Saturday, April 18, 2020

We Were Wrong


Just for fun, go back and read the original post this meme
came from. Then tell me I was that far off from reality
with a virus merely a fraction as lethal as Ebola.


























Last Friday, April 10, we made this meme for you in Shop Class:
























Here is the dashboard view of things on the day when we posted it.











Here is today's view, only eight days later, not nine.











Those with lightning fingers on their 10-key machines will note that deaths have gone up by 20,393(!) in the last eight days.
Here is yesterday's view.











Yesterday, it had already gone up by 16,600 deaths since we posted the April 10 meme.
(Spot us the 86 deaths, will ya? Those only took another 40 minutes to rack up, BTW.)

So this didn't double in nine days, nor even eight. It took, in fact, a whisker more than seven days for the Kung Flu virus to kill as many people as it did in the previous almost two months. We therefore apologize, for getting that wrong, and not being pessimistic enough about both how virulent and exponentially this is spreading, and about how pig-headedly stupid people are who still can't grasp that absent an effective treatment for this, and minus large-scale ability to test people out of the future death zone, the only way to nip this is to maintain the quarantines and shutdowns currently in effect.

How stupid? This stupid. That will turn out well. Tell us again how Chinese New Year went in NYFC, and how Mardi Gras went in Nawlins in February; we've forgotten.












Noxious and troublesome as those lockdowns are, and continue to be, for those inclined to cheerfully toss large numbers of their fellow citizens under the bus to create a short-lived economic rebound, I remind them that there is a historical precedent for a leader who was willing to do exactly that.

















{Common Core grads: here's a crib sheet . Hint: It doesn't turn out well. For anyone.}
If the jackboot fits, wear it. And nota bene it's now on the foot of those who would unilaterally lift the shutdown, and not upon those who would maintain it, at this point. My job isn't to decide what sort of a person you are, or want to be. That's up to you. I merely name the players accurately, and point out whose parade you're marching in.

But the trains ran on time.



















If that shellfire lands inside your perimeter, don't be Those Guys. There's a right way to get out of this, and a wrong way. (You've got a better one? Let's hear about it.) Quit pushing for the shortcut to a final solution to this pandemic problem. And maybe stop living up to the other side's expectations...?

Just saying.
























And when your response to the outbreak now sounds exactly like the response of the NYTimes and WaPo from way back in February, "check yourself before you wreck yourself".
What was retarded then is twice as retarded now.

57 comments:

MnPat said...

Great read. I look forward to reading your latest thoughts on the Kung Flu. I have had to quit going on my Facebook acct because of all the" It's a hoax, CDC inflating numbers, it's been here since September, no worse then the flu crowd." All I know is I don't want to catch this thing. I've read articles that they finding that it can attack the brain, the liver, the intestines, the kidney's, the testes anywhere where the ACE2 receptors are.

Domo said...

Lets say we lock down until September
Thats 5 months of no school, for 15 or so year cohorts.
For a big chunk of those, 5 months of no school will wipe out the school year.
For, possibly several year groups, it will set them back to preschool.
If we can stop an 80 year old losing to Covid and living another 5 years for no cos5, thats great and we should, but, if we destroy the educations, and lets he honest, lives, of 5 10 year olds to do it, we need an honest discussion as to wether that is a price we are prepared to pay.

900 or so people died of wuhan flu in the UK yesterday.
On an average day, 1,500 people die in the UK anyway.

EasyCompany said...

Oh, good God!

The CHILDREN will miss their mandatory propaganda!

How will they survive?

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

Domo: assuming the public school system is even a net positive, where are you getting this "no school" concept from? The cities that have refused to do any distance learning because it would discriminate against lower income students?

In my school district, those who don't have computers, and they're provided for various grades in the first place, are either being supplied with them, or with printed out lessons etc. You're also assuming no agency on the part of their parents; while the Babylon Bee is on target as usual, "Parents Worried They'll Have To Raise Their Own Children As Government Schools Shut Down", assume some parents are more responsible, and some are learning to be so.

