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What if you iPad or Mac is your main tool for income and stops working correctly? How about a “Genius” Bar appointment? Can’t play in your iPad if it isn't working properly.
My iPad and Mac are my main tool for income and I will do what I always do, call Apple Support. I don’t have time to wait for a Genius Bar appointment.
 
But why are studies showing this


Or this


Studies are starting to find out the masks act as fomites

I really wish they would more importantly tell people to take there daily dose of D3, Zinc, and 1500 to 2000mg of vitamin C (spread the vitamin C out throughout the day).
Yeah, especially considering California having 40 million people according to 2020 census, Florida having 20 million and Georgia having 4 million. I wonder why California have more cases than both Florida and especially Georgia.

People like the one on these two tweets cherry-picking graphs without context and background are just perfect examples why educating the population is extremely challenging and difficult.

I would also suspect their test capabilities, actual percentage of population going to get tested, population densities etc. But no, throw these two scary looking graphs and claims “lockdown does not work”. It’s amazing to see the graph marks Georgia’s restriction removal as “human sacrifice”. Crazy indeed.
 
What if you iPad or Mac is your main tool for income and stops working correctly? How about a “Genius” Bar appointment? Can’t play in your iPad if it isn't working properly.

I guess you send it in for service and continue work on your backup machine.
 
ZZZ....of course they did. This is true in Michigan where businesses are still completely open. Apple is down to curbside and fix by appointment only. It’s a little much. If I’m going to mingle at the grocery store I certainly am not going to freak out over going into an Apple store.
 
You're talking out your a**. The leading cause of death in the U.S. for the year 2020 is, and remains, heart disease.
Read the article again. Let me know if there’s anything you don’t understand. Details matter if you’re going to tell someone they’re talking out there ass. Heart disease is #1 overall in 2020 but in the past few weeks has been taken over by Covid. Happy to give you some pointers on statistics.
 
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Very few in the grand scheme of things, people forget how large of a population we have in the U.S. and our death count is actually relatively low. Of course if we would listen to the real experts that have drugs that have been proven to stop the spread and to virtually eliminate any complications if you do get it, we could get this much lower, but that wouldn't allow the government to keep fear mongering and trying to get everyone fully dependent on the government.
Wrong your death count is among the highest in the world even accounting for population. In virtually every survey of Covid responses in countries USA rates the worst.
 
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Numerous leaders around the world have seen their popularity increase during COVID. All they needed to do was respond in a competent manner.
Trumps response has been incompetent.
for 8 weeks after closing the borders the USA had no test for COVID because Trump ruled out using the WHO backed test and wanted to develop an American test. That 8 weeks allowed COVID to spread undetected around the country.
pure incompetence.
Numerous leaders around the world don't have a news infrastructure within their country that is pathologically against everything they do. The WHO is a garbage organization that fumbled early on in the pandemic and covered for China. I think Trump, his administration, Fauci, etc. was trying to do the best they could with the limited information they had at the time. We didn't know how if this thing was going to have death rate of 50% or less than 1%, which we now know was the latter. National policies are supposed to be made on what's best for everyone for the long run, not just assuming the worse case scenario all the time. I'm definitely no Trump fanatic, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think the media response to a Democrat president doing the same thing would've been the exact opposite.
 
