Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

That's uncalled for. Eric Gregg, maybe. But with Luna dead in a ditch somewhere in Eastern Europe, no one deserves the Angel tag. No one.

[AlabamAlum]

You’ve got a point. It was over the top. Joe West, maybe.

[iam416]

no

[AlabamAlum]

Sorry. Overruled. You are now, officially, “The Joe West of Posting®”.

[Whitley]

Okay, lets try this one.

In my town, there is an Amish owned bakery, where the owners don't use electricity in their building at all. Their lights are kerosene, their refrigeration is kept by blocks of ice. They do so, in keeping with the tenets of their faith.

Can my community make a law that requires the Amish bakery to use electric lights and refrigeration?

I know people that are employed by some Amish that their entire job is to flip a switch to turn on electricity. Amish sects vary widely on things like electricity.

As far as blocks of ice go---they would have to fill out paperwork checking the temps of fish (we had to do this in the prison and jail) because you have to keep within certain temps. Those are federal laws so that it just is not practical to not have blocks of ice to do that.

[iam416]

Sorry. Overruled. You are now, officially, “The Joe West of Posting®”.

I've long been the Mikhail Tal of Posting. You should know better. I mean, The Talent is specifically pronounced to emphasize Tal.

[AlabamAlum]

Whatever you say, iamJoeWest416.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I saw, and skimmed, this article at the first link a couple of days ago. I payed more attention to it today. It has a simple explanation for the apparent explosion of new cases in the US compared to the EU. Geometric Progression:

......... such as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. If one person infects two, two infect four and so on. Unless the rate of infection is driven down by reducing contacts, any geometric increase quickly balloons: 256, 512, 1,024. This is the lesson of the inventor of chess, who in legend asked, as a reward, for one grain of rice on the first square and twice as many on each successive square. There was not enough rice in India to pay his reward. That is one explanation for America’s explosively rising caseload. With almost 4m infections, the country is on square 23.

I had understood exponential growth but not in these terms nor did I understand the relationship between the starting point in such progression and a future end point. i.e., a lower start point equates to a lower future end point. For example, the EU, in general, was at one when reopening started, the US was at 3. The article explains exactly why the US has so many more positive cases than most EU nations.

Side note: Mitigation measures such as masking and distancing do work; IOW, small changes in behavior have the same effect of geometric progression, either positive or negative, on case #s.

The author opines on a mathematical basis, anyway, that the US has to drive a new start point back to 1 or less if it wants to see less cases and by extension fewer deaths. He also offers there is no political appetite in the US to lock down again. Here is where you have the cost/benefit analysis shaping up. Unfortunately the costs are death and there is no escaping the math involved in calculating those unappealingly high numbers...... if you do nothing to improve medical outcomes for the infected cohorts who are at risk or if there is no effective vaccine in the short term. The benefits of not returning to lock downs, of course, are an economy that won't be cratered and improved social outcomes from rising employment..

So, to me, and to assess the social and economic cost of a lock-down v. the benefit to pubic health of that action requires factoring in the capacity of the various levels of health care systems in the US - pharmaceutical and related therapeutic interventions, improved patient care, the impact of an effective vaccine - to improve patient outcomes and keep the CFR (or IFR) stable or declining.

I have a good feeling about the impact of good medical practice in the US though I am generally an optimist and it biases my outlook to some extent. But the numbers support a view that the care of at risk, C-19 patients being hospitalized is improving if, in the face of rising case #s, a stable or declining CFR or IFR can be demonstrated. This can get tricky. I was able to look at CDC's hospitalization rates and then deduce a CFR over time. It has certainly not increased from April highs and appears to be declining - good news. See the 2nd link.

You have to make your own judgements about whether you see this sort of analysis supporting a view that the high cost of imposing new lock downs on the US economy is not going to improve the public health situation to a degree that it is worth imposing them. Yes, case numbers will be high if openings continue but the cost of that in terms of deaths isn't accelerating like case numbers are in a geometric progression.

https://www.economist.com/united-sta...article-link-3

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html

[THE_WIZARD_]

Luna is dead?

There is a God...

[foxhopper]

Whether yo agree or not, Robert Kennedy always makes some strong points if you really take the chance and listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfnJi7yLKgE

[CGVT]

0g4lw2bzpzt11.jpg

[iam416]

I assume that’s in reference to the Ds RUSSIA!!!! obsession.

[foxhopper]

I knew that would get CGVT back to the hat business...lol

[CGVT]

If you believe that conspiracy bullshit, take your hat. You've earned it.

[foxhopper]

I have worn plenty of hats in my life. Enough not to buy into everything the good folks always claiming to have my best interest at heart tell me.

I understand. When your pension, food stamps, student loans and other govt entitlements all rely on you towing the line, you can't really be any other way. I forgive you. But there are more folks than your hated POTUS lying to you about the things that go on in the world. Did you really buy into everything you were told to do when you were in the CG?

Maybe I have you all wrong- But in all the years I have been here you come off to be the most closed minded, stubborn guy here. (at least in the Lion forum)....lol