All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (9 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?

 

[wardorican]

Sen. McConnell Says Americans Must Have 'No Stigma' In Wearing Face Masks

The leading Republican in the Senate was the latest in the party to break with President Trump and urge Americans to wear masks to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

www.npr.org

Mitch needs to get the Don to say this.

 

[wardorican]

Side note. In the midst of a pandemic and economic uncertainty... it makes too much sense to decouple healthcare insurance from employment.

 

[Maxp]

Side note. In the midst of a pandemic and economic uncertainty... it makes too much sense to decouple healthcare insurance from employment.

I agree with you 100%. Too bad Trump is trying to accomplish the opposite. Small business and contractors need to be freed from the shackles of employment healthcare.

 

[DaveXA]

I don't know if anyone has said it in this thread, but, Rand Paul is a grade A butt crevasse. The way he talked about the experts on the panel and then he gets his mug on TV and basically says everyone should be personally responsible and decide whether to wear masks.

It absolutely shouldn't be optional in public spaces indoors...anywhere. And honestly, I would lock the entire country down for a solid month and make sure we don't open up until it's gone. We're way past that now and we've essentially gone to herd immunity by default.

Anyway, that's my covid rant. I'm done.

 

[V Chip]

He found about 1,485 such deaths in 2020, which was within a few hundred of the same period in any year since 2015.

OK, so a "few hundred" (nice specific figure there, professor) could be a huge range. Normally a "few" means three or more (I usually heard it as 3 to 8, but that's just me) so if the "few hundred" is the lower end -- 300 or so -- that's at least a 25% increase over what was normal range... and it could be much more, depending on what his "few hundred" means.

Add to that the fact that he used only publicly available records, and that was May, and the basic gist of the article is "well, we don't know"... it seems like a weird article to have even been written much less seemingly arguing against a sharp spike in pneumonia reported deaths.

And it's funny in hindsight hearing DeSantis' spokeswoman lauding him for saving lives given the incredible surge in cases currently in Florida.

 

[JimEverett]

OK, so a "few hundred" (nice specific figure there, professor) could be a huge range. Normally a "few" means three or more (I usually heard it as 3 to 8, but that's just me) so if the "few hundred" is the lower end -- 300 or so -- that's at least a 25% increase over what was normal range... and it could be much more, depending on what his "few hundred" means.

Add to that the fact that he used only publicly available records, and that was May, and the basic gist of the article is "well, we don't know"... it seems like a weird article to have even been written much less seemingly arguing against a sharp spike in pneumonia reported deaths.

And it's funny in hindsight hearing DeSantis' spokeswoman lauding him for saving lives given the incredible surge in cases currently in Florida.

What I took as the main point from the article was that people were comparing two different sources: Florida's pneumonia counts for previous years compared to CDC numbers for this year.
I would like to see the source material the discrepancy.

 

[The moose]

What I took as the main point from the article was that people were comparing two different sources: Florida's pneumonia counts for previous years compared to CDC numbers for this year.
I would like to see the source material the discrepancy.

Yeah I agree with you on that one. You can't say the numbers are wrong and not where the extra couple thousand dead people went in death classification at this point.

The whole article to me really made no sense. He basically said they are too stupid to read the CDC website and I am not.

 

[First Time Poster]

Side note. In the midst of a pandemic and economic uncertainty... it makes too much sense to decouple healthcare insurance from employment.

Damn I can't smash the like button hard enough.

 

[insidejob]

The CDC surrenders: COVID-19 spreading too rapidly to be brought under control

For nations like South Korea and New Zealand, the rapid institution of testing and case tracing, mixed with social distancing, allowed outbreaks of COVID-19 to be addressed and, in the latter case, completely extinguished. Countries like Italy, Spain,...

www.dailykos.com

It's Daily KOS which I know has a strong liberal slant, but the quotes from the deputy director of the CDC aren't slanted one way or the other.

And then there’s the United States. Almost four months after the initial surge of virus blindsided states that didn’t understand the extent of spread that had happened in the ignorance generated by zero testing, the COVID-19 epidemic is burning more brightly than ever before. That’s happening in spite of every warning and all the knowledge that should have been gained over those intervening months. And it’s blazing at such a level that on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that this fire can’t be brought under control. The United States simply has “too much virus” to contain.