It's downright hysterical to claim this will "destroy the educations, and lets he honest, lives" of 10 year olds. Well, any more than the US public school system already does through its incompetence and malice, including the malice of their fellow students. So bad, it's still a hotly debated topic of how to teach children to read, the most fundamental tool in learning.

And as always, Aesop's question requires answering, "How many millions of people must someone want to shove into crematoriums before we are justified in calling them genocidal?"

Anonymous said...

For 75% of the school children, no public school may turn out to be a blessing. They will no longer be held back by the need to educate everyone at the speed of the slowest child in the class. They will be able to speed through assignments at their own pace, and not be so bored and distracted by the slow pace of others, that they lose all interest in the subject. Many will find their parents and older siblings taking an interest in their learning and help them learn.

The other 25%? They include the 15-20% that are basically being warehoused for eight hours a day, so either they don't run wild on the streets, or that have special needs and are being given regular therapy and treatment by the school. The key concern for many of these is how do we prevent them from turning completely feral?

The 10% that remain, are capable of learning, and will need more attention to make up for the lack of structure in their home life, and often the lack of any parenting at all.

What will be interesting is if the Woke SJW College Students now safely re ensconced in the nest suddenly find their parents reviewing their study materials first hand. I am paying for that???

Maybe my numbers of good students are very optimistic, as I was raised in a stable two parent household. However, I expect a lot of children will be added to the homeschool ranks next year.

Aesop said...

Any kid whose IQ doesn't rise 10 points after a five-month absence from public education should be taking the short bus to the zoo 3 days a week in the first place.

If we drag out the shutdown until public education disappears entirely, it would be a net plus for society, despite any casualties from all other causes.

Hawkin’Gal said...

Honestly, my jaw dropped when I read Domo’s comment since the absolute last concern I have in all this is kids “losing” education—and I was a teacher for twenty years! Left largely because I was tired of the futility and pointlessness of my job!

And how alone am I in being damned tired of hearing all the wailing about potential suicides due to failed businesses or personal finances?

Anonymous said...

Suppose schooling is stopped until August to Sept, we are really taking about 3 months of no schooling since most kids don’t receive formal education in the summer. It’s already 1.5 months into the 3 for my 7 year old and he hasn’t regressed into a preschooler. I’ve been out of uni for close 20 years and I’ve not yet regressed back to kindergarten. Lastly, isn’t gap year a big thing in UK? A whole year of non-learning before college...how devastating to their education.

Most people don’t lose what they learn at a pace you have described nor do they regress at an alarming rate. Stop being a sociopathic drama queen.

Obama's boyfriend said...

Its exactly the kind of thinking the author expresses that brought Hitler and the commies to power. I mean who cares if you meet the mortgage payment, the car payment, or pay the hospital bills, you have those social distancing norms to meet. Pardon we while I suffer through this crisis with these $12 a pint ice cream goodies I store in 25,000 refrigerators. I know you "little folk" will understand.

Ah no, we don't skippy, and I find you non essential.

Matt Bracken said...

And while we all tear ourselves to pieces over "open up" or "keep it shut down," the ChiNazis who launched this pandemic bioweapon laugh themselves silly.

And our WestPac "Queen of the Battlefield," the CVN Teddy Roosevelt is out of action in Guam, 80% of the crew ashore in quarantine. And many more of our ships and bases are on lockdown, and not mission capable.

ChiNazi CCP: "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! AND THEN SOME!"

But let's keep our anger focused on each other, over how to calibrate the mitigation. And not on the ChiNazis.

pyrrhus said...

If this thing destroys public education, it will be worth it....but make no mistake, with half the population living paycheck to paycheck, there are serious problems looming in places like AZ where many people work for small businesses....

Ken Prescott said...

At some point, we will reach the crossing point where we are killing more people with the shutdown than we're keeping alive.

What do you tell those people? "Well, little Timmy, your Daddy had to die of a heart attack to keep some 80-year-old morbidly obese diabetic alive another six months."

pyrrhus said...

