The Next Pandemic: SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

[oldmanfan]

2 hours ago, Chef Jim said:

How did the Spanish Flu of 1918 which, by some estimates, killed 100,000,000 people worldwide just "poof" disappear a year and a half later without the aide of a vaccine?  Answer:  Darwinism.  We need to let Darwin do his thing. 

So a century later with all the advances made in molecular biology, virology, epidemiology, pharmacology and so on your answer is to let Mother Nature take her course and have hundreds of millions die.  You have got to be kidding.

Edited March 29, 2021 by oldmanfan

[Big Blitz]

RIP NYC and the state of NY.

 

RIP Urban dumps.  

 

So much bad here we warned you about but since you didn't care I'll choose to focus on what a net positive this is for humanity.  

 

Man.  The ways places like NYC are going to find to tax you to fill in their budgets which are going to be epically devastated.  Guess that's why that Cardboard cut out of a Transportation Secretary was floating that tax by the mile idea.  Lol

 

 

 

[B-Man]

 

More Covid BS !

 

 

 

San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond is reporting that the San Diego Board of Education will be sending teachers to the San Diego Convention Center to provide in-person learning for migrant children being housed there. We heard today, as we’ve heard before, that white supremacy is behind the push to reopen schools for in-person learning, so we’re not sure how that works here.

 

 

 

[Chef Jim]

2 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

So a century later with all the advances made in molecular biology, virology, epidemiology, pharmacology and so on your answer is to let Mother Nature take her course and have hundreds of millions die.  You have got to be kidding.

Yup. 
 

And that was yup to the deaths not to the “you have got to be kidding me.”

 

What decade came out of that culling of the herd?  

Edited March 30, 2021 by Chef Jim

[Doc Brown]

56 minutes ago, Chef Jim said:

Yup. 
 

And that was yup to the deaths not to the “you have got to be kidding me.”

 

What decade came out of that culling of the herd?  

I’m sure prohibition followed by a Great Depression is just what this country needs.

[Chef Jim]

29 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

I’m sure prohibition followed by a Great Depression is just what this country needs.

Didn’t take long for me to find someone else who thinks like me. 
 

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/21/epidemiologist-1918-flu-pandemic-roaring-20s-post-covid

 

I never put the roaring 20’s together with the Spanish Flu until just now. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Chef Jim

[Doc Brown]

2 hours ago, Chef Jim said:

Didn’t take long for me to find someone else who thinks like me. 
 

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/21/epidemiologist-1918-flu-pandemic-roaring-20s-post-covid

 

I never put the roaring 20’s together with the Spanish Flu until just now. 

Yeah.  Me neither.  I just always figured it was due to the end of the War.  People are going to go nuts after being cooped up inside for a year or so.  I've been buying cyclical stocks at every dip since the pfizer vaccine was approved.

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

5 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Yeah.  Me neither.  I just always figured it was due to the end of the War.  People are going to go nuts after being cooped up inside for a year or so.  I've been buying cyclical stocks at every dip since the pfizer vaccine was approved.

Peloton? 

[All_Pro_Bills]

5 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Yeah.  Me neither.  I just always figured it was due to the end of the War.  People are going to go nuts after being cooped up inside for a year or so.  I've been buying cyclical stocks at every dip since the pfizer vaccine was approved.

A big difference between the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID 2020 is governments did not lock down entire populations and close the economy in 1918.  The lock downs did more harm than the virus.  Unemployment, closed business, rampant depression and suicide, needless isolation of young adults and children combined with careless and ineffective policies to protect the most vulnerable.  And the general public still seems uneducated about the relative risks associated with COVID.  The mortality rate is about .03% with almost the entire risk of death in the over-60 age demographic where commodities or pre-existing conditions exist.  In my county the over-60 accounts for 20% of the cases and 95% of the deaths.  Yet its treated like the Black Death of the 1300's where a little over 50% of the world's human population died from the plague.   

 

I don't see any big economic boom coming out of this.  The lock downs destroyed an untold number of businesses and jobs and most are never coming back.  Money creation/capital formation has been totally disconnected from productive activity.  Handouts and "stimulus payments" increase demand and do nothing to create supply.  The administration talks of raising taxes but what's the difference?  About 80% of the Federal budget is funded by borrowing.  Why not make it 90%?  Yet, a bankrupt government is dreaming up some $3T "infrastructure spending bill" where I expect most of the money will end up in the pockets of political cronies and their associates via sweetheart contracts while the peasants get thrown a couple pennies.

