Unemployment: "This Thing is Coming for us All"

whatbogsends said:

Well, it makes sense that you're now discounting the numbers, because the numbers you were arguing with are now obsolete. 6 days ago you were making the case of "5K coronavirus deaths aren't a problem", of course, you now have to substitute "14K" for that 5K, and tomorrow it will be 15K, and by the end of the week, 20K, and so forth.

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That is exactly nothing I have said. However, why would you advocate for inaccurate reporting with something so serious as this? We still have not reached the point where cv has produced the amount of deaths that flu produces and in some years 8 times as many flu deaths as compared to what has been caused by CV. Even if we do reach that point, the response is disproportionate.

The point is how disproportionate the response has been and how draconian and unnecessary, not that this pandemic "is not a problem."

The first resort of hysterical advocacy is to blame objectors as not caring about people. Don't fall into that trap.

Al Touthentop said:

That is exactly nothing I have said. However, why would you advocate for inaccurate reporting with something so serious as this? We still have not reached the point where cv has produced the amount of deaths that flu produces and in some years 8 times as many flu deaths as compared to what has been caused by CV. Even if we do reach that point, the response is disproportionate.

The point is how disproportionate the response has been and how draconian and unnecessary, not that this pandemic "is not a problem."

The first resort of hysterical advocacy is to blame objectors as not caring about people. Don't fall into that trap.

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You didn't explicitly say "COVID is not a problem", but you dismissed it as less of a problem than the flu or car accidents. You certainly seemed opposed to the measures taken to prevent its spread.

Your explicit argument mocked the notion that coronavirus would overwhelm our hospitalizations, and you used fudged numbers of 5K coronavirus deaths vs 120,000 flu and automobile deaths as the basis of your ridicule.

You never acknowledge the fact that coronavirus hospitalizations take about 10x the resources of flu hospitalizations (due to a much longer average length of stay), and seem resolute that the numbers you were pushing were reasonable (they weren't).

Even in this post, you continue to put forth bogus numbers: "We still have not reached the point where cv has produced the amount of deaths that flu produces and in some years 8 times as many flu deaths as compared to what has been caused by CV". We're over 14K deaths in the US from coronavirus. This is in a 5 week span, with the majority coming withing the last 2 weeks (and rate still rising). When was the last time the flu killed 112,000+ people in a year? (it was close, but not quite in 1968 with the Hong Kong flu). Pretty sure you have to go back to 1918 Spanish Flu to reach that mark.

Of course, you're still arguing based off current numbers of COVID deaths against annual flu deaths. You're ignoring that the death rates are increasing and that we're still in the fairly early stages of the pandemic. You're also ignoring that the number of COVID deaths would be higher had we not taken the measures we've taken.

Al Touthentop said:

Thank God for the blessings he's given you.

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Does that mean a person doing well is somehow more worthy from birth of God’s blessing.

Larnievc said:

Does that mean a person doing well is somehow more worthy from birth of God’s blessing.

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I don't know how you could get that from what I posted. A homeless person has blessings from God perhaps more than a rich person.

whatbogsends said:

You didn't explicitly say "COVID is not a problem", but you dismissed it as less of a problem than the flu or car accidents. You certainly seemed opposed to the measures taken to prevent its spread.

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That's because such extreme measures are not necessary. And mark my words, they are permanent just like the Patriot Act and other grossly unconstitutional responses have been to crises.

whatbogsends said:

Your explicit argument mocked the notion that coronavirus would overwhelm our hospitalizations, and you used fudged numbers of 5K coronavirus deaths vs 120,000 flu and automobile deaths as the basis of your ridicule.

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There was nothing fudged about the numbers, unless the government is fudging them.

Al Touthentop said:

There was nothing fudged about the numbers, unless the government is fudging them.

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I've explained multiple times that your 120K auto accident + flu deaths number is bogus. The real annual number is closer to 80K.

The 5K number you used for COVID was bogus because it represented the beginning of an outbreak and you were comparing it to actual deaths. That 5K number has almost tripled (it will have tripled before the day is out - 14,262 and climbing).

Yes, the numbers you put forth were fudged, and it wasn't the government doing the fudging, it was you.

whatbogsends said:

I've explained multiple times that your 120K auto accident + flu deaths number is bogus. The real annual number is closer to 80K.

