U.S. to close..

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Singularity

By 'rule book' I meant to refer to the phenomenon where there is a public discourse of expectations of what should/shouldn't be done for XYZ medical situations....what people say in public...and what they say/do/expect/threaten behind closed doors is very different. Agreed/understand that stress largely causes this, but this isn't ever part of the discussion...as it should be.

We are moving in that direction but it's a slow process and I don't ever expect it to be easy to make that call.

All the blather about different political persuasions responding differently is just that blather. Just look at the Governor of California...a strong proponent of various restrictions and left leaning agendas...just got called out for his kids going to in person schooling and attending a large multi-family event at a high end restaurant. There are multiple similar examples of rules for you but not for me (NY Gov, Mich Gov, etc...).

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by GordMay

[[on the subject of case fatality ratios]]

As noted above many people are not going getting tested when sick, so the CFR is lower than the numbers you cited. How much lower? For simplicity, assuming only 1 person out of 10 who has symptoms gets tested....then the CFR is still 100x worse than the 2017 flu season (the worst flu in the past decade) depending on age. In one state I worked the Covid CFR for age 55-65 is 1 death per ~33 positive tests in this age group. Understanding that this "lots of people don't go in for a test" applies to ordinary flu test/didn't test behavior in the past....1 in ~33 death rate is an absolutely insane number.

I suggest that people who are not good with numbers...correctly surmise that the cited CFR numbers are wrong (so they correctly discount them), but then their brain shuts off. They don't hold proper priors on flu lethality (where fools repetitively mis-cite flu lethality) and frankly doctors for decades have not be precise with people about what's a cold vs flu vs genuine pneumonia/infection/whatever such that people have the worst combination of false sense of security coupled with the most lethal respiratory virus floating about in 100 years.

[AA3JY]

Originally Posted by AA3JY

..again? Remember this past spring quite a few marinas where forced/volunteered to close and entry to the US was restricted for a few weeks.

I’m afraid this may happen again in some form or another in the near future..

...and so it begins..

https://www.yahoo.com/news/covid-19-...135420959.html

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You cannot compare combat deaths with COVID deaths. This gives a totally distorted impression of the human cost of the pandemic. Which is huge, but not at all on the same scale as WWII. Average age of COVID deaths: about 77 years in the U.S. (85 in Sweden). Life-years lost: 2.5 million on the high end (not taking any account of pre-existing conditions, so certainly overstated by at least 2x or 3x), or about 758 per 100k population. Average age of U.S. soldiers in WWII: 26. Life expectancy in 1944: 69.5. Life-years lost in WWII by U.S. soldiers: 17,634,857, or 12,742 per 100k, which is UNDERstated because does not take account of FEWER pre-existing conditions among front-line troops in the war. So most likely about two orders of magnitude greater, than COVID deaths so far.

And can you possibly stick to arguments and facts, and refrain from personal insults like "civically illiterate"?

1. If/when we decide that we are to apportion value to human life based on age and health conditions, with a death distribution found with Covid, I am in the camp, traditionally in the majority, that finds this to be morally abhorrent. If one wants to go there, apportion value of life to society, then this indeed opens a can of worms. A detailed analysis in that regard finds many a 70 year-old person to have contributed more to society, and will take less from a society, than say a 26yo (or older) lawyer. That specifically the lawyer's life is worth less to everyone else than is the 70 year old (while, of course, the lawyer sees things differently and will argue as such). I submit that we ought not go there, but if this "but they're old" or "but they have pre-existing conditions" business continues to be brought up, then I suggest it reasonable that someone be able to stick up for the old and frail in the community.

If you want to pull the plug on old people and people with pre-existing conditions, take it up in the federal court and argue that for a few years instead of whether or not making people stay home bound for a couple weeks every now and then so infrastructure can keep up with the Covid response (WHO's conditional advice) is constitutional.

2. On civic literacy. Citing civic illiteracy is not a personal attack; characterizing it as so is a heckler's veto. Quite simply there must be a means to designate misinformation for what it is. If the pattern of misinformation is consistent with civic illiteracy, so be it. Otherwise we should just close all the universities as "alternative fact misinformation mills" or some such. I concede that someone ought to be able to stick up for the civically illiterate. I don't know why they wouldn't just help such folks understand things, but everyone has their purpose.

[goboatingnow]

If you want to pull the plug on old people and people with pre-existing conditions, take it up in the federal court and argue that for a few years instead of whether or not making people stay home bound for a couple weeks every now and then so infrastructure can keep up with the Covid response (WHO's conditional advice) is constitutional.

