quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
You do realize all of that is pure speculation by people who are essentially guessing. We haven't even begun to collect and analyze enough data on this bug to even begin to produce anything approaching accurate, fact based, estimates. As has been pointed to throughout this thread, government agencies have been spectacularly wrong on virtually every disease they've weighed in on, so I'm not about to listen to their BS this time around, especially at this point in the "pandemic".

There is absolutely uncertainty in the numbers.

The problem is, if the current estimates are anywhere in the ballpark, if we wait until we have great data to do anything, we could end up in a really, really bad place with absolutely no way to do anything about it.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
And all of this bending or flattening the curve means absolutely nothing without a 'working' vaccine, which we won't have for months (at the earliest). At some point the government will either allow the economy to reopen and people to return to some sense of normalcy, or the country will collapse on itself because things cannot be put on hold indefinitely.

The point of flattening the curve is to keep hospitals from getting so overwhelmed that we end up in a situation like Italy has right now where doctors have to decide who gets treatment and who doesn't, because there isn't enough to go around. If that happens, it isn't just bad for the people with coronavirus that don't get treatment, it's bad for anyone who has any major medical emergency and may not be able to get treatment. Essentially, at that point, the mortality rates of EVERY serious health issue jump.

That doesn't mean everyone has to be in lockdown forever. Your exaggerated point about the quality of the data has some truth to it, and it may be that once we get a handle on this, we find out less stringent measures will be enough.

The problem is that every day of uncontrolled spread now would make things that much harder to manage later.

The majority of providers and experts I know agree with most of the above. They have practices and small businesses as well. The point I have heard them make is the equivalent of applying the brakes - hard - before the inevitable crash into the barrier. The crash is unavoidable, but putting on the brakes will - hopefully - mean you don't total the car, or get killed. It doesn't mean you walk away without a scratch, but you'll just need to replace the bumper, if you're lucky. And holding the brakes after the crash doesn't provide any benefit.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
The problem is, if the current estimates are anywhere in the ballpark, if we wait until we have great data to do anything, we could end up in a really, really bad place with absolutely no way to do anything about it.

Of course if the numbers aren't nearly as bad as the corrupt media and windbag 'experts' claim they will be, we'll emerge from this with an economy that's been severely damaged, and thousands upon thousands or people and businesses who've lost everything. No, I'm sticking to my position of this.

quote:

The point of flattening the curve is to keep hospitals from getting so overwhelmed that we end up in a situation like Italy has right now where doctors have to decide who gets treatment and who doesn't, because there isn't enough to go around. If that happens, it isn't just bad for the people with coronavirus that don't get treatment, it's bad for anyone who has any major medical emergency and may not be able to get treatment.

That doesn't mean everyone has to be in lockdown forever. Your exaggerated point about the quality of the data has some truth to it, and it may be that once we get a handle on this, we find out less stringent measures will be enough.

The problem is that every day of uncontrolled spread now would make things that much harder to manage later.

Every day the economy is stopped over this BS, tens of thousands of people lose their livelihoods and businesses. How long can we force everyone to sit inside so the 'experts' can continue to flatten the curve? As harsh as it might sound, people are going to die from this virus, and there's nothing that can be done to stop that reality. But to completely destroy the US economy and the lives of tens of millions of people in a desperate effort to save those people is both asinine and absurd.

quote:

How many of us on SigForum can say we know someone affected by COVID-19?

I may be in that category. Doctor just called to say my father in law has respiratory issues, and another person in the same nursing home tested positive. They are testing the father in law as I type.

I was also having a conversation with a person who works in a local
Hospital. They said there were x number of patients currently being treated at that facility with positive tests. According to the county website, that number was 3 times what is being reported.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
The majority of providers and experts I know agree with most of the above. They have practices and small businesses as well. The point I have heard them make is the equivalent of applying the brakes - hard - before the inevitable crash into the barrier. The crash is unavoidable, but putting on the brakes will - hopefully - mean you don't total the car, or get killed. It doesn't mean you walk away without a scratch, but you'll just need to replace the bumper, if you're lucky. And holding the brakes after the crash doesn't provide any benefit.

