All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (2 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Statistics about deaths posted on different sources, which I would think you have seen by now. A couple of examples on a quick search:

99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says

More than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority.

www.bloomberg.com

This one is from mid March, but shows almost half the people who died in Italy had 3 serious illnesses. a quarter had 2... only 1% had none.

This one quotes the Louisiana Health Department, with a breakdown on the conditions.

Top underlying health conditions in COVID-19 deaths include diabetes, obesity

Pulmonary conditions and the immunocompromised are not the leading underlying health conditions in COVID-19 deaths.

www.thenewsstar.com

• Diabetes, 41%
• Chronic kidney disease, 31%
• Obesity, 28%
• Cardiac, 23%
• Pulmonary, 18%
• Neurological, 5%
• No underlying conditions, 5%
• Immuno-compromised, 4%
• Chronic liver disease, 1%

Right, but they were living with those diseases, and now they are not. There's an actuarial number for those lives absent COVID-19, and I haven't seen anything that suggest that people who died from COVID-19 were in a near term risk of death. Living while having co-morbidities is not the same thing as saying they were near death.

It better not be the plan. As it is, what's the number of unemployment claims now? 20 some million and climbing?

There may not be a model that predicts what would happen if we stay home for a year, because no one expects that, but considering the measures taken so far, what happens if we start to reopen and deaths start climbing up again?

Actually people have done some simplistic models of what a year under lockdown would do to the economy, it was in that article I linked to. One model predicts a 22% (or $4 trillion hit to the economy). The same model predicted 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 would result in a 7% hit to the economy, then you have to factor in the "value" of those 500,000 lives.

Well, let's. But there aren't any "real" numbers out there. There are just estimates, and estimates aren't "real" numbers.

Geez, how about we use educated estimates based on statistical modeling?

So again with the "doing nothing" thing. I have never said we should do "nothing".

Well, it would be helpful if you stated what it is you think we should do. Especially since you seem to be arguing against me, and what I'm saying is that we need to treat COVID-19 seriously, it is significantly worse than the flu, and if we do nothing we'll have lots of people die and our economy will be hurt. That is what I'm stating, and what you seem to be arguing against.

Every year, the economic activity of 3 million people suddenly stops.

Yes, and every year, there is an economic cost to those lives suddenly stopping. I'm not sure what your point is. When people die, there is an economic cost. More death means more economic cost. So when figuring out what to do you weigh the costs of action against the cost of inaction, or other action.

So now who's throwing straw men and not real numbers? Where are you getting those numbers from? And why do you think an average is a meaningful statistic in this case?

If I have $1 and you have $99, hey, we average $50 bucks! We are doing good!

I got the numbers from one of those economic models I mentioned. And why do I think using the average age is a meaningful number in this case? It's a way of bounding the statistical value of life of a COVID-19 victim and what the total cost would be. So, to continue your analogy, if you and I have an average of $50, and all that money was lost, the total value lost was $100. It doesn't matter if you had $99 and I had $1. The total economic loss was $100 -- and if my prevention would cost $70. Then there is a net economic benefit of $30 to implementing my prevention. But if my prevention would cost $120, then it wouldn't.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Its also not just death vs less death, it’s prolonged constricted activity.

that was the compounding factor 100 years ago.

People that did not have confidence in the environment they existed in, or government that did not constrain activity long enough, did not engage as fully in economic activity for far longer then places that restricted economic activity harder in the short term but in doing so built up far greater confidence by way of far fewer infected in the community and less instability. And because those places that constricted came out stronger, they also had a built in advantage compared to those who didnt.

One month too long in isolation is FAR better than one month too soon coming out.

 

[Lapaz]

Cuomo is behind these numbers too.

Up to 2.7 Million in New York May Have Been Infected, Antibody Study Finds

Preliminary results from New York’s first coronavirus antibody study show nearly 14 percent tested positive, meaning they had the virus at some point and recovered, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. That equates to 2.7 million infections statewide — more than 10 times the state’s confirmed cases...

www.nbcnewyork.com

This is very promising, because it would mean the crazy fatality rate is actually much lower, but I have a question about it. The article doesn't say whether any of the people that tested positive for antibodies were also tested for Covid-19. If not, then some portion of those people may eventually develop Coronavirus, because actively infected people should have anti-bodies. They may appear healthy today, but could get sick within the next 2 weeks, since that is the upper end of incubation period of the virus. Does anyone know whether these people were tested for an active infection?

