Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, MI is the nation's COVID hot-spot on Sunday, 4/11. It must be because the press is telling us how bad things are. For those of you living there, this news has undoubtedly been depressing.

I post on another forum where, among other things, there's a lot of COVID talk. This took me about an hour researching available trackers. Even the FL PH Department's web site lacks data that I wanted to present so I used JHU trackers. Something I've known for a while now is that there's no consistency in the depth that COVID data trackers go to except for one and that is new case numbers. So, of course, the press uses this to tell us how bad things are. Anyway, here's FL's data presented with a different slant in a post I made elasehere today:

I mentioned yesterday that the impact of COVID is likely less than we are led to believe it is. A lot of this has to do with how public health officials report COVD data and then how the press presents it to us.

Giving us case numbers out of context is misleading. For example, on 3/9, FL reported 5007 new cases. A month later, on 4/9, 6817. That's a 36% increase in new cases yet the percent positivity over that same period went up only 1%. When you test more, more new cases are identified...... testing on 3/9 = 175/100K. Testing on 4/9 = 282/100K. That's a 37% increase in daily testing producing an expected 36% in new cases.

On 3/9, FL had 3419 patients hospitalized with a COVID diagnosis. On 4/9, 3016.

But this is the kicker - deaths:

Deaths.JPG

Need I say more? Florida is fine.

I suspect if I did this for MI, it would produce similar results.

[lineygoblue]

I just watched the early Sunday morning news from our ABC affiliate in Flint, and you'd think that the calendar was frozen in time. They had as much or even more gloom and doom on today as they did a year ago. You'd think the pandemic had just hit Michigan. Whitmer is itching to shut things down again, especially in the area of restaurants, bars and sports. She's convinced that those are the big bogeymen that are causing Michigan's surge. She's "encouraging" schools to go to virtual learning again for two weeks following spring break (which I thought had passed already) and she's also "encouraging" a "pause" in HS sports. The director of the MHSAA, Mark Uyl has already said that sports will NOT be paused again. Good to see Mark has grown a set. Michigan's HS basketball season ended yesterday with the state finals at MSU. Spring sports will begin this month.

Also on our beloved ABC/Disney/ESPN affiliate, they talked about the J&J vaccine "causing blood clots" in FOUR people, which has caused some states to pause giving the vaccine, as well as some countries in Europe. How many doses of J&J vaccine have been given worldwide so far? They didn't give a number. I had the J&J vaccine about 3 weeks ago, and to be honest, I believe it might have caused my blood glucose levels to go out of whack for a couple days afterward, but I popped a couple glucose tablets, and I've been fine since. I saw my doctor on Thursday for a routine lab work follow up, and he said it all looked good, and he was glad to see that I got the vaccine.

I dunno, Jeff. Maybe I'm wearing rose colored glasses, but I think in spite of the new "surge" here in Michigan, that things are actually better. I'm sure I'll be told I'm wrong.

[Ghengis Jon]

I watched the same news this morning Liney and got none of that. I saw positive reporting. 1 in 5 fully vaccinated, 1 in 3 with at least 1 dose administered here in the US. Numbers increasing everyday. Availability improving constantly. Lockdowns becoming a thing of the past. Sure, inbred Trumpsters are still making national recovery a bit slower with their refusals to even mask must less vaccinate. Michigan took a step backwards with the irresponsible spring breakers coming back and playing Typhoid Marys. Other than that, things are moving in the right direction. You're starting to sound like Talent with his irrational ITS THE MEDIA!!! one blame fits all.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I did find this web site displaying MI's COVID data.

https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/state/michigan

There are certainly more new cases - a lot more - and similar to FL's rise in new cases. What I found revealing from this link is where the rise in new cases is concentrated - tip of the thumb. Elsewhere, things don't seem so bad. Makes a case for strong regional intervention measures not a one size fits all approach for MI.

Deaths have risen that may or may not be a reporting anomaly. Over a month's time though, they have gone up.

This web site had the best visuals for hospitalizations and they are up but when you dig into the data that's available here, I found this: on 3/9, 2.8% of all active cases were hospitalized. On 4/9, 2.7%

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/05/16/tracking-michigan-covid-19-hospitalization-data-trends/

Whitmer has asked for more vaccine describing things in MI as a life and death race against time. Reportedly the Biden administration isn't going to change vaccine distribution plans. I think that's mostly wrong headed.

