Even if the risk is objectively small, I think even those rare cases lead to an extreme response when you look at the way colleges react to other small risks. It would probably kill many times more students than alcohol poisoning does, to give some comparison. Alcohol poisoning deaths are incredibly rare but colleges spend a day teaching students about it. Scale that response up proportionately and it doesn’t surprise that a college shuts down to keep a few students from dying.
> It would probably kill far more college students than alcohol poisoning does, to give some comparison.
Maybe slightly more, but not drastically so. About 15 per 100,000 college students die each year from alcohol --- poisoning, motor vehicle accidents, other alcohol-related accidents. Compare to a death rate of about 30 per 100k people aged 18-35 infected with COVID-19 (and it's much lower in the 18-24 set than the entire 18-35 group, but we don't have a good number for how much lower).
And it's not like 100% of students are going to catch it in an academic year (some have already had it, herd immunity, etc).
I went to a college where students were required to live on campus and banned from having a car. My experience after attending multiple of these programs is that the numbers showing the dangers of drunk driving in the college age cohort are misrepresented as measuring the risk of alcohol poisoning among college students. Students were pretty much told that going to a frat party put them in mortal danger. In reality, every college student who dies of alcohol poisoning earns a local news story, and if the incidence were anything like 15 out of 100000 college students per year, the news would be full of such stories.
I worked as an RA - it was my job to enact policies addressing various risks facing the student body - and my perception is that extreme overreaction was the norm.
I sez: "About 15 per 100,000 college students die each year from alcohol --- poisoning, motor vehicle accidents, other alcohol-related "
But then you act as if I said they were all alcohol poisoning, when I was pretty explicit about the number.
Fatal alcohol poisoning (actually this is a number for unintentional poisoning in which alcohol is involved, so it's a tad broader than pure alcohol poisoning) in college is about 4 per 100,000 annually, for clarity. It is possible that the COVID-19 death rate could be lower than this in the college student cohort for 2020-2021.
> and if the incidence were anything like 15 out of 100000 college students per year, the news would be full of such stories.
K.
Your point re: colleges with few students with cars is a good one, but survey data indicates that more college students aged 18-21 and 21-24 drive under the influence than the general population 18-21 and 21-24.
My ballot has the candidate’s name on it, not some elector. If electors conspired to change the outcome, the people would rightfully consider it nothing more than a coup, regardless of the 18th-century design of the electoral college.
One, the electoral college itself is tied to the political power of many low population states, so any serious adjustment to this process is a pretty dangerous subject for some states, making any country wide changes very hard to start.
Two, the shift to direct election of the president (minus the electoral college) was not a planned change. If one day in the 19th century everyone decided to change, then scrapping the EC would've made sense. Instead it has been a slow process happening over at least a century to arrive at our modern system, hence the presence of vestigial artifacts like the electors themselves.
Three, the process of how electors are selected is delegated to the states, which is part of why it took so long. So for example Pennsylvania and Maryland went to a system by which one party won the entire state at once in 1789, while it took South Carolina until 1860 to abandon per district results. Maine never adopted the winner takes all approach, and assigns two votes by district and two by the popular vote tally.
Well said, but I'd like to restate and emphasize a point you stated:
the Constitution specifies that States (not The People or citizens or voters) shall choose their electors.
As you said, allocation of electors by states has been played with in different ways based on different election/ voting methods, but there's actually no constitutional requirement for States to hold a general election at all.
It's entirely up to the state legislatures, who have all since delagated the responsibility to a statewide vote.
From Article II:
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..."
That's it- the rest covers how many electors each state gets.
It's questionable as to what theoretical limits the modern SCOTUS might place on this power to delegate, but they've already said that voting must adhere to "one person, one vote" principles, and have hinted that the states can't delegate the power externally (from the state). But they've never explicitly "locked-in" the requirement that any state hold a general election at all.
You’re right that there’s no hard constitutional requirement that electors vote for for whoever won the popular vote in their state or district, but there is absolutely a strong cultural expectation that electors act faithfully. Also, it’s illegal in many states for electors to act faithlessly.
I think this is a bit like saying that the UK has no constitution because it’s not written down. It’s technically true, but it comes nowhere close to the actual lived experience of the people in that jurisdiction, who absolutely believe they live in a constitutional society.
The electoral college as a system for weighting the votes of people based on where they live is unjust in my opinion, but it’s well-understood as part of the rules of the system as it exists today. The mechanics of that system where the electors are humans who cast votes instead of just points that get tallied is a formality we could get rid of.
The Founders would fundamentally disagree, and so would I.
Our government repeats the motif of filtering down the raw passion and energy of the populace as a whole through a smaller, generally much less numerous group backed with the implicit assumption of good faith and sense.
