Trump Signals Skepticism About Social Distancing (Politco)
Trump Cure Can Not be Worse than the Problem (NYT)
Hong Kong had COVID19 Beat Until It Let Its Guard Down (CNN)
So which do you think will win?
Please remember my rough numbers:
Cold blooded pragmatic rough numbers:
On a more humorous note.
Fauci: I can't just jump in front of the microphone and push him down
And for the depressingly aggressive Rate Chart Below and Finally Italy vs US Info VOX
Trump Cure Can Not be Worse than the Problem (NYT)
Hong Kong had COVID19 Beat Until It Let Its Guard Down (CNN)
So which do you think will win?
- Will we continue to sacrifice to protect our old and infirm?
- Will we go back to normal and let nature kill them?
- 320 milllion citizens
- For each 10% who get it (32 million citizens)
- ~1% will die... 320,000 funerals...
- If 30% get it... 960,000 funerals...
- 960,000 fewer folks receiving SS and Medicare? :-(
- Funeral Home Stocks: Good Buy? :-)
Fauci: I can't just jump in front of the microphone and push him down
And for the depressingly aggressive Rate Chart Below and Finally Italy vs US Info VOX
43 comments:
There is no doubt in my mind that if Hillary were president she would have been handling this better starting 2 or 3 months ago and going forward. We will just never know how much better or what a difference it would make in the number of people dying. Like her or not I think it is clear that she is much more competent than Trump.
It seems like Trump is more concerned about the economy. I think we should be more concerned about slowing the spread and caring for the sick. It will be very sad how many healthcare providers on the front line get sick and maybe die doing their jobs.
Trump cares more about the stock market than humans
Here is pretty good timeline of events.
Some key dates:
- 12/31/19 China reports 41 patients
- 01/20/20 First US case
- 01/31/20 Trump bans foreign nationals who been in China
Trump's Comments and Dates
Playing the devil's advocate...
How much are the lives of the old and infirm worth?
$2,000,000,000,000 / 320,000 = $6,250,000
$2,000,000,000,000 / 620,000 = $3,125,000
$2,000,000,000,000 / 960,000 = $2,083,333
All being borrowed and charged to the young and healthy...
Please remember that viruses are natural born killers that have purged the weak from the human genome as long as we have been on this Earth.
Kind of like the wolves we re-introduced in Northern MN...
It is an interesting medical and economics ethics question...
The virus kills other people in addition to the old and infirm and the healthcare system / hospitals are going to be totally overwhelmed and many healthcare workers are going to become ill and maybe die.
I don't think there is much of an ethical questions at all. We need to be serious about managing the spread of this disease, even if it tanks the economy.
I understand your position.
It is okay for 319 million people to suffer to save the lives of the 300,000 to 900,000.
Not sure if that is a good idea or not...
Thinking of the movie Titanic, if 99 people are in an over loaded life boat and one person is in the water freezing. Do you pull them in and risk the 99 or do you row away?
Titanic Door Scene
I think you underestimate the chaos and confusion of a completely overwhelmed healthcare system. What if it was your parents dying without care at home because hospitals could not accept any more patients. What about the price paid by all the healthcare workers who could not possibly care for all the sick people.
Those are definitely factors that need to be considered to achieve the correct balance.
As do the number of dead and overwhelmed due to a world wide economic depression.
It is a mess either way... I have come to the conclusion that we can not stop the virus in the USA due to too much personal freedom...
All we can hope to do is flatten the curve in the hard hit states and keep it from going steep in states like MN.
"It is okay for 319 million people to suffer to save the lives of the 300,000 to 900,000."
If this is your guys' argument now, I don't ever want to hear another goddamned word about abortion. When push comes to shove, you're making your choice, and you're picking your 401(k). It's fucking ghoulish after all the bullshit you all have fed us over the years.
The notion that this economy is just going to keep roaring while half the population suffers through this virus and hundreds of thousands of people die is pretty absurd, too. When hospitals are having people die in tents because there's no more room in the building, you're going to have a panic and the economy is going to tank. When people start seeing their friends and relatives drop in spades, there's going to be a panic and the economy is going to tank.
lEt iT RidE
"NEW ORLEANS — Already depleted from attrition, the New Orleans Fire Department is now struggling with another crisis: the Covid-19 pandemic.
NOFD union chief Aaron Mischler said he has received an unofficial count of 54 firefighters who have tested positive for the virus or received contact tracing notification that they were in contact with someone who has. The department has 480 firefighters on the force, a modern-day low."
WWL: 54 Firefighters Have Had Contact With Coronavirus
Sean,
A. This is natural selection at its finest.
B. Abortion is humans choosing to end a life
They seem very different to me.
If only 1 of 320 die. It is not like we will be attending a lot of funerals. (ie no dropping in spades)
So given our cultures resistance to sheltering in place and shutting down... What do you recommend? Start arresting the people out and about when they are not supposed to be? Do we enact martial law? For how long?
As for my 401K... I ~60% in cash and bonds right now... I want the DJIA to crash, so the pending bailout is screwing with my plan to BUY LOW... :-(
As for let it ride...
Are you proposing that all those exposed fire fighter go into 2 week quarantine though they may not be sick?
This definitely is a sticky wicket...
"A. This is natural selection at its finest."
Are you familiar with our health care system? Do you really believe that the damage from this will be distributed "naturally"?
"They seem very different to me."