What if you iPad or Mac is your main tool for income and stops working correctly? How about a “Genius” Bar appointment? Can’t play in your iPad if it isn't working properly.
Then you fall back to your backup device, because you simply can not afford to have a broken device when it's your primary source of income. Or you have a contract with the manufacturer with a guarantee for repair or replacement within a specific time frame. Of course, this costs money. But again, without a machine you can't make money at all.
Take for example, if a server breaks, I call Dell. Within 4 hours Dell is on-site and start repairs or replace the whole machine. With laptops, they usually start repairs or replacement the next business day. On-site, no questions asked. Same is available for Lenovo and Apple (not from Apple directly though). If anyone is running a business, relying on tech and doesn't have a backup plan, maybe they shouldn't run a business in the first place, because they suck at it.
They actually track those types of deaths. So while deaths or accidents at work may be down, it will still be interesting to see how the deaths compare with other categories like:
Yes, they track it and it will be interesting to compare these numbers. There are already peer-reviewed publications about this out there, but not for the full year as the year is not over yet. There are also studies that compare things like number of suicides before and during the lockdown, such as this one: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.20.20215343v1
It will be very interesting to see the final numbers for 2020 to have a full picture. Not just for death, but also remote-work.
I wonder why California have more cases than both Florida and especially Georgia.
You'll always have to consider population density. Check youtube as well. You have a shocking amount of "media" idiots in California ignoring lockdowns, masks and distancing. They're busy with they (illegal) party life. Just remember what happened during spring break in Florida... it was a huge party.
 
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Well, we don’t know yet because, among other reasons:
  1. 2020 isn’t over yet
  2. Forecasting fatalities for the remainder of the year is more difficult than assuming that deaths occur at a constant pace throughout the year (because they don’t; they typically peak in the winter months)
  3. There’s a lag (“from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction and cause of death”) in reporting deaths
  4. The CDC report to which you’re presumably referring doesn’t include the first few weeks of 2020 (until the week ended February 1)
Let me make these issues with the data you’re probably referring to more tangible:

I was able to locate an archived version of the CDC’s “Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)” report from November 16 and compare it to the most recent, last updated December 18. These reports include weekly total fatalities from both COVID-19 and all causes combined, along with the percentage of expected deaths for the week.

In the November 16 report, the CDC estimated the number of fatalities from all causes between January 26 and November 14 to be 2,487,350. That’s 40 weeks and an average of about 62,183 deaths per week, so let’s extrapolate that out to include the 4 weeks since. That’d put our estimate for what we’d see in the current report at 2,736,085 deaths, for the period between January 26 and December 12. The current report has 2,800,974 deaths in that period.

Where did all of those extra deaths come from? Well, deaths pick up in the winter months, as I mentioned, which is part of it, but the CDC already factors this into their weekly “expected deaths” calculation. But also, as I mentioned, there’s a lag in reporting deaths. The number of COVID-19 fatalities for the week ended November 14 in the November 16 CDC report was 240 and the number of all fatalities was 6,716 — just 12% of the expected deaths for the week. In the December 18 version, the numbers for that week have been revised to 9,500 and 62,571, respectively, or 114% of the expected deaths for the week, which is pretty well in line with adjacent weeks in the neighborhood of roughly 110–115%.

Setting aside the past few weeks with incomplete data, the most recent week we had with 100% or fewer of the expected deaths was that ended February 15. Being more generous, we can bump the threshold to 105% or fewer. The most recent week where that was true was that ended March 21. That means that each week since that ended March 28, we’ve seen greater than 105% of the expected fatalities. Each and every week.
You know those coffee/hot chocolate machines at gas stations that keep filling up for a few seconds after you release the button? Yeah, the guy you were responding to is the kind of person who over-fills his cup every time because he doesn’t understand how it works.
 
We don’t exist in a vacuum bro. Repeated lockdowns just means they didn’t work.
Nope they work. Do it once, do it properly. Get control so the numbers are low enough contact tracers can do their job. This has been shown in many places. That’s why I shall be having a normal Christmas where no community covid has existed for 8 months. You not so much.
 
Nope they work. Do it once, do it properly. Get control so the numbers are low enough contact tracers can do their job. This has been shown in many places. That’s why I shall be having a normal Christmas where no community covid has existed for 8 months. You not so much.

Again, “do it properly” didn’t happen, so no, they don’t work. Doesn’t matter why.

I’m at Disney World for Xmas, as usual, so it’s just a normal year for me. 😂

Things are operating normally in America in most cases. In fact, I can’t tell much difference besides the masks.