The faithless elector was to the Founder's one of the last bulwarks against bestowing the highest office in the country to someone so repugnant, that an isolated bunch of people, accountable to no one but their own conscience, politely discussing the matter came to the conclusion it just couldn't work out. The idea that a President could get that far by mere populism and charlatanism may seem daft, but in that time, you didn't have background checks. You couldn't sniff out who someone really was, and if you knew the right people it was easy to get paraded in front of a populace that would eat up anything you fed them as long as there was enough spectacle to keep their attention. Odds are, it wouldn't be a problem. Everything would go just fine. However, the Founder's were well read on the ills of Greek and Roman poli, and the traps of demagoguery, and cults of personality. Their solution was the application of well-intentioned moral reasoning. We've all experienced the excitement of an idea that sounds great in a crowd, to later go home and say, "Now wait a minute." Same basic principle. In such an important decision, if it is really the right answer, no one will refuse,yet if it isn't, the stakes are high enough where the presence of that last chance is warranted.
The political party system completely undermined the entire intent behind the College, and many people never really try to transplant themselves out of the modern mindset, back to the time period to understand it. Nor do they realize just how important careful consideration of the person holding that post was. Think about it.
That President did not have the most capable Armed Forces in the world at his disposal. They did not have the capability to essentially make or unmake law via Administrative law and control of Alphabet soup of national regulatory agencies we have today. That President was not sitting atop the world's largest nuclear arsenal, or at the nexus of arguably one of the most well-funded intelligence and law enforcement apparatus in the world. In comparison to the Presidents of today, Abraham Lincoln was absolutely right. "No man can do any great harm in four years". Nowadays, given the level of interconnectivity between world governments, and the technological capabilities that are at our disposal, it stands to reason they might have balked at having a President in the first place. We don't know for certain. We can only guess.
I'm not certain anyone will find any of what I'm saying rhetorically convincing, but the main point I'm making is it is dangerous to dismiss the past without really understanding why what was done was done. The thinking behind the College was completely rational for the time, and arguably, even more rational and relevant today assuming your values and philosophies are more or less consistent with those of the Founders, who were so helpful as to write them down in generous volume that we may benefit from their endeavors today.
At least, I think so, and I've spent more time than I like to admit trying to understand the topic myself. Which is kind of silly, after all, to be ashamed of doing so, seeing as it is one of the single most important things to do for those who come after us.
To his wife,Joh Adams wrote:
>"The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."
These Founders. These visionaries so loft in their ideals, dedicated their intellectual lives to the laying of a Foundational edifice that would stand the test of time. No Internet or easily accessible mobs of fairweather supporters did they have. No refuge in trivial pseudonymity were they blessed with. No instant feedback loops, or access to the happenings of the entire world at once to cherry pick what works and what doesn't. In spite of the vices and and repugnancies of the society of the time (which I will not whitewash or dismiss), these men demonstrated a commitment to the future few of their descendants, and increasingly few nowadays truly demonstrate. The preservation of personal liberty, and national unity unrivaled in degree or ferverence in administering. Abraham Lincoln himself likened it to the closest thing we should have to a National religion[2]. To cherish and preserve the liberties we enjoy do those who come after. Before you toss aside the fruits of the labor of people who in their time dedicated so much time to trying to think, reason, compromise, and do things well; it behooves you to at least understand their context, and to carry a paltry mockery of what they had to offer forward that you may learn and reap the fruits of a life we haven't had to spend as they did.
I'm sorry, but the flippant dismissive nature of your response just really doesn't do the import of the issue justice. I'm not trying to be condescending or patronizing (though that may end up being how it ends up coming off). I'm merely pointing out that it isn't some 18th century foppish hat to be cast aside. If you can't demonstrate an appreciation for why it was there, or show any indication you've put thought into whether or not it's mutation from it's original intent has actually been a net negative, it is difficult to take your assertion seriously. Then again, I can count on both hands the number of people I've met who will even entertain that level of debate or thought, and only one hand is necessary for the number who have straight up admitted they do it out of a personally perceived sense of duty.
In short, check your damn history and show your work if you expect to be taken seriously. I can't emphasize it enough. If everyone else's liberties aren't important enough to you to do so, I don't know what else would be.
Just read them. It's man years of interlocution to make, far less to read and process, and far easier to get a hold of now.
These aren't easy or trite issues by far, and if nothing else, you have to work to build empathy and compassion to both sides to be able to have any realistic chance of being able to credibly take a stab at making decent policy.
I can forgive a man who decides against me on the grounds he actually did the footwork to understand, but his character lead him to a different conclusion. However I cannot abide by what seems to pass for sound policy nowadays.
I'm not sure that's an accurate portrayal of the history of the matter. It wasn't at all a carefully considered scheme, it was thrown together slapdash, the option that none could hate but also none loved.
You cite Federalist 68, but forget that less than a year later Hamilton was gaming the electoral college.
The founders were humans. They had flaws and disagreements. Many parts of the Constitution are borne more out of political expediency than grand ideals, and the operation of the Electoral College is not exempt from these caveats.
>The faithless elector was to the Founder's one of the last bulwarks against bestowing the highest office in the country to someone so repugnant, that an isolated bunch of people, accountable to no one but their own conscience, politely discussing the matter came to the conclusion it just couldn't work out.
Thank you for taking the time to illustrate many points. I appreciate the informationa and further explanation.
