Its never beeen about ridding of it without a vaccine,, its always been about slowing the spread.
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Apple Again Closing Some Stores in Florida, Arizona, North Carolina and South Carolina Due to Coronavirus Spikes
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Its never beeen about ridding of it without a vaccine,, its always been about slowing the spread.
Ya. I know that..
But there is such a contingent of people that think masks and lockdowns are going to stop it.
That's why I wrote what I wrote. It's not happening, but too many people are misguided about what these measures thrown at us are supposed to accomplish.
And it actually has been about keeping hospitals at a manageable level, not even slowing the spread in actuality.
With all respect, this is one of the most ignorant posts, I have seen for a long time. I don't know where you got your "scientific evidence" from but I would assume not from credible sources because those scientist would have surely told you, that wearing a mask is not for your protection, it is to protect the others around you FROM you.
In Hong Kong, where I live, is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Most people don't have cars and rely on public transport. The people have been through a pandemic before, in 2003 when SARS hit. So right from the start some social distancing measures were taken and most importantly, almost everyone was wearing a mask. It's not to protect yourself. It's to protect others. And because people are disciplined, the government in HK didn't have to implement a lock down like in so many outher countries. And yet, the local infection numbers are basically ZERO.
In Taiwan a similar story. A bit anecdotal: in the city of Jena in Germany the mayor implemented a Must-Wear-Mask policy. Mid April they had Zero new cases for a long stretch while outher regions in Germany had to battle much harder.
Credible sources? How about we start with a world health organization that has concluded face masks can not stop healthy people from getting COVID-19 And how exactly do masks prevent the virus from escaping but can not prevent the virus from entering the mask? Do you really believe the mask is gonna stop the virus from escaping or entering the mask? Have you got any idea at all of the sizes of the virus? (I bet you haven't got a clue) All it does is give people a FALSE sense of security, that wearing them we are protected now. And what's the point of wearing them anyway, if when you talk you have to remove it so people can actually make a sense of what you are saying? Or wear the same mask over and over! If the virus is that contagious, all it takes is a single wrong touch (in a supermarket, on the street, at work, on a bus, on a train, airplane, etc) To sum this up, science does have a mixed answer about face masks benefits, and honestly, they have been wrong many times with their Covid-19 journey so pardon me for not having a complete faith just yet. But again, by all means.... be the sheep that follow, believe whatever you want. It is a free world. A bit mad as well.
Read a book. Then read all the papers cited to above that explain exactly why masks work.
The problem is that the scientific community has always only been trying to slow the rate of infections down so that people infected could be medically looked after without over stressing that countries health care system and thereby hopefully reducing the number of deaths. Some countries however, have taken it upon themselves either by choice or that's just the way it's turned out - that they are trying to achieve zero cases and many are trying to follow suite (probably because their health care system is not able to cope). As much as I don't want to get covid and will do what I can not to get it, my opinion is I don't think it's in the best interests of everyone to try and achieve zero cases.
Well at least I think we can all agree things would be a lot worse if it wasn’t for our leadership at the top. The numbers would be MUCH worse. So I think we can ALL agree on something today. Kudos!
Lol. That’s hilarious. Can anyone just pick their favourite three data points for their own personalised trend line?
This graph is from rt.live (no relation to that RT) where the blue line is a rolling average and adjusted to account for the local rate of testing. It's not a 'spike' as some would have you believe but its not under control as much as others would have you believe.
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Nobody is saying that anybody is "expendable", but to your point about money, sadly we live in a world where things cost, you know, money! Things like hospitals, things like unemployment/furlough, things like drug and vaccine research. So unless there are people still making money and paying taxes, then where does the money come to pay for these things? We aren't living in some Start Trek utopia where there are replicators for food and everything is free. Things still need to be paid for, so as the other poster said, it is sad, it is sometimes tragic, but what choice do we (and I use "we" in the sense of the whole world now) have?
As for the US closing its borders, well, I can't speak with any certainty as I don't live there, but as an outsider, the perception here is that the group that is most likely to be begging for lockdown to continue is "the left", and that is the same group that is most likely to be campaigning for open borders so............
