grasp.

I subscribe Shock Doctrine perspective though. it does not take an elaborate conspiracy theory to see that people with wealth and power use crises to expand their reach, whether that is a government, an industry, an organized ideological interest group, etc. that's where we need to look.

big pharma will use this to their advantage when they corner one aspect or another of the medical market and after fighting for access to life-giving treatments as the cost of lives and livelihoods for anyone who has two pennies to rub together. corporations will use this to break unions, push out small businesses and saddle borrowers with extraordinary debt. governments will create new forms of control and not relinquish them until a militant cadre of activists demand the power back. anti-science conspiracy nuts will sell ammo, snake oil cures, and books by peddling crazy theories fueled by the same debunked John Birch Society nonsense they keep using.

Edited by mack_turtle
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28 minutes ago, JMR said:

Ok. I'll say it.

While everyone is laser focused on how our neighbors are going to kill us, does anyone wonder if this is a distraction so we don't look at the real problems? Is there any organization who can launch a pandemic that might be bad, but not that bad? Is there any way to blow it out of proportion? Who is mis-informing whom? Is there an organization who can start riots and destroy things? America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

Asking for a friend.

I said something similar to this in response to a post of yours similar to this one months ago. I'm not even ruling out that the virus was man made and escaped from a lab. That's a different layer of this onion that I know I'm not qualified to speculate on. However, the idea that the coronavirus was somehow targeted at America for political reasons is inefficient at best. How do you think that back room planning session went?

Evil Leader: "What we need is a distraction so that we can bring chaos to America."

Mad Scientist: "Great idea! How about a new disease? One that's bad, but not tooo bad. My scientists have just cooked up the perfect virus in the lab."

Evil Leader: "Fantastic! Now all we need to do is go to China and unleash it in a market."

Mad Scientist: "Wait, what? China? We're targeting America here. How about NYC or LA or..."

Evil Leader: "No. China. They will never suspect our plot if it starts halfway around the world."

Mad Scientist: "But what if China isolates it before it reaches global pandemic levels and makes its way over to the U.S.? What about all the other countries it will infect? What if the U.S. sees it coming for months in China and other countries and then effectively bands together as a nation through strong leadership to enact a preventative plan of action to prevent it from becoming a big issue?"

All: (several minutes of hysterical laughter)

Mad Scientist: (wiping tears of laughter from his eyes) "Ok, I was just joking about that last one."

Evil Leader: "Great! So, it's settled then. I need to pick up some fresh bat and pangolin while we're there."

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19 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

 there is no smoke-filled room full of Jews, Illuminati, Antifa, Deep State, Q-Anon

What if there is? All I can say is that I've never seen @TAF and batboy in the same room. Coincidence?

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20 minutes ago, notyal said:

I said something similar to this in response to a post of yours similar to this one months ago. I'm not even ruling out that the virus was man made and escaped from a lab. That's a different layer of this onion that I know I'm not qualified to speculate on. However, the idea that the coronavirus was somehow targeted at America for political reasons is inefficient at best. How do you think that back room planning session went?

Evil Leader: "What we need is a distraction so that we can bring chaos to America."

Mad Scientist: "Great idea! How about a new disease? One that's bad, but not tooo bad. My scientists have just cooked up the perfect virus in the lab."

Evil Leader: "Fantastic! Now all we need to do is go to China and unleash it in a market."

Mad Scientist: "Wait, what? China? We're targeting America here. How about NYC or LA or..."

Evil Leader: "No. China. They will never suspect our plot if it starts halfway around the world."

Mad Scientist: "But what if China isolates it before it reaches global pandemic levels and makes its way over to the U.S.? What about all the other countries it will infect? What if the U.S. sees it coming for months in China and other countries and then effectively bands together as a nation through strong leadership to enact a preventative plan of action to prevent it from becoming a big issue?"

All: (several minutes of hysterical laughter)

Mad Scientist: (wiping tears of laughter from his eyes) "Ok, I was just joking about that last one."

Evil Leader: "Great! So, it's settled then. I need to pick up some fresh bat and pangolin while we're there."

image.jpeg.ff4dcd3dd0a9fe7b2784fd4ba1bcf529.jpeg

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"The approach that has been taken by Sweden is being duplicated by default"

 

Good timing on this release from Dr Campbell discussing the Swedish model and its results. Also dives into the same scenario applied in a "hypothetical" country of 328.2 million people that's duplicating this methodology by default, and what that looks like. This what I've been saying was in our leaders planning all along. 

Started the video from that particular model discussion but the the whole thing is worth a listen if you have the time.

Edited by ATXZJ
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45 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

America is dysfunctional. Canada must be looking over at us like people who are renting an apartment upstairs from a meth lab.

I play ice hockey and a whole lot of my friends are Canadians either with dual citizenship or on work visas. We've had many conversations about this and they are just as dysfunctional as we are. We just don't hear about it because we have our own issues all over the news.