[iam416]

I see that it wasn't posted here that Chairman Joe has created a Supreme Court Commission to study how to make it more Progressive. And, heh, I was told court-packing was off the table.

Also, in obvious news I (and others) have been saying for week -- The Covid pandemic is just the thing Chairman Joe needs to use to usher in sea change in America policies -- The New Progressive Era -- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...KsP?li=BBnb7Kz

Finally, 40% of Marines decline Covid vaccine. These must be the "inbred Trumpsters" that some posters hate so much and still blame everything on. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ne/7173918002/

Not to worry -- the Progs want Chairman Joe to force those inbred Trumpster Marines to take the vaccine.

[iam416]

Meanwhile, on the border -- let's refresh the indisputable facts that folks would love to just wish away but just can't.

(1) We had a surge of unaccompanied minors under PDJT that sparked the great "kids in cages" meme from The Media and even generated a "kids in cages" congressional hearing.

(2) We are having a surge of unaccompanied minors in record-setting numbers under Chairman Joe -- not just record-setting -- blowing previous highs out of the water -- and the kids are being detained in the same places which we now know from The Media is "teens kept in facilities like jails." Again, just the facts.

(3) We have/had Chairman Joe literally shutting down media access to the border situation. SHUTTING. IT. DOWN. And, of course, The Media doesn't say a word. I'm sure if PDJT had also done that they would have gone quietly into the night.

(4) The Media and Chairman Joe continue to try to blame DJT for border crisis despite the fact that the Mexican President and countless would-be immigrants explicitly say that the rush is due the perceived open borders of Chairman Joe.

(5) Chairman Joe immediately appoints a Border Czar (LOL). She now steps down and says, almost inconceivable, that her tenure was only suppose to last 100 days. Riiiiiiggggght.

All facts. All indisputable. That is where we are on ONE issue under Chairman Joe.

[iam416]

On to a different issue. The Ayatollah's Cock Holster is set to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for nothing. That's right. Nothing. The Ayatollah's Cock Holster is almost certainly going to remake the Middle East into Iran's playground after a ton of great work by PDJT to build a set of allies against them.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Liney, the old adage applies: Things are never as bad or as good as people say they are. Take the middle ground.

From what I'm reading, Whitmer appears to be politically restrained in her calls for mandatory shut downs. I think this is a trend across the entire US - state governments have come to grips with the reality that the folks aren't believing what's coming out of the mouths of public health officials and therefore aren't conforming with some of the mitigation measures either being mandated or recommended. States with a history of governments imposing strict measures over long periods are faring worse in this regard than states that didn't. Harsh measures now are counterproductive, IMO. Americans don't like to told what to do and this isn't just "trumpsters" or R's in general. So, there is that producing COVID fatigue.

Another factor is that there are smart people out there that can provide balance to the "dire consequences" narrative from governments augmented by the MSM. The reality of the impact of vaccines on disease burden, not necessarily new cases, is just one example. Putting new case numbers in context with other data points is, in my experience, going to make much less believable this dire consequences narrative and in some cases produce unwelcome bad behaviors. I don't think the likes of Walenski and Fauci pay enough attention to that counterproductive aspect of negativity and consequently, people are losing confidence that our premier infectious disease experts and the agencies they are working within know what they are talking about.

I think it's hard to flesh out the underlying cause of the uptick in MI. That it appears regional (the tip of the thumb) and that most new cases are the UK variant (known to be more contagious) appears to weigh against a state wide lack of good COVID behavior, in-person schooling or youth sports as a causal factor. That's part of it but not all of it ..... so, closing stuff down to decrease mobility and prevent the concomitant increased likelihood of close contact doesn't make a lot of sense and here's why .......

This is a really interesting link to a Google product that looks at mobility as measured by cell-phone data. In MI, mobility has only increased from baseline significantly in parks (outdoors where the risk of spread of SARS2 is near zero). In retail, it's down 1%. I looked at St. Clair Co. in the thumb and the same pertains. I could argue that it's not increased contacts in bars and restaurants or schools that is behind the increased case numbers. Is it, as Whitmer seems to think, from youth sports? Well, if it is, you'd see large increases in new cases in under 20s. You don't. It's in the under 40s cohort. If I'm a resident of MI, how am I supposed to believe these sweeping generalizations about causality and recommendations to close things down that Whitmer is championing?

https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobi..._Report_en.pdf

The bottom line is that when it comes to COVID and trying to assign causality its exceedingly complex. I feel confident that people who work in the field of PH epidemiology know this, are able to flesh out a certain probability of causality for the variables in question but then politics interferes. I'll bet these guys - the experts in epidemiology - cringe over news reports and government spokesperson's pronouncements.

