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NYT reporter calls Americans who want to open economy 'dumbest people'-
[redstate.com]

SpikeTalon 10 May 3
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"Accuse the opposition of what you are doing, as you are doing it, to cause confusion." Josef Stalin. (In this case, being dumb as rocks.)

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The dumbest people are the ones who think Biden can beat Trump. These snowflakes are in second place.

I thought Biden would easily beat Trump back when Trump was doing his insane thing and talking about how the coronavirus was no worse than the flu, and talking about other insane things like opening up everything by Easter (God...that was terrifying).

He's gotten smarter though. His administration has advocated that states have declining coronavirus cases for two weeks before opening up businesses, and he extended the national lockdown until April 30. I now think there's a considerably smaller chance he's a Russian spy attempting to destroy our country by spreading as much panic and disorganization as possible than I used to. I was real confident he was a a full-fledged sociopath for awhile there...if he wasn't a Russian nationalist.

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If you have not read Charles Murray's book "The coming apart of white America" it is worth the bother.

It's likely that since SES correlates with IQ that those most impacted within a specific demographic group by the shelter in place order will have lower IQs.

Keep in mind however that due to the Flynn effect being primarily on specialized abilities the thing differences may be less.

Also as Jordan Peterson has pointed out IQ and pro social behavior does not correlate. More importantly these correlations tell us nothing about individuals within in SES groups.

The real issue with the response to Civid 19 is the difference in how it has effected different SES groups. We live in a splintered society where higher SES groups are insulated from the consequences of their ideological predispositions. Something Victor Davis Hanson often talks about and Charles Murray notes.

Lower SES individuals that are working and not on government assistance are for the most part more likely to be "essential". The "deplorables" as it turns out are the foundation of not only our civilization but any civilization. While are coastal elites are not the idle rich they are functional similar or analogous to the petty nobility of 18th century France. It isn't surprising to see Nancy Pelosi saying let them eat ice cream. If we continue to ignore society's foundation the civilization may very well crack.

I would use Britain as an example of how failure to maintain a healthy productive class generating a strong economy has weaken their medical system. Very few new drugs come from Britain. Between 2001 and 2010 the U.K accounted for 16 new chemical entities why the U.S. accounted for 111. More importantly the model of encouraging small business in the U.S. has proven more effective than centralized government in innovation and economic robustness. What Britain has basically done is export the misery of the working class and pollution to China by way of the Banksters in the city of London. While a strong welfare and government medical system has reduced misery it's very poor at producing necessary reserves. Before the out break Britain had 6 ventilators to the United States 33 per hundred thousand people.

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It's enough that it comes from NYT to know better and ignore it.

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Not that complicated.

The R-nought value for SARS COV2 is well-known now. Its 5.7 over 2.5 days. If you can do the math, you know that over 10 billion people would be infected in 5 weeks. So not only did the Chinese have zero chance of containing it by the time they realized it was a problem, the World was fully infected before even being aware of the existence of the problem in China. Dr Li Wenliang announced the first case to have been known 17 November. Trump closed down flights to/from China and Europe on the 31st of January, while Democrats were celebrating his impeachment in the House, 10 weeks after the first case was known, while WHO was still claiming no transmission to human to human.

99% of COVID-19 deaths are smokers or those with serious pre-existing conditions. That's why Italy has more victims and Sweden fewer. Those of us not in that group are at far more danger of getting killed driving to the grocery store than from the virus. Social distancing was always irrelevant. And while the infectiousness of SARS COV2 is four times the Spanish Flu, the mortality rate is almost certainly less than the flu. See "Multiple Conditions Increases Risk." [informationisbeautiful.net]

The media has been nearly bankrupt because it is so mistrusted by the public, and badly needed a sensational story, so they made the most of it as a matter of their survival. And the New York Times proudly reported that 87% of the media are Democrats. The public was only too happy to panic on command, and leadership had no choice but to respond accordingly.

Tell your leadership that this ends now.