Im not aware of any successful constitutional challenge that has been successful , certainly a supreme court constitutional challenge in Ireland , was dismissed for example , essentially on the grounds that a public health emergency was occurring and that allowed the Gov to act ( even though extremely strict lockdowns in Ireland werent really implemented )

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Do you recall the title of this OECD project?

OECD Trustlab

Always happy to be the one supplying you with quality links Gord. The vast majority of the time it goes the other way .

Originally Posted by Dockhead

...That whole regime will change on 27 November, when anyone can enter Finland from anywhere and for any purpose, provided they present a fresh COVID test, then voluntarily self-isolate for 5 days until they take another COVID test. They now have sniffer dogs at Finnish airports which can smell COVID infections more reliably than a PCR test, and contact tracing in Finland now catches in excess of 60% of new cases.

A couple of border entry points here in Alberta, Canada have been piloting a nearly-identical protocol, sans the dogs. It involves getting test upon entry, quarantining for the short period (2-3 days) required to get these results, then if negative, live as normal. A second test is administered on the 6th or 7th day.

It's been running for a few weeks now at the Calgary International Airport, and one land border crossing. I believe they want to get around 50,000 participants before assessing the effectiveness. Unofficial reports suggest it's going very well. If it does, then I expect this to be rolled out to many other border entry points.

https://www.alberta.ca/international...t-project.aspx

[SalingSue]

Originally Posted by Singularity

I would suggest that using an anectdote of local numbskullery in backwoods America as a lens to aprise the course of human events of tens of billions of people about the globe over thousands of years does not help one attain much of a useful grasp of understanding the nuances of history. [but for that matter, there are battles in another Athens that are more useful]

In school they call this phenomenon observation biasing...where one only sees in the world some combination of a) what they saw before, b) what their brain causes them to focus on, presumably based on evolutionary needs. Not everyone ever takes those classes, but in popular media you can see this phenomenon routinely lampooned. Here is an example, augmented for this subject:

Yes, underrating individual liberty loving Americans, that worked so well for everyone from England to HRC.

Originally Posted by GordMay

Wrong (again).
As Yihang opined (#465), “I'd hate to see your (SalingSue) social media feed.”

Globally, as of 10:08am CET, 17 November 2020, there have been 54,558,120 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,320,148 deaths, reported to WHO.

1,320,148 deaths

That would work out to a 2.42% Worldwide Case Fatality Ratio (CFR), not 1% (99% survival) - which is, itself (1% CFR), 10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu.

Cases and mortality by country
Mexico: 1,009,396 cases, 98,861 deaths, = 9.8% CFR
China 91,872, 4,742, = 5.2%
United Kingdom 1,394,299, 52,240, = 3.7%
Canada 305,449, 11,075, = 3.6%
Australia 27,758, 907, = 3.3%
USA 11,202,980, 247,202, = 2.2%
Netherlands 459,837, 8,603, = 1.9%
Finland 19,419, 371, = 1.9%
Denmark 63,847, 764, = 1.2%
New Zealand 2,005, 25, = 1.2%
Iceland 5,205, 25, = 0.5% CFR

More countries ➥ https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

For one tons of those deaths were WITH Covid, not FROM covid, a month or so ago CDC said we had about 10,000 deaths FROM covid.

[atoll]

Remember that Sturgis freedom motorcycle rally ,local nurse recounts how they have had 683 deaths in a town of 650

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WicsWfTm1ZI

[SalingSue]

Originally Posted by atoll

Remember that Sturgis freedom motorcycle rally ,local nurse recounts how they have had 683 deaths in a town of 650

Right. There have been car crashes where the covid box was checked too.

I get it, check the box and get cash, don’t check it and have to lay a nurse off because your hospital is all but shutdown to make room for the mass causality event that’s always 2 weeks away.

Or how no one will say the riots and looting could spread the virus

Or how all the people screaming I be forced to wear a fashion mask at the threat of a gun, same people are very often seen not wearing a mask, hard for me to get onboard with your pitch when you arnt even buying what you’re trying to sell.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

Right. There have been car crashes where the covid box was checked too.

I get it, check the box and get cash, don’t check it and have to lay a nurse off because your hospital is all but shutdown to make room for the mass causality event that’s always 2 weeks away.

Or how no one will say the riots and looting could spread the virus

Or how all the people screaming I be forced to wear a fashion mask at the threat of a gun, same people are very often seen not wearing a mask, hard for me to get onboard with your pitch when you arnt even buying what you’re trying to sell.

