Trump keeps predicting coronavirus death tolls the U.S. then

[Flyguy]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 9:53:13 AM UTC-7, Ricky C wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 11:28:37 AM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s

The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.

I'm a bit concerned about the sexual impropriety claims against Biden. There have been many claims with varying levels of evidence against Trump, Kavanaugh, Thomas and they have all been largely dispersed by various means, mostly due to the inability to actually prove anything since it often comes down to he said, she said. So now claims are being made against Biden with a similar level of support. I'm not sure how to consider these claims of improprieties from nearly 30 years ago since it is nearly impossible to verify the veracity of an event that was not reported and took place so long ago.

Biden is a bit of an odd bird in that he applies his personal sense of appropriateness to public situations like awkward physical contact and kissing women on the top of the head. It would seem he has stopped doing this, but why did no one explain to him it was inappropriate 10 years ago?

So there are the much more important allegations against Biden which need to be addressed, but I'm willing to ignore the issue of his now rectified sense of appropriateness. Let's face it. The current President has lowered the bar of appropriateness bigly.

Trump's changing attitude and responses to the COVID-19 crisis is typical of Trump. Literally everything he does is about himself and how it affects him. He didn't take the disease seriously until he saw the impact it was having on his image. Now his ineffectiveness is becoming a major issue and he continues to treat it as a matter of public relations and/or marketing.. I read he is talking about resuming the COVID briefings. Good for him. Someone give me a bit more rope.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

Sexual assault isn't "inappropriate" - it is ILLEGAL, making Biden a sexual predator, the same as Bill Clinton. Ford had absolutely no corroboration for her claims against Kavanaugh. In fact, all of her friends maintained that Ford had never met Kavanaugh.

 

[bitrex]

On 5/5/2020 6:45 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 5 May 2020 14:45:39 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 5/5/2020 10:54 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s


The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness. Trump
can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face of
statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a pussy" which
is what Americans in general would prefer in a leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that only
weak pussies would care about.

We make financial trade offs every day vs life/death.
Cars have only been around 120 years clearly they aren't needed,
they are just a convenience. 125 million worldwide deaths in car
accidents since 1899.


The obvious tradeoff there is speed limits. Lower speed limits would
save lives *and* save money.

We trade air pollution deaths for progress and items.
Same with ground pollution. I'm sure there are many more examples.

The biggest scandal, to me, is cigarettes. Government rakes in big
taxes on cancer sticks. They kill about 500K people in the USA every
year, and they are for sale, with government blessing, everywhere.
Where is the outrage?

The Left was outraged about it for a long time, yeah. The Left were the
original anti-globalists, too - before it became "cool."

Ayn Rand thought anti-smoking PSAs were a communist plot and died of
lung cancer, and the Bushites were rooting for the cops to kick the
hippies asses back in 1999 when they were protesting the WTO in Seattle,
getting together to figure out how better to sell out the US worker to
China.

I'm ready to save trade the lives that will die if we don't start the
economy for those we will lose to Covid 19 if we do.
I'm all for doing it as best we can, I have no problem wearing masks,
some people are idiots and won't comply. People who are compromised
should still Stay in Place. We can limit people count in stores,
businesses can do temperature checks before admittance and distance as
much as possible, but it's time to get the economy moving again.

Mikek

OK, but measuring skin temperature with cheap Chinese IR thermometers
is useless drama.

 

[Ricky C]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 6:45:19 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 5 May 2020 14:45:39 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 5/5/2020 10:54 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s


The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness. Trump
can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face of
statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a pussy" which
is what Americans in general would prefer in a leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that only
weak pussies would care about.

We make financial trade offs every day vs life/death.
Cars have only been around 120 years clearly they aren't needed,
they are just a convenience. 125 million worldwide deaths in car
accidents since 1899.


The obvious tradeoff there is speed limits. Lower speed limits would
save lives *and* save money.

You must be talking about the 55 speed limits we started in the 70's and stuck with for decades?

The reality was people would speed like crazy. I guess that's why the shut downs are not working, people ignore them too?