However, it is clear that the CDC is attempting to inflate the numbers as much as possible, to cover up their incompetence, or worse, and we won't know the real story for years.....It is also clear that shutting down the country for 18 months while we wait for a vaccine (which probably won't work well with the mutated virus) will make the Great Depression look like a picnic in the country...

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

with half the population living paycheck to paycheck

"Half the population" should be learning some very hard lessons in maintaining reserves, and having to live off the charity of others. Although with the Feds goosing unemployment payments by $600/week, it's not clear how many will learn what my Silent Generation parents learned in bones growing up during the Great Depression and then WWII. (After which most everyone expected a return to depression, but the demonic FDR was dead, and some balance was returned to society by temporarily successful Republican Congresses and Eisenhower.) Self-employed are also eligible for unemployment, if their state governments can reprogram their mostly COBOL systems in something resembling real time.

And some fraction of small businesses were able to get "Payment Protection Program" (PPP) loans, forgivable if payed out in certain ways, mostly or entirely focused on employees.

No idea how long this largess can continue, with of course the Democrats focusing on how "This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision," and refusing to replenish the PPP without unacceptable conditions. Although in a deflationary depression the macroeconomic rules change somewhat.

Ken Prescott said...

"Half the population" should be learning some very hard lessons in maintaining reserves, and having to live off the charity of others.

OK, Boomer.

Half the population plus one will cheerfully vote for whoever promises to tax your flavor of smarmy self-righteousness into fecking oblivion.

In case you haven't noticed, the working class in America has been suffering from stagnant wages for 50 years or so, while the cost of living has continuously gone up, and the return on savings has consistently gone down.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

Matt Bracken: it's balloon juice to expect a little thing like a lethal pandemic would pause vs. goose our cold civil war, and as long as the knights of our Navy (analogy based on movement rules), the attack subs, manage to continue to function---it's remarkable we haven't lost any---we might be able to keep PLAN mischief to an acceptable level.

And as I keep repeating, stupid Mad Scientists doing gain of function research are more likely to be responsible than military bioweapons research. If I'm right, not focusing on this extraordinary dangerous civilian research makes it more likely we'll have an unplanned sequel to COVID-19, vs. the COVID-20/21 we both worry will be a deliberate followup by the CCP to salvage their position.

Anonymous said...

Still waiting for the REAL numbers.
And you don't know that Aesop.
The CDC openly admitted their numbers were now including "possible cases"
Your numbers are tainted, with no possible mathematical way to discern the truth from propaganda.
I thought you were smarter than that.

None of my previous questions have been answered satisfactorily on this or any other site I've been on, TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH.
To wit:
-Where are all the 5 minute tests?
-What are the ACTUAL deaths from this?
-If this a "flu", why are we not encouraging social activity to promote herd immunity?
-How does quarantining people, yet allowing them to go to the post office and grocery store, fix anything?
-Why are hospitals all over the country laying off employees?
-Why do the inflated numbers of this thing still not come even close to seasonal flu deaths?

Critical thinking seems to have died a short death over the last few months!

I wonder what Kevin would be saying about all of this.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

Ken Prescott, Silent Generation parents didn't have Boomer children, they came after the "Greatest Generation", and we all watched in horror at what their Boomer children did as they came of age.

I know all too well the economic story you relate, I saw it start when growing up during the 1970s before going to college. Yet I managed to maintain reserves which kept me out of poverty during hard times, like the dot com recession which practically eliminated jobs in my sector, which has been explicitly targeted by our ruling class since the late 1980s. But not by a whole lot, there's little blood to squeeze out of my economic stone.

Hmmm, did you have sufficient reserves before Corona-chan started her world tour?

Aesop said...

Ned,

I'm headed to work.
But the answers to your questions aren't that hard to ascertain.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we all must go to work.

Ominous Cowherd said...

At some point, we will reach the crossing point where we are killing more people with the shutdown than we're keeping alive.
Yes, obviously. It would be nice if somebody in power were trying to minimize total deaths, or something like that, but I don't think that's what we'll get.