When people say they want to break up the big tech companies they are not talking about making them do a stock split. They are talking about dividing them into separate entities. This comment seems to conflate these two actions. Amazon or BRK could do a stock split if they thought it would raise their market cap, and it wouldn’t be a big political controversy. It would increase the number of shares but not change the corporate structure or affect any monopoly concerns.
On Windows, the AirPods Pro maintain two connections with the PC, one using the headset protocol and the other using the better-sounding media protocol. It seems like they both work at the same time - I’ve had good experiences on video calls where somebody is streaming background music and it sounds the way it’s supposed to.
Also the noise cancelation definitely works although it’s impossible for me to objectively judge if it’s different than how it worked in the past (seems super hard to know without a blind test given how brains habituate).
It sounds like the argument is that voters are rational and therefore must vote for the correct level of LVT. Doesn’t the evidence show that the ideal LVT rate is zero, since that’s what they have in fact enacted?
Individual voters don't have to be rational as long as their errors cancel out. This is the "wisdom of crowds" / "central limit theorem" argument: statistically, you can get a very good approximation of the true value out of very unreliable individual measurements as long as you have a large number of independent such measurements.
Whether this theorem is robust against systematic cognitive biases is another matter. I don't know the answer to that, but it seems like voters are more likely to eg. vote for a tax that falls on someone else but gets passed along to them as higher prices, which would be an argument against an LVT ever being enacted.
Also, elsewhere in these comments are good arguments why an LVT is very difficult to "bolt onto" and enact a government once it's already been formed, which may be why we don't have one. That's simple path-dependence: Georgism didn't exist when most modern industrial nations were first formed, therefore it can't exist now.
>Individual voters don't have to be rational as long as their errors cancel out.
This, incidentally, is the function of propaganda. You introduce an influence that biases the system to encourage certain classes or error and discourage others, thus skewing the consensus-forming process.
There’s some negative sentiment toward Ozark Trail among the set of people who have seen abandoned tents as far as the eye can see at the end of music festivals. Not sure if that’s common enough to lower the value of the brand.
That’s really disappointing to me. Does money just grow on trees for these people? What are their parents teaching them about respecting hard earned money? And respecting the environment. Are people raised to waste resources these days?
I can see how this would be true for a ramen-stage startup but it’s not true in the normal startup job market where engineers get paid six figures. Lots of good places available downtown for <2k per bedroom. If you don’t want a roommate you can get a decent small apartment for 3k or a lower-end place for 2k in other neighborhoods. You don’t need to leave the city, and you don’t save all that much by doing so anyway. Good neighborhoods outside the city are also expensive.
One good reason to leave the city would be if you prioritize renting a house with a 6000 sqft suburban lot, which you can’t find in the city. Another would be if you have kids and want a good school district.
Reddit contains massive left and right wing communities, and on both sides there widely-held that are antithetical to the corporate establishment, so this narrative doesn’t seem true at all.
> Reddit contains massive left and right wing communities
But are they really massive?
If you take a look at a lot of those "massive" subs you'll find that certain posts from certain accounts always get tens of thousands of upvotes, and all of the posts from their real users get tens of.... well... tens.
If a reputation system on the internet exists, it has been exploited / manipulated.
There seems to be a lot more left than right. Something that ought to be neutral such as r/barcelona has a heavy left wing slant to it. The delete posts about crime in case anyone notices any demographic patterns involved. And they have now turned into the corona gestapo, posing pictures of people not social distancing enough for their standards all in the name of "saving lives".
Perhaps this isn't a conspiracy but actual mainstream political thought in Barcelona? The city has a very rich leftist history, being one of the centers of Spanish anarchism during the civil war, for example.
> The delete posts about crime in case anyone notices any demographic patterns involved
Probably because, just as in every other country, demography is the confounding variable and poverty/inequality the actual predictor of blue collar crimes?
> corona gestapo
Because, after Belgium, Spain has the highest per capita Covid death rate in the world?
> Probably because, just as in every other country, demography is the confounding variable and poverty/inequality the actual predictor of blue collar crimes?
Is that a good reason to not be allowed to discuss the problem?
> Because, after Belgium, Spain has the highest per capita Covid death rate in the world?
We also had the strictest lock down in Europe. Children were allowed out for the first time with their parents on 5 weeks and were being shamed for standing too close by some reditors standard.
It's gone from "flatten the curve so the hospitals aren't overwhelmed" to some bizarre sort of virtue signalling where the more you complain about the actions of others the more virtuous you are.
If you look at this study, outdoors doesn't seem such a problem. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v...
Football matches and Womens March right when the cases were starting to get bad must have been a contributor. Spanish and Italian culture are quite physical compared to the UK, people greet with kisses. Cities are quite dense.
Now that the virus is out there, they are trying to make up for it retroactively with overly strict measures.
And? Social distancing during the epidemic saves lives indeed. Perhaps public shaming is not the best way to deal with the problem, but the general idea is correct.
> And they have now turned into the corona gestapo, posing pictures of people not social distancing enough for their standards all in the name of "saving lives".
If you view social distancing as a left wing/right wing issue, you should reassess your approach to politics.
But we’re talking about Wisconsin, not New York. The death rate in Wisconsin is 1 in 14,000. Flu is about 1 in 4,000-5,000 in a typical year. New York is such an outlier in terms of death rates that it should be a totally separate conversation.
