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

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 6 May 2020 09:47:09 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
<ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

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.

Killing people is past the limit of freedom.

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.

Let people choose, but shut down the murderers selling cigarettes. We
don't sell anthrax spores or pipe bombs on Amazon for sensible
reasons.

Did you ever smoke?

Not once. I always thought it was disgusting. Cigs killed two of my
favorite people.


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.)

I think people used tobacco a lot less before cigarettes were invented
and optimized for addiction and promoted in movies and on TV. Cigs
probably give a bigger nicotine rush than pipes or cigars.

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.

It's reasonable for government to supress things that cause lung
cancer and other diseases. But government profits instead.

It might be sensible to not prosecute individuals for possessing small
amounts of illegal drugs, but brutally attack the supply chains.

--

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 1:34:06 PM UTC-4, Clive Arthur wrote:

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.

OK I think that argument works in the past, when tobacco had a
big voice. (advertising) But I don't see that so much now...
In many areas of the US you are a pariah if you smoke these days.

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

OK I'm going to say again that there may be some evolutionary advantage
to smoking.. even if we don't know what that advantage is.
So maybe we don;t have the 'full facts'.
I'm not trying to be a shill for the tobacco industry,
Even though it might kill me late in life I can see many potential
advantages to tobacco.. or maybe just the nicotine.
(and of course late in life you've mostly already reproduced
if you were going to. So it doesn't have a great evolutionary cost.)
1.) it does 'jack you up' I'm not sure if your reflexes are
any faster, but I certainly would feel more aware. A cig while you
drive the car is very common... does it make you a better driver in anyway?
Other focused skills?
2.) Staying awake. Chewing a little leaf could keep you awake,
maybe to catch some critter for diner, or on guard duty.
3.)Taking my mind away... giving your body something to do.
I think this is the piece of smoking I miss the most.
I would sit down on a bench, beach or grassy knoll,
to think about something.
And smoking gave my body something to do for ~5 min.
A little like a shower in the morning.

So maybe the people who continue to smoke, are having a
'better' life than they would otherwise. I don't think it's
for me to choose for them.

Anyway, I mostly for not banning stuff*.

I'm also extremely happy I gave up smoking... nasty smelly habit.

George H.
*would asbestos and DDT have good uses if used properly..?
and next they'll be banning beer and cheese. :^)

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

 

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 7:15:22 AM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

> The health hazard here is from underloading of health care.

So, health care style is a hazard? Nosocomial infection, when a
fast-spreading illness might be in your shared room, is the actual hazard.

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.

You're not trying to regulate the disease, you're trying to (at least locally)
extinguish it. You want the nonlinear effects, NOT stability.
It isn't a curve-shaping exercise, it's a race to zero.

 

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 9:55:15 AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

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.

Bad strategy. That's a positive feedback loop, with important
stuff at risk. Better would be to look at proposals, not individuals
presenting them, for their content. Do so with some deep thinkers
present, and expect it to take time.

It'll take longer than reading a tweet, if you're doing it right.

 

[George Herold]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 2:40:25 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 6 May 2020 09:47:09 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

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.

Killing people is past the limit of freedom.
No cars then. :^)


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.

Let people choose, but shut down the murderers selling cigarettes. We
don't sell anthrax spores or pipe bombs on Amazon for sensible
reasons.


Did you ever smoke?

Not once. I always thought it was disgusting. Cigs killed two of my
favorite people.

Oh! Say no more. My dad smoked, my brother still does.
I didn't understand your tobacco hatred.

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.)

I think people used tobacco a lot less before cigarettes were invented
and optimized for addiction and promoted in movies and on TV. Cigs
probably give a bigger nicotine rush than pipes or cigars.

Yeah maybe. I smoked sigs mostly.
As soon as tobacco made it from the new world to Europe it was pretty
much a big hit! From what I read. It helped make Virginia, NC..

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.