We know that people will die of Kung Flu after the lockdown ends, and we know that the politician who takes credit for ending the lockdown is going to get the blame. It was easy to proclaim the lockdown, and it's going to be very hard to end it, even when it is obviously time to end it.

Great Scott said...

End it. Our kids deserve it.

Anonymous said...

Let's move on. Two peaple in my county have died from Kung Fu ( 88 and 91). My crews need to feed there families.

Anonymous said...

I'm sick of flattening the curve.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

I'm sick of flattening the curve.

You might try asking the people who are literally sick to death because we didn't flatten the curve much earlier.

Except of course you can only ask their relatives and friends.

Ominous Cowherd said...

Let's move on. Two peaple in my county have died from Kung Fu ( 88 and 91). My crews need to feed there families.
Without widespread testing,the only end game is everybody gets it. If we aren't going to test everyone, often and the CDC and FDA are dead set on preventing that - we might as well get it over with ASAP. We've already had time to find the Trump Cure, time set up the hospices to administer it.

Anonymous said...

Here are some questions I have not been able to find reliable answers to,

Are there any actual, real drug shortages? I keep hearing, "fears of," and "potentially."
Is Communist China delivering the pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients they have monopolies for?

Has anyone actually determined what percentage of people with symptoms actually do have or develop the Wuhan Pneumonia?
I see reports that actual positive tests are only 8, 10, or 15% of all tests.
Related, how many are false negative results? I heard 30freaking percent? Isn't that a little high?
False Positives? Do we do any re-tests to confirm results?

What is happening in the homeless populations of cities?

----
I really want to see the antibody tests get rolled out and some mass random sampling performed.

nick flandrey said...

Astonishing amount of selfishness and willful blindness on display. Ok boomer? Seriously? Fuck off snotty whiney manchild, get a few years of life under your belt before opening your mouth next time.


Ned2, I recognize your name, so you must have been contributing to the conversation prior to this. All of your questions have been answered here and elsewhere, but I'll answer them all in one place, not because I'm any kind of expert but because I've been looking for the answers and keeping track as this changes and evolves.

"To wit:
-Where are all the 5 minute tests?
-What are the ACTUAL deaths from this?
-If this a "flu", why are we not encouraging social activity to promote herd immunity?
-How does quarantining people, yet allowing them to go to the post office and grocery store, fix anything?
-Why are hospitals all over the country laying off employees?
-Why do the inflated numbers of this thing still not come even close to seasonal flu deaths?"

--5 minute tests are HARD. Science is HARD. If you get the test wrong, you will kill people who don't think they're sick and infect others, or you'll needlessly confine someone who could continue to be productive. It's been a couple of months since this thing took off. Better testing is coming. Korea's test is only 70% accurate iirc from an article on them believing they have cases that are 're-awakening'.

--Actual deaths? What number or policy would satisfy you? you think the number should be lower so you object to including cases that according to the doctors making treatment decisions are so clear cut they don't need a test? You think the number should be higher so you object to not counting anyone that didn't get a test before or post mortem? Because we have so much money laying around we should spend it on dead people while live people are sick? It's likely that no number or methodology would satisfy you. We can't un-cremate the dead and test them now. We didn't have the tests to do it before, but we need to know dammit! I find a body with a hole in the forehead, tattooing around the hole, and the back of the head spattered all over the walls, I'm pretty sure it was the gunshot that killed him. DOES NOT MATTER that he was 105 yo, 300 pounds, and diabetic. Cause of death was GSW to head. The symptoms of Covid-19 are not mysterious, or impossible to see. If Dr can make treatment decisions based on his observances, then he can reasonably assign a cause of death. Especially after the 10th or 100th case.

--FFS, it's not a flu. And as late as yesterday, we STILL don't know if you get lasting immunity from having had it. No immunity = no "herd" immunity either. Add to that, from the beginning there were reports that there was serious long term damage possible to heart, lungs, and even neurological. We don't have a big enough pool of recovered patient, for a long enough time, to draw ANY conclusions about whether you'd want to roll the dice now and 'just get it over with.' The longer we can keep more people from getting sick the better chance we have of finding a treatment that is actually effective for the one's that DO need care.