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I agree with you. But what is troubling to me is the amount of times I am hearing governments or those in power suggesting - or even outright saying - that life will not return to "normal" until there is a vaccine! The implication - and I admit it is only an implication - is that these measures could potentially continue forever if no vaccine is found. Of course, that depends on your opinion. For me, life will not return to "normal" until people put their big boy pants on and stand up to both the "threat" and the governments and say "my life returns to normal today".
This is a disease, one of thousands in the world, and I have seen research here in the UK which look at the chance of dying because of COVID this year vs. the chance of dying without it for different demographic groups and there wasn't a huge difference. I will have to try to find the link if anybody is interested. Yes of course it's quite nasty, but people risk exposing themselves to rabies or malaria or god knows what if they travel to parts of Asia, yet they do that voluntarily!
At some point you have to balance safety against quality of life. Everybody will have their own crossing point on those two which determines what they are prepared to accept. My personal position just happens to favour quality of life over risk aversion.
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This is true. Comparing the number of new cases found when there were fewer tests (if any) with the number found when there were many tests yields little useful information. However, it is apparent that the percentage of tests that are coming back positive is also increasing. It is still a weak statistic but it is also an unwelcome trend.
The best statistic appears to be the number of excess deaths that occurred during the pandemic. That is, the number of deaths recorded, for any reason, over and above the average for that region, at that time of year, over the last five years. Unfortunately, it is a trailing indicator that (due to the length of time between infection, death and reporting) runs three to six weeks behind; so, it only tells you what happened not what is happening.
This BBC article covers it in more detail for several countries (but not the US)...
What is the true death toll of the coronavirus pandemic?
Far more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic than official Covid-19 data can account for
www.bbc.co.uk
In case you weren‘t aware, SK had one of the quickest rising COVID numbers early in February before it properly spread to Europe and the States. Their low numbers is due to effective contact tracing and mass testing, not their geography.
Japan hasn’t stayed open. Most of the most populated prefectures in Japan has had closed schools, shops, and restaurants since late April and started opening back up in the last few weeks. If you remember, there was even a spat with pachinko locations that refused to close. People were working from home and social distancing for weeks. I remember the controversy with the Olympics, but the testing seem to have caught up once it became certain the Olympics was not happening this year.
100% agree. New York handled this better than most, even though they were the epicenter of the virus in the US. Now we have about a 1% infection rate in the testing. I understand the positive test % isn’t the best data, but it’s still a good barometer on the nature of the situation here now.
Interesting... Maybe you haven’t plotted trend lines before? People actually make multi-billion dollar decisions plotting trend lines that look just like that. In fact there’s even a name for it. It’s called a descending triangle pattern... as in, there’s a descending trend, just like in the chart of Georgia’s infections which the poster posted... then oddly, went on to claim that as proof that there was no downward trajectory.
OK, sure. The chart you first attacked as “fake news” now shows a downward trajectory.
Up is down, I guess.
I’m not sure how you arrived at NY handled this better than most when NY has the highest rate of infections, deaths and has a looming financial crisis on its hands. We sent C19 patients to nursing homes which by some counts was responsible for 10,000 or more deaths, while Jacob Javitz and the world’s largest hospital ship remained mostly empty. Also, De Blasio was telling people not to worry and to go to movie theaters 3 days before he reversed course and instituted a lockdown... a lockdown that was ineffective because there were no safety rules for the ”essential” businesses that remained open, leaving thousands of points of failure which is why the virus continued to spread for as fast and as long as it did. An antibody showed that every employee at a Brooklyn supermarket tested positive... a testament to Quomo’s shortsighted thinking that a basic lockdown would be enough. In fact, Quomo repeatedly said that he expected the curve to flatten sooner, because he was basing that on models he was given but he didn’t account for his poor decisions.
To make matters worse, because of the extremely high rate of infections and deaths, NY (and NJ) went the other extreme and are keeping businesses closed and/or limiting them for longer than they need to, forcing many small businesses into bankruptcy.
