DTP02 said:

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jwoodmd said:

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DadHammer said:

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Sorry, that reply was in reference to 20%+ unemployment and poverty related deaths.

Look guys I am not going to look up every study for you on poverty and it's impacts.

You can do that yourself. The other reference was already listed many times on doctors preferring HCQ so far around the world. I am not going to repost already posted material every time you don't like an answer.

Stay off my threads or block me, I block most of you anyway when you get personal and can't debate facts.

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Well, if you're really worried about loss of income and poverty, you might think of giving up 12th Man Foundation donations which is likely for season tickets. This is what's so sad about the argument. People would rather an elderly person die before loss of their lifestyle.

What bothers me about all the government buyouts is it is like someone who smokes, is overweight, drinks too much, doesn't excercise, then comes to me and demand I fix them. I'll do my absolute very best but they're in that situation for a reason (and I'm not talking everyone who get ill as many are because of genetics, accidents, other). If people don't even have a couple months of financial reserves they really need a hard lesson in discipline.

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It's sad that you and the people who agree with you can't recognize that nowhere does the guy say he's worried about his own poverty. But you take a shot at his financial priorities and discipline while accusing him of being a soulless moneygrubber. Pretty sure you can't even see the line you're so far past it, and you've left the idea in a different universe of not saying something on the internet that you wouldn't say to someone's face.

Regarding financial reserves, I've been fortunate enough, along with some decisions I've made, to be able to run my own small business in a very lean mode indefinitely, and I carry no bad personal debt. But there are a lot of small businessmen I know who, while they have prudently planned for a downturn, could never have planned for a situation where they still have most of their overhead but almost no revenue. Your take about it being a mater of discipline for them is completely ignorant about the realities faced by small businesses.

And if you can't at least recognize the further reality that economic turmoil takes a tangible toll on individuals and societies which includes increased mortality and declining physical and mental health, then you're worse than the guy you're trying to ridicule.

I've about had my fill of people who refuse to recognize the validity of people's concerns about both the virus and the response. You're both equally foolish and equally engaged in counter-productive dialogue.

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Oh, I'd have no problem saying things to someone's face. I have to on a daily business from a patient's condition is fatal to an aspiring med student isn't going to make the grade. And I'm not ridiculing anyone. It is just reality of what patients expect after years of their own neglect. I give my all to patients regardless of how they got there.

Also, I grew up with both parents running small, family businesses. I use to work after school and weekends for them starting from grade school. And my dad's business involved hard, dirty, manual labor. We didn't have any luxuries but my parents were sure to secure financial reserves. I'm fully aware of small business realities.

DadHammer said:

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I recognize people's concerns about the virus. We need to be concerned about both without panicking and be smart about it and learn from situations in other places.

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I would argue that the response has both been smart and without panic. It's been calculated and measured and there is a plan... But we need people to be patient, because a reversal of course in the middle of peak cases would be the opposite of "smart".

Sweden isn't being smart and the outlook will continue to get more bleak. The IHME model assumes they shut things down by April 19th. They're running out of time before the model gets revised upwards dramatically.

You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

California Ag 90 said:

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jwoodm said:

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Oh, I'd have no problem saying things to someone's face. I have to on a daily business from a patient's condition is fatal to an aspiring med student isn't going to make the grade. And I'm not ridiculing anyone. It is just reality of what patients expect after years of their own neglect. I give my all to patients regardless of how they got there.

Also, I grew up with both parents running small, family businesses. I use to work after school and weekends for them starting from grade school. And my dad's business involved hard, dirty, manual labor. We didn't have any luxuries but my parents were sure to secure financial reserves. I'm fully aware of small business realities.

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As a physician do you believe we have handled this, in hindsight, wisely? was it wise to close up every hospital for non-COVID patients, doing grave and growing financial harm to our entire healthcare system and the care of non-COVID patients?

do the massive budget shortfalls and funding cuts that we face at the state and local level as tax revenues collapse due to the broad shutdowns across all sectors of the economy not cause you to question some of our decisions? cuts to healthcare programs will result.

does the loss of private health insurance by so many workers cause concern?

because that is what we face. the decisions have been made - we cannot reverse course. the statistics that drove those decisions have proven highly inflated - and while that is a source of great relief in terms of the loss of life we faced and the gratitude that we avoided that horrible outcome, we owe it to ourselves to demand better of our institutions at every level.

accusing people who are genuinely worried about the coming depression we are facing of being avaricious and greedy and of having no concern for human life is, well, pretty awful - and seems completely out of character with the noble profession and role you play in your daily life caring for others.

so how about giving fellow Ags on a message board the benefit of the doubt instead of ascribing the worst possible motives to their statements of concern about the grim future we are all facing as we try to recover from this catastrophe.