Only stupid states closed anything and most of those orders are being ignored bc, you know, people need to work to live. No one is containing this virus anymore.
 
I manage a finance team at one of the largest organizations in the world.
Then I'm not sure why compound growth is so hard to grasp...

Repeated lockdowns just means they didn’t work.
Ok, let me try a finance metaphor and maybe this will be more clear... The math is essentially the same.


In finance, you have income, and you have expenses. When your expenses exceed your income you run a deficit and the accumulated deficit is debt. You need to pay interest on that debt. If you add the interest to your debt, then your debt load increases. It doesn't increase linearly, it increases exponentially because as your debt grows, the size of your interest payment grows which in turn makes your debt grow by bigger increments.

Think of human interaction per time as expense, the human immune response rate as income, infections as debt, and transmission (so called Re) as interest. If there are more interactions per time than the human immune system can clear, you build up a growing pool of infected people. The more infected people there are, the more transmission there is which increases the size of the pool and leads to exponential growth.

What do you do when you have exploding debt? You reduce expenses. What do you do when you have exploding infections? You reduce human interaction per time. You shutdown.


If you can reduce expenses below income, then your accumulated debt will decline with time.

If you can reduce the interaction rate below the immune response rate, your total infections will go down.


Shutdowns work for the same reason expense reduction does. Does it need to bring infections to zero to be useful? No, it does not. With a smaller amount of infections in the population you add fewer infections each compounding period and the growth rate is slower just like your debt growth is slower when your debt is lower-- what might be called "manageable debt". Just like most companies need to go through periodic cost control measures to keep their debt down, society needs to go through periodic shutdowns right now to keep their infections down.

Stop acting like you need to get infections to zero to make a shutdown a success. The goal is to reduce loss of life, and if you can cut the number of infected people in half today, then the number of new people infected tomorrow will be cut in half which means the number of infected people the day after tomorrow is less. It works. Thinking we were going to only have to do this once was naive just like thinking you only need to go to the dentist once would be naive.
 
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Then I'm not sure why compound growth is so hard to grasp...


Ok, let me try a finance metaphor and maybe this will be more clear... The math is essentially the same.


In finance, you have income, and you have expenses. When your expenses exceed your income you run a deficit and the accumulated deficit is debt. You need to pay interest on that debt. If you add the interest to your debt, then your debt load increases. It doesn't increase linearly, it increases exponentially because as your debt grows, the size of your interest payment grows which in turn makes your debt grow by bigger increments.

Think of human interaction per time as expense, the human immune response rate as income, infections as debt, and transmission (so called Re) as interest. If there are more interactions per time than the human immune system can clear, you build up a growing pool of infected people. The more infected people there are, the more transmission there is which increases the size of the pool and leads to exponential growth.

What do you do when you have exploding debt? You reduce expenses. What do you do when you have exploding infections? You reduce human interaction per time. You shutdown.


If you can reduce expenses below income, then your accumulated debt will decline with time.

If you can reduce the interaction rate below the immune response rate, your total infections will go down.


Shutdowns work for the same reason expense reduction does. Does it need to bring infections to zero to be useful? No, it does not. With a smaller amount of infections in the population you add fewer infections each compounding period and the growth rate is slower just like your debt growth is slower when your debt is lower-- what might be called "manageable debt". Just like most companies need to go through periodic cost control measures to keep their debt down, society needs to go through periodic shutdowns right now to keep their infections down.

Stop acting like you need to get infections to zero to make a shutdown a success. The goal is to reduce loss of life, and if you can cut the number of infected people in half today, then the number of new people infected tomorrow will be cut in half which means the number of infected people the day after tomorrow is less. It works. Thinking we were going to only have to do this once was naive just like thinking you only need to go to the dentist once would be naive.
Your last post about GDP turned me completely off to your sense of what’s going on. You just don’t fully understand these concepts and have a more humanitarian view perhaps. Locking down destroys lives and could destroy the economy. A 32% contraction is not just some nothing blip...we roared back bc we opened back up quickly. A shutdown the scale we tried in March for any continued period of time would have been devastating. Thankfully, we didn’t do that.

