PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[JoeKitchen]

Your president's favourite swimming hole.

Well, cant debate with you there. 

But Twitter is most effective with hyperbole, so at least he understands it. 

[chez]

So true. And here in Spain as well. Every year (in terms of normal years) a couple of bars in my little area close down and somebody else takes them on, spends a lot of money redecorating, and then folds. Before they retired, a Spanish couple with whom we got on very well, told me that in Pollensa, there were 50 bars, and that that was why none could make good money. It's a very little town, and outwith the summer tourist season, you'd think it deserted, even though it certainly is not.

Today's British news informs that the brewing industry is 80% down over this period. I have a feeling that after this has passed, things will probably never be the same again. For a start, I believe that people will start to take health far more seriously, consider for the first time the many, many possible sources of infection, and no longer just take good health for granted.

I love to drop into a bar every day for a cup of coffee and a read of the newspapers kindly provided. I am missing simple things like that a great deal. But, will I just drift in again, wherever I happen to be at the time the urge strikes, and not wonder how well the cup has been washed, and who last drank from it? Though I long to be free of the kitchen, it may be a while after the official reopening of restaurants that I frequented before I actually return to them. I'm pretty sure I am not unique there.

Here liquor store sales are up 40%.

[elliot_n]

Recent antibody tests in a Dutch bloodbank suggest that just 3% of the population have had it.

Herd immunity is just a theoretical concept. It's possible that a Covid infection grants no longterm immunity.

Given how little we know about Covid, a policy of creating herd immunity is extremely reckless.

[Rob C]

China is running a dry run for world domination. They released the virus and sat back to watch just how fast the great Western democracies, beacons of freedom, will fall for tyrannical measures; testing how quickly the western population will clamour for fascism (90+% of Brits support forced house arrests???). How fast the sheeple will accept ankle bracelets, tracing, monitoring, forced extraction from homes, to "save lives." All good info for the Chinese. When the time comes. Soon in living rooms near you and inside your home.

I refuse Alexa entry.

[JoeKitchen]

Recent antibody tests in a Dutch bloodbank suggest that just 3% of the population have had it.

Herd immunity is just a theoretical concept. It's possible that a Covid infection grants no longterm immunity.

Given how little we know about Covid, a policy of creating herd immunity is extremely reckless.

So is letting the world economy collapse by staying inside for over a year.  Not to mention, it is almost always the case that you develop immunity if you catch a virus and survive. 


Anyway, I was coming here to post about this same story  because if you also increase the denominator in the case fatality equations to being 3% of the population of the Netherlands, the fatality rate goes down to 0.6%. 

From the assumed 11% to 0.6%, which is much lower then what we have been assuming by a factor of 20, and the fatality rate goes even lower for young people if you break it down by age. 

Using the fact that 3% have had it, the new rates for under 24, a fatality is 0%, and for 25 to 49 it is 0.1%

[John Camp]

It can not be millions of general population because there are actually more total 2018-2019 flu deaths than Covid.  So the flu line would be higher than the Covid line. The opposite is shown. Please explain that.

Alan, you're actually referring to the 2017-18 death totals. The 2018-19 death totals that you keep referring to are about 34,000 flu deaths. The 2019-2020 totals are not completely in yet. But the 60,000, which was by far the highest in the last decade, are two years ago, not the last full season.

Also, on the 15th of March, there were about 100 Covid deaths in the US. On the 15th of April, there were about 30,000. That's a one-month total, with near total shutdown during the latter part of that time to prevent the spread. You keep comparing full flu seasons, which run roughly from October to April, with December, January, February and March being the highest infection rates, with a one-month total. By the end of this month, the total may be close to 60,000, and that would be in a month and a half, not a full season. And that's with the shutdown and social distancing. Covid is not really comparable to the flu; it's far, far worse. 

[elliot_n]

So is letting the world economy collapse by staying inside for over a year.  Not to mention, it is almost always the case that you develop immunity if you catch a virus and survive. 


Anyway, I was coming here to post about this same story  because if you also increase the denominator in the case fatality equations to being 3% of the population of the Netherlands, the fatality rate goes down to 0.6%. 

From the assumed 11% to 0.6%, which is much lower then what we have been assuming by a factor of 20, and the fatality rate goes even lower for young people if you break it down by age. 

Using the fact that 3% have had it, the new rates for under 24, a fatality is 0%, and for 25 to 49 it is 0.1%

0.6% CFR seems a good estimate. That's still 2 million dead Americans if you let the virus rip.

[Rob C]

Trump claims that is where he does all his great thinking. Just hate to imagine what his not so great thinking is like.

That's not a fair way (no pun etc.) to put (sorry!) it: his great thinking is how hard to hit it to get it to go into the hole. That is a deep thought; all of a couple of inches deep.