They have a long history of racism and oppression of the First Nations people, Quebec demands secession every so often and hates every non French Canadian and would love to put tariffs on goods running down the St Lawrence through Montreal. Alberta(politics similar to Texas) hates BC(politics similar to Cali) and vice versa. There is a huge issue with those two and oil pipelines. BC and Alberta were actually in a trade war with each other over expansion of oil pipelines. BC is limiting oil so Alberta stopped importing BC wine. 

The Canadian government is stepping in and is taking over the pipeline now. State owned energy always works, right? *cough*Venezuela*cough*. But Alberta also has a secessionist movement because they are a rich province(due to oil) which subsidize other provinces social issues like Quebec and the maritime provinces. Now with the national government taking over the pipeline stuff that will intensify. 

I have two teammates from Winnepeg and Edmonton, two from Toronto, and one from Montreal. They all argue with each other about the same stupid shit we do. One thing they all agree on, they all hate Trudeau. 

The US will always be dysfunctional simply because we are a very heterogenous country demographically. We have so many diverse races, religions, cultures, etc and there will always be some friction there. The countries people like to point out as succeeding in health care/politics/culture/whatever are almost always very homogenous when it comes to race/religion/culture and they also have very small populations.

A heterogenous country of 330 million will always have more issues than a homogenous country of 15 million.


 

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1 hour ago, notyal said:

I said something similar to this in response to a post of yours similar to this one months ago. I'm not even ruling out that the virus was man made and escaped from a lab. That's a different layer of this onion that I know I'm not qualified to speculate on. However, the idea that the coronavirus was somehow targeted at America for political reasons is inefficient at best. How do you think that back room planning session went?

Evil Leader: "What we need is a distraction so that we can bring chaos to America."

Mad Scientist: "Great idea! How about a new disease? One that's bad, but not tooo bad. My scientists have just cooked up the perfect virus in the lab."

Evil Leader: "Fantastic! Now all we need to do is go to China and unleash it in a market."

Mad Scientist: "Wait, what? China? We're targeting America here. How about NYC or LA or..."

Evil Leader: "No. China. They will never suspect our plot if it starts halfway around the world."

Mad Scientist: "But what if China isolates it before it reaches global pandemic levels and makes its way over to the U.S.? What about all the other countries it will infect? What if the U.S. sees it coming for months in China and other countries and then effectively bands together as a nation through strong leadership to enact a preventative plan of action to prevent it from becoming a big issue?"

All: (several minutes of hysterical laughter)

Mad Scientist: (wiping tears of laughter from his eyes) "Ok, I was just joking about that last one."

Evil Leader: "Great! So, it's settled then. I need to pick up some fresh bat and pangolin while we're there."

When is the next episode?  This is like Archer!

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As a side note, while we definitely have our issues in America, it's still a place people want to be. I mentioned earlier about my Chinese coworkers. One of my teammates(we are software engineers) emigrated from China when he was 18. He busted his ass and learned English in his late teens because he wanted to fit in and didn't want to be an immigrant who native Americans couldn't understand. His English is better than mine. He's still self conscience when he misses a slang reference or local idiom.

Through all this COVID, protests, racism, angry politics, etc he just loves America. For the protests, he was actually giddy about it and said something to the effect of "The Chinese government is a far far worse oppressor than anything Americans have ever experienced. These people protesting would be suppressed in China very violently. I'm so happy to be in a place now where I can actually protest something important to me. America is still the golden land for many of us from certain countries and I don't think Americans actually realize they are doing much better than most of the world. Even the poor Americans get support here. You don't want to be poor in China. Poor people in China and their children are de facto slaves."

I'm paraphrasing that because I obviously can't remember verbatim.  I actually laughed about his comment that "even poor Americans get support" considering our wealth divide and homeless issues but when he discussed being poor in China in depth I got a whole new perspective on what being poor really is. Many of my Indian coworkers on visas have the same feelings.

So while America can definitely do better as whole and clearly we have work to do in order to improve our country, we are still a shining light for a whole lot of people that have it much worse than us. Perspective matters a lot.

After writing that I feel like I need to put this gif here now...

BlushingAgileKoala-size_restricted.gif

Edited by quixoft
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2 hours ago, JMR said:

 America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

What I should've said was, "America seems pretty dysfunctional when viewed through the lens of a news camera."

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3 hours ago, JMR said:

Ok. I'll say it.

While everyone is laser focused on how our neighbors are going to kill us, does anyone wonder if this is a distraction so we don't look at the real problems? Is there any organization who can launch a pandemic that might be bad, but not that bad? Is there any way to blow it out of proportion? Who is mis-informing whom? Is there an organization who can start riots and destroy things? America seems pretty dysfunctional to the outside looking in.

Asking for a friend.

The Astros are really, really, pulling some strings to make everyone forget about their scandal. And it's working. Watch them get to keep the title.

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