It spread much faster in New York so we got to see the devastation it can cause. Same will eventually happen everywhere else if the measures to slow the spread are lifted. I don’t get why you’d want to exclude the data from New York when it’s our best example of what a full-scale outbreak looks like in the US.
Even with restrictions, the virus will eventually spread to most of the population. The question is time scale. In New York—thanks to its density and reliance on public transportation—even a full lock down couldn’t avoid a brush fire that left the hospital system overwhelmed. That hasn’t been true in the rest of the country. In nearly states, the death rate is elevated less than 10% from normal levels. In 14 states, the death rate is lower than normal levels. That means that less restrictive measures could be implemented in those states while keeping the excess death rate to some acceptable level.
South Dakota never fully locked down, and the COVID-19 death rate there 4.5 per 100,000. That’s 1/3 the average for the country minus NYC and 1/30th the rate for NYC. And that’s a 5% increase over what the baseline death rate would have been in the state over that time period.
It’s also worth pointing out that nowhere has really “locked down.” Most people are still going to work and leaving the house. Minnesota has found that the stay at home orders reduced contact only by 55%: https://www.minnpost.com/health/2020/05/minnesota-has-update.... Under various scenarios, Minnesota projected a “do nothing” scenario at 57,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic, versus 26,000 deaths if the stay at home order were extended to September. But lifting the order on May 18 results in only a few thousand extra deaths compared to leaving it in place until September.
> couldn’t avoid a brush fire that left the hospital system overwhelmed
Agree with most of what you say. However, the hospitals were not overwhelmed as evidenced by USNS Comfort leaving NYC after only treating 182 patients [1]. Similarly, Javits center temporary hospital had many spare beds [2]. The governor thought the hospitals would be overwhelmed which is a very different thing.
People that should have used the spare hospital beds and seen doctors didn't due to the lockdown, which makes this fact extra relevant. An overwhelming percentage of people that died from coronavirus in NYC had one or more other serious health conditions. Question is how many people that was classified as also having covid died of other underlying conditions and did not seek proper medical care due to fear of coronavirus.
No other city in this country is anywhere close to NYC in terms of density. The R0 for NY is going to be naturally much, much higher. It's absolute lunacy to apply the same measures in Wisconsin as NY.
The higher R0 means it spread throughout the city in two months, with a lower R0 it will take more months to reach the same level in other areas. Same devastation, it just takes longer to get there. Why is that acceptable?
Suggestion to parent from someone that agree: find some evidence to counter claim or support another story.
Share this evidence and direction to better path, and then each individual will choose if they want to put together the evidence to form their own opinion.
“Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” 1 John 2:6
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” Buddha
“If he comes to me walking, I come to him running” the Hadith
“Human beings should walk the right path humbly” rig Veda
Show a direction to a path and whom will walk walks. Where each individual will walk is not for us to choose.
As shown on my first parent in this thread you will still risk being downvoted with no argument in the virtual or real sense, but that doesn’t matter as those are at any rate not useful opponents in truth seeking so ignore them.
Don’t argue with anything but a person as you would then throw pearls to swine. The loving father did not join his son in the pig pen after his fall, he waited until the son walked away from the pig pen and welcomed him with open arms.
He is responding to your comment about the New York scenario. The original justification for the shutdown was that we would run out of hospital capacity.
New York always had ample capacity in hospitals, and the USNS comfort and Javits center hospital were almost empty. Governor projected a lack of capacity which certainly caused fear, but it’s a very different thing.
In terms on NYC deaths there has been many stories of incompetence and mismanagement. Almost all that died had other serious health conditions, so it’s a question if lack of proper care for a non covid preexisting condition or they not seeking care out of fear is often the true cause of death.
Normally death cause is well investigated. However, CDC issued highly unusual guidelines that said doctors should classify all deaths as covid if they have been diagnosed to have covid instead of doing doing the normal extensive look into each case. This may mask people dying from other serious health conditions due to lockdown.
It's still unrelated to my comment. In fact, to the extent that you're trying to tie them together, it proves the opposite of the claims you're making.
My original parent was contrasting the two states, with the following:
>New York is such an outlier in terms of death rates that it should be a totally separate conversation.
My point was that NY shouldn't be a "totally different conversation", but that we should look to NY as a cautionary tale WRT potential outcomes without sufficient mitigation. The fact that hospital capacity was not overrun in either state underscores the validity of the comparison.
>many stories of incompetence and mismanagement...it’s a question if lack of proper care for a non covid preexisting condition...not seeking care out of fear is often the true cause of death".
This and the rest of your comment are, frankly, pure conjecture that seems to start with your conclusion. However, we know the virus is deadly and that COVID would likely be a serious contributing factor to deaths, even in the presence of pre-existing conditions. It's no secret that pre-existing conditions are a prime COVID risk factor and, as it happens, this country has a high incidence of pre-existing conditions. This was an openly stated primary force in our mitigation efforts. But, here you seem to be presenting it as some previously hidden revelation over which we should dismiss these deaths.