I think you’re somewhat thoughtful, but there is a full picture you’re refusing to see because you are trying to argue for saving lives...something I understand is hard to argue against.

There is no disputing that the age group most impacted by this virus is quite old, let’s agree on almost living their full life expectancy and beyond. That is absolutely relevant when assessing risk and response. If this killed perfectly healthy people on any regular basis, I’d completely change my tune.

We should not be locking down for many reasons, particularly at this point, and those who are still afraid should be protected by staying home. Others need the option and full ability to operate their businesses, within the guidelines of reasonable precautions. Forcing people unaffected by this to stay home because they could “spread” this is completely against American values. The ones in danger should have to adjust and be subject to restrictions, not perfectly healthy people that understand risk.

Life is a risk...other viruses and risks exist every day.

I won’t be continuing to respond to you, bc I’m too lazy to go point for point. You do raise some fair points, but so do I, and you dismissed them just bc I was “wrong” about total deaths and some other points where there is evidence Both ways. I’ve been wrong before. I never expected more than 200,000 to die, sure, but much of the other stuff I’ve said is still true...we just disagree on the approach. People definitely see my side because new restrictions are less onerous and are largely being ignored.

It’s hard to prove and not be “conspiracy guy” when questioning death totals, but as an analyst, I see problems with the reporting, particularly when CDC says 3 other conditions contributed to death in 94% of cases. That leaves a lot of gray areas for docs, particularly with funding for Covid to hospitals and the fact we are dealing with a lot of very old and very sick people. I’ve had first hand experience with several death certificates...let’s just say it’s not a process an engineer would like.

I also believe and know from economics that the secondary and tertiary effects are more damaging than the obvious ones.

Good day.
 
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Again, “do it properly” didn’t happen, so no, they don’t work. Doesn’t matter why.
Logic doesn't work that way. If it did, umbrellas would be deemed useless as protection against the rain simply based on some people just bringing them, but not actually opening them and holding them over their heads when it rains.
 
Again, “do it properly” didn’t happen, so no, they don’t work. Doesn’t matter why.

I’m at Disney World for Xmas, as usual, so it’s just a normal year for me. 😂

Things are operating normally in America in most cases. In fact, I can’t tell much difference besides the masks.

Only stupid states closed anything and most of those orders are being ignored bc, you know, people need to work to live. No one is containing this virus anymore.
Yes I would say everything is normal , except for all the dying. That you Americans have succeeded very well with. Plenty of countries have contained the virus, just not you.
 
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Yes I would say everything is normal , except for all the dying. That you Americans have succeeded very well with. Plenty of countries have contained the virus, just not you.
You say it like I can fix it. I think other countries did a better job covering up their issue and have different reporting methodologies, medias, and geographies, for sure.

Lockdowns don’t work in America...but I’d rather live here than your country.
 
You say it like I can fix it. I think other countries did a better job covering up their issue and have different reporting methodologies, medias, and geographies, for sure.

Lockdowns don’t work in America...but I’d rather live here than your country.
Good for you. I think the fact I’m welcome in your country but you’re not welcome in mine speaks volumes about that. Every other country did better because they didn’t cover up this issue lol. Enjoy your alternate reality.
 
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Your last post about GDP turned me completely off to your sense of what’s going on. You just don’t fully understand these concepts and have a more humanitarian view perhaps. Locking down destroys lives and could destroy the economy. A 32% contraction is not just some nothing blip...we roared back bc we opened back up quickly. A shutdown the scale we tried in March for any continued period of time would have been devastating. Thankfully, we didn’t do that.
What are you talking about?! There was never a 32% contraction in GDP. If there were, the economy would be the size it was in 2000.