[iam416]

The bottom line is that when it comes to COVID and trying to assign causality the complexity of cause is exceedingly complex. I feel confident that people who work in the field of PH epidemiology know this, are able to flesh out a certain probability of causality for the variables in question but then politics interferes. I'll bet these guys - the experts in epidemiology - cringe over news reports and government spokesperson's pronouncements.

This is true. And the obvious corrolary, as I've said repeatedly, is that it's really unfair to blame governors in all but the most obvious situations. By and large, Covid outbreaks, spread and deaths are happenstance. You can be fully locked down or not. That's what we've learned from the past year. Florida is much different from California. Michigan is worse than a lot of non-lockdown places. Blaming Governor Whitmer for the outbreaks is purely political. But, then again -- that's been the name of The Media's game for the entire year. And I could even get past the summer bullshit re Cuomo vs. DeSantis, but in March we had Chairman Joe calling Texas neanderthals and The Media tut-tutting along.

So, you know -- let's compare M and Texas if that's the game you're going to play.

[iam416]

I didn't realize this, but apparently Amazon workers in Alabama voted on whether to unionize and rejected the notion soundly. There is hope.

Kevin Williamson does a great job of explaining why their rejection makes all the sense in the world -- https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/...-unionization/

[iam416]

"Hard news" story from CNN on travel and vaccinations: https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...utm_term=first

Yeah, no agenda here....

[lineygoblue]

Finally, 40% of Marines decline Covid vaccine. These must be the "inbred Trumpsters" that some posters hate so much and still blame everything on.
Not to worry -- the Progs want Chairman Joe to force those inbred Trumpster Marines to take the vaccine.

Problem for the Marines is, that for now I believe taking the vaccine is voluntary. If they are ordered to do so, and refuse, they could be subject to disciplinary action. I could see Chairman Joe "ordering" all military personnel to be vaccinated. That's bound to create quite a ruckus.

I guess Jon must have went out to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee while watching the news. The TV12 anchor mentioned the four blood clot cases for people who received the J&J vaccine, but failed to mention that millions worldwide have received the vaccine without complications. We must focus on those four. It fits the narrative, whatever it happens to be today. Maybe today's narrative is that the J&J vaccine is the "inbred Trumpster vaccine" and therefore not to be trusted.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In my 20 years in the Corps, I never had an opportunity to decline a vaccine. Never. It could be that I could have declined them but who the fuck is dumb enough to do that. I probably had a dozen over that 20y period. Some of them made you sore all over or sick for a day. Who cares..... at least I wasn't going to get the plague or any number of shitty diseases for which vaccines are available. If you were deploying to certain countries that required them, if you didn't get it, you didn't deploy..... and let me tell you if you pulled that you were on everyone's shit list for ever. We were asked if we had any allergies to previous vaccinations. If you did, you didn't get it. If you didn't get it, yep, shit-listed. There wasn't a choice. I don't even remember being able to decline a flu shot. I probably could have done that but, again, who the fuck is dumb enough to do that.

Over the last decade, the Corps has avoided most of the dumb-ass stuff that has filtered in to the other military forces but it's still not immune. I guess you can decline a COVID shot these days and the CINC has decided not to mandate them ....... like other presidents did when Polio was doing bad things to kids.

[lineygoblue]

I'm with you, Jeff. I served 4 years in the USCG, and declining a shot was never an option. It was an order. Go to sick bay, get your shot. Now. Immediately. In boot camp I must have got stuck about a dozen times. I remember some guys in my company got stuck three times in the same day. The most I ever got was two, one in each arm. Some of them may have needed updates. They were still giving smallpox shots back then because they were required for overseas travel. We were all vaccinated to the level we would need to be if we were assigned overseas. I never left CONUS so I guess my extra shots were just for fun.

[Mike]

Same here. I was in the Army ‘02 to ‘06. We were human pin cushions. There was no option, nor should there be. We still got the small pox vaccine when I was in (if you were deploying). Still have the scar. WTF is going on in the military right now?? There has always been exactly 2 options: Do what we say or GTFO. Period. And that’s how it should be.