Please don't misunderstand my point. I find little problem with 'pulling on the reins' for a moment to slow the horse. But I also know I need to release those reins pretty quick before the bit bites into his mouth and he throws my ass to the ground. We've slowed to horse. Now we need to release the reins and let him move forward again.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Ok, flame away, but I'm just gonna say it. This whole thing in the way its being advertised and handled is bullshit. Throw up fences and protections around nursing homes and hospitals, quarantine people at home with immune deficiencies, recommend everyone else wash their hands and try not to cough on each other, and lets get everyone else back to work and some sense of normalcy. The South Koreans did it right and they managed to deal with this bug without shutting down the entire country and crippling their economy. Will some people here continue to get sick with this approach? Sure. But the recovery rate is high and symptoms mild for the majority of people, so let's protect those at risk, stop the nonsense, hit this thing head on, and move forward.

Oh, and turn your damn TV's off for a while and stop feeding the BS brigade.

Damn right.

The main problem is letting medical experts dictate policy right now. We should be listening to them and using their advices to formulate good policy, but in no way should our leaders be allowing these experts to dictate policy.

Experts by definition know their particular fields in depth. However, they rarely think beyond their expertise and the consequences of ignoring everything else. Politicians (which of course are our nation's leaders) have a responsibility to consider all aspects that go into their decisions that can affect millions of lives. Currently we are not doing that; we are sacrificing all for one goal that was put forth by the experts. For 15 days? Ok, I'm in. After all, what choice do I have at this point? Beyond that though, it's time our leaders start doing their damn jobs.

I'll say it again, please, God, free us from the dictatorship of public health experts.

But Balze, these health 'experts' are little different than the climate change 'experts' we belittle and laugh at most of the time. There is 'zero' common sense in play right now with the current policies. Just rampant terror and knee jerk reactions all of which are doing nothing but stoking fear and killing our economy.

Pretty much my point, yes.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
We have a little over 500 confirmed cases and 7 total deaths here in CO. More people die each month from dildo accidents

Hahaha.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Ok, flame away, but I'm just gonna say it. This whole thing in the way its being advertised and handled is bullshit. Throw up fences and protections around nursing homes and hospitals, quarantine people at home with immune deficiencies, recommend everyone else wash their hands and try not to cough on each other, and lets get everyone else back to work and some sense of normalcy. The South Koreans did it right and they managed to deal with this bug without shutting down the entire country and crippling their economy. Will some people here continue to get sick with this approach? Sure. But the recovery rate is high and symptoms mild for the majority of people, so let's protect those at risk, stop the nonsense, hit this thing head on, and move forward.

Oh, and turn your damn TV's off for a while and stop feeding the BS brigade.

quote:

Experts by definition know their particular fields in depth. However, they rarely think beyond their expertise and the consequences of ignoring everything else.

I can't think how many times I've thought this should be tattooed across how many people's foreheads over the years.

2020
The year we made a million Americans homeless in order to save a few hundred people with respiratory disorders that would have succumbed to the very next illness they encountered.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Ok, flame away, but I'm just gonna say it. This whole thing in the way its being advertised and handled is bullshit. Throw up fences and protections around nursing homes and hospitals, quarantine people at home with immune deficiencies, recommend everyone else wash their hands and try not to cough on each other, and lets get everyone else back to work and some sense of normalcy. The South Koreans did it right and they managed to deal with this bug without shutting down the entire country and crippling their economy. Will some people here continue to get sick with this approach? Sure. But the recovery rate is high and symptoms mild for the majority of people, so let's protect those at risk, stop the nonsense, hit this thing head on, and move forward.

Oh, and turn your damn TV's off for a while and stop feeding the BS brigade.

Absolutely Right!!! here in N.C we have gone up to 400 cases in the entire state that I last saw reported, but no deaths, yet our crooked, idiot governor continues to order more businesses to close. He's on tv every day fear mongering with the best of them.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
The majority of providers and experts I know agree with most of the above. They have practices and small businesses as well. The point I have heard them make is the equivalent of applying the brakes - hard - before the inevitable crash into the barrier. The crash is unavoidable, but putting on the brakes will - hopefully - mean you don't total the car, or get killed. It doesn't mean you walk away without a scratch, but you'll just need to replace the bumper, if you're lucky. And holding the brakes after the crash doesn't provide any benefit.