In sum, it's disingenuous to parse out all of the knowns and unknowns into an overall conclusion that lockdowns were somehow unnecessary. We know enough to know that stopping the spread of the virus prevents large numbers of unnecessary deaths--even (and especially) among at-risk populations.
> The fact that hospital capacity was not overrun in either state underscores the validity of the comparison.
Just a tidbit: One UCSF doctor that went to help out in New York reported the hospital he was in converted their cafeteria to a ventilator ward.
And New York was relying on a lot of doctors and nurses from other parts of the country. Not to mention pressing doctors and nurses from other specialties.
I just say this because the covid19 deniers are trying hard to normalize things like what happened in New York.
Agreed. These people aren't really interested in the facts or science. They have a conclusion. Everything else is a pseudoscientific veneer that gets them back to that conclusion.
Further down on this thread (after much goalpost moving and mischaracterization of facts), asabjorn has all but completely abandoned his/her initial assertions: that he/she opposed lockdowns because they are ineffective. It's now about "freedom, 1A and 2A".
Old asabjorn: >most states are now open or are reopening. We are not seeing spikes in coronavirus cases
New asabjorn: >I never claimed no reopened state will see some increases in covid cases, some do and some don't
I had to push really hard through all of his/her contortions to extract this and other concessions.
But, remarkably, this person just kept right on moving as if his/her entire argument wasn't based on the effectiveness of the lockdown. Then, went on to talk about tyranny and fighting for our freedom.
> My point was that NY shouldn't be a "totally different conversation", but that we should look to NY as a cautionary tale WRT potential outcomes without sufficient mitigation. The fact that hospital capacity was not overrun in either state underscores the validity of the comparison.
We definitely agree there. However, why do you think NYC is not an example of lockdowns not working and that we should instead isolate the vulnerable populations? Its both the most severe lockdowned place and the place with the highest coronavirus death rate.
Also, most states are now open or are reopening. We are not seeing spikes in coronavirus cases or deaths, and we are instead seeing huge drops in deaths per week directly undermining the heavy handed lockdowns [3]. Also, despite each worker of Wallmart, Target, Whole Foods, Safeways, Wallgreens etc being exposed to thousands a day not a single store was closed due to covid outbreaks. How come that is the case?
Locking down non-vulnerable populations is what I think is unjustified, and the evidence I present show that the heavy handed lockdown doesn't reliably reduce deaths and that targeted isolations of vulnerable populations does reliably reduce deaths. One shared component of sweden and NYC [1,2] is that they didn't properly mitigate for vulnerable populations. Sweden is mitigating by isolating vulnerable populations while NYC isn't [1]. However, NYC somehow managed to have the most severe lockdown and by far the highest death rate.
TLDR; If you have to isolate the vulnerable to significantly reduce deaths in both lockdown and non-lockdown, and lockdown doesn't reliably make a difference. Why not just go with the more effective targeted mitigations and drop the ineffective isolation of all?
Foremost, it's far too early to make the call on the effects of "re-opening".
Another misleading assertion is the idea that our "re-opened" state is anything like the state of affairs pre-lockdown. That is, many, many people are still virtually locked down--voluntarily.
Yet another issue your analysis overlooks is the measures we actually did take prior to full lockdown, wherein we in fact suggested that vulnerable populations self-isolate. This was not effective in slowing the spread; hence, the lockdown escalation.
Still another issue is your somewhat facile assessment of Walmart and other retail scenarios. The relevant metric here would not be closure of stores but transmission of the virus, as many people would be asymptomatic including, likely, workers. Yet, they may still have transmitted the virus.
But the real problem is that you omit the fact that measures we took to limit store hours, numbers of concurrent shoppers, in-store distancing, etc. and the resulting behavior changes (including fewer trips) meant bodies per store were dramatically reduced, helping to undercut transmission. And, the point there is that accommodations for essential trips to the store under such prescribed conditions were provided as part of the lockdown. So, you are trying to use the lockdown design itself as proof that the lockdown was unnecessary.
TLDR; This is frequently the story with these anti-lockdown claims: a revisionist look back at why the lockdown was "unnecessary", using precisely the design and benefits of the lockdown itself to make the case.
Your criticism does not make sense at all. I wish you addressed my questions and criticisms of your argument instead of bringing up new points, but I'll address your new points as well.
> Another misleading assertion is the idea that our "re-opened" state is anything like the state of affairs pre-lockdown
You have a faulty assumption that spread factor was reduced due to lockdown. 7 states did not close down (Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming), and many states that locked down has been open for weeks now [1]. We have not see a spike in neither of these scenarios relative to the still locked down states.
Again: there is no correlation between being locked down and reduced spread factor. Quite to the contrary NYC and other places under heavy lock-down has been the worst affected.
> Still another issue is your somewhat facile assessment of Walmart and other retail scenarios. The relevant metric here would not be closure of stores but transmission of the virus, as many people would be asymptomatic including, likely, workers. Yet, they may still have transmitted the virus.
You honestly that all those workers are symptomatic in a high exposure scenario at a lower rate than the general population?
