PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[LesPalenik]

You write as if that 800 figure has been and will continue to be 800.  How quickly you forget the results from a week prior, and the curve many of you talk about so much, which is drawn going down as well. 

On top of that, you are wrong about our healthcare.  By law, if you go to the hospital, they have to treat you and the President worked to make coverage for C-19 free.

What if the infection leads to a heart attack? Would they still treat you for free?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Everyone has made mistakes, and they can't be blamed for them as long as they acknowledge them.

How many times it has to be said that it isn't a mistake if only in hindsight it was determined so?

A case in point: during a business-school lecture on decision making, we were working on a case study, where I wife was facing her husband having a brain aneurysm. She had two options how to handle the situation (I do not remember the exact details of the case any more). She chose one of those, and her husband died.

The professor ask us if she made a mistake, and most of us claimed she did. We were all shocked when the professor said "no," because at the time she was making the decision, and based on the available information, it was the right decision.

[William Walker]

"So officer, I wasn't really trying to hold up the bank and steal money.  It was only a test to see how fast you guys would respond to the holdup."

Give me a break.   So you just admitted you presented a tainted chart and was hoping to get away with.  Meanwhile, Joe noticed it was deficient and I confirmed it. And now you actually admit you did it that way for some nefarious purpose.  You just made all those other people who jumped on our backs to defend the chart look as foolish as you are.

Good morning to you too Alan! One big problem there old chap! The chart was not "tainted" and all the other folks (except you and Joe), without the added information, understood it.

[JoeKitchen]

"So officer, I wasn't really trying to hold up the bank and steal money.  It was only a test to see how fast you guys would respond to the holdup."

Give me a break.   So you just admitted you presented a tainted chart and was hoping to get away with.  Meanwhile, Joe noticed it was deficient and I confirmed it. And now you actually admit you did it that way for some nefarious purpose.  You just made all those other people who jumped on our backs to defend the chart look as foolish as you are.

Alan, I made a mistake looking at the chart and admitted as much. 

The main issue with the chart is that we know the actual number of deaths for the causes sighted over a period of time, which was shown.  But here we only have data as it comes in, so we do not know if that rather step rise in deaths will decline in the same manner, which could even produce less deaths then the flu from the year sited.  Or does it plateau for a bit before coming down. 

It was a bad graph given the unknown future for that reason. 

[JoeKitchen]

What if the infection leads to a heart attack? Would they still treat you for free?

If it is related to C-19, yes.  More then likely insurance rates will spike next year though. 

[William Walker]

How many times it has to be said that it isn't a mistake if only in hindsight it was determined so?

A case in point: during a business-school lecture on decision making, we were working on a case study, where I wife was facing her husband having a brain aneurysm. She had two options how to handle the situation (I do not remember the exact details of the case any more). She chose one of those, and her husband died.

The professor ask us if she made a mistake, and most of us claimed she did. We were all shocked when the professor said "no," because at the time she was making the decision, and based on the available information, it was the right decision.

What does it mean to make a mistake?
A mistake is an error, a goof, a slip-up. When you make a mistake, you've done something incorrectly. Mistake has a lot of uses, but they all have to do with doing the wrong thing. ... When you make a mistake, the best thing to do is admit it and try to make up for it; not apologizing for a mistake is another mistake. www.vocabulary.com

I rest my case. (We have not even begun to discuss "blunders"!)

[Alan Klein]

I want to enjoy life, but I don't mind to sacrifice some of my enjoyment to avoid hospitals crashing down. You are selfish - imagine you go out with all your enjoyment, catch the virus, and go to the hospital. You may survive it, as many do; but in the meantime, it may take 3 to 4 weeks for you to recover in the hospital, and you are occupying a bed or ICU unit and staff, robbing an older person from that care.

People thinking like you was it caused the collapse in Spain and Italy. PErhaps you need to watch how doctors had to decide who to live and who to die a few weeks ago.