We trade air pollution deaths for progress and items.
Same with ground pollution. I'm sure there are many more examples.

The biggest scandal, to me, is cigarettes. Government rakes in big
taxes on cancer sticks. They kill about 500K people in the USA every
year, and they are for sale, with government blessing, everywhere.
Where is the outrage?

Lots people would like to see cigarettes banned. But lots of people would like to see guns banned. Neither happens because of the financial interests. Where are the lobbyists for disease? Is that you?

I'm ready to save trade the lives that will die if we don't start the
economy for those we will lose to Covid 19 if we do.
I'm all for doing it as best we can, I have no problem wearing masks,
some people are idiots and won't comply. People who are compromised
should still Stay in Place. We can limit people count in stores,
businesses can do temperature checks before admittance and distance as
much as possible, but it's time to get the economy moving again.

Mikek

OK, but measuring skin temperature with cheap Chinese IR thermometers
is useless drama.

More effective than spouting off here.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky C]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:45:41 PM UTC-4, amdx wrote:

On 5/5/2020 10:54 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s


The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness. Trump
can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face of
statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a pussy" which
is what Americans in general would prefer in a leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that only
weak pussies would care about.

We make financial trade offs every day vs life/death.
Cars have only been around 120 years clearly they aren't needed,
they are just a convenience. 125 million worldwide deaths in car
accidents since 1899.
We trade air pollution deaths for progress and items.
Same with ground pollution. I'm sure there are many more examples.

Ok, let's base these tradeoffs on numbers just like they do with pollution and in product liability. We have 72,000 deaths from the COVID-19 disease in three months with the daily rate steady at around 2,000 per day average.

How many deaths from the economic repercussions? Do you have even a swag? How can you make a tradeoff without knowing the impact of keeping us in shutdown?

I agree that we are in an untenable situation. But I don't want to give up, I want to double down. We need to find out what is wrong and fix it! Just like we've done before with problems like mass shootings... wait, no, that's not a good example. But you get the idea.

I'm ready to save trade the lives that will die if we don't start the
economy for those we will lose to Covid 19 if we do.

Can you trade something that isn't yours? Why don't you volunteer to work at the ER one day a week? Or even as the guy manning the wheel chairs?

I'm all for doing it as best we can, I have no problem wearing masks,
some people are idiots and won't comply. People who are compromised
should still Stay in Place. We can limit people count in stores,
businesses can do temperature checks before admittance and distance as
much as possible, but it's time to get the economy moving again.

It won't help to "stay in place" if everyone else is infected because isolation can't be total. The purpose is to lower the infection rate so the disease peters out. In the US most of our counties are not doing a very good job and even those counties people talk about as being "sparse" still have growing infection rates. Obviously even if you don't ride the subway to work, there are enough ways to communicate the disease to others. People living in less populated areas are not in isolation every day. Not every rural county would have put up with Ted Kaczynski.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky C]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 6:37:46 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 5 May 2020 12:43:48 -0700 (PDT), edward.ming.lee@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 12:30:26 PM UTC-7, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 8:54:08 AM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s

The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness. Trump
can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face of
statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a pussy" which
is what Americans in general would prefer in a leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that only
weak pussies would care about.

Your money or your life?

They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do you include in "shutdown"?

Population density. Outside of SF and LA and some cities, people are few and far apart.

Or democracy. Let every state and region decide for themselves.

What do you think is happening??? That's why Trump has so much heartburn, the state Governors are paying attention to what works best in their states rather than listening to him.

Do you ever listing to the news???

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 5/6/2020 4:09 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 5/6/2020 2:56 AM, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:45:41 PM UTC-4, amdx wrote:
On 5/5/2020 10:54 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s



The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness. Trump
can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face of
statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a pussy"
which
is what Americans in general would prefer in a leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that only
weak pussies would care about.

   We make financial trade offs every day vs life/death.
Cars have only been around 120 years clearly they aren't needed,
they are just a convenience. 125 million worldwide deaths in car
accidents since 1899.
   We trade air pollution deaths for progress and items.
Same with ground pollution. I'm sure there are many more examples.