And you honestly claiming that a highly contagious virus that you claim has such a high likelihood of hospitalization and death that we all need to be on lockdown, somehow doesn't have this effect to the same degree on grocery workers that are exposed more than anyone? All ages work in grocery stores [3].
Grocery store workers are heroes, but I didn't know they were superheroes.
> But the real problem is that you omit the fact that measures we took to limit store hours, numbers of concurrent shoppers, in-store distancing
That doesn't make sense if the desire is to reduce peak traffic. Limiting store hours with a similar amount of shoppers increase people per hour of shopping, and limiting concurrent shoppers cause huge lines outside. Arguably this may increase virus exposure.
In-store-distancing: covid is transmitted on and can stay alive on metals, plastics as well as other inside surfaces for an extended period. Up to a day on cardboard.
* scientific facts on ineffectiveness of major lockdown measures
N95 masks work: mask to filter out 95% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. Coronavirus is between 0.06 and 0.14 microns.
Social distancing doesn't stop you from being exposed by:
- virus suspended in droplets smaller than five micrometers can stay suspended for about a half-hour
- virus stays alive up to a day on everything in a grocery store (or any other store or delivery container); cardboard, plastics, metals
Wearing gloves: virus actually lives longer on plastic gloves and gloves in general worsens spread [2]
TLDR; Only highly targeted and managed approaches has worked in limiting deaths, such as isolating the vulnerable. The lockdown measures and protective gear people wear are not stopping the virus spread due to virus size as well as how it spreads, but it is an excellent signal of obedience to nonsense measures.
Again, your comment is riddled with errors, and you draw conclusions from data that cannot be drawn. I have directly addressed your comments and the thrust of your argument, but I cannot address each and every error and misstatement. So I just choose some of the most egregious and deconstruct them as examples.
Much of what you say simply does not comport with reality. Anyone who's been to a grocery store in a lock down state can tell you that the stores became much sparser. A big part of this is because most people simply go less frequently. Also people don't tend to linger. In general, people make adjustments that all but completely mitigate the imaginary issues you're raising. You can rail on about a bunch of hypotheticals, but that doesn't overturn observable reality.
Likewise, all of your assertions about gloves and the virus living on surfaces, etc. It has not been proven that lingering detectable particles on items are a significant mode of transmission vs direct contact with people. And, in fact, super spreader events are linked directly to people in close proximity: funerals, church services, sporting events, parties and social gatherings, etc. Actively respired particles while in close proximity to other humans transmits the virus. Full stop. It is absolutely ludicrous to assert otherwise.
You also cannot draw the conclusion that masks are completely ineffective due purely to micron size. No, they are not a perfect shield, but they can reduce transmission in that clearly not every particle will fit neatly through a space and make a beeline from one person's mucous membranes to another's. This is just silliness. And, when all parties wear masks, it reduces viral contact even further. Reduction of contact with viable virus particles reduces transmission. Clearly.
These are truly facile statements you are making, and it's asinine to expect that someone will word for word deconstruct them. You take a bunch of random facts, misinterpret them, and suggest that you've made some sort of argument. You then go on to make sweeping statements without any basis in fact.
The other technique you are using is to cherry pick information and draw conclusions without regard to the factors that plainly contradict your points, and you equate correlation with causation. Some of those points I made to you in my last comment, but you chose not to address them.
For instance, I addressed your assertion that reopening states haven't experienced spikes by pointing out that there hasn't been enough time to measure. Additionally, many people are still under voluntary lockdown and most states are only partially reopened in any case. Crickets.
But, then you link out to some NBC news report that actually shows spikes in some states since their re-opening, directly contradicting your claims and supporting my assertion that we have not had enough time to draw conclusions. Did you think I wouldn't read it?
That is absolute nonsense. Did the 7 states that never locked down or the ones reopening weeks ago actually do so without it turning into the dire scenario the models predicted? Wasn’t the self directed mitigation’s and targeted quarantine in those areas sufficient?
Is the size of the coronavirus 0.06 to 0.14 microns, while the N95 masks we use filter 95% of particles larger than 0.3 microns? Will a chain link fence stop mosquitoes? Does the virus survive on cardboard/plastic/metal inside surfaces for extended periods making them spread vectors?
There was nothing voluntary about these lockdowns of people and shutdown of businesses. That is a pipe dream on your end. Quarantine is when you restrict the movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people.
Regardless of if tyrants that share your viewpoint want it or not enough of us in the few remaining locked down states will use our constitutional rights to move on to cause a tipping point. We will open our businesses, go to work, hang out with friends and live life. We will fight alongside fellow Americans that are facing tyrants when exercising these rights, and we will work tirelessly to identify and remove tyrants in power.
I wish you and your loved ones good health. May God protect us both from tyranny and injustice.
@asabjorn, can't reply directly either, so will wrap up here.
In short, you move the goalposts when your arguments are deconstructed. It's exhausting and never-ending because you appear to be determined that this is about tyranny and will force the data to reach that conclusion.
The pseudoscience veneer has all but completely worn through. You're just lobbing it in now.