(cont)

nick flandrey said...


--Here's a question we can mostly agree on. Poorly done quarantine is poorly done and won't give the results 100% quarantine would. But we are not chinese to be welded into our apartment buildings to starve or die or recover. Letting people make one or two trips a day is STILL better than letting them roam around and congregate (in terms of controlling the spread.) Who likes the co-worker that comes to work hacking and spewing all over the place even if what they have won't potentially kill you? We hate that guy because of his selfishness and lack of consideration for what he's doing to the rest of us.

--hospitals are laying off staff because they've cancelled all the elective procedures, and all the normal activity. This may come as a shock, but they don't make any money running their ER. They lose money that the rest of us pay to make up, when we go in for normal testing or elective surgery. They are losing money on Covid-19 patients and not making it up with all the other stuff. Add to that, the other staff isn't trained to help in the ER or ICU, so are unneeded at this time. They aren't handing out any $100 tylenol right now, or charging $200 for a mask every time they walk into a room. All that padding is gone. This has been explained in several places besides here.

--the 'inflated' numbers on this thing are in fact blowing flu out of the water. (and if you think the 'flu' numbers are accurate or based on some sort of definitive truth, take a look at where they come from) Today, from the JH numbers, total deaths from Covid-19 in the US alone are 39,015. That's in what, six weeks? vs 40K for a whole year? with no end in sight? Again, reported widely online, you can see the numbers and the graphs yourself. You may not TRUST the numbers, and that's wise and proper, but don't trust the flu numbers either.

Everyone seems to want to find reasons that this thing is not as bad as it is. STOP for just a bit, and consider that it might be that bad and it MIGHT BE WORSE. I've considered that I'm wrong and it isn't as big a threat as it looks. Then I look at the Smithfield food plant. They kept people working and they now have what? over 600 people infected? If they have NY numbers, within a couple of weeks they could have thousands infected from those 600. ONE GUY in New Rochelle led to a massive outbreak in NY. NYPD kept working and they've got 20% out sick. One of my wife's co-workers has it, with a positive test, and I thank GOD her office sent everyone to work from home before the woman got sick. Instead of just that woman and her husband, it could be my wife's whole company, me and my kids. BTW, the husband worked in a grocery store and brought it home to her.

Everywhere they keep working they are seeing cases at work.

Thank God if it's not where you are, in your neighborhood, workplace, or family. And remember to add the word YET.

nick

nick flandrey said...

"
Are there any actual, real drug shortages? I keep hearing, "fears of," and "potentially.""

--yes. At least one common heart med, and one common antibiotic, according to my local pharmacy and national reports. Anecdotal reports from NYC frontlines are that they are out locally of almost everything.

--CDC maintains a list, you can google it. Using a bit of googlefu or the wayback machine should let you see the changes from a month ago and now.

--among people known to me- one can't get his preferred insulin which is out of stock, no refill date. My local pharmacy confirmed the heart med shortage, and were worried about getting restocked when I asked a month ago.

--an online source for fish meds is now showing out of stock on 44 of about 160 items. Someone might be able to get stock, but they can't and they were very reliable. Lots of AB and all of the AV and all the inhalers were out. Almost everything is listed with 'limited stock, no replacement coming'.

People and places might have existing stocks, but India has halted all exports. China seems to only be shipping counterfeit goods at the moment.

It could get very bad if china and india don't get production back up.

nick

Robin Datta said...

Many folks are unaware, or unaccepting of the fact a significant cohort of the infected and contagious persons are either presymptomatic (will have symptoms shortly, but have none at the moment) or asymptomatic (do not and will never have symptoms). Depending on whose numbers you take, as many as 25% to 50% of the infected (and contagious) are asymptomatic: the group that will never have symptoms. If one waits for the sneeze, the snot, the cough or the throat-clearing this group will NOT be caught. They will swim through quarantine nets like minnows through a tuna net.

