PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[LesPalenik]

Alan, I'm not apologetic...just pointing out many are ignorant on what Cuba is truly about and only know what the US propoganda machine feeds them.

As far as Castrol goes, I was there when he died. There were hordes of people crying in the streets. Maybe your view of the man is again painted by propoganda you've been fed.

Let's talk about killing people ad Vietnam and 50,000 dead soldiers.

Yes, it is surprising that there are Cubans who adored and mourned Fidel. Of course, there are even more who hated him.
I have a Cuban friend who immigrated to Canada about 10 years ago with her grown up son and daughter. Actually the kids came first and then they sponsored their mother.
When the daughter with her husband arrived to Canada, she cried with joy - "Great to be finally in Canada -  from now on, I won't have to see Fidel and lizards anymore". She hated both with passion. She never went back, not even for a visit.

To conclude the story, about five years ago, the kids sponsored also their father to Canada (the parents were divorced). He came, stayed here for a few months and then decided to go back to Cuba. I never learned the exact reasons why he returned.

[JoeKitchen]

How did you arrive at as much as a factor of 20?

As much as, not necessarily 20.

I have read in a couple places that is the high amount that known actual cases could be off by.  Most are saying 10 probably, but could be as high as 20.

[chez]

I don't know. You said you had cancer, went to three different doctors, and they advised three different courses of treatment. Maybe under a different system, there might not be so much confusion.

Cancer is a huge business and peddling chemotherapy is at the heart of it. Huge profit margins are made from chemo and its pushed by oncologists as their gravy train. That to me is the biggest issue with private medicines...money comes first...patients health last.

[JoeKitchen]

Yes basic math...but your graph reading skills are lacking. The graph is of actual deaths...not a rate.

The y-axis is labeled deaths per million.  They did not say per million what?  Is it to the USA population, which we know, or to the confirmed cases. 

Really, I'm just trying to save face here.   

Furthermore, I would like to know the health status and ages of those deaths.  Like I said before, as young healthy persons, my wife and I are not scared of this virus at all and would rather just get out there and start working. 

[Paulo Bizarro]

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 think you need to do better than that plot, even low budget movies fare better...

[Alan Klein]

Alan, you said you are scared to go out because the virus is still rampant in your area. How do you think a dentist might feel looking down the mouths of dozens of people everyday not knowing which ones have the virus. If I was a dentist and got the order today that we are opening up the economy...I'd say FU...I'm not sticking my head down people's throats until I know they are not infected.

You missed the part of my underline where they said, "The safety and well-being of our patients continue to be our primary concern. "

How do they do that by staying closed?  I will admit that they have a phone number for emergencies.  What do they do then?   My question is, how are doctors going to care for their patients?  Do they have any intention or should they just say upfront that we're on our own.  Sending a self-serving email that looks good but provides no services is, well, self serving. What they're really saying is, look, we're not going to risk ourselves taking care of your medical needs.  But please don't forget about us when this is over even if we passed the buck.  Better if they sent nothing rather than feeding us a line of BS. 

How are cancer patients getting their chemo treatments?  Are they suppose to die?  Don;t doctors take oaths?  Or is it just about big paychecks?  Why can hospital workers, EMT, police etc.  sacrifice for peanuts, and high paying doctors and dentists tell us we're on our own.  Why don;t they suit up in PPE to protect themselves and provide services? Their assistants could do the same.  They could pay for a service to come in once a day to sterilize and do sterilizations between patients, a lot better than what happens in an emergency ward at a hospital.  After all, the State, that is the people, our society,  license these people and give them special privileges where they earn a lot of money  They should act responsibly.  Governors should demand they fulfill them or have their licenses revoked.  How many nurses are telling their hospital administrators they're not coming in because its dangerous?  Shouldn't we have the same expectations from our medical and dental practitioners?

[Paulo Bizarro]

So you'd give up American protection for Chinese authority?  I don't think so.