The point was that many of the otherwise healthy people died still believing covid was a hoax as their oxygen levels dropped and blamed the doctors and nurses for not being able to save them

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

Your chance of death from this virus WITHOUT a shot was already under 1%, how much lower do you need it?

I mean the men who fought for your freedoms has a wee bit higher of a chance of death, tossing the hard earned freedoms and liberties paid for in blood away because a sub 1%. chance of death freaks soft people out, that’s not a good look.
...
Just imagine talking to a Normandy vet just back from the front line, or a vet from the independence war, about how you were you want to give away your, AND HIS rights, because you might catch a virus with over a 99% survival rate.

Here's the thing: it's not about me. I couldn't give a flying f#@% whether I catch it. I care some about whether my wife catches it (but we suspect she may have had it already). I care lots that my elderly Mom, and her friends, and even your elderly relatives, might catch it.

I care that pointless grandstanding is going to cause some severe overload on our health care systems; I care about the health professionals working their asses off over this period, and the utter burnout and grief when they have to go into triage mode, then watching the dropped third suffocate. I care about people who will suffer and die from other treatable things because the hospitals can't spare the time or the beds.

I even have some concern left over for those who will die or have lifelong problems from catching something that some flag-waving nut passed along to them. Including those flag-waving nuts who turn out to not be so invincible.

I kind of suspect that your hypothetical Normandy vet wouldn't be that impressed with what hill you're choosing to make a stand on. A mask, occasionally? Some thoughtful self-control about going out and about? Remember, "ordering" would only come about when people don't have enough good sense to take precautions voluntarily.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Singularity

1. If/when we decide that we are to apportion value to human life based on age and health conditions, with a death distribution found with Covid, I am in the camp, traditionally in the majority, that finds this to be morally abhorrent. If one wants to go there, apportion value of life to society, then this indeed opens a can of worms. A detailed analysis in that regard finds many a 70 year-old person to have contributed more to society, and will take less from a society, than say a 26yo (or older) lawyer.

I am tempted to say that this is philosophically illiterate, but I will bite my tongue.


It is generally accepted and hardly controversial, something you will learn the first week in any of the great schools of public policy, like the Kennedy School, that allocating resources between saving different lives, should consider years of life remaining and simply cannot be done on a life for life basis. This is Policy 101.



To make the point using a valid application of the technique of reductio ad absurdum -- to prolong the life of a 90 year old by one day is most obviously not as valuable to society as saving the life of a healthy 20 year old who may be expected to live for 58 more years, including 45 years before retirement.



"Saving a life" is merely putting off what is inevitable for all of us. BY HOW MUCH this is put off, is entirely relevant to policymaking, so is always considered in all literate policymaking.


It is extremely relevant here, when we consider throwing tens of millions of healthy working poor out of work to save some thousands of mostly old people. You don't have to say that the lives of old people are worthless -- of course they are not. But neither are the lives of the healthy working poor. You cannot make policy without tools to balance these things. Where limited resources are involved, you cannot avoid the balancing.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . .That specifically the lawyer's life is worth less to everyone else than is the 70 year old (while, of course, the lawyer sees things differently and will argue as such).

Irrational hatred of lawyers, which we have seen frequently expressed, is no different from irrational hatred of black people, of hippies, of dentists, or whatever. It's all the same deeply ugly and deeply ignorant thing, and has no place in public discourse. Lawyers are like any other people; there are good people and bad people among them, just like there are among black people, hippies, and dentists.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . . I submit that we ought not go there, but if this "but they're old" or "but they have pre-existing conditions" business continues to be brought up, then I suggest it reasonable that someone be able to stick up for the old and frail in the community.

The point is obviously too subtle, but no one is proposing that the lives of the old and frail are worthless.

Originally Posted by Singularity

If you want to pull the plug on old people and people with pre-existing conditions. . .

No one ever said that.

Originally Posted by Singularity

. . . take it up in the federal court and argue that for a few years instead of whether or not making people stay home bound for a couple weeks every now and then so infrastructure can keep up with the Covid response (WHO's conditional advice) is constitutional.