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It's too early to have any hindsight. Also, there are so many variables that we will never have the answers to what would have happened if we do things differently. Of course, all of those factors are of concern. My opinion is you, and countless others, are seeing things in absolutes, black/white. So many of your projections (stated as assured in many places) are not guaranteed to occur. It is amazing that after a little over a month, people are already assuming this is another Great Depression that lasted a decade. Tough times ahead? Yes, but there were going to be very tough times ahead no matter what. There were no solutions that would have averted a chaotic situation like we've not seen in our lifetimes. Well, maybe one but I'm not diving into politics AND NO ONE would have bought into it until people realized the severity of things. And that hindsight is therefore not realistic as it would never have happened. That's the trouble of trying to apply hindsight.

ORAggieFan said:

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You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

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Well said

ORAggieFan said:

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You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

---

i don't believe, nor have stated, any such thing. we will never know what alternate courses of action may have created in terms of outcomes. we do know the outcome we have is dismal.

Please don't shove me into the wearisome simplistic food fight buckets of 'the policy has been right' vs. 'open everything up'.

i don't live in either place - i occupy the real world where we've (America) ****ed up just about every aspect of this, and should self examine and question EVERY THING that has transpired here.

i expect better of people than being incapable of seeing that this entire thing has been a colossal policy cluster ****, and that people with concerns on all sides are not evil greedy *******s nor conspiratorial leftists taking over the world.

and the models that are unforgivable did incorporate social distancing - that was not the problem, and were comically inaccurate.

with regard to the modeling efforts, that isn't what bothers me. the problem is, in a world of exceedingly complex multi-variate modeling capability in almost every sector of the economy, we used single variable (COVID19 death rate) epidemiological models to drive extremely complex policy decisions.

Even the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 which killed tens of millions of people worldwide, with a World War 1 thrown in at the same time, was followed by a 'Roaring Twenties' Period of economic growth. Great Depression actually happened a decade later due to a variety of factors.

While the global economy certainly Is a VERY serious concern right now, be careful IMO taking doom-and-gloom predictions about another Great Depression coming (and some are certainly being put out there both in the media and on message boards) as gospel.

The simple fact is No one really knows what is going to happen, not even what the future will look like 2 months from now. Just like 2 months ago in January, few truly expected/saw the situation today. It's all incredibly complicated and even the best Analytical models seem to have a small half-life as data rapidly changes.

Player, it will be a combo of what you listed. People with immunity, even if it only lasts 1-3 years, some effective treatment, maybe a medicine to try to limit the spread, then a vaccine months from now. But we really need some herd immunity as it greatly reduces any second wave of infections. the more people exposed and healed the better off we are. What's the best way to get there? I don't think anyone really knows. The models have been so far off they are almost useless.

jwoodmd said:

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DadHammer said:

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Sorry, that reply was in reference to 20%+ unemployment and poverty related deaths.

Look guys I am not going to look up every study for you on poverty and it's impacts.

You can do that yourself. The other reference was already listed many times on doctors preferring HCQ so far around the world. I am not going to repost already posted material every time you don't like an answer.

Stay off my threads or block me, I block most of you anyway when you get personal and can't debate facts.

---

Well, if you're really worried about loss of income and poverty, you might think of giving up 12th Man Foundation donations which is likely for season tickets. This is what's so sad about the argument. People would rather an elderly person die before loss of their lifestyle.

What bothers me about all the government buyouts is it is like someone who smokes, is overweight, drinks too much, doesn't excercise, then comes to me and demand I fix them. I'll do my absolute very best but they're in that situation for a reason (and I'm not talking everyone who get ill as many are because of genetics, accidents, other). If people don't even have a couple months of financial reserves they really need a hard lesson in discipline.

---

This is an unfair thing to say IMHO.

Everything in life has risks/consequences. Yes, COVID is more so than others, but we can't change our mentality that we have had towards risk/rewards for thousands of years of mankind. On a normal day in 2019, by us all driving to work, an elderly(and a young person as well) likely lost their life somewhere in texas. (3642 in 2018, didn't see 2019. Which means 10+ people a day)

My fear is the attitude of "save every life". Maybe I'm misreading the comment and going off on a tangent here, but if we develop that attitude, we will wreck this country and never get it back. We have to be in the attitude of staying under the breaking point where hospitals are overwhelmed.

If the current lockdown was the only way to do that, then so be it. I wish it wasn't and that 16mm didn't lose their jobs, but it is what it is at this point. From this point forward, it can't be about saving every life, but again, simply staying under the breaking point for hospitals. Whatever the best lifestyle we can live to do that is what we should do. That's what we do with everything else. That's what this was supposed to be from the beginning. I know this isn't the flu, but we never went through major measures to save every life from the flu because the flu didn't risk the hospitals being overwhelmed. So the second we have measures in place that give us reason to believe we can do that, we need to do everything we can to increase quality of life while continuing to stay under.