Even if none of those people get sick, we still have to consider that even if 3M people in New York either have or have recovered, they have already lost 20k people. The article says they have only lost 16k, but Worldometer says they've lost 20.7k lives. They still have 218k active cases. If just 10k of them die, then that is still a 1% fatality rate. We also know that in-home deaths to Covid have not been counted.

 

[SystemShock]

as poorly as trump sycophants and STILL can not provide a SINGLE coherent answer.

And this is why I avoid you, you condescending arse.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

And this is why I avoid you, you condescending arse.

People re-route and avoid answering in this way because they have no answer.

It’s the go-to scapegoat of intellectual and postulational fraudulence.

If the person had the killer blow they would deliver it and dance on the graves of those challenging them. But because they don’t, the counter is to redirect the conversation into another compartment or more often, into the personal or self-victimizing realm where said person can concoct some excuse for why they wont answer the challenge to their position, ever.

I‘ve asked straight forward approaching a half dozen times for how a country can deal with New York or Michigan level capacity issues country wide under a laxed social distancing policy without a significant and sustained decline and robust testing and tracing system and no one seems to have a clear and defensible answer that doesnt provoke obvious fallacious reasoning or rest on intellectually devoid framings. And when frustrations around habitual conversational avoidance bubble up, it‘s just used as an additional excuse to avoid an answer.....The obvious conclusion is because there is in fact not one.

 

[SystemShock]

Right, but they were living with those diseases, and now they are not. There's an actuarial number for those lives absent COVID-19, and I haven't seen anything that suggest that people who died from COVID-19 were in a near term risk of death. Living while having co-morbidities is not the same thing as saying they were near death.

I am probably not explaining my thoughts very well.

I am not saying that they were near death. I am saying that their deaths could as easily have been triggered by other factors, which we either don't care about, or we don't track. If we take diabetes as an example, I posted the data from the ADA somewhere else, and if I am reading them correctly, we know that ~80,000 people die because of diabetes, while ~250,000 die because of complications of diabetes and a secondary factor. And we accept that secondary factor, whatever that is. We don't go out of our way to contain it.

Same train of thought with influenza. We know 1000's of people are going to die, with vaccines and all, but we don't do anything to contain influenza, beyond a vaccine that varies in effectiveness year to year. We just accept those 1000s, mostly elderly, will die of it.

I don't know that we are going to get any strong numbers any time soon, probably not in a couple of years at least, but I think they will show an overlap where other conditions would've as easily trigger a death based on an underlying precondition.

Actually people have done some simplistic models of what a year under lockdown would do to the economy, it was in that article I linked to. One model predicts a 22% (or $4 trillion hit to the economy). The same model predicted 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 would result in a 7% hit to the economy, then you have to factor in the "value" of those 500,000 lives.

And that's fine, but, do we really know what a 22% hit to the economy looks like?

We (not just you and I, but the collective we of the old board and this one) have talked/argued about the effect of your average person missing a paycheck, and how 45% (IIRC) of people leave paycheck to paycheck. We did just that last year when the government shut down for a few weeks, and how it affected people who worked for the government. And that wasn't a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That didn't shut down restaurants and factories and nail salons and concerts, etc etc etc.

Well, it would be helpful if you stated what it is you think we should do.

For the very beginning of this, I have said, we need to be smart about it. Obviously we would need strong leadership, which we severely lack at this moment. But a country with the resources and know-how of the U.S. should've gotten ahead of this. Both with the simple things and the complicated things.

Simple things like preaching proper hygiene, especially to those with health conditions and their families. I cringe every time I go to the supermarket and see people wearing masks and gloves, yet rubbing their eyes with their fingers. I guess I didn't notice it before, but now I do, and it is surprising to me how many people do it.

Maybe I am a bit of a germophobe too. I am the only person I know who washes his hands before going to the bathroom in public places. I ain't touching my junk with dirty hands

Complicated things like planning against those models. As I said before, you don't have to be an epidemiologist with complicated contagion patterns in your pocket to discern NYC was going to get a large number of exposures; the NYC subway is probably the biggest cause for the virus spreading in NYC.

But we refused to plan.

And this is where I pimp my home State... In Yucatán, so far, there have been 20 deaths related to the virus (which is surprising considering the number of Chinese people who travel there for business), yet, they have converted 2 convention centers into hospitals, and have ventilators ready to go. Below are some pictures.

Also, the government, instead of giving money to people, they are creating emergency jobs: if you are laid off/furloughed, you can get a job disinfecting the city. Doesn't pay much, but it pays.