Protection... right...

[Alan Klein]

That graph is actual deaths that are tallied. I believe the actual deaths caused by Covid is higher than what is officially tallied.

Until you get accurate tallies of those who contracted the disease but didn't die, the rate of deaths cannot be accurately determined.

[Alan Klein]

I don't know. You said you had cancer, went to three different doctors, and they advised three different courses of treatment. Maybe under a different system, there might not be so much confusion.

Yeah.  I might be dead.

[Paulo Bizarro]

The USA is broke.  Even before the virus, we had a one trillion dollar deficit. Now, because of the virus, we'll be printing upwards of $6 trillion dollars.  This will become debt and reduce the purchasing power of the US dollar.  Savings retirees have worked their entire lives for will become worth half its value.  Social Security payments might be cut, or more likely, the government will just print more dollars to pay for it devaluing its purchasing power even more.  When the Senate votes 96-0 to print money, you know they're in no mode to cut Social Security and Medicare and other benefits Americans take for granted.  In this way, we're not much different than Europe.  We all want something for nothing.

Portugal is broke too, our debt is 120% of GDP. The IMF estimates that it will go up after this to 135%. Italy's will go up to 156% of GDP. We have been in dire times before, like 10 years ago when the fat cats in USA crashed the market to get their big bonuses. Portugal borrowed 75,000,000 euros then, it's all been paid now, and in 2019 we had a superavit for the first time.

People are just trying not to die from the virus now.

[Rob C]

Glad to hear you are content with your life.

I’ve lived in four countries on two continents and visited 30+ other counties (twice to Cuba). Also lived in three and visited 36 other US states.

My career in corporate finance, or rat race if you will, was ruined in the 2008 crisis and never recovered. Took early retirement and moved back to my home country, where my Social Security check stretches much further. Generally also content with my life.

And whom would you hold responsible for 2008 and ruining your life? Cuba? China? Iran?

:-)

[faberryman]

You missed the part of my underline where they said, "The safety and well-being of our patients continue to be our primary concern. "

How do they do that by staying closed?  I will admit that they have a phone number for emergencies.  What do they do then?   My question is, how are doctors going to care for their patients?  Do they have any intention or should they just say upfront that we're on our own.  Sending a self-serving email that looks good but provides no services is, well, self serving. What they're really saying is, look, we're not going to risk ourselves taking care of your medical needs.  But please don't forget about us when this is over even if we passed the buck.  Better if they sent nothing rather than feeding us a line of BS. 

How are cancer patients getting their chemo treatments?  Are they suppose to die?  Don;t doctors take oaths?  Or is it just about big paychecks?  Why can hospital workers, EMT, police etc.  sacrifice for peanuts, and high paying doctors and dentists tell us we're on our own.  Why don;t they suit up in PPE to protect themselves and provide services? Their assistants could do the same.  They could pay for a service to come in once a day to sterilize and do sterilizations between patients, a lot better than what happens in an emergency ward at a hospital.  After all, the State, that is the people, our society,  license these people and give them special privileges where they earn a lot of money  They should act responsibly.  Governors should demand they fulfill them or have their licenses revoked.  How many nurses are telling their hospital administrators they're not coming in because its dangerous?  Shouldn't we have the same expectations from our medical and dental practitioners?

You ask so many questions I don't even know where to start, so let me just say that if you are not happy with your current dentist, find another one. The free market and all that.

[Alan Klein]

Second that. 

Just wait until you start figuring out the differences between tilts and swings on the front vs. rear standard, and trying to figure out using those on both will effect the image. 

It's worse than that with my Chamonix.  It comes with asymmetrical tilts.  But only on the rear standard.  So that works nice until the axis lines doesn't line up with the far focus point.  Then you switch to the front standard for tilts and do traditional DOF focusing through a few iterations. At least with medium format, I just calculate the best aperture for the best DOF and stop down one more stop for good measure.  I might not get as good DOF as with LF.  But then again I don't get a headache. 