And the New York Times is best used as toilet paper, not news.

You mean to say that the coronavirus is likely less than the Spanish flu...not the regular flu, right? Because nobody's saying the coronavirus is causing less harm than the regular flu.

Now...the lowest death rate I've heard has been about 0.5% in Germany. We'll probably need to have, maybe, 60% or more of our population get the virus before we develop enough herd immunity to be rid of it through that manner, if we just let it spread without social distancing. That means...not taking into account the likely additional deaths caused by overcrowded hospitals...0.5% of 330 million Americans would mean 1 million 650 thousand people. That times 0.6 (for the 60% of the population that gets it) would be 990,000 people...and maybe we can divide that by a fourth or half because there is thought that a fourth or half of people who get the virus will not have symptoms and so won't be harmed by it.

That's still about a half a million people deceased. That's as much as WW2. A lot of Americans are overweight and have those sorts of pre-existing conditions. America has a large, aging population too.

Regarding the view that social distancing accomplishes nothing..that's just foolhardy. Social distancing is preventing our hospitals from flooding. I figure, if we just let it spread everywhere, a couple million people dying would not be unreasonable. I could imagine it being as high as four million people too. It largely depends on how high the death rate actually is...and that's hard to tell right now given how little data we have.

your own source suggests a 13.8% hospitalization rate. American hospitals cannot hold anywhere near 45 million people at once. From what I've read it looks like we can maybe hold something likely a lot less than a million at once...if we ignore all other issues besides the coronavirus. That's far below even what your own information source says the intensive care rate of the coronavirus would be, if we just let it spread everywhere without worrying about social distancing.

@MrShittles. The mortality rates you are quoting depend on assumptions of only the recorded cases of COVID-19. Several reports now predict that the actual number of infections may be between 50 and 85 times higher - meaning that the mortality rate is 50 - 85 times lower than the .5% you quoted, which reduces it to less than the common flu. Even the 7% mortality rate based on reported cases in Italy (not actual infections) becomes about the same as the common flu.

Also I guess you missed the part about the latest R-nought value being 5.7. Basically that means unless someone had absolutely no contact with anyone, EVERYONE ON THE PLANET was infected in 5 weeks. For one thing, that means that failing to social distance is not "foolhardy." It is ineffective because everyone is already infected. You did get that right? And that drops the mortality rate to about 300 times less than the common flu.

You can see by the reference I provided that the new virus kills almost no one except the very sick and dying (and a percent or so of people of any age with undiagnosed preconditions.) The countries with the greatest number of old people have the highest number of fatalities.

You should pay attention to when some of those numbers are updated on the reference I provided. Some are updated often. Some not since originally published, such as hospitalization rates. This will take a while to be reflected in the data pages, and the media, and others like them benefiting from the chaos, who will naturally continue to claim a hazard exists when it doesn't. Are you one of those?

Since New Zealand is in lock-down and has very few cases, and a very high test rate its likely we can be used as a good example of how dangerous this virus really is:

New Zealand has 1487 Cases (1137 tested positive 350 who tested negative, but had symptoms, so we will assume the lowest number to make the result a bit more sinister.

20 Have died (10 were in a respite care facility (Hospice) receiving end of life care, but lets include them to to double the numbers - Fear is important here

So 1,000 cases resulted in 20 deaths is 0,02 mortality rate - Over the 6 week (But lets say 4) 60 persons required hospitalisation, but recovered, at no time did our hospitals experience more than 20 persons at a time - NATIONWIDE. We used a max of 4 ICU beds Peak in any week.

Our capacity was 500 ICU ventilators (we peaked at 2 on ventilators, but we will say 4 as the bed had someone on oxygen, and that still took a bed.

so hospitalisations are 1,000/20 (keeping scary) 0.02% (0,16% if we put them all in at once - not spread over the week you stay in.

Well over 80% tested positive, but had no symptoms - Some of these are now carriers, The disease is alive (if viruses can be called that) but they don;'t know - most of these untested.