Trade deficits continue to rise.  Simply put, we over consume but under produce and depend on foreign trading partners taking IOU's in exchange for the difference.  How much longer is this going to last?  Entire segments of the economy are dependent on low rates staying low forever.  I'm buying inflation hedges like energy and metals along with foreign stock funds to get a lot of my funds out of the way of what should be a tremendous drop in the purchasing power of the US dollar as inflation heats up and the Fed sits idle pretending inflation doesn't exist and knowing they can't raise rates without torpedoing the entire system. 

[BillStime]

13 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

A big difference between the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID 2020 is governments did not lock down entire populations and close the economy in 1918.  The lock downs did more harm than the virus.  Unemployment, closed business, rampant depression and suicide, needless isolation of young adults and children combined with careless and ineffective policies to protect the most vulnerable.  And the general public still seems uneducated about the relative risks associated with COVID.  The mortality rate is about .03% with almost the entire risk of death in the over-60 age demographic where commodities or pre-existing conditions exist.  In my county the over-60 accounts for 20% of the cases and 95% of the deaths.  Yet its treated like the Black Death of the 1300's where a little over 50% of the world's human population died from the plague.   

 

I don't see any big economic boom coming out of this.  The lock downs destroyed an untold number of businesses and jobs and most are never coming back.  Money creation/capital formation has been totally disconnected from productive activity.  Handouts and "stimulus payments" increase demand and do nothing to create supply.  The administration talks of raising taxes but what's the difference?  About 80% of the Federal budget is funded by borrowing.  Why not make it 90%?  Yet, a bankrupt government is dreaming up some $3T "infrastructure spending bill" where I expect most of the money will end up in the pockets of political cronies and their associates via sweetheart contracts while the peasants get thrown a couple pennies.

Trade deficits continue to rise.  Simply put, we over consume but under produce and depend on foreign trading partners taking IOU's in exchange for the difference.  How much longer is this going to last?  Entire segments of the economy are dependent on low rates staying low forever.  I'm buying inflation hedges like energy and metals along with foreign stock funds to get a lot of my funds out of the way of what should be a tremendous drop in the purchasing power of the US dollar as inflation heats up and the Fed sits idle pretending inflation doesn't exist and knowing they can't raise rates without torpedoing the entire system. 

But but but Trump said had we not done anything over 2,000,000 Americans would have died so aren’t you spinning this the wrong way?

[TH3]

24 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

A big difference between the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID 2020 is governments did not lock down entire populations and close the economy in 1918.  The lock downs did more harm than the virus.  Unemployment, closed business, rampant depression and suicide, needless isolation of young adults and children combined with careless and ineffective policies to protect the most vulnerable.  And the general public still seems uneducated about the relative risks associated with COVID.  The mortality rate is about .03% with almost the entire risk of death in the over-60 age demographic where commodities or pre-existing conditions exist.  In my county the over-60 accounts for 20% of the cases and 95% of the deaths.  Yet its treated like the Black Death of the 1300's where a little over 50% of the world's human population died from the plague.   

 

I don't see any big economic boom coming out of this.  The lock downs destroyed an untold number of businesses and jobs and most are never coming back.  Money creation/capital formation has been totally disconnected from productive activity.  Handouts and "stimulus payments" increase demand and do nothing to create supply.  The administration talks of raising taxes but what's the difference?  About 80% of the Federal budget is funded by borrowing.  Why not make it 90%?  Yet, a bankrupt government is dreaming up some $3T "infrastructure spending bill" where I expect most of the money will end up in the pockets of political cronies and their associates via sweetheart contracts while the peasants get thrown a couple pennies.

Trade deficits continue to rise.  Simply put, we over consume but under produce and depend on foreign trading partners taking IOU's in exchange for the difference.  How much longer is this going to last?  Entire segments of the economy are dependent on low rates staying low forever.  I'm buying inflation hedges like energy and metals along with foreign stock funds to get a lot of my funds out of the way of what should be a tremendous drop in the purchasing power of the US dollar as inflation heats up and the Fed sits idle pretending inflation doesn't exist and knowing they can't raise rates without torpedoing the entire system. 