It's reasonable for government to supress things that cause lung
cancer and other diseases. But government profits instead.

Would it work for you if all cig taxes went to smoker health care?
(If we start on stupid g'ment profit's we'll skip the rails...)

It might be sensible to not prosecute individuals for possessing small
amounts of illegal drugs, but brutally attack the supply chains.

Tobacco use to be small scale. I bought 40 acres of ~farm land on
the wrong side of the river, near Nashville TN. (Joelton)
When signing the bill of sale, I agreed that the tobacco rights for the
front few acres (~5 say) had been sold off (to the g'ment) for ~$500
an acre.. or something like that.

George H.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology. as far as machine operation. Car drivers smoking cigs is
fine.. maybe good? smoking doobies.. bad... distracted com

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 6 May 2020 14:34:21 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
<ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 2:40:25 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 6 May 2020 09:47:09 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
ggherold@gmail.com> wrote:

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.

Killing people is past the limit of freedom.
No cars then. :^)


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.

Let people choose, but shut down the murderers selling cigarettes. We
don't sell anthrax spores or pipe bombs on Amazon for sensible
reasons.


Did you ever smoke?

Not once. I always thought it was disgusting. Cigs killed two of my
favorite people.
Oh! Say no more. My dad smoked, my brother still does.
I didn't understand your tobacco hatred.


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.)

I think people used tobacco a lot less before cigarettes were invented
and optimized for addiction and promoted in movies and on TV. Cigs
probably give a bigger nicotine rush than pipes or cigars.
Yeah maybe. I smoked sigs mostly.
As soon as tobacco made it from the new world to Europe it was pretty
much a big hit! From what I read. It helped make Virginia, NC..


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.

It's reasonable for government to supress things that cause lung
cancer and other diseases. But government profits instead.
Would it work for you if all cig taxes went to smoker health care?

No. Why collect money to cause lung cancer, and spend it trying to
save some people?

(If we start on stupid g'ment profit's we'll skip the rails...)


It might be sensible to not prosecute individuals for possessing small
amounts of illegal drugs, but brutally attack the supply chains.
Tobacco use to be small scale. I bought 40 acres of ~farm land on
the wrong side of the river, near Nashville TN. (Joelton)
When signing the bill of sale, I agreed that the tobacco rights for the
front few acres (~5 say) had been sold off (to the g'ment) for ~$500
an acre.. or something like that.

Yup. Slow murder as a government enterprise.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

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

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 2:55:15 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

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:

<snip>

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.

John Larkin is an indiscriminate reader, and hasn't learned to identify and ignore rubbish opinions, simulation designed to identify absurd assumptions and predictions invented to justify a preferred course of action (such as doing nothing to slow down anthropogenic global warming).

This makes him a gullible twit. He does make choices that confirm his preference for being flattered, and leaves it at that.

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

They haven't had much success with that. Irak comes to mind.

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

Neil Ferguson's simulations were widely regarded as being bizarre to the point of being totally useless by other people in the business.

The UK Daily Mail does take him rather more seriously than more reliable news sources.

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

That does seem to be better informed.

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.

The US handling of the corona virus epidemic has been an epic fail, and the UK has done almost as badly. They could have done worse, but lots of place have done a lot better.

It may be snarky to point this out, but seeing people die unnecessarily does evoke an emotional response (though not in John Larkin). It's not being goofy.

The UK has a famous civil service dictum - scientists should be on tap, not on top. Trump seems to share that approach, which comes down to finding a scientist whose advice you like, and taking that, rather than paying enough attention to get some idea of what's actually going on.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Ricky C]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 4:09:13 AM UTC-4, 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:

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.

I don't think Trump will ever refuse to discuss a topic where he can claim to have done a "fantastic job".

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!

Hard to say what the toll will be or even for whom the bell tolls.

I spent the last few days with friends that I used to visit every week. It's been nice. He still goes to work one day a week so there is a small exposure path for me compared to my monkian status the last month and a half.