My wife and youngest are in Mérida right now. They have been there since January. Their water bill was $0.00. Their electricity bill was $0.00. No one is paying for utilities until things go back to normal.

This is getting too long, and I want to go check the draft. I'll address the rest later.

BTW, I do appreciate your level of discussion, really. I shouldn't snipe at you, which I do sometimes, that's my bad.

https://www.yucatan.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/image00004.jpeg

https://www.yucatan.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/xsigl01.jpg

 

[N.O.Bronco]

There is not a single year you can point to since the 1918 flu or a major war where “other factors” result in an additional 50,000 deaths(and many more unreported) in a months time that overwhelm the healthcare sector and threaten to rise exponentially without corrective action.

AGAIN, this is faulty reasoning that ignores what the problem here is. Which is a disease(that unlike the flu has NO vaccine) that without enormous intervention will overwhelm a healthcare sector that‘s resting place operates at around 95% capacity and exceeding that(which is not that hard to do) compounds both human and economic harm for an exponential amount of time.

WHICH YOU CLEARLY RECOGNIZE IN YOUR FOLLOWING ARGUMENT. So you are essentially talking out both sides. Had America done more it wouldn’t be so bad, no shirt. But absent that you are sitting here talking up whataboutisms about diabetes and the flu and how we shouldn’t be doing the things we failed to do to prevent what you claimed could have helped us in the onset. Somehow, what we needed to do in January and February and failed, is the opposite of what we should be doing in April and May after that failure led to 2000 deaths a day and a tepid flattening.

There is no guiding logic, and worse, there is no coherency or evidence to your contradictory position. Failing initially means you need to do MORE, not less. Failing initially means you can’t just model or prescriber yourself based on places that are not in that position, and not on that timeline.

 

[Beach Friends]

I just saw a headline that the WHO says that up to half of the deaths in Europe are linked to long term care facilities. Obviously that doesn't mean that death was imminent for all those patients, but it is somewhat of an indicator.

 

[The moose]

I know I am supposed to say something about the article but I am at a loss

Just read it because it is mind-blowing

Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force

On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive...

www.reuters.com

 

[MT15]

One reason you try to avoid letting thousands of people die from a pandemic virus is that these are avoidable deaths. I wouldn’t consider it acceptable to allow what could likely be tens of thousands of people to die, when we can avoid it with just another month or so of staying the course.

At some point in the fairly near future there will be mitigating treatments, our hospital system is reporting very positive results with Covid Convalescent Plasma. It’s just a small number of patients so far, but all have been successfully extubated. There are also a couple of drugs that are in the final phase of clinical trial that are also looking good. An awful lot of talented medical minds are concentrating on figuring this virus out. I feel certain we will have some reliable treatments soon. Far quicker than we will have a vaccine, but the vaccine will come also.

We just need to buy some more time. Not that much more, but opening up right now, without good testing and follow up, is just a recipe for the needless loss of life. Trump has evidently been convinced as well, as he has thrown Governor Kemp thoroughly under the bus for following what Trump said he should do the day before last. Maybe Kemp will learn to quit listening to what Trump says and consult the medical experts.

My state is using the Public Health program at our major state university medical school to do the modeling. I’m sure they are also consulting alternate models. They are doing a decent job with the balancing act between public health and public financial security. It’s a Republican state government, and almost everyone in the state supports the efforts. Some stores in smaller towns are staying open, even though they aren’t considered essential. They rarely have more than a couple people inside at a time. It’s common sense, and nobody is “calling the police” or complaining. Our governor never quotes Trump, lol, in fact he just avoids ever mentioning his name as far as I can tell. That’s probably for the best.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

One reason you try to avoid letting thousands of people die from a pandemic virus is that these are avoidable deaths. I wouldn’t consider it acceptable to allow what could likely be tens of thousands of people to die, when we can avoid it with just another month or so of staying the course.

At some point in the fairly near future there will be mitigating treatments, our hospital system is reporting very positive results with Covid Convalescent Plasma. It’s just a small number of patients so far, but all have been successfully extubated. There are also a couple of drugs that are in the final phase of clinical trial that are also looking good. An awful lot of talented medical minds are concentrating on figuring this virus out. I feel certain we will have some reliable treatments soon. Far quicker than we will have a vaccine, but the vaccine will come also.

We just need to buy some more time. Not that much more, but opening up right now, without good testing and follow up, is just a recipe for the needless loss of life. Trump has evidently been convinced as well, as he has thrown Governor Kemp thoroughly under the bus for following what Trump said he should do the day before last. Maybe Kemp will learn to quit listening to what Trump says and consult the medical experts.