How do we catch them? Universal testing. But that's too costly! However it is not too costly that the emmeffs just jizzed off a few $trillion.

Great Scott said...

In my county 83 cases. Ten of which are hospitalized. Again 2 deaths (88 and 91).
Let's go back to work.

Great Scott said...

When you flatten the curve you put of dying or getting sick. Not make it go away.

Rhea said...

Great Scott,

So what part of the laws of cause and effect would account for your county having only 83 cases with ten in the hospital?

Hint: "only the elderly/comorbid conditions get it" is not the correct answer.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

The Drawin effect is pretty efficient. You anons and others like you should go on vacation to those beaches in Florida. OR STFU.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

If we aren't going to test everyone, often and the CDC and FDA are dead set on preventing that....

The CDC no longer has any say in this, their role in the beginning was to invoke a law which allowed the FDA to block everyone else, and the FDA got spanked so thoroughly that on February 29th they threw open the floodgates: self-validate and start testing, please send them an email, and please send them an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application within 15 days.

Per their EUA page, under Test Kit Manufacturers and Commercial Laboratories there are now 39 not counting the CDC, and NY state's copy of their test which was granted under the old rules on the same day. And 16 under High Complexity Molecular-Based Laboratory Developed Tests, those are generally institutions like Stanford and Mass General that on their own initiative set themselves up to do testing. Plenty of the first set are high volume automated tests that can be performed by labs licensed for medium complexity testing, which is the lowest level except for tests granted waivers. Which I think are POC tests.

Great Scott said...

How long can you cower at home?

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

Are there any actual, real drug shortages?

There always are, some have been cited, but India's completely incompetent lockdown, much worse than the 2016 demonetization debacle, from what I'm reading will ensure we're going to have quite a few in a few months.

Has anyone actually determined what percentage of people with symptoms actually do have or develop the Wuhan Pneumonia?

Don't think so, although there's starting to be enough antibody testing data you can make a better stab at it than the previously estimated mostly based on likely bogus PRC data 15%. Although that antibody testing will include asymptomatic or nearly so cases, generally the symptomatic get first priority in testing.

how many are false negative results? I heard 30 freaking percent? Isn't that a little high?

Yeah, especially since RT-PCR tests are so sensitive. It's guessed this is due to problems in taking samples, and what parts of the body have what viral loads during which stages and intensities of disease. You'd really prefer to take samples from the lungs, but that's completely impractical until someone's in the hospital, so people are swabbed in their throat and upper nose, when per the above, if they're symptomatic, the real action is in their lungs.

False Positives? Do we do any re-tests to confirm results?

The nature of RT-PCR tests makes it pretty easy to detect false positives from mistakes in the laboratory, at the same time you run real tests, you also test pure water. Before then, cross contamination of samples is possible, but I would guess fairly unlikely.

For some time, the CDC was requiring state health departments to send samples of what they found positive using the CDC supplied tests to Atlanta for confirmation, a waste of precious resources, but also a double check on false positives.

What is happening in the homeless populations of cities?

Several of them are testing positive for it in fairly large numbers, Boston was the latest I think.

I really want to see the antibody tests get rolled out and some mass random sampling performed.

That's starting in earnest, and fortunately the FDA does not have a role in approving such tests unless they're marketed to be a sole test to determine if someone has COVID-19 for clinical purposes, at last count only one company went that far.

Thank you for asking intelligent, useful questions.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

And as late as yesterday, we STILL don't know if you get lasting immunity from having had it. No immunity = no "herd" immunity either. Add to that, from the beginning there were reports that there was serious long term damage possible to heart, lungs, and even neurological.

The long lasting is most certainly a concern, and the general issue is still up in the air, maybe mild cases don't get much immunity, but it'll take a while to determine, because we can't just deliberately expose the theoretically recovered to an infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2.

The long term damage is I'm hoping either due to lack of oxygen, or things the micro-blood clotting found lungs and heart tissue in 3 New Orleans autopsies. And as far as I know we know, asymptomatic or nearly so cases don't have damage by definition ... but that needs to be tested.

