And Texas Caves In

pnichols wrote:
Well ... myself and the DW are both in our 70's and we don't want to even catch the "regular flu" ... so we get flu shots every fall and RARELY have caught any flu over the years.

HOWEVER - our fall 2019 flu shots notwithstanding - this past January we both picked up a NASTY FLU on our winter RV trip to Arizona that apparently our flu shots didn't cover. We don't ever want to go through anything like that again!

Why anyone, young or old, would play games and hope to luck out on not picking up this dangerous coronavirus bug ... has gotta be nuts! :S

It's possible that you had the virus. I'm sure I had it and several other people I know had it. That was back in December/January. It was very much like the flu, but with a serious upper respiratory complication that put it apart from the "normal" seasonal flu. I was tested for the flu A&B, both negative, and pneumonia, also negative. They didn't know what it was, but I'm pretty sure I know now.

Walaby wrote:
Like everything, there's no perfect answer or perfect solution.

I still believe wholeheartedly, that the easiest/best way to recover as a nation, and a people is get back to work as soon as practical.

Mike

And that is eventually what will happen.
Won't be tomorrow, won't be next week...

Some of you people just dont get it. If people would practice the social distancing more and follow the recommendations this thing would slow down alot. But nooooo my freedoms are being run over. I cant stay in. Im bored. Im sure the Drs and Nurses are bored too.They are scared to death they are going to introduce it into there own family.This thing is real and its world wide.Quit whining. Home many of you experts are Drs? Some of you disgust me.

way2roll wrote:

PA12DRVR wrote:
"Those examining one side without regard to the other are having a hard time understanding those who approach from the opposite direction."

Agree with that. My view is that most folks supporting a continuing lock down are not considering (certainly in my view not giving due weight to) the economic impacts of that lockdown, particularly when there is limited reporting on what percentage of COVID-19 infected people (not just "tested") are recovering from the disease.

As noted above, we didn't create this pandemic. The assertion that there is no data to support an economic impact can be debated at some length (record unemployment numbers would be one item of data) but even prior to initiating that debate, it would have to be acknowledged that we have never, ever (not in 1929, not in 2001, not in 2008, etc) had a financial situation wherein, by government fiat, the two-prong situation was imposed 1) the economy was shut down;and 2) money was printed to pay the impacts of that imposed shutdown. Given the unique and novel nature of the economic approach, there is no rational basis to assume that "this will all pass" or that eventually "the dust will settle".
Hopefully it passes, hopefully the dust settles, hopefully the percentage of our workforce forced out of a job gets some money to put food on the table, but blithely assuming that "this too shall pass" or that any and all economic impact need not be considered and evaluated, is misguided, in my view.

Taking snippets of posts without the entire content dilutes the point of the original post. I haven't seen anyone on here say there wasn't going to be any economic impact. The point was - balking at the claim that the economy will be ruined or our kids and grandkids. No data to support that and sensible logic tells us that won't actually happen. The point of those claiming that we are self ruining the economy for baseless paranoia, is in itself baseless paranoia. It's a pretty heavy theme in this thread by a select few, that there is no hard data to support mandated closures and even if there were, the ruination of our economy isn't worth the lives saved. I strongly disagree with that vein of thought. Will there be economic impact?, you bet. Are we ruining the economy for our children and grandchildren?, no. I am open to someone with the evidence to change my mind.

Think what you want about snippets of posts. I quoted what I agreed with for the point of saying I agreed with it. Didn't agree with most (or all) of the remaining post. Tell me how sensible logic tells us that the economy won't be ruined when we've never experienced a shutdown that was self-imposed and that was accompanied by a drastic rampup of the printing presses to print money to pay for the impacts of that shutdown. There is no prior experience to extrapolate to justify a belief that the collapse of the economy won't "actually happen". In contrast, sensible logic, based on the 1918 pandemic, would indicate that even doing far less than we're doing now, we'll "get through it" albeit with an admittedly-severe toll in lives.

To make clear my vein of thought, I strongly disagree with the position seemingly taken by quite a few on here that saving any number of lives (however few or many that may be arguably be) is worth any economic cost, no matter how great that cost and no matter how extended the impact turns out to be.

When virus deaths are quoted (even if not actually due to the virus) against "yes, there's an economic impact, but it will get better", that is comparing illusory numbers to justify an unsupported position. If people such as myself are challenged to cite data to show that the economy will collapse, it's equally fair to ask for data (again, in this unique to date situation of self-imposed shutdown) that shows the economy won't collapse. What happens if the public fisc can no longer pay healthcare workers, or military personnel, or government personnel? I don't believe those questions are being asked; it strikes me that those (in my view legitimate) questions get blithely ignored under the mantra of "we have to do everything to save lives".