Out of our 5 million people less than 2,000 now have natural immunity, Our economy is screwed, so we will have to end the 6 weeks of lockdown with a strict policy of staying separated, as we are at risk until a vaccine is produced. No tourism (30% of our economy), 10% unemployment now, expected to rise to 30% when the government subsidies end. Debt levels today will take us 10 years to repay, and they are still mounting daily. 30% of our business are gone, The rest are looking to 2 years of no future, so we will have to find new business, or close, we expect 40% of the economy to be gone, and Government expenditure to double, Its currently 60% of GDP, Don't do that math is too scary.

Our hospitals did not treat other sick people that were not emergencies, so now we have a huge backlog on cases, The cost of the extra treatment they now need is hug, But the wait time has gone out from 3 Months to 18 Months average for cases like eye surgery or dental surgery - Most will not get it in time.

We now have no choice but to re-open, we have to try to get something back to work, but as we do, we missed 6 weeks of autumn, and as we head into winter, and the Flu season, we emerge fro our sterile cocoons into a world where the virus still exists, and so does normal flu strains (only the strongest will have survived) and we must prepare to keep going, and tacking every case and shutting down area's as cases emerge ( guess how many will try to hide being sick, rather than loosing even more money)

New Zealand is the winner you are looking to - But behind the facade, there is a grim reality you will only see in a years time, When You are immune, and we are not, and we have to hide from you

New Zealand Won - And Now we are set up for the most dramatic fall - Unless we keep up the fear.

And when that fails - Then What?

Welcome to My Nightmare !!!

@TimTuolomne

#1. With an R value of 5.7...apparently at least 82% of the population need to get it before herd immunity is developed, so that's something to consider. That R-value can be reduced, however. It's not a constant thing. [healthline.com]

#2. That 5.7 mark means that each person with it can potentially spread it to 5.7 other people in an un-vaccinated society...at some point while they're sick. That number can reduce the more a society attempts to halt the spread, such as through social distancing.

"The basic reproduction number represents the maximum epidemic potential of a pathogen. It describes what would happen if an infectious person were to enter a fully susceptible community, and therefore is an estimate based on an idealized scenario.

The effective reproduction number depends on the population's current susceptibility. This measure of transmission potential is likely lower than the basic reproduction number, based on factors like whether some of the people are vaccinated against the disease, or whether some people have immunity due to prior exposure with the pathogen. Therefore, the effective R0 changes over time and is an estimate based on a more realistic situation within the population."
[sph.umich.edu]

So...if you get a virus down to an R value of 1, that doesn't mean one person will spread the virus to one more person ever day, that means the virus will have a flat rate of spread. If the R value is 0.9...that means the virus will probably go extinct pretty soon because each person is spreading it to fewer than one additional person.

So...let's do the math. I've heard you're not likely to be contagious after 10 days...so let's say it takes, maybe 4 days on average to infect 5.7 people. That means after about a month a little over a million people have been infected. Your math is wrong.

Currently, about 5 million people have been infected, so far as we can tell: [worldometers.info]

and it's taken about 5 months to arrive at this point.

Now...here's a March 31 study that suggests the death rate is likely to be about 0.66%...high enough to cause lots of problems in the U.S...and even if that's wrong, we had no way of knowing that earlier, so it was pretty wise to be cautious, in my opinion.

That 5.7 will have likely been reduced by our attempts at social distancing though...although knowing how much will be tricky.

I'm sure the actual percentage of cases will be a lot higher in some areas...but Germany has engaged in a lot of testing, so in Germany it may not be much lower than their current numbers...although I bet it would be quite lower in Italy where they probably don't have the resources to even pay much attention to people with minor signs of the virus anymore.

Also...the highest suggested rate of asymptomatic carriers I've seen has been 50% so far.