Please don't misunderstand my point. I find little problem with 'pulling on the reins' for a moment to slow the horse. But I also know I need to release those reins pretty quick before the bit bites into his mouth and he throws my ass to the ground. We've slowed to horse. Now we need to release the reins and let him move forward again.

Hearing and understanding, and I believe that's exactly what the Boss may be getting to. Glad to see his response, and it's a balance I'm happy I don't have to decide.

I find it very interesting that 2 countries that border China, which are India and Russia are not even in the top 10. India has a population close to China and I believe most of the population lives in more closer together and poverty level than China. Russia has a population of approx. 150 million. Just my observations. God Bless

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Ok, flame away, but I'm just gonna say it. This whole thing in the way its being advertised and handled is bullshit. Throw up fences and protections around nursing homes and hospitals, quarantine people at home with immune deficiencies, recommend everyone else wash their hands and try not to cough on each other, and lets get everyone else back to work and some sense of normalcy. The South Koreans did it right and they managed to deal with this bug without shutting down the entire country and crippling their economy. Will some people here continue to get sick with this approach? Sure. But the recovery rate is high and symptoms mild for the majority of people, so let's protect those at risk, stop the nonsense, hit this thing head on, and move forward.

Oh, and turn your damn TV's off for a while and stop feeding the BS brigade.

South Korea has been doing extreme social distancing, aggressively pursues exposure tracking, and has done a TON of testing.

On a per-capita basis, South Korea has done 20 times as much testing as we have.



We can certainly catch up on testing rates, but they used tons of testing early on to keep their numbers of infections relatively low.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
We have a little over 500 confirmed cases and 7 total deaths here in CO. More people die each month from dildo accidents (I'm speculating) How many small businesses will be bankrupted over this?

Possibly a few bankruptcies if their owners succumb. Seriously, successful businesses should survive, hopefully. Colorado is somewhat fortunate as we adopted social distancing as far back back on 3/1 and our first case in summit county presenting early to raise the alarm. We were only a couple weeks behind. I hope the theory holds that Coloradoans are generally more healthy and fewer may present with respiratory complications.

I like Dr. Deborah Birx, she seems to be knocking it out of the park, especially the Sen. Paul question.

What this thread needs is more charts and graphs. And maybe repost those charts and graphs a few more times.

quote:

Originally posted by VBVAGUY:
I find it very interesting that 2 countries that border China, which are India and Russia are not even in the top 10. India has a population close to China and I believe most of the population lives in more closer together and poverty level than China. Russia has a population of approx. 150 million. Just my observations. God Bless

Given the extreme overcrowding and poor living conditions in many of India's cities, either COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire (and just not being tested for) and a hell of a lot of people in India are going to die soon or there's something fundamental that we don't understand about the disease that we really need to.

quote:

Originally posted by tleo205:
Absolutely Right!!! here in N.C we have 200+ cases in the entire state that I last saw reported, and no deaths yet our crooked, idiot governor continues to order more businesses to close.

Harris County Texas has a population of well over 4,000,000 people; 4,653,000 in 2017. As of today, there were 54 reported cases, making that a 0.001161% infection rate based on that 2017 number; I'm sure the percentage is even lower, as the population of Harris County has certainly increased the last 3 years. There were talks this morning about enacting "Shelter In Place" protocols for Harris County. It didn't happen, so maybe...MAYBE...smarter heads prevailed.

As a comparison for Texas in the aggregate, Texas' population as of 2018 was 28,700,000. Governor Abbot reports that as of yesterday at 1700 hours, there were 566 cases of Coronavirus. That is a state-wide infection rate of 0.001972% of the population. Yeah...let's shut down the entire economy. JSMH...

And Utah K-12 public schools will now extend their closure to May 1st.

Completely asinine.

If my daughter's private school follows suit, and I believe they will, they better not expect a check from me next month.

And hey, that's another thing? How many private schools will survive this as well? One thing's for sure, public schools will continue to get paid.

C'mon, there's people dying in the streets, at least 499 Nationwide! Take this stuff serious!