My state is using the Public Health program at our major state university medical school to do the modeling. I’m sure they are also consulting alternate models. They are doing a decent job with the balancing act between public health and public financial security. It’s a Republican state government, and almost everyone in the state supports the efforts. Some stores in smaller towns are staying open, even though they aren’t considered essential. They rarely have more than a couple people inside at a time. It’s common sense, and nobody is “calling the police” or complaining. Our governor never quotes Trump, lol, in fact he just avoids ever mentioning his name as far as I can tell. That’s probably for the best.

My girlfriend works at one of those hospitals doing some of these plasma treatments.

There is a lot of promise, however, people possibly need to curve their expectations a bit as well.

Like a vaccine, like testing, like tracing, you probably can’t just scale something up that needs a lot of inputting factors and go from a few clinical trials to nationwide over night(and you probably don’t want to either). It will take some time and it needs to be pointed out it is reliant upon the consent of obtaining plasma from covid recovered patients and/or developing a reliable antibody test that can be used to find additional willing donors, which will also need to be massively scaled up. It’s a promising direction no doubt, but from what I understand treatment like that is going to be limited for some time. Plus, it’s not a panacea. Used for SARS 12% of patients still died(compared to 17%), 20% of H1N1 patients still died even with plasma treatment.

As for vaccines, it should be worth noting that the quickest we have ever developed a vaccine and got it to market as a species was 18 months. Which is sobering but should give an idea of what is a realistic time table. I suspect given the urgency and way collective scientific institutions have come together this will be sped up, but when you are talking about a drug that potentially a billion people will need, a rush to market is still going to require quite a lot of testing before it’s ready for consumption. Which is to say nothing of the distributional problem. Which involves who and how the vaccine gets distributed. Who pays? How much do they pay? Do we legally mandate? Can we get sites set up effectively? Etc. very likely any vaccine will only be available in limited quantities for a not insignificant amount of time and the distributional network will take weeks to months to fully form, then some more time to get to the needed capacity.

But your overall point is dead on. You do what you do because of the need to get a system in place to handle the threat(hospital capacity expansion, treatments, preventive measures, tracing, testing) so that way the threat can be crippled and whittled down to a far lesser threat. So that when you do emerge confidence and normalcy is maximized. Thereby strengthening the economic bounce back and suistanabilty. Cutting that short doesn’t just magically produce that normalcy, and by all accounts the trade offs don’t add up, economically or morally.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I am probably not explaining my thoughts very well.

I am not saying that they were near death. I am saying that their deaths could as easily have been triggered by other factors, which we either don't care about, or we don't track. If we take diabetes as an example, I posted the data from the ADA somewhere else, and if I am reading them correctly, we know that ~80,000 people die because of diabetes, while ~250,000 die because of complications of diabetes and a secondary factor. And we accept that secondary factor, whatever that is. We don't go out of our way to contain it.

Same train of thought with influenza. We know 1000's of people are going to die, with vaccines and all, but we don't do anything to contain influenza, beyond a vaccine that varies in effectiveness year to year. We just accept those 1000s, mostly elderly, will die of it.

I don't know that we are going to get any strong numbers any time soon, probably not in a couple of years at least, but I think they will show an overlap where other conditions would've as easily trigger a death based on an underlying precondition.

I think I understand what you're saying. However, I'm not sure that it matters all that much. There are two basic questions - does this disease put a strain on healthcare capacity in a way that is unacceptable to the general population? Does this disease result in more people dying than we find acceptable? Obviously, there is a huge question mark over what is acceptable. I think the health care question is a bit easier to answer - I think anytime a hospital runs out of facility space would fall out of the acceptable range. Part of what allows people to live with a certain amount of risk is the idea that they can get to a hospital to fix them up, or treat their disease, or whatever. If they have fear that they will not be able to get the care they require when they need it, it will significantly alter their behavior.

The second question is a bit trickier. You say we don't go out of our way to contain secondary factors to causes of death. First of all there seems to be an assumption built in there that this is a secondary cause of death, and I'm not sure I would agree with that. This disease kills people in a number of ways, obviously starting with lungs, filling them up with mucus and restricting their ability to take in oxygen until they suffocate to death, like drowning on land. But that isn't the only way it kills, it attacks the kidneys, the stomach and the brain as well. Most of the articles I've read describe the virus as actively killing the patient, not weakening a patient that dies from a pre-existing condition (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes). In that case, you have it backwards, this is a new disease killing people and their existing conditions are a contributing factor. This is consistent with the number of healthy people dying who have high exposure to this disease (ie doctors and nurses).