This is a confused hash of different concepts, and misquoting WHO to boot. We have discussed the constitutionality of lockdowns, and there is not a clear answer, but in any case it's irrelevant to the question of whether it's good policy or not. WHO recommends against lockdowns except as a "last resort", to accurately state their position. Whether or not lockdowns are good policy depends on a lot of different things. If they are the only thing which stands between a society and health care systems being overwhelmed, then they are probably a good idea, because entirely disproportionate death results when health care systems are overwhelmed and it becomes impossible to care for everyone. Whether or not lockdowns make sense in conditions short of that, simply in order to reduce the infection rate, depends on different things, for example: (a) how effective are they compared to other measures; (b) how much do they cost in terms of death and other effects on other people, including the long term effects of economic damage. You can't make a rational decision about this without tools needed to balance the different interests involved.



Discounting the effect on large numbers of working poor with decades of life left to each of them, in order to concentrate exclusively on a smaller number of lives of older and sicker people, is irrational. I have said that it looks to me like old, retired, relatively wealthy white people, with disproportionate political influence, who don't fear economic collapse because they are already retired and provided for, but are terrified for their own skins, throwing tens of millions of the voiceless working poor under the bus. That is my opinion, and it may be really true, or partially true -- wise men may disagree -- but the effect on these people cannot be simply ignored by rational policymakers in a good and just society. That is an argument with facts and logic -- if you disagree, let's see your own.

Originally Posted by Singularity

2. On civic literacy. Citing civic illiteracy is not a personal attack; characterizing it as so is a heckler's veto. Quite simply there must be a means to designate misinformation for what it is. If the pattern of misinformation is consistent with civic illiteracy, so be it. Otherwise we should just close all the universities as "alternative fact misinformation mills" or some such. I concede that someone ought to be able to stick up for the civically illiterate. I don't know why they wouldn't just help such folks understand things, but everyone has their purpose.

You never stop, do you? You characterize another poster as "civically illiterate"; and then when called out on it, you characterize that person as a "heckler". Whoever disagrees with you is spreading "misinformation". You need to bring facts and arguments to such a discussion, and don't forget a modicum of respect, and stop the name calling. Otherwise no one will pay attention, except possibly the moderators.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

It is generally accepted and hardly controversial, something you will learn the first week in any of the great schools of public policy, like the Kennedy School, that allocating resources between saving different lives, should consider years of life remaining and simply cannot be done on a life for life basis. This is Policy 101.

It's morally abhorrent when this sort of "value of life" calculus is ushered to the front of the line, when we are still considerably far away from the level of existential social or economic risk that would justify bringing that consideration to the table. Especially as argument #1 for not tapping a little of the accumulated wealth in this world to help offset economic harm to those most affected.

One argument against the spring lockdowns stated that it was premature to impose them til we had a handle on their likely impact and compared it to the impact of not controlling COVID-19 as tightly. Fast-forward to now: we have a much better idea of what uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 is likely to do, whereas we still do not have as clear an idea about what economic harm would result from adequate pandemic suppression. Of course it will always be hard to quantify stuff that hasn't happened yet... and might not happen.

So, before we can seriously pit "value of life" considerations against future economic harm... we need a better (or any) credible estimate for that harm, and who would be harmed, and who gets to sit in their boats tut-tutting about the whole thing.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

It's morally abhorrent when this sort of "value of life" calculus is ushered to the front of the line, when we are still considerably far away from the level of existential social or economic risk that would justify bringing that consideration to the table. Especially as argument #1 for not tapping a little of the accumulated wealth in this world to help offset economic harm to those most affected.

No one is arguing for killing people in order to avoid "tapping a little accumulated wealth". The argument is in favor of a reasonable balance between saving these people, versus saving those people. We have to save everyone as much as we can. Whether or not we succeed in "tapping a little accumulated wealth", resources are still limited, so we still have to allocate them between different lives.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

One argument against the spring lockdowns stated that it was premature to impose them til we had a handle on their likely impact and compared it to the impact of not controlling COVID-19 as tightly.

If someone said that, I don't agree. In fact on the contrary -- I don't really blame anyone for imposing lockdown in March -- as I have said, in most countries we had at the time nothing but the Imperial College Study which predicted millions of deaths and overloaded hospitals -- I think you just can't blame anyone for the initial reaction. Especially considering to what extent time was of the essence in the initial response.


One reason why it was done differently in the Nordic countries was because unlike in the U.S., they had very comprehensive pandemic plans. They were not shooting in the dark nearly as much as we were. In Sweden (and Finland) they were simply following their pandemic plans, rejecting lockdown as not scientifically supported. They were simply better prepared and had more information, and more confidence in the science which had already gone into their planning.


