PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[Rob C]

Sure. You don't like it, stay inside.

You do realise, Slobodan, that that's the equivalent of saying let the muggers, rapists and paedophiles run loose in the streets; stay inside if you don't like it?

And by extension, that there should be no police presence out there to discourage them from doing so? Solitary is getting to you.

[Rob C]

Not not any worse then their rush hour, then what's the problem? 

Like I said before, I will not give up my first amendment rights because of this virus.

Brave, and another non sequitur: nobody is asking you to surrender any sacred, written right: all you are being asked to do is to use your head and not exercise that right right now! See? Nothing is being taken from you. In fact you are being given something extra: an opportunity to use your head for a change and protect the long-term future survival of all gun-toting hillbillies who live and die by that nationalistic, flag-waving stuff.

[Rob C]

I suspect it will be the first of many until she backs down.  If she waits too long, she will not get reelected.  To be honest though, she seems like the type of person that will double down and ruin her career.  Like I said, every really good politician, on the right and left, are talking about opening up.  She is not. 

On top of that, I would be hoping she does not have any skeletons in her past because now people are out for blood.

So, you are declaring that the right thing to do is to be concerned with re-election, before and rather, than doing the right thing?

If that's so, and you back that attitude, I can now understand your approach over this entire thread.

[Rob C]

LOL, of course it is different!  Vastly  different.

If it wasn't, we should be staying inside every flu season.  But we don't, because the fatality rate is so much lower, just like with COVID-19.  Not to mention, like I said before, if the rate of this virus was 50%, you wound not need to convince me to stay inside. 

The overwhelming majority of people who get this will survive, and it is looking like that survival rate is getting higher and higher each day.  Not to mention, even in the worse part of the country, we did not go over capacity even though every expert was sure it would happen regardless.  So it is time to drop this draconian measure and get back to work before we destroy the economy. 

We are ruining lives for this?  For this virus?  How about all of preliminary screenings that are being cancelled.  Think about all of the early detections we are missing for cancer over this.  Are you taking that into account?  How many lives will be lost because we stopped screenings for 3 or 4 months and just did not find the disease early enough? 

I have had a red blotch in my eye for about a month and half.  It started to go away but now is forming in another area.  I would love to go to the eye doctor to get it looked at but cant because of this mess. 

I think the main reason you are so attached to this is because politics has become like a new religion.  You are religiously attached to experts and cant except they were wrong multiple times.  I hear it all of the time from people on the left, "we have to listen to the experts!"  Yet the experts are wrong it seems just as much as anyone else. 

Insofar as the Spanish Flu of 1918, how do you know social distancing really helped?  Maybe it did not matter at all.  Maybe that flue was so deadly because they just did not have the treatments we have now.

Pots, kettles. They do say Americans don't get/do/understand irony, especially when it lives right at home.

[Rob C]

I’ve no problem with testing. However since we were talking about the Americans coming home at the beginning of the outbreak, testing was simply not an option at the time. 

Looking forward, the problems of scale at airports will be a huge problem

But I thought your hero (who speaks in tongues) had it covered? I thought he had it all covered under one silly, embroidered red cap or catchy slogan or another?

[Rob C]

Yes, but that's not what you were saying.

If this get's out of control, the hospitals will fill with Covid patients. If you don't have it when you go to the hospital for a different issue, chances are that you will get it. That's a very vulnerable population right there. The more they come, the more physicians will get sick, so less to take care of everybody. So, if you think that by liberalizing things other medical issues are going to be taken care off, you are in for a rude awakening.

Regarding the economy, that's why you should have together a multidisciplinary team to discuss and come up with different scenarios and see which one will hurt the least, because it will be bad regardless what we do. The only question is how bad. That's where leadership comes into play and they have to choose priorities. BUT, they have to come out and have a clear message, come up with a clear plan and rationale. From what you are saying Cuomo might be doing something close, although I don't really know because I didn't watch any.


You have no idea what you even talk about. You don't listen to anybody, what I say you forget 2 replies later, and yet you have the guts to transform everything in about Trump.
I care about the best health policy that will lead to smallest human toll. Period.

Correct. I have been waiting weeks for ultrasound scans of my stomach. This is via two doctor requests to the local hospital. The first was described in the appropriate section as of normal priority; the second request as high. Nothing is happening. There is nobody free to man the department; people have been retrained and redeployed. Medical staff do not grow on trees. They are all in the front line fighting the virus - you know, the one that's just like 'flu.

[Rob C]

Yes, I do.  Of course they did not ignore everything, but medical experts take into account medical issues not economic.  They have even admitted as much.