Personally I think we could have done that without losing 16 million jobs, but that's all opinionated and I understand why we did it to be safe, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

California Ag 90 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

---

i don't believe, nor have stated, any such thing. we will never know what alternate courses of action may have created in terms of outcomes. we do know the outcome we have is dismal.

Please don't shove me into the wearisome simplistic food fight buckets of 'the policy has been right' vs. 'open everything up'.

i don't live in either place - i occupy the real world where we've (America) ****ed up just about every aspect of this, and should self examine and question EVERY THING that has transpired here.

i expect better of people than being incapable of seeing that this entire thing has been a colossal policy cluster ****, and that people with concerns on all sides are not evil greedy *******s nor conspiratorial leftists taking over the world.

and the models that are unforgivable did incorporate social distancing - that was not the problem, and were comically inaccurate.

with regard to the modeling efforts, that isn't what bothers me. the problem is, in a world of exceedingly complex multi-variate modeling capability in almost every sector of the economy, we used single variable (COVID19 death rate) epidemiological models to drive extremely complex policy decisions.

---

I disagree that America has ****ed up. Arguably out biggest **** up was not reacting a week or 2 sooner. This whole shut down would have been so much shorter and less costly in that scenario.

You're assuming that the economy (local, national, and global) would have just hummed along permenantly had no action been taken - which is not true. Again, we might of had 2 more weeks of blissful ignorance, but then people's behaviors would have changed due to this virus. And then to fix the problem (or ignore the problem) would have been orders of magnitude more damage - both economically and in terms of lives lost. I don't even think that's debatable if you really try to imagine a world where every day that we don't act you can add 40% to the total cumulative number of expected deaths. A lot of people that catch this virus get very ill even if they don't go to the hospital. And at hospitals you would have run out of space very quickly. It's very likely our healthcare system would have collapsed. So I reject that we ****ed this up unless you are suggesting we should have shut things down 2 weeks earlier (we'd be a lot closer to the end had that happened). I don't think you live in the real world. There is no "real world" where there isn't significant damage to the economy; the long term damage the economy is larger the more people get sick with this virus.

The models were not "unforgivable". And you're missing the point that social distancing isn't even binary. At the end of the day, the IHME mpdel was originally predicting 80,000, now it says 60,000. The difference between those numbers are 1-2 days of shutting down. Furthermore, the model has to incorporate some amount of non-adherance to social distancing... So again the point is there are still some very significant variables that were uncertain and therefore assumed. I mean even some parameters of the virus are not really understood, just ballparked. We didn't know how many people had the virus even! The point of the model is to make educated decisions. To notionally understand what decisions mean and should make. Sure accuracy is never going to be great when their are as many unknowns. But for the purpose of decision making 80,000 deaths is the same as 60,000 deaths or 100,000 deaths. If you are slightly wrong with one of two parameters you could easily have double the modeled result. This *****ing about the model is completely missing the point. And it's dangerous. You're arguing basically that we shouldn't project the result of actions because thise projections are wrong. I know why you're doing it - if you discredit models the default is do nothing.
That's how you make a terible situation disasterous. Because businesses incorrectly predict revenue doesn't mean they shouldn't model their business and make educated decisions. Sure there's a bit less uncertainty in business modeling because it's not modeling exponential growth with a bunch of unknown variables. But that's besides the point. You either model outcomes and make educated decisions knowing full well that the model is wrong or you cover your eyes and hope **** works.

I am very certain that the economy doesn't get better until we get control of this virus - which is possible if we have the infrastructure and resources dedicated to it. I would argue the single most important variable for America until we get a vaccine is the active number of infected people in America. The economy won't improve until we have that under control no matter what anybody says. The number of deaths from this virus are a function of how many people get infected by the virus. So that is what matters. We're getting this virus under control. If we reverse course now, we will never get this virus under control. So we better fully understand the consequences of our actions. Maybe we should model outcomes (hint: all models, both economic and health are going to say we need to try to control this virus before we give up).

beerad12man said:

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jwoodmd said:

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DadHammer said:

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Sorry, that reply was in reference to 20%+ unemployment and poverty related deaths.

Look guys I am not going to look up every study for you on poverty and it's impacts.

You can do that yourself. The other reference was already listed many times on doctors preferring HCQ so far around the world. I am not going to repost already posted material every time you don't like an answer.

Stay off my threads or block me, I block most of you anyway when you get personal and can't debate facts.

---

Well, if you're really worried about loss of income and poverty, you might think of giving up 12th Man Foundation donations which is likely for season tickets. This is what's so sad about the argument. People would rather an elderly person die before loss of their lifestyle.