Ok, let's base these tradeoffs on numbers just like they do with
pollution and in product liability.  We have 72,000 deaths from the
COVID-19 disease in three months with the daily rate steady at around
2,000 per day average.

How many deaths from the economic repercussions?  Do you have even a
swag?  How can you make a tradeoff without knowing the impact of
keeping us in shutdown?

I agree that we are in an untenable situation.  But I don't want to
give up, I want to double down.  We need to find out what is wrong and
fix it!  Just like we've done before with problems like mass
shootings... wait, no, that's not a good example.  But you get the idea.

Trump is "fixing it" his way, in a week or two he'll declare "Mission
Accomplished!", throw a little party at the WH and whatever Federal
response there was will be fully wound-down and simply refuse to discuss
it or answer questions about it anymore.

The final death toll at the end of the year will probably be pushing a
half-million but the dead tell no tales. What half million. who died.
Never heard of anyone who died. the response was swift and fantastic.
fake news!

Nobody died they're just resting.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZw35VUBdzo>

 

[bitrex]

On 5/6/2020 2:56 AM, Ricky C wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:45:41 PM UTC-4, amdx wrote:
On 5/5/2020 10:54 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s


The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness. Trump
can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face of
statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a pussy" which
is what Americans in general would prefer in a leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that only
weak pussies would care about.

We make financial trade offs every day vs life/death.
Cars have only been around 120 years clearly they aren't needed,
they are just a convenience. 125 million worldwide deaths in car
accidents since 1899.
We trade air pollution deaths for progress and items.
Same with ground pollution. I'm sure there are many more examples.

Ok, let's base these tradeoffs on numbers just like they do with pollution and in product liability. We have 72,000 deaths from the COVID-19 disease in three months with the daily rate steady at around 2,000 per day average.

How many deaths from the economic repercussions? Do you have even a swag? How can you make a tradeoff without knowing the impact of keeping us in shutdown?

I agree that we are in an untenable situation. But I don't want to give up, I want to double down. We need to find out what is wrong and fix it! Just like we've done before with problems like mass shootings... wait, no, that's not a good example. But you get the idea.

Trump is "fixing it" his way, in a week or two he'll declare "Mission
Accomplished!", throw a little party at the WH and whatever Federal
response there was will be fully wound-down and simply refuse to discuss
it or answer questions about it anymore.

The final death toll at the end of the year will probably be pushing a
half-million but the dead tell no tales. What half million. who died.
Never heard of anyone who died. the response was swift and fantastic.
fake news!

 

[David Brown]

On 05/05/2020 21:30, Ricky C wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 8:54:08 AM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s



The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness.
Trump can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he
does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face
of statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a
pussy" which is what Americans in general would prefer in a
leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that
only weak pussies would care about.

Your money or your life?

They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of
the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one
step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need
more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do
you include in "shutdown"?

I have seen very, very few counties outside of very remote areas (and
not universally there) that should be relaxing the restrictions.
People seem to think because we aren't seeing exponential growth that
means things are fine and we can go back to the way things were. The
reality is that in most areas the infection rates are either still
growing or at the peak. Loosening the restrictions is like taking
the cover off the fire before the coals are out.

You are not going to get the fire completely out here, because there are
so many other fires going on around you. You might put it out in one
place, or at least have it under control, and it /will/ spring up again
elsewhere.

Lockdown and restrictions are not an absolute binary choice - fully
closed or fully open.

So what is needed is graduated response, with different levels of
lockdown in different places (whether that be at a country level, state
level, county level, etc., is a complicated matter).

You need the tightest lockdowns in places that are worst hit in order to
minimise the biggest problem - overloading of the health system
(hospital beds, tired out health workers, limits on protection
equipment, etc.). If you have low enough infection rates that you
have dealt with this aspect, your next concern is that the spreading
rates should be lower than 1 - preferably a lot lower. Then you need to
make sure your vulnerable people are as safe as practical.

And you need a /lot/ of testing to keep an eye on things, as well as
contact tracing up and running.