1) Your N95 mask arguments are sliding. You've now allowed that even normal breath droplets are larger than the 0.3 "threshold" you'd previously set in your simple mosquito-fence comparison. So, now you're just frantically shoveling in more numbers. It's gotten cartoonish. I won't continue to correct your storm of never-ending misinterpreted data. Bottom line: while obviously imperfect, N95 masks afford protection.
2) >I never claimed no reopened state will see some increases in covid cases, some do and some don't
Unbelievable. You're walking back the entire thrust of your argument across multiple comments and acting as if you still have a point. You initially claimed lockdowns were proven ineffective so all of our energy should've been put into protecting the vulnerable. That's what started this. The words came out of your mouth. It's right up there in your GP posts.
You just gave up the entire basis for your argument and kept typing like nothing happened. This is either willful delusion or bad faith.
Previously, it was this so-called ineffectiveness that was your basis for calling for an end to unnecessary lockdowns. Now, we see that was never the point.
All veneer.
3) You're now doing to the law what you did with science. But, I won't engage in a philosophical legal discussion with you, given your mischaracterization of even hard facts.
4) Those of us who still believe in the rule of law take you seriously and we take seriously those who've gotten in your heads to push our nation towards collapse for their own benefit. But, we will not be terrorized. What the 2A "revolutionary" drones fail to see is that they've been wholly manipulated and the unrest they seek will be met with a response that renders their assault rifles useless.
We're getting to the point where I'm having to argue that water is wet, so I can't tell if you're being serious or trolling me at this point. And, now that you've played the "tyranny" card, it's easy to read your mischaracterizations as deliberate pseudoscientific pretense in the service of something else.
Still, I will answer in good faith.
Are the droplets on which the virus is carried all exactly .06 to 0.14 microns? No. They are as large as 5 to 10 microns. If you really aren't understanding how you're misinterpreting some of this information, then it's why I am unable to persuade you. I could point you to more info, including back to some that you linked, but you don't suffer from a lack of info. Your errors are in interpretation.
The report you linked shows increases in some reopened states. Where's your explanation for that? Just compare them to NYC? Of course every locale is not NYC, with its density, etc. Using that as some sort of benchmark is a strawman.
I never said the lockdown was voluntary. I said many are still voluntarily staying at home in states that have reopened, which will skew the numbers towards the lockdown numbers, depending on degree. So, here you're simply putting words in my mouth. Another strawman.
I also pointed to the fact that many are only partially reopened, which you yourself acknowledged. But, you just gloss over the limiting impact of that on the numbers. So, where's the line between "tyranny" and common sense here? How "partial" is OK? And, do you get this angry and threatened over vaccines, seat belt laws and helmet laws? Did you grab an AR-15 and head downtown to "fight" over those?
Every one of the arguments in your comment is based on an error in interpretation or outright misrepresentation. Every one.
Look, I don't like being stuck at home, but I understand it. If there's a "fight" here, it's against ignorance and fear-mongering over some make-believe tyranny, starring Fauci as some sort of devious, Palpatine-like deep state operative gunning for our freedom, while posing as a concerned septuagenarian scientist who happened to also lead the charge against HIV. It's pure fantasy. You see this right?
If you'll allow just a little daylight, step back and consider the outright absurdity of this tyranny narrative and see it for what it is, then you have to ask where this narrative is coming from, who benefits from it and what's the effect?
Because, I submit to you that what's far more frightening is the war on facts and Americans with assault rifles in our streets with the idea that they are some kind of freedom fighters in resisting public servants--and threatening them with death--who are simply trying to keep Americans safe. Someone's getting into the heads of some of our fellow citizens and pushing them toward the brink of something truly catastrophic here. These are nothing more than thugs in the streets, deployed in the service of something or someone, and made to believe they are heroes for threatening violence and disobeying any laws with which they disagree.
That is the end of rule of law, and it is the only real danger to our freedom here.
You accuse me of misrepresenting while doing it yourself and provide outliers to justify your point:
1) N95 effectiveness:
Edit: parent seem correct that it protect others against sneezes as long as it doesn’t leak out through sides due to sneeze velocity. See NIH links below [2,4].
However, if a person have virus particles on mask and touch it before touching other surfaces the mask may be a liability.
Then again, it seems more effective to isolate the sick than put masks on all.
2) I said that the dire scenario used to justify lockdown or the one in NYC, has not been seen in any reopened or never locked down states. I also said isolating the vulnerable seem sufficient.
I never claimed no reopened state will see some increases in covid cases, some do and some don't. I also did not say that the 7 states that never closed down experienced no covid scenario, but that they showed isolating the vulnerable was sufficient.
3) Lockdown measures have deprived rights under the color of law [3], violating rule of law, and enough of us will support each other to take full recourse under the law. The law I cited [3] show that the officials enforcing unconstitutional measures risk jail.
Enough of us will not accept when governors retaliate after loosing court cases [7], or when judges try to enforce unconstitutional lockdowns [8] or take on a prosecutorial role [5,6]. Or fine or jail people for exercising their constitutional rights. This is the definition of lack of rule of law. You are on the wrong side of history.
4) Yes, we will exercise our first amendment right to freedom of speech and if that fails we will exercise our second amendment right/responsibility to protect our liberty. Again, you are the one arguing against how the American democracy works.