There is so much about politics in the US that disturbs me, but our response to this pandemic not only shows we still can't get along in an emergency.... we can't even understand we are dealing with a threat to us as a nation and unify when it is in our best interests individually.

I must be getting old and expecting people to rise above our earth bound ties to being merely human. KIDS!!! GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Ricky C]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 6:37:49 AM UTC-4, David Brown 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.

This is an old discussion that has been covered before. The infections in other countries are not relevant. To extend the analogy... Buildings have fire walls and fire doors that prevent the spread of the fire from one area to the next. In the same way international travel can remain restricted for a long time without significant impact. Please don't confuse that with trade restrictions.

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

Of course not. We have never been in full shut down. We allow many activities to remain open. I just went to the hardware store yesterday. In a real emergency... like a pandemic... they would not be 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).

No one disputes that the US is a large country and every state doesn't operate exactly the same. Everyone talks about local responses, but no one fills in any details like, exactly what will that decision be based on. Number of infected? Number of new infections? Number of deaths? Number of filled/available ICU beds? First/second derivative of any of these quantities.. 3 day averages? 7 day averages? The pressure on various law makers by business lobbyists?

Just waving arms over heads and shouting "local response" is not an approach.

I don't believe one state should be allowed to define their own actions. We can use fire walls to surround our country, but we can't firewall a state or a county. What good does it do to lock down Frederick Co, MD while infection rates in Montgomery Co, MD or Loudoun Co, VA are taking off?

How do you manage people living in a county with stay at home orders working in the next county where they decided they don't care about the disease and all the Chinese buffet restaurants and movie theaters are open with people crowding elbow to elbow?

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.

Of course. But very few places in the US have R0 lower than 1 and New Orleans is about the only major area where I see it significantly lower than 1.

https://geodacenter.github.io/covid/map.html#

They let you view states or counties. Click on a jurisdiction and you can see the daily new infection rates in a graph. Select the data you want to see colored in on the graph and visually observe the map. Try Daily New Confirmed Count. Click around on counties in GA, which is opening up while many of their counties are not improving or getting worse!

There are more counties that are actually on the mend. But do you send your child out to play because his fever is only 101° rather than 103°?

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

Now you are preaching to the choir.

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.

Contact tracing is paramount. We can't do that effectively until the rates are lower. This isn't China, we can't actually do things effectively. Maybe we need to outsource our leadership?

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).

That is absolutely true. Those are likely the same people who don't take the full course of antibiotics.

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".)

BINGO!!!

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.

I think the population density issue is a bit overstated. Many people confuse low total numbers with low infection rate growth. Numbers need to be per capita and the trends are what's important, not just the number. Maryland is scaring me. The places I'm used to visiting are rather hotbeds of infection growth still and Hogan, the Governor is starting to open things up.

I firmly believe many people just don't think well. But then my opinion if from my own experience. I'm not out of work. No one I know is out of work although several are working from home which is not easy if you are a teacher. That and having to deal with the issues of store restrictions is the worst I've seen so far. So maybe my opinion is not as valid as the waitstaff at restaurants who are not working at all. But I've heard many of them aren't interested in working and being exposed.

This disease sucks. But in my opinion, the really bad part is that we aren't doing what we need to shut down the disease instead of just shutting down the economy. It is definitely like fighting cancer with chemotherapy. If it works, great! But when it doesn't you just can't continue the treatment or up the dose without killing the patient. You have to find an effective treatment! In this case we need to have a more strict shut down until the numbers drop, then use aggressive case tracing and strict quarantine even if it means having the equivalent of the Japanese interment camps.

Some court ruled the stay at home orders were the "definition of tyranny". Fuck the courts! This is an emergency!!! Where were they in WWII??? US Citizens lost their homes and businesses because they were locked up for four years! The courts couldn't see that was tyranny???

