Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

Some more light reading. Both articles are pretty decent in trying to explain some of the technical stuff. One of the more important takeaways I got from it is once they shut down Wuhan they effectively stopped the spread but that actually meant 95 percent of Wuhan was still susceptible to the virus. And from what it sounds like people who contract the virus do get symptomatic which means it seems like it would be unlikely that 100k have it in Ohio at the moment.

https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-deadly-delusion-eea324fe9727

[iam416]

Biden may lose the general, incumbents are almost always the favorite but he has a far better shot than Bernie. Bernie and his Bros have taken on the braggadocio normally reserved for the Black Knight.

Bernie had no chance to win Florida and, IMO, was going to lose Pennsylvania because of his "ban fracking" idiocy. Biden can win Florida and is, IMO, a strong favorite to win Pennsylvania.

Fuck that Marxist asshat anyway. It's time he accept his fate and get out of this race.

[iam416]

And from what it sounds like people who contract the virus do get symptomatic which means it seems like it would be unlikely that 100k have it in Ohio at the moment.

I think the 100,000 number is plainly wrong. But I also disagree with the first part of the statement -- at least to the extent that we just don't know. We're still flying relatively blind. At the least, the Diamond Princess remains a limited sample, closed system where everyone was tested -- and the first article you linked takes time to point out:

Since the Diamond Princess Cruise ship data show that half of all infected cases remained asymptomatic

Meanwhile, the argument that we're making decisions with insufficient evidence is made pretty well in this opinion piece by Stanford Prof John Ionnadis: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/...reliable-data/

Now, I'm in favor of erroring on the side of caution -- at least in the short term. And I think criticism of lack of testing is entirely valid in THIS CONTEXT. I don't think the lack of testing does much to decrease the R0 -- especially if you're already in community wide lockdown. If you have massive testing then you can, in theory, implement targeted quarantine, but that really does rely on massive testing. So, anyway -- my criticism of the lack of testing is the lack of data. And the lack of data leads to decisions that are hunches.

My criticism of the lack of data also extends to fatalities. We need to know what those fatalities look like. We need to be able to describe those deaths so we can understand where the true risk is. The reality is that we absolutely cannot shutter down for 6-12-18 months. Sooner rather than later we're going to need tailored policies that try to keep the R0 value near 1. Sooner rather than later we're going to have to weigh the relative risks of "safe" populations working normal jobs vs. how much that increases R0.

[froot loops]

I forgot to post that article. That guy seems to be on the other side. I guess we would have to see how the WHO studies of the Wuhan population differs from the Diamond Princess. They definitely will need to reevaluate things once they get the random sampling going.

[Hannibal]

The 100,000 number being likely at least two orders of magnitude off illustrates how blind, hysterically panicked, and knee-jerk the response has been over the past week. Where the fuck did they even get that number? What model were they using? What assumptions? Why are various locales going to a full time quarantine before knowing the effects of shutting down the schools?

Al Borges ran his offenses at Michigan more sensibly than our governments' responses to the Coronavirus.

[iam416]

Well, again, I hope your skepticism is proven correct, Hannibal. And, again, I'm of the opinion that a short-term, early stage overreaction in this particular situation is preferable to an underreaction. And given the current state of the data we don't really have the ability to confidently take the CORRECT reaction. I think it absolutely has to be revisited in the near term. I don't think anyone thinks that this is sustainable beyond increments of weeks.

[Hannibal]

Talent -- I disagree on whether we have enough data. The virus has had long enough to spread that if it were extraordinarily communicable, we'd have a lot more cases in the US by now. The world would have a lot more cases. Everyone keeps pointing to the example of Italy as if that's what everyone's experience is going to be. Every country in the world that allows unconstrained travel to and from China was exposed to the virus at the same time as Italy. That includes us. Japan has a median age on par with Italy and they have had only 29 deaths from it. Their death rate so far is in the 3-4% range. Somebody at CPAC tested positive for the virus and to date, there has not been a single case traced back to that. My company had one person test positive a week ago and since then, not a single person at that same facility with at least a few hundred contractors and employees has also tested positive. None of this is due to our drastic mitigation measures because positive tests only measure how good your management measures were a week or two ago.

[Ghengis Jon]

...Al Borges ran his offenses at Michigan more sensibly than our governments' responses to the Coronavirus.

OOOOOOOOOOOuch!

[iam416]

Somebody at CPAC tested positive for the virus and to date, there has not been a single case traced back to that.

Yeah. That's certainly a fact on your side of things. I'm still in favor of the short-term measures. And while I don't share your opinion -- yet -- I don't think you're barking at the moon, and I haven't ruled it out.

[iam416]

Critically, this infernal virus is making it more difficult to sass HARBAUGH!!! and his acolytes with CRD's tremendous recruiting efforts. That right there is some real bullshit. Fuck them bat-eating Wuhan fucks.

[Dr. Strangelove]

There are at least three cases in Ohio that have been traced back to CPAC. Two of them are in Belmont County, which is pure Appalachia across the river from Wheeling, WV. Apparently the only place they've gone in the past couple months was attend CPAC.

https://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2020/03/updated-belmont-officials-confim-two-coronavirus-casesunty/

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'd agree with Froot's take that the Stanford article shades to Hannibal's position. I'm with talent, though, that short term, the current approach which amounts to a message that goes something like this: hey, people, get your heads out of your asses, the threat of COVID-19 is serious, is fine...... for now.

.... and yeah, my view, unlike Hannibal's, is the data, right now, sucks. Data geeks know this. I've been reading about this problem since Monday when they started seriously questioning it and talking about all kinds of caveats to it. Still, what data we do have is informing public policy. That circumstance is unsustainable.

[iam416]

I also want to point out that it would be quite the fucking move by the Federal Government to, by decree or by decree of its proxies, to shutdown businesses and then condition bailouts on adopting Marxist policies. Elizabeth Warren can seriously go fuck herself.

[Hannibal]

There are at least three cases in Ohio that have been traced back to CPAC. Two of them are in Belmont County, which is pure Appalachia across the river from Wheeling, WV. Apparently the only place they've gone in the past couple months was attend CPAC.

https://www.theintelligencer.net/new...rus-casesunty/

OK fair enough. I wasn't aware of that and I stand corrected. FWIW it sounds like none of the politicians who were there got it.

That does support the position that we shouldn't have mass gatherings that aren't critical to society's functioning, such as sports events or political rallies, but I don't think that we should be shutting down small businesses. There is also adequate evidence that we should be locking down retirement communities, nursing homes, and other institutions with a lot of at-risk people.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I also want to point out that it would be quite the fucking move by the Federal Government to, by decree or by decree of its proxies, to shutdown businesses and then condition bailouts on adopting Marxist policies. Elizabeth Warren can seriously go fuck herself.

What counts as a Marxist policy? I have no problem requiring the airlines to do no stock buybacks for a period of years in exchange for their second bailout in 20 years.