If only out of respect for health personnel, who work 12 hour shifts or more under extreme conditions, you should be less selfish and think about others. Even if you catch it and can recover from home, you still occupy one nurse that has to call you twice a day to check on you. Just think about others for a while. It is not that tough to stay home for 8 weeks.

Joe, I think Paulo's right.  You ought to stop driving to work and take public transportation. You realize of course, that should you get into an accident with you car with another filled with two parents and three kids, you could be responsible for the deaths of an entire family.  So either take a bus or quit your job.  It's not nice to be selfish. 

[chez]

Some photos and videos of the mass burial site on Hart Island, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/hart-island-mass-graves-coronavirus-new-york/2020/04/16/a0c413ee-7f5f-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html. This seems antiquated, why not cremation?

Takes about 3 hours t cremate a body. Don't know if you can cremate more than 1 body. You'd have to have logistics to deliver the bodies to different crematoriums around the city. Much more efficient to just take all the bodies, dig a big hole and dump them in.

[JoeKitchen]

Well then, we should remove the word "mistake" from the English language if we are to follow that crazy logic.

No-one consciously makes a mistake in real time, it is only hindsight that allows us determine an incorrect decision. And if we are decent human beings we say, "oh my! It looks like I got that wrong!"

That is just not true.  I've known plenty of idiots who have done stupid stuff which they definitively knew was not a good idea beforehand, such as drunk driving.  I am sure you have met a fair amount of idiots who have done the same thing. 

Taking Trump out of the mix, lets look at environmental damage.  We in the west destroyed the environment with mining, landfills and other activities.  This was certainly not good, but we did not know better.  So I do not hold those who did it at fault, even though it is upsetting.  China, in there recent urbanization did the same thing, however they know of the dangers and therefore can be held accountable. 

[chez]

You're obviously a novice when it comes to politics. 

Having Trump, or anyone, go on the record and say definitively that they made a mistake would become the number 1 commercial used by the opposition.

Right so instead of just eating the mistakes and keeping quiet...Trump blames everyone around him. I'd respect someone that just keeps quiet when they screw up...but someone who blames everyone else has zero respect from me. More so if they are a leader of a country. He is a coward.

[JoeKitchen]

What does it mean to make a mistake?
A mistake is an error, a goof, a slip-up. When you make a mistake, you've done something incorrectly. Mistake has a lot of uses, but they all have to do with doing the wrong thing. ... When you make a mistake, the best thing to do is admit it and try to make up for it; not apologizing for a mistake is another mistake. www.vocabulary.com

I rest my case. (We have not even begun to discuss "blunders"!)

And what does it mean to do something incorrectly? 

I see nothing in your definition that says it is okay to judge in hindsight only. 

[JoeKitchen]

Right so instead of just eating the mistakes and keeping quiet...Trump blames everyone around him. I'd respect someone that just keeps quiet when they screw up...but someone who blames everyone else has zero respect from me. More so if they are a leader of a country. He is a coward.

Maybe you are right.  I just realized I have been saying for a while is Clinton owned up to the email thing, it would have been over and done with long before the election.  So, I should hold Trump to the same. 

Although she knew what she was doing was illegal when she did it, so ... not hindsight. 

[chez]

Alan, I made a mistake looking at the chart and admitted as much. 

The main issue with the chart is that we know the actual number of deaths for the causes sighted over a period of time, which was shown.  But here we only have data as it comes in, so we do not know if that rather step rise in deaths will decline in the same manner, which could even produce less deaths then the flu from the year sited.  Or does it plateau for a bit before coming down. 

It was a bad graph given the unknown future for that reason.

But it's a great graph which shows how quickly Covid has caused such huge destruction and death compared to the regular flu at those same timeframes. After all, this is the biggest concern of the virus, it hits very hard and overruns our medical abilities to deal with it. That is exactly what's happening in NY right now.

[chez]

If it is related to C-19, yes.  More then likely insurance rates will spike next year though.

You sure about that?

[JoeKitchen]

But it's a great graph which shows how quickly Covid has caused such huge destruction and death compared to the regular flu at those same timeframes. After all, this is the biggest concern of the virus, it hits very hard and overruns our medical abilities to deal with it. That is exactly what's happening in NY right now.