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

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Ricky C]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 6:40:52 AM UTC-4, David Brown 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.

If I can believe what I see in movies and TV shows, a medical officer can declare any officer of any rank unfit for duty on medical grounds. Clearly we should be putting them in charge of defining what must be done at minimum to deal with this disease. But then I suppose the politicians pick the medical experts they want.

Yesterday in MD, Hogan said all the doctors he conferred with were "unanimous" in saying his lessening of restrictions were acceptable. I hope it wasn't the same type of "unanimous" as Mrs Slocombe would say, "I am unanimous".

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Ricky C]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 7:04:46 AM UTC-4, David Brown 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.

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.

I think you misrepresent the US attitude toward cigarettes and labeling. I think most people just ignore it as something required by the government. "Outrage" is rather an overstatement.

I expect if they created a new brand called, "Death Stix" and use a skull and crossbones as the logo they would sell like hotcakes. But it would also emphasize the fact they know they are selling a dangerous product and result is more pushback from the government.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJE3zSe6anY

Isn't google fantastic?

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Martin Brown]

On 06/05/2020 00:45, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 3:10:33 AM UTC+10,
jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 5 May 2020 08:28:31 -0700 (PDT),
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.

Virus predictions are all over the place. 20:1 errors, from Top
Scientists, are common.

20:1 differences aren't unknown. John Larkin doesn't understand what
computer modelling is about - you make specific (inevitably
over-simplified ) assumptions and see how they play out in your
simulation.

The models are fairly reasonable and the virus appears to actually be
becoming more infective with passing time. The original strain has been
out competed by a more efficient faster transmitting one in the UK.

One of the more bizarre errors involved is to assume that lock down -
on it's own - can reduce the R value for Covid-19 below one. One
infected idiot can infect ten more people.

It isn't such a bizarre error.

The UK *has* got the R value well down in the general population who are
being for the most part very law abiding and staying home in lockdown.
It may get harder to enforce as the summer weather improves though.

The places where R~2 or worse are care homes and prisons both of which
contain large numbers of vulnerable elderly people.

Lock down plus energetic contact tracing plus isolating everybody who
might have got infected by anybody who shows up with the infection -
which is a lot easier when the population is locked down - can reduce
R to about 0.5 or less - which drops the new infection per day rather
rapidly.

You need contact tracers to do that. UK gave up on contact tracing in
March and is only just recruiting poorly trained dubious quality ones
now through the usual channels (who have previous for charging to tag
monitor prisoners who were dead or long since absconded overseas).

Contact tracing requires a lot of skilled people. Apparently the UK
had contact tracing teams until about 2016, but they got disbanded to
save money.

Indeed. That has proved a very bad false economy. Basically the problem
was that with improved animal welfare and hygiene standards there were
not enough food poisoning cases and contagions to keep them occupied.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

The UK new cases per day numbers look very like America's - roughly
constant for a month now.

Linear growth will still eventually infect the entire population. Death
rate is stubbornly high too at 600-800 per day (weekends excluded).

The data collection is mostly nonsense too. The case load tracks
testing density, and testing is increasing wildly. Definitions
keep changing.

By nonsense, John Larkin means that he can't make sense of it. The US
clearly is doing enough testing - I think they are still getting 17%
positive outcomes, Anything over 5% means that you aren't testing
enough people. Australia is a 1.6% positive results.

Depends on the test. If you want to maximise the information gain from
each test then the ideal would be to have 50% test positive. There isn't
much point on using the test on anyone who isn't either showing symptoms
or has recently been in contact with a known or suspected carrier.

You obviously test more where you expect to find infections, which is
why the case load tracks testing density, but it doesn't follow that
you'd find all that many more infections if you tested more widely.

Biden is helping Trump get re-elected.

How? Trump's doing a great job of demonstrating to anybody with any
sense that he should never have been elected in the first place, but
John Larkin doesn't seem to have much sense.