Once you have that (and many places are very far from this), you can
look at loosening restrictions, while being ready to put them in place
again at short notice if there is a significant outbreak.

The big challenge is that the feedback is slow - by the time you know
you have a problem again, you should have re-introduced the lockdown two
weeks ago.


What people in mostly Corona-free areas usually fail to understand is
that a major reason they don't have much Corona is that they are on
lockdown (to some extent at least). People find it very difficult to
appreciate when preventative measures succeed in averting a crisis.
(Such as "Why do we need vaccines against measles? We don't have
measles here".)

But the risks of the disease spreading out of control varies from place
to place - there is no doubt that population density is a big factor.
And thus the balance between the social and economic costs of lockdowns
and risks of the health and life costs of the disease are different from
place to place.

 

[David Brown]

On 06/05/2020 00:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 5 May 2020 12:43:48 -0700 (PDT), edward.ming.lee@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 12:30:26 PM UTC-7, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:


They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do you include in "shutdown"?

Population density. Outside of SF and LA and some cities, people are few and far apart.

Or democracy. Let every state and region decide for themselves.

Democracy is the worst idea. Most people - including most elected
politicians - are basically clueless about this sort of thing. To put
this in electronics terms (so you have a hope of understanding it), you
don't let end-users vote on where to put the resistors on your PCB's or
what values they should take. When dealing with health issues, you put
health experts in charge.

 

[David Brown]

On 06/05/2020 00:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The biggest scandal, to me, is cigarettes. Government rakes in big
taxes on cancer sticks. They kill about 500K people in the USA every
year, and they are for sale, with government blessing, everywhere.
Where is the outrage?

The outrage against cigarettes is found in most of the world, especially
the more civilised ones - with high taxes on them, bans on advertising,
graphic warnings on packets, restrictions on where you can smoke, etc.
There is a continuous stepping up of laws and restrictions that make it
harder and more expensive to smoke, and that discourage young people
from starting the habit. Getting rid of tobacco is a slow process, but
making gradual progress.

In the USA, there is outrage that tobacco companies have to tell people
the truth - "Freedom of speech" apparently also covers "Freedom of
companies to lie as much as they want". And there is outrage against
tobacco sellers being restricted in their right to make a dishonest buck
from selling death sticks with additives to make them more addictive.
That seems fair enough - after all, your vice president has said that
smoking doesn't kill, so it must be fine.

 

[David Brown]

On 05/05/2020 18:53, Ricky C wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 11:28:37 AM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s

The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.

I'm a bit concerned about the sexual impropriety claims against Biden. There have been many claims with varying levels of evidence against Trump, Kavanaugh, Thomas and they have all been largely dispersed by various means, mostly due to the inability to actually prove anything since it often comes down to he said, she said. So now claims are being made against Biden with a similar level of support. I'm not sure how to consider these claims of improprieties from nearly 30 years ago since it is nearly impossible to verify the veracity of an event that was not reported and took place so long ago.

Biden is a bit of an odd bird in that he applies his personal sense of appropriateness to public situations like awkward physical contact and kissing women on the top of the head. It would seem he has stopped doing this, but why did no one explain to him it was inappropriate 10 years ago?

So there are the much more important allegations against Biden which need to be addressed, but I'm willing to ignore the issue of his now rectified sense of appropriateness. Let's face it. The current President has lowered the bar of appropriateness bigly.

Democrats traditionally hold their leaders to a higher moral standard
than Republicans, so Biden will lose some Democrat votes over this
(whether it is true or not, proven or not). And Republicans are very
happy with hypocrisy and will milk this for all they can get (again,
whether it is true or not). This will, I believe, count against him.

Trump's changing attitude and responses to the COVID-19 crisis is typical of Trump. Literally everything he does is about himself and how it affects him. He didn't take the disease seriously until he saw the impact it was having on his image. Now his ineffectiveness is becoming a major issue and he continues to treat it as a matter of public relations and/or marketing. I read he is talking about resuming the COVID briefings. Good for him. Someone give me a bit more rope.