[JoeKitchen]

Listening to a Hoover podcast, using CDC stats here are the total deaths from C-19 by age group from February 1st to last April 11th in USA:

Under Age 1: 0 deaths
Age 2 to 4: 2 deaths
5 to 14: 1 death
15 to 24: 13 deaths (btw over 5000 deaths in this age group total have occurred over this period)
25 to 34:  113 (out of 11,000 total deaths in this period)
35 to 44: 289 (out of 16,000 total deaths)
45 to 54: 751 (out of 30,500 total)
55 to 64: 1773 (out of 74,000)
65 to 74: 2900 (out of ~115,000)
75 to 84: 3576 (out of 144,000)

So, like I said, you old farts should certainly stay locked up, which is not going to hurt the economy. 

However, if you're below 45, the chances of you dying form this are near 0.  Even at  45 to 54 you still have a very great chance of not dying. 

Let young people get back out there and start working!  Dont be arrogant boomers and think you know best for everyone, because you dont. 

[JoeKitchen]

It's worse than that with my Chamonix.  It comes with asymmetrical tilts.  But only on the rear standard.  So that works nice until the axis lines doesn't line up with the far focus point.  Then you switch to the front standard for tilts and do traditional DOF focusing through a few iterations. At least with medium format, I just calculate the best aperture for the best DOF and stop down one more stop for good measure.  I might not get as good DOF as with LF.  But then again I don't get a headache. 

If you ever do table top photography, you'll want to throw that camera out the window if it is not yaw free.  Yaw free movements are a God send!

[Paulo Bizarro]

The experts say that until we know how many people actually got the disease, the rates might look higher.  So, if the number of cases go up, which is expected, the death rate with go down.

The plot shows number of deaths per million people, NOT per million people tested. Try again.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Exactly what Alan said. 

This is why any death rate numbers we see for this virus are substantially higher than what it actually is since we have no idea what the denominator is.  And we wont know that until there is wide spread testing. 

Pretty basic math.

Indeed, and you still do not grasp it... this is number of killed versus 1 million people. It is not versus 1 million of tests.

[JoeKitchen]

Indeed, and you still do not grasp it... this is number of killed versus 1 million people. It is not versus 1 million of tests.

Yeah, I kind of pointed that out that I misread that.  Thanks for playing and paying attention. 

[William Walker]

Exactly what Alan said. 

This is why any death rate numbers we see for this virus are substantially higher than what it actually is since we have no idea what the denominator is.  And we wont know that until there is wide spread testing. 

Pretty basic math.

This is what it was really meant to illustrate.

[Rob C]

Their economy has been shrinking for years, they just lied about the figures.  Most economists agreed on this, and that eventually you would not be able to hide it anymore. 

There has been, as much as, a 40% vacancy in major cities for the past 5 or 6 years.  The government keeps on saying this would be taken care of with migration from rural areas to urban, but the majority of that happened in the decade prior.  This has been known for years, and if you look online for ghost cities in China, you will find a lot of examples. 

The communist thought if you built it, they would come, but not take into account there are just not enough "theys" to fill what was being built. 

There have been other well document flaws in the Chinese economy on the last 5 years if you actually paid attention to those type of stories.

From a propaganda stand point, now is the perfect time to start admitting this, since this virus can give you cover.  However, the downtown will probably turn out to be huge and made worse by businesses moving elsewhere, so the death numbers they are putting out really will make little sense to explain for the drop alone.

Spain has ghost cities too: brand new developments that were never bought. They brought down banks and builders at 2008. Ironically (anyone else note how much irony is doing the rounds this season?), at the same time, there is a massive shortage of affordable property for young Spaniards to buy or even to rent, levels of prices in both options being above their means. I don't think it can all be laid at the feet of tourism: it seems unlikely to me that tourists would be inclined to buy deeply inland, as in the periphery of Madrid.