Yet another plea to be the richest guy in the cemetery.

[Rob C]

And yet of course Bernard has zero logical arguments to in which to present,  his have been shown to be void, and wholly disingenuous.

We can add you to that list if you choose.

For a cat you think devoid of logical thought processes, he sure makes convincing arguments and observations.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... your mothereffin' bank and mortage money con-artists! ... a gang of thieves we have in control of the world's money: a greedy, amoral, incompetent, criminal bunch of shitheads...

There is always mattrass, Rob.

[Rob C]

Interesting article from Forbes about what many of the countries that are having the most success against Covid-19 have in common, https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/.

First few sentences: Looking for examples of true leadership in a crisis? From Iceland to Taiwan and from Germany to New Zealand, women are stepping up to show the world how to manage a messy patch for our human family. Add in Finland, Iceland and Denmark, and this pandemic is revealing that women have what it takes when the heat rises in our Houses of State.

I have mentioned before on these pages that women have influenced my life far more than has any male. The male paradigm is almost always the same: bluster, boasts, fibs and a call to arms. Women, on the other hand, get things done. It's the old truism: behind every successful man stands a surprised wife.

[Rob C]

When did I say it was not serious? 

My contention is it is not serious enough to full force destroy the economy, not by a stretch.  Quarantine the old and the sick, but let everyone else back to work. 

The fact is this lock down ain't lasting too much longer, and if everyone needs to catch it anyway, what was the point especially considering NYC did not have issues with over capacity or lack of care.  Other countries had this issue, but no other countries have the robust healthcare system we do.  It's time to realize this and get back to work.  Conditions have change and/or are not nearly as bad as were predicted even when taking into account the social distancing. 

BTW, no one is answering that question either, whether or not they feel we all need to catch it anyway.

Your jingoist beliefs are truly touching.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You do realise, Slobodan, that that's the equivalent of saying let the muggers, rapists and paedophiles run loose in the streets; stay inside if you don't like it?

And by extension, that there should be no police presence out there to discourage them from doing so? Solitary is getting to you.

That's why we have doctors, just like we have police, in case you need help. The police is not there to force everyone into their homes for months, just because there could be some "muggers, rapists and paedophiles" on the streets.

Not to mention that you are equating normal people, going about their lives, with "the muggers, rapists and paedophiles." What a silly parallel!

Besides, getting infected by your girlfriend Corrina, like every year millions of people are with the flu or cold, is not a death sentence lefties make it look like. 98% will recover.

[Rob C]

1. That's why we have doctors, just like we have police, in case you need help. The police is not there to force2.  everyone into their homes for months, just because there could be some "muggers, rapists and paedophiles" on the streets.

3. Not to mention that you are equating normal people, going about their lives, with "the muggers, rapists and paedophiles." What a silly parallel!

Besides, getting infected by your girlfriend Corrina, 4. like every year millions of people are with the flu or cold, is not a death sentence lefties make it look like. 98% will recover.

1. We do not have enough doctors to cope.

2. "Everyone", in this case, is a suspect, simply because everyone cannot tell if they are or are not carrying the virus. The choice has to be to err on the side of caution. Worse, there are those strangely crazed citizens amongst us who do not want to help with making the situation less difficult by obeying the simple, obvious, universal advice to stay at home and not risk further contamination.

3. It is extremly difficult to differentiate between the groups when they are at large; they don't wear signs. That's why you have to begin with the assumption, as in a terrorist zone where they don't wear uniforms - that anyone can be wearing that explosive vest. Corinna is that kinda gal, and we have all wandered unwittingly into her brothel right now.

4. But it is not like either: I have had both so many times I couldn't count them; I have a sniffle all winter long and the worst 'flu I ever had was here in Mallorca, soon after being given a surprise 'flu jab for which I had not visited the doctor that morning. In none of those cases have I felt unable to breath or to be near death. The most close to that has been during bad nocturnal attacks of acid reflux when I awake with acidic matter blocking my windpipe and can only clear it by exhaling what little gas remains in my lungs. If that doesn't clear it, I'm history.

My annual experiences with the cold and 'flu lead me to suspect any power or safety in herd immunity. It doesn't even see to work on the individual level, never mind the pack.

[Robert Roaldi]

There were doctors on the news talking about how it was not a great comparison since they did not have the medical treatments we now do.  It could very well be the case that even with our social distancing but take away our modern equipment, the death rate good be just as high.

The one direct comparison I remember from NPR's Hidden Brain episode on the Spanish Flu was between Milwaukee and Philadelphia. They both had equivalent medical technologies but Milwaukee had a history of good public health infrastructure while Philadelphia did not. It was relatively easy for Mil to get out the word to people about distancing (coherent messaging, etc.) while Phil did not. I don't remember what reference material the interviewee used. There were significant differences in outcomes in the 2 cities.