He is also talking about disbanding the "Virus task force". I think
Trump feels he is confident that he has found a scapegoat - there have
been enough rumours and conspiracy theories about the Chinese virus lab
that he can now add his weight to it and make it "fact". Since he has
someone to blame, and someone to fight, the virus problem is now
finished in his mind - he can move on to the next stage which is mixing
threats and offers to "do a deal" with China, and then blaming the media
and Democrats for when it doesn't work out. The virus itself, and the
disease killing thousands a day, is now yesterday's fake news.

 

On Wed, 6 May 2020 13:04:41 +0200, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The biggest scandal, to me, is cigarettes. Government rakes in big
taxes on cancer sticks. They kill about 500K people in the USA every
year, and they are for sale, with government blessing, everywhere.
Where is the outrage?

The outrage against cigarettes is found in most of the world, especially
the more civilised ones - with high taxes on them, bans on advertising,
graphic warnings on packets, restrictions on where you can smoke, etc.
There is a continuous stepping up of laws and restrictions that make it
harder and more expensive to smoke, and that discourage young people
from starting the habit. Getting rid of tobacco is a slow process, but
making gradual progress.

Speed it up and save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Shut
down the cigarette factories. Arrest people for smoking in public or
throwing butts everywhere. Allow lawsuits for lung cancer. Criminalize
the sales of a deadly product. It worked for asbestos, which was far
less deadly. That won't happen for tobacco because government wants
the tax revenue.

Government also wants this virus panic in many places. It's a good
crisis to not waste.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

On Wed, 6 May 2020 12:37:44 +0200, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 05/05/2020 21:30, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 8:54:08 AM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rE-v0nnbHk&list=LLkBcHzChtY1WzDgmGGnz-1g&index=3&t=0s



The scariest part is he's going to get Biden elected.


Americans can forgive evil, Americans don't forgive weakness.
Trump can't make America back to normal quickly no matter what he
does.

He can show that he knows how to be callous and shrug in the face
of statistics about fatalities - it at least shows he's not "a
pussy" which is what Americans in general would prefer in a
leader.

Just a few tens of thousands of dead sickly and old people that
only weak pussies would care about.

Your money or your life?

They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of
the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one
step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need
more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do
you include in "shutdown"?

I have seen very, very few counties outside of very remote areas (and
not universally there) that should be relaxing the restrictions.
People seem to think because we aren't seeing exponential growth that
means things are fine and we can go back to the way things were. The
reality is that in most areas the infection rates are either still
growing or at the peak. Loosening the restrictions is like taking
the cover off the fire before the coals are out.


You are not going to get the fire completely out here, because there are
so many other fires going on around you. You might put it out in one
place, or at least have it under control, and it /will/ spring up again
elsewhere.

Lockdown and restrictions are not an absolute binary choice - fully
closed or fully open.

So what is needed is graduated response, with different levels of
lockdown in different places (whether that be at a country level, state
level, county level, etc., is a complicated matter).

You need the tightest lockdowns in places that are worst hit in order to
minimise the biggest problem - overloading of the health system
(hospital beds, tired out health workers, limits on protection
equipment, etc.).

The health hazard here is from underloading of health care. Hospitals
were cleared out and panic mobilized for this virus and are
practically empty. Normal medical care isn't being done. Dentists and
doctors can't be seen.

If you have low enough infection rates that you
have dealt with this aspect, your next concern is that the spreading
rates should be lower than 1 - preferably a lot lower. Then you need to
make sure your vulnerable people are as safe as practical.

And you need a /lot/ of testing to keep an eye on things, as well as
contact tracing up and running.

Once you have that (and many places are very far from this), you can
look at loosening restrictions, while being ready to put them in place
again at short notice if there is a significant outbreak.

The big challenge is that the feedback is slow - by the time you know
you have a problem again, you should have re-introduced the lockdown two
weeks ago.

Sounds like an unstable control system. Most politics-and-fear-driven
loops are unstable.

What people in mostly Corona-free areas usually fail to understand is
that a major reason they don't have much Corona is that they are on
lockdown (to some extent at least).

No rush, they can just have their economy destroyed, stay home
unemployed for a few months, and catch the virus afterwards.