You should try to cover more topics....more poorly....in your next post....LOL

[All_Pro_Bills]

1 minute ago, BillStime said:

But but but Trump said had we not done anything over 2,000,000 Americans would have died so aren’t you spinning this the wrong way?

I didn't say do nothing.  I'm saying respond to the threat in a manner consistent with the impact of the threat. 

Just now, TH3 said:

You should try to cover more topics....more poorly....in your next post....LOL

Thanks for your brilliant insights!  I eagerly await more..

[BillStime]

Just now, All_Pro_Bills said:

I didn't say do nothing.  I'm saying respond to the threat in a manner consistent with the impact of the threat. 

But we did - almost 600,000 Americans lost their lives with us doing the bare minimum - what a price we had to pay. 

[All_Pro_Bills]

5 minutes ago, BillStime said:

But we did - almost 600,000 Americans lost their lives with us doing the bare minimum - what a price we had to pay. 

 Tell me how many of the 600K that died had no serious pre-existing conditions that compromise their health or were very old?  Do you know the average life expectancy of people with these conditions?  How many people die from obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer annually?  Bottom line it was a big mistake to lock down everything and we are all going to pay for a long time.  What don't you get?  There is no "back to normal" coming.       

[SoCal Deek]

20 minutes ago, BillStime said:

But we did - almost 600,000 Americans lost their lives with us doing the bare minimum - what a price we had to pay. 

You do realize that figure is barely one quarter of the original projection right? Unlike you, I happen to think the American people did a pretty good job really. This battle is and will be won by people’s personal decisions and not by mandates from some far away governmental control center. 

[BillStime]

1 minute ago, SoCal Deek said:

You do realize that figure is barely one quarter of the original projection right? Unlike you, I happen to think the American people did a pretty good job really. This battle is and will be won by people’s personal decisions and not by mandates from some far away governmental control center. 

Oh I know - the government can’t control anything or dictate what we do unless it is a women's uterus. We know the GQP rules.

15 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

 Tell me how many of the 600K that died had no serious pre-existing conditions that compromise their health or were very old?  Do you know the average life expectancy of people with these conditions?  How many people die from obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer annually?  Bottom line it was a big mistake to lock down everything and we are all going to pay for a long time.  What don't you get?  There is no "back to normal" coming.       

You moving the goal posts? Justifying all these deaths? Is that the game we are playing?

[SoCal Deek]

Just now, BillStime said:

Oh I know - the government can’t control anything or dictate what we do unless it is a women's uterus. We know the GQP rules.

And now the shark is once again officially jumped. Have you found the other side of the bed yet? Have you even looked? Try getting up on the other side tomorrow. The world isn’t the miserable place you’re so desperate for it to be. 

[BillStime]

1 minute ago, SoCal Deek said:

And now the shark is once again officially jumped. Have you found the other side of the bed yet? Have you even looked? Try getting up on the other side tomorrow. The world isn’t the miserable place you’re so desperate for it to be. 

Take a look in the mirror buddy - you run around this place dishing it but you can’t take it. 

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, BillStime said:

Take a look in the mirror buddy - you run around this place dishing it but you can’t take it. 

 

 

Good morning to you too! That’s a start. 
 

And for the record...disagreeing with  your daily nonsense is not ‘dishing out’ anything. 

[oldmanfan]

47 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

A big difference between the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID 2020 is governments did not lock down entire populations and close the economy in 1918.  The lock downs did more harm than the virus.  Unemployment, closed business, rampant depression and suicide, needless isolation of young adults and children combined with careless and ineffective policies to protect the most vulnerable.  And the general public still seems uneducated about the relative risks associated with COVID.  The mortality rate is about .03% with almost the entire risk of death in the over-60 age demographic where commodities or pre-existing conditions exist.  In my county the over-60 accounts for 20% of the cases and 95% of the deaths.  Yet its treated like the Black Death of the 1300's where a little over 50% of the world's human population died from the plague.   

 

I don't see any big economic boom coming out of this.  The lock downs destroyed an untold number of businesses and jobs and most are never coming back.  Money creation/capital formation has been totally disconnected from productive activity.  Handouts and "stimulus payments" increase demand and do nothing to create supply.  The administration talks of raising taxes but what's the difference?  About 80% of the Federal budget is funded by borrowing.  Why not make it 90%?  Yet, a bankrupt government is dreaming up some $3T "infrastructure spending bill" where I expect most of the money will end up in the pockets of political cronies and their associates via sweetheart contracts while the peasants get thrown a couple pennies.