I'm also not sure it matters. Ultimately, does the presence of this disease lead to more death in this country? Ie, without this disease, 3 million people would die over the next year, and with it 5 million people will die. Whether they really died because of diabetes and Covid-19 just made it worse I don't think matters if they would have lived absent Covid-19.

And we do take measures to control every factor we have control over. Seatbelt laws, medication for heart disease, vaccines, and so on. We control what we can. We don't have a built up immunity nor do we have a vaccine for COVID-19 like we do for the flu.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me, to treat a disease that will both significantly increase the death rate, and increase hospital utilization, and we have no treatments or vaccines for, but probably will in a matter of months, as a serious health emergency.

And that's fine, but, do we really know what a 22% hit to the economy looks like?

We (not just you and I, but the collective we of the old board and this one) have talked/argued about the effect of your average person missing a paycheck, and how 45% (IIRC) of people leave paycheck to paycheck. We did just that last year when the government shut down for a few weeks, and how it affected people who worked for the government. And that wasn't a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That didn't shut down restaurants and factories and nail salons and concerts, etc etc etc.

Absolutely, it's already been devastating. I have a bunch of thoughts on the nature of risk assessment, consumer economy, and social welfare but that is a bit tangential to this. Basically, I would say this is a perfect place for the government to assume the risk and costs and keep the economy afloat while we get through this.

For the very beginning of this, I have said, we need to be smart about it. Obviously we would need strong leadership, which we severely lack at this moment. But a country with the resources and know-how of the U.S. should've gotten ahead of this. Both with the simple things and the complicated things.

Simple things like preaching proper hygiene, especially to those with health conditions and their families. I cringe every time I go to the supermarket and see people wearing masks and gloves, yet rubbing their eyes with their fingers. I guess I didn't notice it before, but now I do, and it is surprising to me how many people do it.

Maybe I am a bit of a germophobe too. I am the only person I know who washes his hands before going to the bathroom in public places. I ain't touching my junk with dirty hands

Complicated things like planning against those models. As I said before, you don't have to be an epidemiologist with complicated contagion patterns in your pocket to discern NYC was going to get a large number of exposures; the NYC subway is probably the biggest cause for the virus spreading in NYC.

But we refused to plan.

And this is where I pimp my home State... In Yucatán, so far, there have been 20 deaths related to the virus (which is surprising considering the number of Chinese people who travel there for business), yet, they have converted 2 convention centers into hospitals, and have ventilators ready to go. Below are some pictures.

Also, the government, instead of giving money to people, they are creating emergency jobs: if you are laid off/furloughed, you can get a job disinfecting the city. Doesn't pay much, but it pays.

My wife and youngest are in Mérida right now. They have been there since January. Their water bill was $0.00. Their electricity bill was $0.00. No one is paying for utilities until things go back to normal.

This is getting too long, and I want to go check the draft. I'll address the rest later.

I don't object to any of that. The problem is we did not get ahead of it, I think if we had stayed on top of it with testing and contact tracing, we could have lived with giving people guidelines and maybe some restrictions on large gatherings. But that didn't happen, so the disease spread beyond that. If the disease dies under sunlight and heat, then this summer will provide another great opportunity to get ahead of it so we can have less severe restrictions in the fall/winter.

BTW, I do appreciate your level of discussion, really. I shouldn't snipe at you, which I do sometimes, that's my bad.

No worries, I don't generally mind a bit of sniping, I do it myself occasionally. It gets frustrating when you think you're making a pretty simple point that the other side doesn't seem to get. I actually find your position pretty useful, b/c you are not a Trump supporter and you are arguing somewhat against the political grain for a non-Trump supporter, which to me, at least means your position is more likely to be free of political bias.

 

[Beach Friends]

I think it is time we use our knowledge of the virus to outsmart it. We know that the virus does not typically effect young people that much.

In order to get to herd immunity as fast as possible, we should intentionally expose the nation's kids at once and keep them locked away from the rest of us for a couple of weeks. When they have recovered, we let them do all the work.

 

[wardorican]

I think it is time we use our knowledge of the virus to outsmart it. We know that the virus does not typically effect young people that much.

In order to get to herd immunity as fast as possible, we should intentionally expose the nation's kids at once and keep them locked away from the rest of us for a couple of weeks. When they have recovered, we let them do all the work.