[JoeKitchen]

0.6% CFR seems a good estimate. That's still 2 million dead Americans if you let the virus rip.

Sure, if you do not lock down older people. 

As I said before, lock the elderly and let the young out to work with common sense measures.  It makes not difference to the elderly but makes a huge difference for the young.   

[Rob C]

I have no idea where in HD either, as I usually dont shop there but it was listeed online.  I have seen the pillows in other department stores.

I just love pillow talk. Sweet memories.

[JoeKitchen]

I don't know how accurate this is, but I also heard that in NYC they are putting those who got this bad on their stomachs in the ICU and it is helping drastically. 

Armand, any thoughts? 

[elliot_n]

So is letting the world economy collapse by staying inside for over a year.

No-one is proposing a year-long lockdown. China did it in 7 weeks. Some European countries are opening up right now. For countries like the US and UK, things are more complicated, as their leaders wasted time in the early stages of the epidemic and let things run out of control. But it should be possible to start easing restrictions within a month or two.

[elliot_n]

As I said before, lock the elderly and let the young out to work with common sense measures.

That's exactly what's going to happen. Just have a little patience. Some of those common-sense measures require a degree of organisation.

[JoeKitchen]

No-one is proposing a year-long lockdown. China did it in 7 weeks. Some European countries are opening up right now. For countries like the US and UK, things are more complicated, as their leaders wasted time in the early stages of the epidemic and let things run out of control. But it should be possible to start easing restrictions within a month or two.

We dont have a month or two! 

22M people filed for unemployment in the last three weeks in the USA.  The 2nd place number is not even close. 

We need to get this back open again or we are looking at a total collapse that will, beyond doubt, kill many more then this virus.  Suicides, drug overdoese, domestic violence kiling both  wives and husbands (some women do poison their husbands). 

This is getting too serious to ignore. 

Got to love the arrogance of retirees and those still getting a pay check telling us free lancers how this is no big deal.  Give me a break!

[Rob C]

You can only tell them so many times...if they can't comprehend...just skip them.

Except that you can save yourself the nerve damage and vanish them from the face of your device. Life in LuLa is good, and good for you. Sounds vaguely familiar - and by another Klein, ironically enough. (So many ironies these days, as I remarked earlier this evening!)

:-)

[elliot_n]

(some women do poison their husbands). 

Don't tell Alan

[Jonathan Cross]

Earlier today Joe K wrote that he is not at risk.  How do you know  that Joe?  You may be at low risk, but I don't know how you can write that you are not at risk.  You could move about, meet people etc, and get it very mildly or asymptomatically, but could still infect.  If you infected someone who later died, I hope you could live with your conscience. 

The risk of infecting others is one concept people in the UK are mostly fully aware so complying with restrictions.  They are also aware of other consequences, e.g. how it will affect future work patterns  with far less travel to work and less pollution.  Also the demise of cash, as we are advised to use contactless cards instead.  We may even hug people less!

Jonathan

[chez]

Got to love the arrogance of retirees and those still getting a pay check telling us free lancers how this is no big deal.  Give me a break!

Sorry but we retirees had our own ups and down through life and now can sit and reminisce. Don't forget...it is us retires that have the most to lose to this virus while you young punks are out partying on the Florida coast.

Joe, surely you can survive on your cheese for a couple of months.

[Rob C]

Alan, the U.S. is broke like a man who owns a million dollar house, free and clear, but doesn't have any cash and so has to borrow. But he still has a million dollar house free and clear. If you draw a line down the 100th parallel in the US, most of the land west of that is owned by the federal government. It could, theoretically, be sold. And for trillions of dollars, if the government wanted to do that.

Here is a note from a federal website:

"BLM oversees 245 million surface acres of public lands for the American people. The agency manages 1 in 10 acres in the U.S., or about 12 percent of the landmass of the U.S. That's a little bit less than the size of Texas."

And that's just the BLM.

Another 193 million acres is controlled by the US forest service. Not quite as much as the BLM, but together, they're well past the size of Texas in landholdings. How much is Texas worth?

John, mine is only worth a little more than about a third of your hypothetical one, but the problem is as for the fatter cat. I can manage - just - for the time being, but if I live too long, then I have no recourse but to become a problem for my children, just when they were relaxing after helping to get their own kids up and flying high. It would come as a hell of an untimely shock to their systems! I am trying to find a sunny side to that, but see not even the silver lining.

But returning to America, and if it needed liquidity: would it be willing to sell some of that real estate to China or Iran, do, you think?

:-)

[Rob C]

Never said it was not a Chine only problem. 

Many place over built in the early 2000s.  Difference is China want totally bananas compared to other countries.

And I hope I didn't imply that you had; I was simply remarking that it is a sad tale of reckless high hopes gone sour.