We can't blame anyone for what happened up to then -- hindsight is always 20/20. But then the later pivot from "flattening the curve" and saving hospitals, to suppressing the spread for unknown goals and without an exit plan for lockdown -- and then all the furious rationalization and justification -- there we might pose more questions.

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Fast-forward to now: we have a much better idea of what uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 is likely to do, whereas we still do not have as clear an idea about what economic harm would result from adequate pandemic suppression. Of course it will always be hard to quantify stuff that hasn't happened yet... and might not happen.

So, before we can seriously pit "value of life" considerations against future economic harm... we need a better (or any) credible estimate for that harm, and who would be harmed, and who gets to sit in their boats tut-tutting about the whole thing.

Indeed. But you have to make the policy decisions in time, even when you don't have complete information. You still have to estimate this damage, those costs, those deaths, those life-years, as best you can. Otherwise you can't make a rational decision. This pandemic was a particularly awful case of it -- I have said before, I am awfully glad to be just another sailor blathering about it on a forum, rather than being an actual policymaker. Hell of a job.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

...You never stop, do you? You characterize another poster as "civically illiterate"; and then when called out on it, you characterize that person as a "heckler". Whoever disagrees with you is spreading "misinformation". You need to bring facts and arguments to such a discussion, and don't forget a modicum of respect, and stop the name calling. Otherwise no one will pay attention, except possibly the moderators.

If one takes so much as a community college correspondence course on medical ethics they will understand, or at least be exposed to, the notion that QALYs are used to herd cattle, not to select the best cut of beef off a single cow. The underlying medical ethical conundrum with limited resources is how to keep a society functional, not to maximize the number of factory workers. Frankly a lot of people in society are, in the net, parasites, such that if they disappeared, society would be better off. These are not minorities or disenfranchised people...those groups in the aggregate nearly to an individual level take a pittance from the system in the worse of cases. To hide behind them as brethren is historically ordinary and recognized as such, and still not valid this time.

Regarding misinformation, yourself and others have repeated undocumented misinformation after I posted the below post 2 months ago.

I encourage people moderating each other's perspectives in response to misinformation which govts the likes of Germany are considering (have implemented?) plans to make some type of crime under the circumstance so as to lesson the impact of Covid on society, which incidentally is screwing with the cruising plans of a bunch of people without the unique geographic location or financial wherewithal that insulates people from the reality all else are living in. In the minimum, I'd hope that someone with moderator under the screen name is not pushing misinformation and denigrating nurses.

As posted near the bottom of the below cited thread, someone else critical of your misinformation wrote:
"I just hope the silent readers don't take the posters with the largest volume of words as the most persuasive." Shortly thereafter thread closed, probably where this one is going.

************************************************** ***
Post from 2 months ago:
My data sources with links: State of California, US CDC, State of Arizona

COVID-19
California alone:
Age 50-64 is 19% of positive cases, or 145,578 confirmed cases (total positive = 766,201)
Age 50-64 is 19% (no error) of fatals, or 2,797 (total fatals = 14,721)

2,797 / 145,578 = 1.92% of 50-64 with positive Covid test died of Covid [192 per 10,000 people age 50-64 died in California closely associated with Covid]

US CDC 2017-2018 flu season
Estimate for all of US:
Age 50-64 had 13,237,932 cases (95% CI 9,400,614 - 23,062,957)
Age 50-64 had 6,751 deaths (95% CI 4,244 - 15,863)

6751 / 13,237,943 = 0.0005 % of people age 50-64 with influenza died of it in the 2017-2018 (1-year) flu season [5 per 10,000 people age 50-64 died in the US closely associated with influenza]

---------------
For further context of influenza deaths

Age 65+ had 5,945,690 cases (95% CI 3,907,025 – 11,786,777)
Age 65+ had 50,903 deaths (95% CI 35,989 – 83,230)

50,903 / 5,945,690 = .00856% of people age 65+ who got influenza died in the 2017-2018 (1-year) flu season [85.6 per 10,000 people age 65+ died in the US closely associated with influenza]

Total US deaths from influenza 2017-2018 season...all age combined = 61,099 (95% CI 46,404 – 94,987)

-------------------------------------------------

Further, Arizona Covid experience
Age 45-54 32,246 positive Covid; 382 Covid deaths, 1.18% positive Covid died of Covid [118 per 10,000 people age 45-54 died in Arizona closely related to Covid]
Age 55-64 24,595 positive Covid; 855 Covid deaths, 3.47% positive Covid died of Covid [347 per 10,000 people age 55-64 died in Arizona closely related to Covid]