No state was going to handle this 100% correctly given the chaos and lack of leadership at the federal level, but still, NY couldn’t have handled it worse IMO. Heck, most countries have fewer deaths and infections than NY.
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Uh, I didn’t attack the chart (which is clear if you read the thread), but his belief that GA opened too soon and that it caused unnecessary deaths and increased the rate of infection which made no sense considering the chart that he posted showed just the opposite... which I repeatedly pointed out, going so far as to draw trend lines for him. But I guess he bought what the media is selling even though the data is crystal clear that they were wrong. Some people are just all kinds of stubborn.
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The countries that handled it well? Spain, Italy? Ecuador? https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/f...ecuador-covid-19-hotspot-200617142117507.html
Thank God Javits center and floating hospitals were mostly empty, but the hospitals were busting out their seams and ventilators had to be split between two patients. How DeBlasio even made mayor I'm not sure, but Cuomo, imo, handled it well...given the diverse issue that had to be dealt with across the state.
As far as NJ, businesses needed to be shuttered and people needed to stay at home. Unfortunate about the businesses but to avoid a full fledged disaster, Murphy did the right thing.
Apple seems like they are also doing the right thing. My sister who lives in Arizona said recently there weren't even one Covid-19 case that she was aware of in their community. How things have changed.
I'm glad they are closing again...way to put safety first over profit...but at 1.5T...they can take a hit on a few pennies.
Are you implying that there's a scientific consensus that we have to remain fully locked down still to avoid overfilling the hospitals?
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The best thing I've learned from plotting trend lines is that you can make them go any direction you want. You're finding a function that goes through (or optimally close to) the data points, and the possibilities are infinite. That's why in machine learning you have to pick a subjectively realistic model and separate test data from training data.
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In South Korea, 60 million people, first coronavirus case in January, never went on full lockdown, NEVER appointed carfew, NEVER closed their businesses with ECONOMY down only 0.2%, ZERO, and still only 280 deaths. 280?!
I will be rough and add that it takes ADVANCED SOCIETY and QUANTUM vs BINARY thinking.
(100.000 tests and App ready and used two weeks after first case for example).
If you are young and healthy you can of course continue with your "normal life" but that is a PURE FANTASY until your whole community (YES, ELDERLY INCLUDED) enjoy the same, with the same CONFIDENCE.
I will be rough and add that it takes ADVANCED SOCIETY and QUANTUM vs BINARY thinking.
(100.000 tests and App ready and used two weeks after first case for example).
If you are young and healthy you can of course continue with your "normal life" but that is a PURE FANTASY until your whole community (YES, ELDERLY INCLUDED) enjoy the same, with the same CONFIDENCE.
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When the state of NY has comparable infection and death rates as entire developed nations like Spain and Italy, but with only a fraction of the population, I don’t think there’s even a debate... NY did a VERY poor job of handling the crisis.
As for JJ and the hospital ship, my point was that rather than ship C19 patients to nursing homes, which was responsible for anywhere between 8k-15k deaths, the patients could have been sent to one of those places which went underutilized for some reason. That was Quomo’s decision, btw.
In NJ there’s a push now amongst local governments to curb Murphy’s Executive Order powers because he’s put so many businesses out of business. There’s also no data to support his overly conservative phased reopening plan... For example, there’s been only 2 confirmed cases of someone contracting the virus outdoors (which I know of, and that’s not 100% reliable) yet restaurants couldn’t offer outdoor dining until only this week. He says he’s following data and science but he’s really not. GA already proved him wrong.
As for Apple store closures I think it’s ridiculous that they believe it will somehow slow the spread and/or protect their employees. These same people can still go shopping, dine out, hang with friends/family, etc. It’s also very hypocritical of them because they expect their employees to come back to HQ starting next month when that state is also seeing a spike in cases.
At this point, we can’t turn back the clock, but every individual can do their part by practicing social distancing, wearing masks in public and washing hands often. Hopefully the virus will run its course in AZ like it did here in NY/NJ and your sister stays safe.
I am in the category of people that does not believe we should have ever been in lockdowns or an economical shutdown across the board.
So you are in the “let’s commit mass suicide“ camp? Cool, cool.