On #1: I continued researching after the interesting evidence from parent.
To anyone interested this is an overview of multiple studies of N95 usage and it’s efficiency in stopping covid spread [1].
TLDR; The results for flu studies show no conclusive efficiency, there are no covid studies, and many studies show negative health effects of the healthy using masks; breathing in virus through nasal passage causing infection to spread where it otherwise wouldn’t, hypoxia causing lower immune response and other negative health effects, etc
The baseline mortality rate for an 80 year old is about 0.5% per month. The mortality rate for an 80 year old with coronavirus is about 15%, with nearly all deaths occurring within a month. So treating all deaths in coronavirus patients as being caused by coronavirus would only overstate the true case fatality rate by 3% or so. The ratio is similar for younger ages. Not sure why Joe Rogan or Elon Musk’s opinion would be relevant here.
Pre-existing conditions are not omitted from the 0.5%/month mortality rate. They just aren’t as impactful because most 80 year olds don’t have immediately life threatening medical conditions. For every 80 year old who will die this month from cancer (or Bubonic plague, sure, why not) there are 199 others who won’t. But if those 200 people all have COVID-19, it will kill another 30 of them. Attributing 30 vs. 31 deaths to COVID-19 just doesn’t matter that much.
80 year olds have better coverage than younger Americans on average because of Medicare, despite Medicare’s generally lower reimbursement rates compared to private insurance, simply because so many younger Americans don’t have insurance at all. And I think you’re dramatically overestimating the strength of the incentives at play if you think medical professionals are defrauding the federal government en masse to line their employers’ pockets.
You probably don't want to rely on that last statement. Having worked in the hospital sector, they in fact do and are proud of the fact (I've literally sat in presentations about the software and automation employed to do so as well as all hands meetings touting this as competitive advantage) that they upcode as much as possible without risking jail time to maximize revenue. The existence of all those specialty centers around hospital networks are specifically to support this model as well.
You seem to not know how covid works (or medicine and/or medical examination) and that's fine, but please don't use your ignorance to sway others on subjects you have no knowledge in.
Dr Birx on the coronavirus task force says government is classifying all deaths of patients with coronavirus as 'COVID-19' deaths, regardless of cause. See video-proof in [1]. This is due to the highly unusual CDC guidelines on how to classify coronavirus deaths.
This is what parent refers to, and is not a knowledge-free comment.
Can't reply directly to Ikiris: It seems unfair to ask me another question without addressing my reference to Dr Birx statement. She is the one who's credentials this claim rest upon.
Edit: reply to Ikiris child comment. Innuendo is not a valid argument against evidence and does not change what Dr Birx said. You have the video of her saying it, so your claim this is some lone voice saying something is not a valid argument.
It's pointless to respond to the statements of anyone supporting Trump in his employ as a primary criteria for his employ is on its face the willingness to say anything he wishes.
More generally, it is not the burden to disprove a lone voice, it is the burden to state that expert consensus is wrong and why, with data. You've done neither and instead relied on single confirming source instead of trying to falsify your position and failing.
> It's pointless to respond to the statements of anyone supporting Trump in his employ as a primary criteria for his employ is on its face the willingness to say anything he wishes.
Innuendo is not a valid argument against evidence and does not change what Dr Birx said.
> More generally, it is not the burden to disprove a lone voice, it is the burden to state that expert consensus is wrong and why, with data.
Dr Birx is on the coronavirus task force and if she is not a recognized expert in your eyes I do not know who is.
You have the video of her saying it, so your claim this is some lone voice saying something is not a valid argument.
> You've done neither and instead relied on single confirming source instead of trying to falsify your position and failing.
You have no grounds for this claim. Please refrain from unfounded personal attacks in lieu of a reasoned argument on this forum, this is not reddit.
Exactly what kind of death due to covid do you think shouldn't be classified as a covid death, and what are your medical credentials or evidentiary basis to justify such a stance?
Even the Fox news comment doctor said it's a reasonable stance, because the examples given about kidney and heart problems which are supposed to seem obviously unrelated to general public are clearly not to someone with medical background.
You're not providing any evidence to back up your statement, except the opinions of Rogan and Musk; to my knowledge neither is an expert on health statistics. Could you provide a source to back up this claim?
You're saying coronavirus mortality figures are fabricated by state and hospital personnel, adding it to death certificates when it was not the cause. What's led you to that conclusion?
That isn't what I said. I'm saying that coronavirus is being listed as the primary cause of death in bad-faith.
According to the CDC guidelines[1]: In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed.”
My conclusion is based on the broadness of that statement alongside the fact that hospitals receive $13k-$39k per Covid death. Plus my wife works at a large hospital and I'm getting the inside-scoop.
He is saying that as Dr Birx on the coronavirus task force says [1] the government classify all coronavirus patient deaths as ‘COVID-19’ deaths, regardless of cause.
This is due to a highly unusual CDC guideline that stipulates this, and it may mask collateral deaths due to lockdown measures that could be avoided if we like normal looked for the true cause.
The reason why this is relevant is that an overwhelming percentage of coronavirus deaths also had other serious health conditions.