People find it very difficult to
appreciate when preventative measures succeed in averting a crisis.
(Such as "Why do we need vaccines against measles? We don't have
measles here".)

But the risks of the disease spreading out of control varies from place
to place - there is no doubt that population density is a big factor.
And thus the balance between the social and economic costs of lockdowns
and risks of the health and life costs of the disease are different from
place to place.

Why choose between two costs when you can have both?



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

On Wed, 6 May 2020 12:40:48 +0200, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 5 May 2020 12:43:48 -0700 (PDT), edward.ming.lee@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 12:30:26 PM UTC-7, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:


They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do you include in "shutdown"?

Population density. Outside of SF and LA and some cities, people are few and far apart.

Or democracy. Let every state and region decide for themselves.


Democracy is the worst idea. Most people - including most elected
politicians - are basically clueless about this sort of thing. To put
this in electronics terms (so you have a hope of understanding it), you
don't let end-users vote on where to put the resistors on your PCB's or
what values they should take. When dealing with health issues, you put
health experts in charge.

On what scale? City, county, country, world?

And which experts?



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 12:15:22 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2020 12:37:44 +0200, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 05/05/2020 21:30, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 8:54:08 AM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
On 5/5/2020 11:28 AM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

You need the tightest lockdowns in places that are worst hit in order to
minimise the biggest problem - overloading of the health system
(hospital beds, tired out health workers, limits on protection
equipment, etc.).

The health hazard here is from underloading of health care. Hospitals
were cleared out and panic mobilized for this virus and are
practically empty. Normal medical care isn't being done. Dentists and
doctors can't be seen.

Not exactly true. A country of 310 million people with a life expectancy of 78.9 years would have an average daily death rate of 10,764. Covid-19 is currently killing about 2000 a day. It's not evenly spread over the whole country,and the areas where there's most Covid-19 have very busy hospitals.

If you have low enough infection rates that you
have dealt with this aspect, your next concern is that the spreading
rates should be lower than 1 - preferably a lot lower. Then you need to
make sure your vulnerable people are as safe as practical.

And you need a /lot/ of testing to keep an eye on things, as well as
contact tracing up and running.

Once you have that (and many places are very far from this), you can
look at loosening restrictions, while being ready to put them in place
again at short notice if there is a significant outbreak.

The big challenge is that the feedback is slow - by the time you know
you have a problem again, you should have re-introduced the lockdown two
weeks ago.

Sounds like an unstable control system. Most politics-and-fear-driven
loops are unstable.

And like most control systems, if you put in the right sensors - here a lot more testing than you are currently doing - it's fairly easy to stabilise the loop.

The problem in the US is not that the control system is unstable - the problem is that it is being run open-loop by people who haven't bothered to get the feedback that they need.

What people in mostly Corona-free areas usually fail to understand is
that a major reason they don't have much Corona is that they are on
lock down (to some extent at least).

No rush, they can just have their economy destroyed, stay home
unemployed for a few months, and catch the virus afterwards.

Or they can emigrate to one of those places that can do lock down - and contact tracing - properly and clear virus from the local population in six weeks and make sure that it doesn't get back in by monitoring for new outbreaks and stopping them from spreading by isolating everybody who might have got infected.

That won't destroy the economy, but it does seem to demand more expertise than the US government can get their hands on, or perhaps they just lack the attention span to pay any attention to those experts who are prepared to put up with being patronised and ignored.

People find it very difficult to
appreciate when preventative measures succeed in averting a crisis.
(Such as "Why do we need vaccines against measles? We don't have
measles here".)

But the risks of the disease spreading out of control varies from place
to place - there is no doubt that population density is a big factor.
And thus the balance between the social and economic costs of lockdowns
and risks of the health and life costs of the disease are different from
place to place.

Why choose between two costs when you can have both?

It does save you from thinking about the choices you might be making, and the US does seem to have economised on that, big time.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 12:24:30 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2020 13:04:41 +0200, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The biggest scandal, to me, is cigarettes. Government rakes in big
taxes on cancer sticks. They kill about 500K people in the USA every
year, and they are for sale, with government blessing, everywhere.
Where is the outrage?