No it is not.  Cuomo has said several times that no one has died due to lack of care and that ventilators have been available when needed.

It may be different in other countries, but we have a very  robust health system. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

What does it mean to make a mistake?...

When you fill a form, and the question is "Sex," if you answered that with "Yes," instead of "M" or "F," you are making a mistake. If you put your date of birth instead of today's date in the form, you are making a mistake. If you make a wrong turn where turning in that direction is clearly prohibited, or don't stop at the stop sign, you are making a mistake. In all of those examples, you don't need a hindsight, it was immediately clear you are making a mistake.

What I was talking about, applies to decision making and working with the available information at the time. If it would be possible to show that, given the same information, you could have made a better decision, then you made a mistake. Otherwise, no.

[Alan Klein]

I am waiting for that switch. 

"Trump ruined the economy by not opening it up sooner."  I know it is coming. 

Of course.  And they'll also say that he never should have given the power to the governors.  It was the Fed's responsibility.

Another blame will be when everyone figures out like I have already said what scam the small business giveaways are.  All it's doing is making small business owners richer by laying off their employee costs to the taxpayers.  They're all schmucks.  Mnuchin, Trump, Schumer, Congress, media, the entire gaggle.   And they want to give away another $350 billion.  What buffoons. 

Here's how it the scam works.  Let's say you're Mr. Pillow, that guy from Minnesota who's on TV all the time.  He's got around 200 people in his plant making pillows.  Let's say they make $500 a week each, or $100,000 total.  He can get a loan through his bank guaranteed by the government Small Business Authority for eight weeks salaries.  As long as he pays the salaries, he doesn't have to repay the loan.  So of course he pays them and keeps making pillows. So the government gives him $800,000 for 8 weeks pay.  That goes to his bottom line and profit since he has no salaries for 8 weeks and he's $800,000 richer at taxpayer expense. The government picked up his labor costs. 

Even if your company is working at partial capacity, let's say a small film developing outfit with five people instead of the normal 8 people, all those 5 salaries are reimbursed.  So the business owner is saving on salaries and he's keeping the "loan" that doesn't have to be re-paid as bottom line profits.  The business owner may be including himself.  After all, if he's ana employee of the corporation, then his salary is reimbursed to by us taxpayers. And Businessman Mnuchin thought of this?  And the Dems are going along with it and even pushing for more loan money because they already gave away the first $350 billion in two weeks.  Trump wants more too.  The entire Federal government has gone nuts, stupid nuts.  When the taxpayers realized what just happened there's going to be a storm. Of  course, the president, and all the democrats and republicans, and media, and everyone will defend the program to protect themselves.  And the poor taxpayers will wonder why they're even poorer.

[chez]

Joe, I think Paulo's right.  You ought to stop driving to work and take public transportation. You realize of course, that should you get into an accident with you car with another filled with two parents and three kids, you could be responsible for the deaths of an entire family.  So either take a bus or quit your job.  It's not nice to be selfish.

You are just being a smart ass...and I'm not sure about the smart part.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... This seems antiquated, why not cremation?

It is been reported that many in NY followed an internet expert's advice, which stated that eating a kilo of raw popcorn kernel helps protect from Corona. Hence the reluctance of funeral homes.

[Alan Klein]

You are noticing that in places opening up, they are getting a 2nd wave.  So what do we do when we open up and also get that 2nd wave, go back inside for a few months.  Anyone  who thinks I'm doing that can  screw themselves. 

So instead of isolating seniors and letting this rip through the population so develop heard immunity, instead we will give everyone a false sense of safety upon opening, including seniors, and those vulnerable will come out and get infected.  Sounds like a great plan. 

And I am glad you are finally coming to the conclusion that if you get it, you have a 99.9% of being fine.  Then you will quickly become immune and no longer be a carrier. 

If I recall correctly, Slobodan said here we should do this early in the game and get it over with up front.