As MSNBC reports, these disheartening words came courtesy of the principal deputy director of the CDC, Dr. Anne Schuchat. “We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control,” said Schuchat. “We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging.”

It’s not just discouraging. It’s enraging. The virus may be a natural development that evolved from a related infection of wildlife. But the reaction to that virus was a series of human choices.

The United States doesn’t have a coordinated federal testing program. The United States doesn’t have a national system of case management and contact tracing. The United States doesn’t have consistent nationwide regulations on how to conduct social distancing, when businesses and gatherings should be closed, or when to enforce stay-at-home orders. The United States doesn’t have something as simple as a national mandate to wear the masks that have been proven as one of the most effective measures in slowing the speed of the virus. None of that happened because it had to. None of it came because the U.S. could not do those things.

 

[insidejob]

Posted this in the Trump Tracker but it really belongs here too:



It's July 1 and he's still spewing this crap. This is criminal, IMO, because his followers believe all 19,000+ of his proven lies to be undeniable truth and are going to get a lot more people killed. November can't get here soon enough.

 

[Maxp]

Which was more effective, Trump's Covid19 policy or the Maginot Line?

 

[Goatman saint]

The Maginot Line. At least it forced Germany to go around it. With the Trump policy there’s nothing, not even a mask to go around

 

[JimEverett]

Seems like a few months ago or so I was able to find stats showing the number of coronavirus hospitalizations compared to capacity. But I have searched and cannot find them now. Does anyone have a site that shows it - preferably by state or even county?

 

[J-DONK]

Sen. McConnell Says Americans Must Have 'No Stigma' In Wearing Face Masks

The leading Republican in the Senate was the latest in the party to break with President Trump and urge Americans to wear masks to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

www.npr.org

Mitch needs to get the Don to say this.

Main reason they are changing their tune is FL, and TX going nuclear. It's still not enough, and it might be to late for both states. We already know from NY there is a lag between when you lock things down(which neither state is doing), and when cases drop. July is going to be a wild ride for much of the south.

 

[efil4]

Seems like a few months ago or so I was able to find stats showing the number of coronavirus hospitalizations compared to capacity. But I have searched and cannot find them now. Does anyone have a site that shows it - preferably by state or even county?

I think you have to go to each state website. I know for Louisiana, you have to scroll thru a few charts til you get to hospitalized vs capacity.

 

[DaveXA]

I don't know if anyone has said it in this thread, but, Rand Paul is a grade A butt crevasse. The way he talked about the experts on the panel and then he gets his mug on TV and basically says everyone should be personally responsible and decide whether to wear masks.

It absolutely shouldn't be optional in public spaces indoors...anywhere. And honestly, I would lock the entire country down for a solid month and make sure we don't open up until it's gone. We're way past that now and we've essentially gone to herd immunity by default.

Anyway, that's my covid rant. I'm done.

I hope this isn't too much, but I just got finished watching an interview with Congressman Andy Biggs from Arizona. He's worse than Rand Paul.

This guy had the audacity to say Birx and Fauci and the CDC have outlived their usefulness and went so far as to say Fauci hasn't seen a patient lately. I seriously wanted to jump into the TV and kick his arse. Ugh. This is Arizona, one of the worst outbreaks in the country.

His rationale for not wearing a mask was duh, if L.A. is spiking and they're wearing masks, then...

Then he's talking about, well we have low fatalities and hospitalizations when those are lagging indicators. At least Baghdad Bob was funny. This piece of work, not so much.

 

[Goatman saint]

Hey then you have Fresno county out here that the governor shut bars, card tables, movie theaters, wineries unless they can be outside and the city commission and sheriff said nope. Not gonna enforce it. We are at 98% of capacity in the hospitals, between 300-500 cases a day and well we’ve flattened the curve. It’s going straight up. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

 

[DaveXA]

Hey then you have Fresno county out here that the governor shut bars, card tables, movie theaters, wineries unless they can be outside and the city commission and sheriff said nope. Not gonna enforce it. We are at 98% of capacity in the hospitals, between 300-500 cases a day and well we’ve flattened the curve. It’s going straight up. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Yeah, people are completely bonkers now. Just baffling how much ignorance is out there.