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I don't even know if I said that those two alone were 120k though in 2018 those two were at least 130k. I've posted already that flu in some years has been as high as 80k by itself. The reason for posting them was to show that we have never in history responded to a health crisis with this sort of hysteria, even where the disease has an 80% mortality rate.

There was no fudging of anything.

loveofourlord said:

YES because many of them likly were dying from covid.

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"Likely" is not a term I would consider to be that useful in accurately reporting something. It is a bit better than possibly but I prefer surely. And I don't even know any Shirleys.

Al Touthentop said:

A homeless person has blessings from God perhaps more than a rich person.

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In what way?

Larnievc said:

In what way?

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If the homeless person is a Christian, he's at least got a path to heaven. But a man's very life, saved or not is a blessing from God. God shows everyone his grace even if they aren't obedient. The homeless guy could be sturdy and healthy where the rich guy could have billions but be riddled with cancer.

Al Touthentop said:

That's because such extreme measures are not necessary. And mark my words, they are permanent just like the Patriot Act and other grossly unconstitutional responses have been to crises.

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Al Touthentop said:

Could be. But we have an example where a country was able to control the spread without quarantining healthy people (South Korea). To quarantine healthy people is to dismiss 4 or 5 centuries of medical practices which were employed during every major pandemic and epidemic plague we've dealt with and which were deemed most effective. We've said in this case, that the past century's well-informed practices are no longer effective. Total nonsense and it is and has caused more catastrophic effects than the disease.

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True in that several Asian countries, so far, (such as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) have dealt with this crisis far better than the USA or most European countries.

But false in claiming healthy people were not quarantined.

These countries treated Corvid19 extremely seriously, and took draconian actions. Actions that would unlikely be accepted in the USA (or UK). And they started as soon as they suffered the first reported case. They did not even wait for a few deaths. They did not dismiss this new virus by saying 'but thousands of people die from the flu, so by comparison this is insignificant".

Anyone who tested positive had to quarantine (and in Singapore, that meant being admitted to hospital - the authorities did not trust people to quarantine at home).

Further, they aggressively contact traced all people who had any significant contact with the infected person. These contacts were ordered to quarantine at home for 14 days (i.e. forbidden to leave their home).

Example of how Singapore dealt with the 'crisis' (one of the first countries outside China to get cases of Corvid19):
How Singapore stayed one step ahead of the virus
Quarantining in Taiwan:
Coronavirus: When the police knock at your door

Unfortunately, it is now far too late for Western countries to take the kind of actions that South Korea and Singapore did (and still do). The horse has already bolted from the stable. All we can now do is to attempt to slow the spread of the virus so that the hospitals are not overloaded.

It is far too late to start contact tracing. In the USA there were about 33 thousand new recorded cases on 7 April. With 30 - 40 significant contacts per person, that would require tracking down over 1 million people, and ordering then into quarantine for the next 14 days! And again the next day. Impossible.

The UK should have acted sooner. The longer you leave it, the more difficult it becomes - and less effective. But hindsight is wonderful.

HantsUK said:

True in that several Asian countries, so far, (such as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) have dealt with this crisis far better than the USA or most European countries.

But false in claiming healthy people were not quarantined.

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I don't know about the other countries you mention. (thanks for the links btw) But my point was that South Korea did not lock down the entire country. They tried that in 2013 and they found out that it was unnecessary and fruitless. That's why they didn't do it this time. I wasn't aware that they quarantined some healthy people. But it was at least warranted by the circumstances.

In the case of SK especially, they allocated 10 billion early on, employed thousands of citizen volunteers and specifically said they would not be locking down people because they respected the rights of their citizens. Makes me a bit jealous.

Al Touthentop said:

If the homeless person is a Christian, he's at least got a path to heaven. But a man's very life, saved or not is a blessing from God. God shows everyone his grace even if they aren't obedient. The homeless guy could be sturdy and healthy where the rich guy could have billions but be riddled with cancer.

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That’s not how it works though is it? Curiously the homeless tend to be in poor health compared to billionaires. Hardly blessings ‘perhaps more so than the rich’.

If God blesses everyone and does not play favourites then his blessings cancel out to all intents and purposes.

Do you see now?

wing2000 said:

...if only our leaders had learned from China, Korea, Taiwan.

And will they learn during the next phase?

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The guy at the top seems very interested in removing the people overseeing waste and corruption in the government. Take that for what you will.

KCfromNC said:

I'm guessing there's another country in the list there too.

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Starts with an R....?