Like everything, there's no perfect answer or perfect solution.

I still believe wholeheartedly, that the easiest/best way to recover as a nation, and a people is get back to work as soon as practical.

Mike

Just got a call a few minutes ago from a co worker. Her father passed away as a result of the Covid. More distressing is she can't bury him.

Yes and some are quoting the number of deaths like it has stopped. Will be lucky if we are at the peak and soon to decline. I expect as many deaths on the back side of the curve as the front so until the peak is defined I expect the total death will come in at 2x the current report as a minimum. That would be 32,624 minimum by my count before the first wave is over.

A few more reported in the last 3 minutes 32,714 now.

Well ... myself and the DW are both in our 70's and we don't want to even catch the "regular flu" ... so we get flu shots every fall and RARELY have caught any flu over the years.

HOWEVER - our fall 2019 flu shots notwithstanding - this past January we both picked up a NASTY FLU on our winter RV trip to Arizona that apparently our flu shots didn't cover. We don't ever want to go through anything like that again!

Why anyone, young or old, would play games and hope to luck out on not picking up this dangerous coronavirus bug ... has gotta be nuts! :S

PA12DRVR wrote:
"Those examining one side without regard to the other are having a hard time understanding those who approach from the opposite direction."

Agree with that. My view is that most folks supporting a continuing lock down are not considering (certainly in my view not giving due weight to) the economic impacts of that lockdown, particularly when there is limited reporting on what percentage of COVID-19 infected people (not just "tested") are recovering from the disease.

As noted above, we didn't create this pandemic. The assertion that there is no data to support an economic impact can be debated at some length (record unemployment numbers would be one item of data) but even prior to initiating that debate, it would have to be acknowledged that we have never, ever (not in 1929, not in 2001, not in 2008, etc) had a financial situation wherein, by government fiat, the two-prong situation was imposed 1) the economy was shut down;and 2) money was printed to pay the impacts of that imposed shutdown. Given the unique and novel nature of the economic approach, there is no rational basis to assume that "this will all pass" or that eventually "the dust will settle".
Hopefully it passes, hopefully the dust settles, hopefully the percentage of our workforce forced out of a job gets some money to put food on the table, but blithely assuming that "this too shall pass" or that any and all economic impact need not be considered and evaluated, is misguided, in my view.

Taking snippets of posts without the entire content dilutes the point of the original post. I haven't seen anyone on here say there wasn't going to be any economic impact. The point was - balking at the claim that the economy will be ruined or our kids and grandkids. No data to support that and sensible logic tells us that won't actually happen. The point of those claiming that we are self ruining the economy for baseless paranoia, is in itself baseless paranoia. It's a pretty heavy theme in this thread by a select few, that there is no hard data to support mandated closures and even if there were, the ruination of our economy isn't worth the lives saved. I strongly disagree with that vein of thought. Will there be economic impact?, you bet. Are we ruining the economy for our children and grandchildren?, no. I am open to someone with the evidence to change my mind.

time2roll wrote:
Yes all the data is junk until we have a year behind us. This is just to contrast the comparisons where we have years and years of data in other areas. For instance it is impossible to compare to other flu deaths. If you think the last two days are the peak that is great. I don't know that we will be double in 30 days or half. I don't know.

The experts in this sort of thing are building those curves though admittedly they were also quite erroneous just days ago and predicted a doomsday. My thinking is that if those overly pessimistic models are showing a curve with a decline, it's probably still the worst-case version and we are on a real decline. Also the news is reporting that new hospitalizations are dropping in NY which is our worst-case epicenter. The deaths will peak later since people tend to last for a while in the hospital. Incidentally I've read somewhere that only about half of those on ventilators survive which is pretty sad.

There is also a lot of study that goes into infection rates. There's the concept of R naught, which defines how fast something can spread. Initially without data, that number is hard to determine but as time has gone by and with more data they are dialing it in. So while we don't know the full extent of this particular virus, it's also not completely unpredictable.

It seems clear to me that it can be far more fatal to older folks with other health issues than the flu is. When people compare it to the flu I think they are only considering the overall death toll and not what the specific virus can do. From that measure, it may not end up much worse that a severe flu season but will be in part due to the preventative actions people (not just those in government) have taken.

Thanks for the discussion.