He seems determined to resume his cull of the American people shortly.
He has announced the disbanding of the team leading the work on Covid!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 06/05/2020 17:55, John Larkin wrote:

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:

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

He made a stupid personal mistake that might even be scientifically
justified (if we assume that having had the disease and fully recovered
confers Covid immunity at least in the short term).

However, since the governments simple message is "Stay Home" except to
buy food or medicine. He really had to do the honourable thing and
resign. His personal behaviour doesn't affect the science he does.

The chief medical advisor to Scotland was similarly caught out last
month and had to resign for going to her holiday home (twice).

His numbers for Covid-19 may be a bit of an over estimate but I would be
surprised if when the thing has run its course if he is out by more than
a factor of three. Unless we get a vaccine soon and then it's different.

The cases where he predicted what would happen in an epidemic if no
measures were deployed might well have been right too. To combat BSE
huge slaughter of UK cattle occurred and it took a long time to totally
eliminate it from farms. They really put the junk into junk food!

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

That one shows its age. UK death toll is now 30k and rising linearly by
600-800 daily with no signs of stopping or slowing. The lockdown has
prevented the exponential growth but it hasn't wiped the disease out. We
are in a holding pattern rather than making progress to landing safely.

The uncontrolled UK Covid hotspots are now care homes and prisons.

Lockdown may be partially lifted on Monday. I expect that in 3 weeks
time we will see some lockdown measures being re-established. It depends
too much on how people react which is hard to predict because the entire
population has been scared witless by the simple government message and
out of all proportion to the personal risk for those under 44. See:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52543692

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Ricky C]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 1:34:06 PM UTC-4, Clive Arthur wrote:

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.

I'm not a fan of eating animal flesh, but eating dead animals is clearly less dangerous than eating live ones. I'm just sayin'...

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Ricky C]

On Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 6:01:04 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 06/05/2020 00:45, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 3:10:33 AM UTC+10,
jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 5 May 2020 08:28:31 -0700 (PDT),
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.

Virus predictions are all over the place. 20:1 errors, from Top
Scientists, are common.

20:1 differences aren't unknown. John Larkin doesn't understand what
computer modelling is about - you make specific (inevitably
over-simplified ) assumptions and see how they play out in your
simulation.

The models are fairly reasonable and the virus appears to actually be
becoming more infective with passing time. The original strain has been
out competed by a more efficient faster transmitting one in the UK.

How is it determined that the strain is more contagious?

One of the more bizarre errors involved is to assume that lock down -
on it's own - can reduce the R value for Covid-19 below one. One
infected idiot can infect ten more people.

It isn't such a bizarre error.

The UK *has* got the R value well down in the general population who are
being for the most part very law abiding and staying home in lockdown.
It may get harder to enforce as the summer weather improves though.

The places where R~2 or worse are care homes and prisons both of which
contain large numbers of vulnerable elderly people.

Lock down plus energetic contact tracing plus isolating everybody who
might have got infected by anybody who shows up with the infection -
which is a lot easier when the population is locked down - can reduce
R to about 0.5 or less - which drops the new infection per day rather
rapidly.

You need contact tracers to do that. UK gave up on contact tracing in
March and is only just recruiting poorly trained dubious quality ones
now through the usual channels (who have previous for charging to tag
monitor prisoners who were dead or long since absconded overseas).

Contact tracing just isn't feasible with thousands of new cases each day. If isolation alone can get new infection rates down to more manageable numbers tracing will allow isolation of individuals rather than the general population.

Contact tracing requires a lot of skilled people. Apparently the UK
had contact tracing teams until about 2016, but they got disbanded to
save money.

Indeed. That has proved a very bad false economy. Basically the problem
was that with improved animal welfare and hygiene standards there were
not enough food poisoning cases and contagions to keep them occupied.

Kinda like keeping an army around when there aren't wars. We all know how silly that is... not.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

The UK new cases per day numbers look very like America's - roughly
constant for a month now.