2Q20 GDP fell 9%.

The math is quite simple. Real GDP in chained 2012 dollars in 1Q20 was $19.01T. In 2Q20 it was $17.30T. 1-(17.3/19.01)=9%

1608806464557.png

I think you're relying on a news summary that pulled the "percent change" number from the BEA report without context for some added sensationalism. 32% is an annualized number, which is meaningless in this case for reasons so obvious that an analyst shouldn't be making the mistake of quoting it.

Annualized values only have any predictive power at all in a stable, steady state economy. Q2 was neither.

There is no disputing that the age group most impacted by this virus is quite old, let’s agree on almost living their full life expectancy and beyond. That is absolutely relevant when assessing risk and response. If this killed perfectly healthy people on any regular basis, I’d completely change my tune.

No, we do not agree that most people dying are living up to and beyond their life expectancy. You clearly do not understand how life expectancy is measured.

Half of the people dying have an average remaining life expectancy of 13 or 14 years (meaning many are expected to live longer). A third of the people dying have an average remaining life expectancy of 18 or 20 years (again with many expected to live longer).

And nobody is “perfectly healthy”.

We should not be locking down for many reasons, particularly at this point, and those who are still afraid should be protected by staying home. Others need the option and full ability to operate their businesses, within the guidelines of reasonable precautions. Forcing people unaffected by this to stay home because they could “spread” this is completely against American values. The ones in danger should have to adjust and be subject to restrictions, not perfectly healthy people that understand risk.

Life is a risk...other viruses and risks exist every day.
Sure there’s risks. That doesn’t excuse reckless behavior. You can’t just say “sometimes people get hit by lightning, so why can’t I drive home after a six pack?”.

It’s not about fear. It’s about trying to minimize harm— both to public health and to the economy. Unchecked growth of the virus will bring an economy down. I showed you that Sweden’s economic output was affected about as badly as the US, even when they were going all herd immunity.

And saying only people who don’t want to get sick should stay home totally ignores the fact that people simply can’t stay in isolation. They need food and services. The point of restrictions on business is to make the most necessary interactions less risky.

I agree this puts a burden on certain businesses. Some need to adapt (as many have) and some should be supported by society. Bars aren't closing because of mismangement or a bad business model, they're closing because we need them to close so we can keep the more critical parts of the economy working. If we as a society are making that decision, those businesses should get financial support from the taxpayers. That's been another piece of the government response that has been sorely lacking in the US.

I won’t be continuing to respond to you, bc I’m too lazy to go point for point. You do raise some fair points, but so do I, and you dismissed them just bc I was “wrong” about total deaths and some other points where there is evidence Both ways. I’ve been wrong before. I never expected more than 200,000 to die, sure, but much of the other stuff I’ve said is still true...we just disagree on the approach. People definitely see my side because new restrictions are less onerous and are largely being ignored.
I’m fine if you stop responding to me. You tend to duck or ignore my points anyway. That’s not going to stop me from responding to you though. If you’re putting ideas out there that are wrong and dangerous, I’ll continue to give my view.

If the points you're raising are factually wrong, it's not about a difference of approach. If there's evidence on both sides, provide it. But if you're going to continue repeating a point, such as "shutdowns don't work", when they clearly do, then you need to support it if you want to be taken seriously.
 
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Again, “do it properly” didn’t happen, so no, they don’t work. Doesn’t matter why.

I’m at Disney World for Xmas, as usual, so it’s just a normal year for me. 😂

Things are operating normally in America in most cases. In fact, I can’t tell much difference besides the masks.

Only stupid states closed anything and most of those orders are being ignored bc, you know, people need to work to live. No one is containing this virus anymore
Not a normal year for more than 300K people (and their families) who died due Covid-19 during the last few months. But please, keep on happily posting smilies.

Bravo.


Merry Christmas.
 
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