As you say following the above, we need to get more hard data before for example being willing to let it rip through populations.

This may come as a shock, but they don't make any money running their ER.

Thanks to FDR I think it was, or Truman, anyone who shows up at an ER with a serious condition must be treated, even if they'll never pay for it.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

People and places might have existing stocks, but India has halted all [pharmaceutical] exports. China seems to only be shipping counterfeit goods at the moment.

It says something that India is distrusted less than the PRC to supply finished drugs....

Prior to the incompetent lockdown, India was only embargoing a fixed set of pharmaceuticals, but if the reports I've been reading are correct, they've now implicitly halted all exports of pretty much everything, not to mention production. So bad, it was made with 4 hours of notice, stopping trains in the middle of their runs, trucks got stuck and abandoned wholesale, etc. We'll be hearing more about this, I expect.

Rhea said...

You didn't answer the question.

How long? Long enough for the country to be one step ahead of this virus. Long enough for it to peak. Long enough that that the US medical system doesn't collapse from trying to treat an influx of Kung Flu plus every other run of the mill problem they see on a regular day. I guess I don't view it as "cowering" at home - I have loved ones who work in the medical field. Funnily enough, neither they nor their co-workers want this new "just the flu."

As our esteemed host has pointed out elsewhere, now =|= forever. This is not the first time people have been told to go home and stay there regardless of if they were sick or not. It happened in 1918 too.

The public school system ought to be closed for the next year for forgetting that chapter in the history books alone, nevermind their other sins.

ThatWouldBeTelling said...

When you flatten the curve you put of dying or getting sick. Not make it go away.

This is a truly grossly ignorant statement, you've completely failed to learn the goal of it, which is to not exceed the peak capacities of hospitals. If you do that, death rates go way up because even the mildly serious cases can't get good medical attention, oxygen, etc.

How long can you cower at home?

Since I'm not a genocidal sociopath like you, as long as it takes.

Great Scott said...

Okay' stay home and the rest of us that are willing to work will.

Great Scott said...

Name calling' how smart are you.

Great Scott said...

Name calling. Of course you will do as you are told.

Great Scott said...

Funny if you have a different point of view you must be punished by name calling.
I like this blog but I also think for myself as well.

Rhea said...

You are the one who thought it was okay to try and slap people around by accusing them of "cowering at home." It's a bit late for you to whine about name calling now.

Anonymous said...

Not calling names. It's an observation.

Borepatch said...

Aesop, I disagree about as much as it's possible to disagree.

I also think that we're seeing fascists all over the place, but it's not those of use saying to reopen the economy.

Aesop said...

I guessing a couple of folks missed these earlier:

https://i.imgur.com/WumCirt.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/BDHuMdw.jpg

If you can answer either question therein, you can show your work on how we should end the lockdowns.

Personally, I think the tsunami of ass-headedness is going to guarantee this explodes again (and again, and again), and kills a metric fuckton more people, and the "End the lockdowns now!" crowd still won't give a f**k.

Sociopathy is like that.

Time will tell if I've got that right too, but a wise man once said "It isn't possible to underestimate the average intelligence of Americans."

Aesop said...

@ Borepatch,

Show your work:
How many people are you willing to kill?
Where's the line in the sand where we finally hit too many dead?
We've already equaled an average flu season and a half, in six weeks.
We did the deaths in average flu season in just the last week.

So, do we admit re-opening without widespread testing is a major fuck-up at 50K dead?
100K?
500K?
Never??

New York was driving the bus on the last peak, and they're the ones that ignored this until it bit their asses off.
So we should do 10, or 49, or 100 more peaks now, because people are getting antsy?

There's no question jackholes have abused and exceeded both lawful authority and commonsense, but is it okay to throw out not just the baby with the bathwater, but thousands or tens of thousands of grandmas and grandpas too?

And who's going to step up and say, "Hey, you had a good run, but I've got to be getting back to work, so fuck off and die?"
You?
POTUS?
Who?

Where in the Constitution is that power enumerated?
To whom?
"He shall, from time to time, write off vast swaths of the population, because their continued existence is inconvenient for their children and grandchildren..." appears in which article?