Trade deficits continue to rise.  Simply put, we over consume but under produce and depend on foreign trading partners taking IOU's in exchange for the difference.  How much longer is this going to last?  Entire segments of the economy are dependent on low rates staying low forever.  I'm buying inflation hedges like energy and metals along with foreign stock funds to get a lot of my funds out of the way of what should be a tremendous drop in the purchasing power of the US dollar as inflation heats up and the Fed sits idle pretending inflation doesn't exist and knowing they can't raise rates without torpedoing the entire system. 

First, you are calculating mortality rates incorrectly.  You calculate mortality rates based on the number infected, not the general population.  The current mortality rate in the US is around 3.2%.  But let's just take your approach for a minute.  If you do it by the total population, then 550,000 Covid deaths out of a population of 330 million gives you a mortality rate of around 0.16%. sounds low right?  well, let's compare it to the leading cause of death in the US, cardiovascular disease, which kills around 650,000 per year in the US.  That gives you a 0.19%.  So by your logic, can I assume you want to close down all the cardiovascular floors in hospitals, cath labs, stop selling statins, tell the cardiologists to switch to dermatology?   

 

Or maybe because Covid and cardiovascular disease kill mainly the elderly, perhaps to reap the most economic benefit we should just kill off the old folks before they get sick.  Would save a ton in the long run.  What age do you want to select to start?

 

You mention suicide and depression, and I agree that this has been a tough, tough, year.  I took the liberty of looking at suicide rates (https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measure/Suicide/state/ALL) and it appears that suicide rates are not that much higher than previous non-Covid years.  What struck me is that the rates seems to be highest in the Rocky Mountain states, which are among the ones lower in Covid infection if I'm not mistaken.  Whether this is due to the economic impact of Covid or other factors seems hard to determine, but I would caution against randomly making claims that Covid is responsible for a big surge on suicide.  

 

You talk about needless isolation of young adults and children, and ignore the fact that one of the more unique aspects of the Covid virus is that it can be carried asymptomatically by young people.  You also ignore the potential long term morbidity that might be suffered by younger and older folks that will affect quality of life going forward for these individuals.  I do agree that as data was gathered it became clearer that young children of elementary school age do not transmit the virus readily, and I would be right there with you that I believe elementary schools should open, especially as teachers get vaccinated. 

 

No question businesses suffered.  I have a daughter that is a professional actor/singer, and that business along with restaurants and such has been decimated.  No question.  The issue was how to get them going again, and that could have - should have - been done by aggressively taking steps to control spread by leadership all banding together and insisting on proper mitigation strategies such as masks, instead of making it into a political football and yakking about your freedom as if wearing a mask is somehow an affront to everything holy.  Laboratory and epidemiologic studies all showed the benefit of masks wearing to help prevent - not eliminate, but prevent - spread, but instead you had way too many people act like idiots.  We could have this behind us by now, but no.  Dr. Birx the other day said if we had doen this we could have saved over 400,000 lives, but no.  When historians look back on this years from now, they will ask:  why in the face of a global pandemic did they treat this like a political rather than a medical issue?  

 

One last word on your comments on the economy, where I agree with much of what you said.  We are trillions of dollars in debt because the people of this country screwed up.  We demanded two things that are diametrically opposed:  low taxes and high government spending.  And because by and large we elect gutless cowards to Congress that are more interested in re-election that doing what's right, we have this problem.  We have a critical need for infrastructure, Biden knows it, he knows we need tax increase to pay for it, yet now people are complaining about that.  The real debate we need to have in this country is on what the exact role of the federal government should be, and once we decide on that (should there be a lot of government programs or not) then define the tax rate to pay for it.  But we're too gutless as a country and the politicians are too gutless to have that day of reckoning.  

22 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

You do realize that figure is barely one quarter of the original projection right? Unlike you, I happen to think the American people did a pretty good job really. This battle is and will be won by people’s personal decisions and not by mandates from some far away governmental control center. 

And the projection you speak of is we had done nothing to prevent the spread, which would have been ridiculous.