Linear growth will still eventually infect the entire population. Death
rate is stubbornly high too at 600-800 per day (weekends excluded).

The data collection is mostly nonsense too. The case load tracks
testing density, and testing is increasing wildly. Definitions
keep changing.

By nonsense, John Larkin means that he can't make sense of it. The US
clearly is doing enough testing - I think they are still getting 17%
positive outcomes, Anything over 5% means that you aren't testing
enough people. Australia is a 1.6% positive results.

Depends on the test. If you want to maximise the information gain from
each test then the ideal would be to have 50% test positive. There isn't
much point on using the test on anyone who isn't either showing symptoms
or has recently been in contact with a known or suspected carrier.

That doesn't make sense. A test is used to provide information you don't have. There are people who have no idea they are infected. If you don't test them you won't know anything about these people. You won't hear from anyone who isn't feeling sick. If you don't test people who aren't sick, how will you find the early cases or the ones that never develop minor infections?

You obviously test more where you expect to find infections, which is
why the case load tracks testing density, but it doesn't follow that
you'd find all that many more infections if you tested more widely.

Biden is helping Trump get re-elected.

How? Trump's doing a great job of demonstrating to anybody with any
sense that he should never have been elected in the first place, but
John Larkin doesn't seem to have much sense.

He seems determined to resume his cull of the American people shortly.
He has announced the disbanding of the team leading the work on Covid!

That will assure him of reelection. Look ma, no disease!

--

Rick C.

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

 

On Thu, 7 May 2020 17:11:22 +0200, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 18:55, John Larkin wrote:
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.

As you do so often, you are failing to understand that just because
science doesn't know everything, and experts sometimes disagree, does
not mean you can replace the gaps by made-up nonsense or that anyone's
opinion is equally valid. Sure, experts don't always get things right,
and don't always agree - but they are going to be far more likely to be
correct than some politician.

Some sciences can make accurate calculation and predictions, and are
verified by experiment, so deserve the name. Some are useless at any
quantitative prediction.

In this pandemic, many "experts" are playing to the press. It's a
bidding war to predict doom in an otherwise slow news cycle.

One recent trick is to take the mean output of an ensemble of models
and call that "science" ... models that vary by factors of 100:1 or
more.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

On Thu, 7 May 2020 11:10:21 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 06/05/2020 17:55, John Larkin wrote:
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:

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

He made a stupid personal mistake that might even be scientifically
justified (if we assume that having had the disease and fully recovered
confers Covid immunity at least in the short term).

However, since the governments simple message is "Stay Home" except to
buy food or medicine. He really had to do the honourable thing and
resign. His personal behaviour doesn't affect the science he does.

Of course it does. This guy is emotion-driven.

The chief medical advisor to Scotland was similarly caught out last
month and had to resign for going to her holiday home (twice).

His numbers for Covid-19 may be a bit of an over estimate but I would be
surprised if when the thing has run its course if he is out by more than
a factor of three. Unless we get a vaccine soon and then it's different.

The cases where he predicted what would happen in an epidemic if no
measures were deployed might well have been right too. To combat BSE
huge slaughter of UK cattle occurred and it took a long time to totally
eliminate it from farms. They really put the junk into junk food!

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

That one shows its age. UK death toll is now 30k and rising linearly by
600-800 daily with no signs of stopping or slowing.

Worldometer shows daily deaths in the UK well below the early April
peak and declining.

Pick the "science" that makes your case. There are lots of choices.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[David Brown]

On 06/05/2020 18:55, John Larkin wrote:

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.

As you do so often, you are failing to understand that just because
science doesn't know everything, and experts sometimes disagree, does
not mean you can replace the gaps by made-up nonsense or that anyone's
opinion is equally valid. Sure, experts don't always get things right,
and don't always agree - but they are going to be far more likely to be
correct than some politician.