If our leaders choose a path of action that arbitrarily sentences thousands of our own citizens to death, it's certainly different than an individual woman choosing a course of action based on the circumstances of her life. But if the argument is that latter choice is immoral based on the "sanctity of life", I'm not sure how we arrive at the former choice being moral.
"Are you proposing that all those exposed fire fighter go into 2 week quarantine though they may not be sick?"
I don't know. It was meant as an example of the type of situation you're going to see if we let off the preventative measures. It's gonna sweep through not just businesses, but fire and police, hospital workers, the military, on and on and on. The notion that life is just going to go on as normal except we'll lose a few people here and there is just absurd.
Our health care system is already straining under the stress -- if we take off the cap, it's going to collapse. If the health care system collapses, then all bets are off.
I am having this discussion on FB also, and one friend wrote "all lives matter"
to which I responded...
"I do agree that all lives matter...
The questions are:
- how much?
- who pays the bill?
If an 85 year old man needs a heart transplant that will cost $2 million....
Everybody loves lower taxes and insurance premiums until hard choices need to be made. :-(
Then they seem to be happy kicking the can down the road to our children. How did our society get so selfish?"
Fire up the death panels, I guess.
Just another example of Republican projection.
You sure have a lot of complaints and no solutions...
Or let me guess... Spend unlimited funds and have the "wealthy" pay for it?
By the way, no death panels required... It is mostly luck...
This is an interesting position
VOX Why to Doubt Trump's Plan
VOX How Workers will be Impacted
"By the way, no death panels required"
Not true. When there are "n" ventilators and "3n" COVID-19 cases requiring ventilators, there is going to have to be prioritizing.
I am pretty sure that prioritization will not occur at the national level as they were planned for ACA.
I assume it will occur by Doctors doing triage... But you could be right to some extent... Since those with money will have more priority...
Still interested in solutions instead of complaints?
"You sure have a lot of complaints and no solutions..."
We need to continue with strong intervention steps to prevent the spread of the virus until we have the necessary infrastructure (PPE, ventilators, testing, etc.) to be able to adequately respond to the hotspots that will inevitably happen when we loosen the restrictions.
Stimulus should be focused on putting money into the hands of individuals and serving as a safety net for folks who lose their job as a result of these dislocations. Aid to corporations should come with stringent protections for taxpayers (no buybacks, no golden parachutes for executives, etc.), and they should be focused on making sure that job losses are minimized.
So now for the big one:
Who should pay for all these wonderful things?
Rationale?
"Who should pay for all these wonderful things?"
Right now, nobody. This is an example of a time when it's appropriate to not worry about the deficit.
I think Steven Klein of the University of Florida put it well: "The fear is not that coronavirus will destroy the "economy." It's that the political measures necessary to keep people alive will now require and enable large-scale redistribution of wealth and resources."
Sean,
"Not Worrying About the Deficit" = "Pass Bill Children"...
Something our recent generations seem to have no problem doing. :-(
And I think we have been redistributing wealth for decades... We put it on the credit card and leave the bill and fiscal challenges for our kids... We are really are terrible human beings.
See Figure 1.2 if you have any questions.
Spend, spend, spend like it is not your money.... :-)
Because it is not... :-(
""Not Worrying About the Deficit" = "Pass Bill Children"
We should have done more to worry about the deficit earlier. Now is not the time to pinch pennies. (Again, it's fascinating to see how the GOP position on the value of stimulus changes based on who the President is.)
Strict Control Measures Are Best for Keeping People Alive AND Protecting the Economy
Laurie,
There are a whole lot of assumptions in this model...
Imperial College Report
Not sure if it will be quite as accurate in the USA where a LOT of our elderly are somewhat quarantined from the rest of us... But they are scary numbers for sure.
Sean,
As Figure 2.1 clearly shows... We have a major spending problem... Is there ever a time when DEMs want to pinch pennies?
That seems to be going for GOP folks also...
And yes I am reminding all of my GOP acquaintances how hypocritical they are...
At least the dems typically make plans to pay for their programs when there is not a crisis. Obamacare was created when we were coming out of a recession and that was paid for. The repubs never pay for their tax cuts.
It is true that DEMs do like to raises taxes on Peter and spend money on Paul.
Not sure if that is the right answer either, but it does help to balance the budget.
Do you remember this classic?
Good Lord, if a topic goes untouched here for a couple of weeks, it's amazing how the proprietor forgets the actual facts and reverts back to his previously debunked talking points. I'm not going to spend my time debunking this bullshit again.
Are you implying that DEMs do not want to raise taxes on the wealthy to give to the poor?
I don't think that has ever been or could be debunked… :-)
Please remember that ACA was funded by additional taxes on companies and the wealthy.
Or are you saying that the GOP does not like to drive up deficits by cutting taxes without cutting spending?
See Newest Post for graphs.
I'm saying there's historical record of Democrats spending less than Republicans -- AND paying for their spending on top of it.
Please provide a source for this one...
"historical record of Democrats spending less than Republicans"
I am thinking that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SSD, Welfare, etc are really expensive wealth transfer programs.
And they certainly do not seem adequately funded given all the complaining I hear.
I'm comparing Clinton and Obama versus Bush and Trump (heck, toss Reagan in there too if you want).
As for Medicare, Medicaid, etc., they've all been maintained and expanded by Republican administrations. The only cuts in welfare took place under the Clinton administration.
Oops... I hit a wrong button. what did say? Sorry.
Yes I have come to the conclusion that our most fiscally responsible government is when the President is a DEM and the Congress is controlled by the GOP...
Full control by either party is a disaster...
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