@The_Q You're saying New Zealand has a 2% mortality rate. That's INCREDIBLY high. You've achieved a great victory. You've beaten this thing, more or less, in a manner we in the U.S. won't be able to do. We're probably going to end up locking down vast tracts of our economy periodically, and yo-yoing back and forth for the next couple years. Some areas will probably be affected enough to panic, and society will demand areas be closed down, but it'll be too late by then.

Be proud. Your nation is awesome. Ours is too stubborn. Let's put that 2% in perspective. 2% of 80% of the 330 million people in the United States (because we'd need 80% infection rate to gain herd immunity) would be 5,280,000 people...dead because we don't want to shut down SOME of our more social businesses. Our restaurants are still in business, generally speaking. They just do carry outs.

You're just complaining because the grass is always greener on the other side. In the U.S...if the infection rates are anything close to accurate, we're probably not going to develop herd immunity either. We'll just have to deal with our problems for longer, in a more widespread painful way than you guys are. If you can just focus on locking down small, local areas where the virus springs up...you may be done with it for the most part. People may be able to re-enter movie theaters without concern pretty soon. Here...even if movie theatres open up again, I doubt they'll be making a whole lot of money.

Now...if it does spread far more than we think...that could be different, but you guys took the safer route and that's almost never a bad idea when dealing with diseases you don't understand well yet.

Be proud of your nation. Our hospitals could never contain anything near five million people at once. They would immediately overflow and we'd be in the same situation as France, if not worse, and we'd have to decide who gets respirators and who doesn't too.

Resistance from getting the virus may not last until a vaccine is developed anyway. I think it sounds like your government made the right choice...even if it didn't work out for the best. Also...unlike the U.S. you're no longer a high risk of spreading it too tourists. You guys and those Asian nations who hammered down on the virus hard could one of the only spots anyone wants to go to for tourism in a few months.

This is just a really bad circumstance regardless of how it's dealt with. It's never going to be easy unless you're in a nation like China where the people are used to giving up more personal freedoms than either of our nations' citizens are comfortable with...and that's its own kind of sacrifice. It's just a matter of going the less bad route.

I would use it as dunny paper, but my bottom is very delicate, and the paper NYT uses irritates my arse!

@MrShittles. No. You missed just about everything. Again. For one thing 5.7 people are infected by every one person in 2.5 days. And apparently you have no idea how to do the math. And again you missed that EVERYONE ON THE PLANET was infected before you and I ever heard of it. Finally, the latency of the disease is among the highest known, almost certainly surpassing 30 days, which means asymptomatic silent carriers (you and I) can transmit the disease for a very long time after being infected. And that means the numbers on the charts and graphs are still catching up with reality, and won't confirm what you can get from R-nought for months.

I'm going to save your projections, which I will show you if you're still on this site in 6 months, and you can explain it then.

@angelo, I agree that the NYT is not even good for that.

@The_Q. Exactly sir. You are not alone in suffering the random iniquity that the public's media inspired fear-driven frenzy has caused. God help us when a REAL deadly and infectious virus finally tests humankind.

@MrShittles Feel free to join me as I cut down another person who has hung themself, I will get one every day this week, - Tell teir family why its ok, Its for the greater good that they were scarificed to make sure 20 people died over 6 weeks from a virus, but 2 people every day are killing themself as they have lost all hope. - Yep losing 60 to suicide to look good in the international stage, make most kiwis happy. - Eentually the truth will come out, and there will be carnage

@TimTuolomne

#1.That 5.7 number you're referring to means that, once you get sick with the virus...you'll infect 5.7 other people with it before you cease being contagious, in a society that is doing nothing to halt the spread of the virus and is un-vaccinated and has no resistance from prior infections of vaccinations. That number drops, depending on what society does to slow the spread of the virus. Now...whether most of those 5.7 infections occur during the first 2.5 days of infection or not, I don't know...but that 5.7 number is the number of people you're probably going to infect in a society unconcerned with stopping the virus...so in most societies, that number has likely been reduced considerably. If you disagree...please link me to your source of information that provides a better definition, if possible, or give me some kind of information I can verify to learn proof that your definition is correct and mine is not.