A similar thing is being demonstrated here in Canada today where the province of British Columbia had an exemplary public health system in place that had been invested in and maintained, while other provinces often did not. It's an easy to forget about, preparedness, and hard to spend money on when the meme-du-jour is always don't spend, don't spend, don't spend, a mantra people are naturally attracted to. It's (sometimes) easy for people to understand why they should spend money upfront to build a highway system that brings later long-term rewards, but not so easy with other things it seems, even though it's exactly the same argument. Different levels of social cohesion bring different results.

[Robert Roaldi]

It's the old truism: behind every successful man stands a surprised wife.

Funny line, I'd never heard it before.

[William Walker]

I have put together a graph that will hopefully illustrate the effect of early and decisive action on Covid-19.

The keys to understanding this illustrations are:
1. The UK and South Africa have similar size populations.
2. Keep in mind that the results of any action taken today show themselves in ~14 days. e.g. note the drop in imported SA cases ~14 days after the borders were closed.
3. Testing has increased by quite a lot so our experts are happy that "lack of testing" is not giving us false numbers.

We are by no means declaring victory - they are planning for our peak to be in September - we have simply bought ourselves 4-6 weeks to plan further.
The mining (gold & platinum) sector is busy re-opening slowly and there is talk that if we can keep our new cases to under 90 per day we can start thinking about a gradual re-opening - with perhaps continued isolation for older folk.

We have an "army" of experienced trackers & tracers who are busy chasing down cases so each night we wait to hear (and hope) that our numbers are below 90!

These numbers are taken from Johns Hopkins Website. Any corrections with what I have tried to do here are welcome.

[Paulo Bizarro]

But there was proof lockdowns worked. China and South Korea were two examples that could have been followed. I agree locking down too soon might not have been warranted...but planning a lockdown with all the logistics would definitely been warranted.

There is plenty of proof even from centuries ago. Portugal's royal family during the plague events would take refuge in alentejo province, the least populated then, and the least populated now - in fact, alentejo today has the lowest number of cases and still no deaths from CV19.

In 1918, the US cities that implemented lockdown sooner ended up with the smaller number of deaths.

This is notrocket science, virus are very basic entities.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Yeah.  But you're Monday morning quarterbacking again.  Who else locked down like that.  I didn't stop playing poker until mid-March.  And that was only a nickle and dime stakes game.  No president is going to shut down the American economy until there's a dead person laying on the White House doorstep.  Let's face it.  Sure. it's easy to say that now after the facts are in.  But we keep covering this thing, the same thing.  What now?  How do we open up?  Tomorrow fellows, the president will have his plan.  The next 6 months are critical portender of the future for the US and the rest of the world.  No doubt about it.

First reported case in Portugal 1sr March. State of emergency mid-march, today it will be extended 2 more weeks. Effect - R0 went down from 2.5 to 0.8. You can´t have economy without people.

A leader makes is choices, but can not keep blaming others if his choices end up being the wrong ones.

How to open up has been already decided in Portugal, we are looking closely to what other countries who are over the "peak" and are reopening are doing, and what the results andlessons learnt will be. In May, small businesses will reopen, companies, services, etc. With close and tight monitoring on adaily basis.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Instead of spending two weeks in bed and be done with it, millions upon millions will spend the next two years in a recession matched only by the 1930s one, leading a truly miserable life. Make it billions world-wide. And in poor countries that means almost certain death for many.

Except that:

1. Many more would spend two weeks in bed and be done with it by dying. I was raised with a set of values that places human life at the top.

2. The ensuing economic crisis is very different from preceding one. It affects everybody and is no one's to blame. So it will be easier to recover, if everybody helps and in particular some key players are less egotistical.

[Robert Roaldi]

First reported case in Portugal 1sr March. State of emergency mid-march, today it will be extended 2 more weeks. Effect - R0 went down from 2.5 to 0.8. You can´t have economy without people.

A leader makes is choices, but can not keep blaming others if his choices end up being the wrong ones.

How to open up has been already decided in Portugal, we are looking closely to what other countries who are over the "peak" and are reopening are doing, and what the results andlessons learnt will be. In May, small businesses will reopen, companies, services, etc. With close and tight monitoring on adaily basis.

This and much of the foregoing discussions make me think more and more how relevant is the distinctions between Type 1 (fast) and Type 2 (slow) thinking, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow. It's amazing how often Kahneman's insights are spot on.