Kids are notorious for following directions.

 

[wardorican]

So, true believers. Which of you will inject a disinfectant to protect yourself from the Coronavirus?

This is what happens when you elect someone with no ability to process new information or has a short attention span.

 

[dtc]

I am probably not explaining my thoughts very well.

I am not saying that they were near death. I am saying that their deaths could as easily have been triggered by other factors, which we either don't care about, or we don't track. If we take diabetes as an example, I posted the data from the ADA somewhere else, and if I am reading them correctly, we know that ~80,000 people die because of diabetes, while ~250,000 die because of complications of diabetes and a secondary factor. And we accept that secondary factor, whatever that is. We don't go out of our way to contain it.

Same train of thought with influenza. We know 1000's of people are going to die, with vaccines and all, but we don't do anything to contain influenza, beyond a vaccine that varies in effectiveness year to year. We just accept those 1000s, mostly elderly, will die of it.

I don't know that we are going to get any strong numbers any time soon, probably not in a couple of years at least, but I think they will show an overlap where other conditions would've as easily trigger a death based on an underlying precondition.



And that's fine, but, do we really know what a 22% hit to the economy looks like?

We (not just you and I, but the collective we of the old board and this one) have talked/argued about the effect of your average person missing a paycheck, and how 45% (IIRC) of people leave paycheck to paycheck. We did just that last year when the government shut down for a few weeks, and how it affected people who worked for the government. And that wasn't a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That didn't shut down restaurants and factories and nail salons and concerts, etc etc etc.


For the very beginning of this, I have said, we need to be smart about it. Obviously we would need strong leadership, which we severely lack at this moment. But a country with the resources and know-how of the U.S. should've gotten ahead of this. Both with the simple things and the complicated things.

Simple things like preaching proper hygiene, especially to those with health conditions and their families. I cringe every time I go to the supermarket and see people wearing masks and gloves, yet rubbing their eyes with their fingers. I guess I didn't notice it before, but now I do, and it is surprising to me how many people do it.

Maybe I am a bit of a germophobe too. I am the only person I know who washes his hands before going to the bathroom in public places. I ain't touching my junk with dirty hands

Complicated things like planning against those models. As I said before, you don't have to be an epidemiologist with complicated contagion patterns in your pocket to discern NYC was going to get a large number of exposures; the NYC subway is probably the biggest cause for the virus spreading in NYC.

But we refused to plan.

And this is where I pimp my home State... In Yucatán, so far, there have been 20 deaths related to the virus (which is surprising considering the number of Chinese people who travel there for business), yet, they have converted 2 convention centers into hospitals, and have ventilators ready to go. Below are some pictures.

Also, the government, instead of giving money to people, they are creating emergency jobs: if you are laid off/furloughed, you can get a job disinfecting the city. Doesn't pay much, but it pays.

My wife and youngest are in Mérida right now. They have been there since January. Their water bill was $0.00. Their electricity bill was $0.00. No one is paying for utilities until things go back to normal.

This is getting too long, and I want to go check the draft. I'll address the rest later.

BTW, I do appreciate your level of discussion, really. I shouldn't snipe at you, which I do sometimes, that's my bad.

https://www.yucatan.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/image00004.jpeg

https://www.yucatan.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/xsigl01.jpg

Dude.

If missing a paycheck is so bad for a family then losing the person who earns that check is a million times worse. And all those variables are real. Models are models. Guesses are guesses, but because we don't know for sure, ,we have to do our best and we have to be smart - like you said.

The thing I think you're missing is that being smart is being safe and erring on the side of caution because, as I said above, losing the bread winner forever is worse than losing a check for a month. And, again, I will point out that the government is giving out money hand over fist in order to make that lost paycheck less of an issue.

 

[superchuck500]

Things that Rudy G thinks are infectious: cancer, heart disease, obesity. I love how Laura smiles and nods like “you’re so right Rudy!”

 

[Lapaz]

So, true believers. Which of you will inject a disinfectant to protect yourself from the Coronavirus?

This is what happens when you elect someone with no ability to process new information or has a short attention span.

My wife told me last night as we were going to sleep that someone posted on Facebook that Trump advised injecting disinfectant, and I told her that has to be fake. I really didn't believe that even Trump could say something so stupid. I told her that can't be true, because that would be stupid even by Trump's standards. Then I wake up this morning to see it all over the news. I really can't believe he said that! Some people may actually try it and either die or end up taking up hospital space.