Here's my source of data:

Three possibilities exist for the potential transmission or decline of a disease, depending on its R0 value:

"If R0 is less than 1, each existing infection causes less than one new infection. In this case, the disease will decline and eventually die out.
If R0 equals 1, each existing infection causes one new infection. The disease will stay alive and stable, but there won’t be an outbreak or an epidemic.
If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will be transmitted between people, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.
Importantly, a disease’s R0 value only applies when everyone in a population is completely vulnerable to the disease. This means:

no one has been vaccinated
no one has had the disease before
there’s no way to control the spread of the disease"
[healthline.com]

#2. Please link me to any resources you've seen that tell that the virus likely has a latency period of at least 30 days. I assume these are studies, or links to the statements of respectable researchers or medical professionals or mouthpieces for the aforementioned researchers or medical professionals.

#3. After completing #2...please explain to me why that's relevant. Are we still likely to be infectious after that long? What studies, medical experts, or researchers have suggested this?

@TimTuolomne, @The_Q

Well...because we both seem to agree that the virus spreads pretty quickly. Those 20 people will likely become a lot more in the near future...if the disease were allowed to spread uncontrolled. Our guy from New Zealand suggested a 1 or 2 percent death rate...which is quite a bit.

Also, if it is true that over 80% of cases had no symptoms...it makes a lot of sense to shut down huge swatches of the economy to stop it, when that 1-2% death rate is taken into account...if accurate. I don't really understand what our pal from New Zealand meant by 80% of cases not having symptoms though. Maybe those tests happened at random throughout the general population...or maybe they were of people in contact with sick people...or maybe the person was exaggerating about people having no symptoms.

I figure there are three ways to deal with the coronavirus. You can try to totally stomp it out...which New Zealand seems to have more or less done successfully. This route has the disadvantage of your population not developing resistance...but it also has the advantage of having to worry about the virus less than other nations currently still affected by it. This is likely an especially useful tactic for smaller island nations like New Zealand. It'd probably be a lot harder for nations like the United States to instigate.

Option #2 would be trying to "flatten the curve" over time. With this method, you allow the virus to spread somewhat...but you control it somewhat. This lets your society develop some resistance over time...but probably not enough to develop true herd immunity. The primary goal of this system is to prevent hospitals from overflowing. It's an extremely expensive system, however. You have to keep large segments of your economy closed...probably far more expensive than New Zealand's system. They're done with their struggle. We in America will probably have to periodically lock down large segments of our economy from time to time.

Option #3 would be just letting the virus spread out everywhere, uncontrolled. This is a possible sensible route...if the virus has already spread out far and wide in a relatively benign fashion...but so far you've shown me no evidence that this is the case, and everything I've read suggests that experts are still trying to learn much about the virus, and most experts seem to discourage this route the most, from what I've seen...especially medical professionals.

Option #3 would possibly be cheaper than either of the above options...but it could also be far more expensive, because I suspect in many cases the populace just wouldn't accept the piles of bodies in the streets and will demand that businesses be closed down...and the state will enter into a kind of inferior...too late version of option #2.

of those three options...New Zealand's system sounds like by far the best, to me.

A nice sort of side bonus is that New Zealand's system gives the disease fewer chances to mutate into something like a more dangerous version of the flu...which would be beyond disastrous...however, I haven't looked into how likely that is to happen and I'm getting the impression that's difficult to tell so far.

Also...let's say our species gets extremely unlucky and we never develop a vaccine for, say, 3 years. While it might be tempting to assume that option #2 or option #3 would be the best route...that might be the case, but we don't know how long any immunity from getting the disease will last yet. Nations that just let the disease spread relatively uncontrolled could end up having it sweep all the way through their populations twice before New Zealand gets it once, for all we know.

I don't see what's such a bad idea about being a little cautious...whether we're talking about what's best for the economy or the people living in that economy.

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