The outrage against cigarettes is found in most of the world, especially
the more civilised ones - with high taxes on them, bans on advertising,
graphic warnings on packets, restrictions on where you can smoke, etc.
There is a continuous stepping up of laws and restrictions that make it
harder and more expensive to smoke, and that discourage young people
from starting the habit. Getting rid of tobacco is a slow process, but
making gradual progress.

Speed it up and save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Shut
down the cigarette factories. Arrest people for smoking in public or
throwing butts everywhere. Allow lawsuits for lung cancer. Criminalize
the sales of a deadly product. It worked for asbestos, which was far
less deadly.

It worked for asbestos because nobody is addicted to asbestos.

There are a variety of alternatives that work just as well in the various places asbestos was used.

> That won't happen for tobacco because government wants the tax revenue.

It won't happen for tobacco, for the same reason that it hasn't happened for cocaine and heroin, and didn't happen for ethanol. Prohibition doesn't work.

Government also wants this virus panic in many places. It's a good
crisis to not waste.

Seems unlikely. Governments like crises they can manage, and the US administration isn't managing this one at all well - other people have done much better, and American exceptionalism isn't a particularly plausible excuse, no matter how much James Arthur likes it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[David Brown]

On 06/05/2020 16:06, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2020 12:40:48 +0200, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 5 May 2020 12:43:48 -0700 (PDT), edward.ming.lee@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 12:30:26 PM UTC-7, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:


They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do you include in "shutdown"?

Population density. Outside of SF and LA and some cities, people are few and far apart.

Or democracy. Let every state and region decide for themselves.


Democracy is the worst idea. Most people - including most elected
politicians - are basically clueless about this sort of thing. To put
this in electronics terms (so you have a hope of understanding it), you
don't let end-users vote on where to put the resistors on your PCB's or
what values they should take. When dealing with health issues, you put
health experts in charge.


On what scale? City, county, country, world?

At all scales - from individual people to world scale.

You can have democratically elected people helping choose tradeoffs -
deciding how to balance economic factors and health considerations. But
you leave the health decisions themselves to health experts (just as you
should leave economic decisions to economic experts, rather politicians).

Remember, the /single/ qualification you need to get elected is to be
able to convince people to vote for you. In general, politicians are
not particularly good at economics, health, education, or any of the
other areas they run. But that's okay, since that's not their job to
know - it's their job to make sure that people who /are/ experts are in
the position to make decisions, and have the resources needed to make
those decisions. They can guide general direction and priorities, but
that's all.

And which experts?

Start with doctors. Then look for qualifications, experience and
reputation within specific relevant fields.

Or in the case of the USA, find a ten year old who pays attention at
school and listens to when his parents tell him/her not to touch the
plastic bottles under the sink. Then you've already found someone more
qualified to make health decisions than your president, and probably a
fair number of other politicians.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 6 May 2020 18:05:59 +0200, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 16:06, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 6 May 2020 12:40:48 +0200, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 5 May 2020 12:43:48 -0700 (PDT), edward.ming.lee@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 12:30:26 PM UTC-7, Ricky C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:15:13 PM UTC-4, edward...@gmail.com wrote:


They decided to keep the money. Anyway, the Fed is backing out of the blanket lock-down and let the states decide. I would go one step further and let the counties decide. SF and LA might need more lock-down, but not the rest of California.

What criteria do you use to decide if shutdowns are needed. What do you include in "shutdown"?

Population density. Outside of SF and LA and some cities, people are few and far apart.

Or democracy. Let every state and region decide for themselves.


Democracy is the worst idea. Most people - including most elected
politicians - are basically clueless about this sort of thing. To put
this in electronics terms (so you have a hope of understanding it), you
don't let end-users vote on where to put the resistors on your PCB's or
what values they should take. When dealing with health issues, you put
health experts in charge.


On what scale? City, county, country, world?


At all scales - from individual people to world scale.

You can have democratically elected people helping choose tradeoffs -
deciding how to balance economic factors and health considerations. But
you leave the health decisions themselves to health experts (just as you
should leave economic decisions to economic experts, rather politicians).