My Declaration of Independence reads that the reason for any government is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
When did we make that first part optional, purely at the whim of the whiny?

When you're willing to push people into the crematorium, where does that slippery slope end?
How did that work out with Madame Guillotine?

Are we just going to start calling these "240th trimester abortions", or what?

Asking for 5-10M friends and neighbors.

lineman said...

I have to laugh like Bracken said we bitch and fight amongst ourselves because we have no power to right the wrong that has been perpetrated against us... Maybe just maybe if people would of listened and started building Communities way back in 2010 when I started advocating for that then they wouldn't be arguing online with strangers they would be working on implementing their plan that their Community came up with but nooo everyone was just to damn comfortable to do anything like that...Sad That...

nick flandrey said...

Yeah, hey, since we're in power at the moment, let's get all those whiny snots who've ever used the phrase "ok boomer" and fire them. You know, MY kids shouldn't have to compete with them in the workplace, so let's clear out that deadwood. 'cuz hey, genocide is FUN when it's not your people dying... and, we'll get all their STUFF when they die! Sweet.

@ken and anyone else who doesn't seem to care that people will die from this if you don't stay home, I wonder how your boss feels about you wanting him dead? I bet the Board of Directors has some strong feelings about you working there given your desire to just sacrifice them and most of the people they know, because you didn't prepare for hard times. Or maybe you've just discovered that you are "non-essential" and that stings. Start your own company, making something useful. Take responsibility for your own life and fate.

n

Anonymous said...

As an essential employee (infrastructure) in an inherently dangerous field I find the stay at home two sides
We must keep the power and water running while like the man said others cower at home.
Man up and pay the freight


glasslass said...

My county, in far west Ky., had it's first case 2 weeks ago and now we have 30. Ky., 2 weeks ago had 1066 cases and today we have 2,844 and still haven't hit the peak. But in a town of 10,127 I find that I have no desire to go shopping, play bridge or anything I typically do. Daughter who has been "kinda" laid off, filling in where needed, keeps telling HR to give her hours to someone who needs them as with her unemployment, $600 weekly gov help she making more a week than her take home pay. And I can't imagine that this isn't happening across the country. My hope is that everyone who's pushing to go back to work because this is "just" the flu are correct. Because if they are wrong I'm going to have a lot of funerals to attend.

Borepatch said...

@ Borepatch,

Show your work:
How many people are you willing to kill?


Jesus, Aesop. Playing under those rules, how about this:

We're seeing a million people a day lose their jobs - we're seeing ~ 6-7M a week new jobless. So how many people are you willing to put out of work, for how long, to save how many lives?

Fun game, right?

And OBTW, the projections on number of dead have been crap for weeks. It's been millions dead then downgraded to hundreds of thousands dead and downgraded again to 50k - 100k dead. I wonder where it will end up. No doubt the latest models will be right on target; they're put together by top men. Top. Men.

And OBTW[2], nobody is tracking how many of the dead would have died anyway from one of their many comorbidities. After all, the government has to justify all the pain they've inflicted, and having uncomfortable questions raised from reporting the data honestly would be, well, uncomfortable for TPTB.

But hey, go ahead and only add up one side of the cost/benefit analysis. Makes the calculation a bit easier, I expect.

Aesop said...

You don't get a pass for failure to engage.

I'm talking about the ones that have already died, not projections.

So, how many of the unemployed have starved to death?
Zero?

How many unemployed? For how long?
It isn't like I didn't address this, already, a week ago:
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/check-your-instruments.html

But that's not "Right now, because my diapers are wet, and they feel icky!"
For about 50% of the country.

The same people who are gonna rise up and take back America, because reasons, and a six-week partial quarantine and job loss is kicking their asses, and half of them are ready to commit suicide rather than face it, while the other half can't wait to start throwing anyone else out of the lifeboats and under the bus.

Because all that rhetoric about "the right to life" expires when it's inconvenient for society's biggest crybabies.

Noted.