Given wild difference in the opinions and simulations and predictions
of both economists and epidemic "experts", I guess we can just choose
the experts that confirm our preferences.

Unless the UN Army enforces their preferences and experts on the
entire world.

Remember, the /single/ qualification you need to get elected is to be
able to convince people to vote for you. In general, politicians are
not particularly good at economics, health, education, or any of the
other areas they run. But that's okay, since that's not their job to
know - it's their job to make sure that people who /are/ experts are in
the position to make decisions, and have the resources needed to make
those decisions. They can guide general direction and priorities, but
that's all.

And which experts?


Start with doctors. Then look for qualifications, experience and
reputation within specific relevant fields.

This one seems to meet your requirements:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8289921/Scientist-advice-led-lockdown-QUITS-breaking-restrictions-meet-married-lover.html

https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/failed-past-predictions-from-a-covid-19-expert/

Or in the case of the USA, find a ten year old who pays attention at
school and listens to when his parents tell him/her not to touch the
plastic bottles under the sink. Then you've already found someone more
qualified to make health decisions than your president, and probably a
fair number of other politicians.

You are emoting and snarking as usual and hence saying goofy stuff.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[George Herold]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 10:24:30 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2020 13:04:41 +0200, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:45, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The biggest scandal, to me, is cigarettes. Government rakes in big
taxes on cancer sticks. They kill about 500K people in the USA every
year, and they are for sale, with government blessing, everywhere.
Where is the outrage?

The outrage against cigarettes is found in most of the world, especially
the more civilised ones - with high taxes on them, bans on advertising,
graphic warnings on packets, restrictions on where you can smoke, etc.
There is a continuous stepping up of laws and restrictions that make it
harder and more expensive to smoke, and that discourage young people
from starting the habit. Getting rid of tobacco is a slow process, but
making gradual progress.

Speed it up and save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Shut
down the cigarette factories. Arrest people for smoking in public or
throwing butts everywhere. Allow lawsuits for lung cancer. Criminalize
the sales of a deadly product. It worked for asbestos, which was far
less deadly. That won't happen for tobacco because government wants
the tax revenue.

Huh, John I thought you were more of a libertarian? But I'll play.
Tobacco is a drug, like coffee, alcohol, pot, etc.
It has some side effects that can be bad. But I (the libertarian
in me) think people should be able to choose. with full knowledge of
the side effects.

Did you ever smoke? I did for ~10 years, it's quite a rush
and I wonder if smoking makes one think any faster or better.
I heard an evolutionary biologist argue that he figures there must
be some benefit to smoking (he doesn't identify what it is.) because
there is clearly a downside to smoking and if there wasn't some benefit
the desire to smoke would have died out in our population.
(I think this argument has to be about the american indians who've
had the longest history with tobacco, and not europeans with a shorter
history.)

George H.
I realize this view, taken to it's conclusion means legalizing all drugs.
I'm not sure I like this.. but other choices seem like arbitrary government
involvement.

Government also wants this virus panic in many places. It's a good
crisis to not waste.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 06/05/2020 17:47, George Herold wrote:

<snipped>

Huh, John I thought you were more of a libertarian? But I'll play.
Tobacco is a drug, like coffee, alcohol, pot, etc.
It has some side effects that can be bad. But I (the libertarian
in me) think people should be able to choose. with full knowledge of
the side effects.

But it's not a fair game. The negative effects are downplayed by the
very powerful and skilful tobacco industry, and many - particularly
young people - don't stand a chance against that. They've been
programmed all their lives to be consumers. Then they become addicted,
and even with increasing knowledge it becomes harder to quit.

One could argue that anyone with access to the 'full facts' would only
start to smoke if they were insane.

I smoked from about 18 to about 25. It's fun to tell young people that
you could once smoke on 'planes and trains, and there was only one
non-smoking carriage on the tube train. Maybe in some generation's time
the same stories will be told about how people used to not wear masks.
Or even how they used to eat dead animals.

--
Cheers
Clive