What bothers me about all the government buyouts is it is like someone who smokes, is overweight, drinks too much, doesn't excercise, then comes to me and demand I fix them. I'll do my absolute very best but they're in that situation for a reason (and I'm not talking everyone who get ill as many are because of genetics, accidents, other). If people don't even have a couple months of financial reserves they really need a hard lesson in discipline.

---

This is an unfair thing to say IMHO.

Everything in life has risks/consequences. Yes, COVID is more so than others, but we can't change our mentality that we have had towards risk/rewards for thousands of years of mankind. On a normal day in 2019, by us all driving to work, an elderly(and a young person as well) likely lost their life somewhere in texas. (3642 in 2018, didn't see 2019. Which means 10+ people a day)

My fear is the attitude of "save every life". Maybe I'm misreading the comment and going off on a tangent here, but if we develop that attitude, we will wreck this country and never get it back. We have to be in the attitude of staying under the breaking point where hospitals are overwhelmed.

If the current lockdown was the only way to do that, then so be it. I wish it wasn't and that 16mm didn't lose their jobs, but it is what it is at this point. From this point forward, it can't be about saving every life, but again, simply staying under the breaking point for hospitals. Whatever the best lifestyle we can live to do that is what we should do. That's what we do with everything else. That's what this was supposed to be from the beginning. I know this isn't the flu, but we never went through major measures to save every life from the flu because the flu didn't risk the hospitals being overwhelmed. So the second we have measures in place that give us reason to believe we can do that, we need to do everything we can to increase quality of life while continuing to stay under.

Personally I think we could have done that without losing 16 million jobs, but that's all opinionated and I understand why we did it to be safe, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

---

Please quit using the people who die in car accidents analogy. It really doesn't fit. No one is trying to save every life as we know there will be casualties from SARS-CoV-2, just like we know there are going to be deaths due to driving. However, look at the safety requirements for a car which have improved significantly over the years. Those requirements were largely mandandated. The car companies would offer cars with lowered safety ratings, thus much lower prices or better margins, if allowed. Look at the deaths due to faulty design of the Ford Pinto and more recently the Explorer in the 90's. People still bought those knowing they were a death trap. So, how many car deaths do you think would happen in Texas if safety requirements were removed. I'd say at least 3x more, maybe 5x. And the number of people with permanent injuries would go up even more. And, finally, that is something people forget; this virus will leave many people who do recover from a bad case with permanent injuries. People in ICU needing ventilators will not recover and be as good as new (and that includes young healthy people who caught it).

Wendy 1990 said:

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We really have no idea what the death rate is for the Coronavirus. I've seen charts where deaths from the typical events (heart attacks, accidents, strokes, etc) have dipped drastically since the start of this event. The hospitals have a financial incentive to classify as many deaths to the Coronavirus as possible..

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Can you explain the financial incentives in place for hospitals?

So if you're 65 and die in the ICU from coronavirus, don't count that as a death because they are 'too old'? And can we just stop with the hospitals making money off coding deaths as coronavirus cases. Explain to me how they are making money off attributing a death to coronavirus.

Yes, there are people who are trying to save every life. I mean, I took hell from people for going golfing last weekend, outdoors, coming into contact with 2 people(the person who took my credit card and my playing partner) because what if I infected even just one more person? We can agree to disagree on that one. You may not be that person, but there are absolutely people out there that believe we shouldn't leave our house at all until this is 100% gone. That can't be a solution because it's not realistic.

I don't know why it's a bad analogy. Everything in life is risk/reward. What is the risk to society versus the short and long term rewards? It all has to be factored in to make the best decisions moving forward. In terms of cars, you are making my point for me. Restrictions, safety measures, and mandates to make them safer? Yes. Banning cars. No. Restrictions, safety measures, and mandates for businesses to be opened during this? Yes. Banning certain businesses? No.

Wendy 1990 said:

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We really have no idea what the death rate is for the Coronavirus. I've seen charts where deaths from the typical events (heart attacks, accidents, strokes, etc) have dipped drastically since the start of this event. The hospitals have a financial incentive to classify as many deaths to the Coronavirus as possible. There needs to be a restructuring of what qualifies as a Coronavirus death. I think it needs to be a healthy person 60 or younger who passes (maybe 70 if they can prove the person has no comorbidities). A person in a nursing home or on hospice should not count as a Coronavirus death.

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Would you. Mind sharing what you do for a living and in what business sector? I'd like to read a couple media articles and Internet blogs (and a chart or two) and then give you my strong opinion on the wrongs of what perceived incentives you have and what restructuring your sector should have. And Dr. Wendy, what is your definition of "healthy?" Everyone has something not exactly perfect.

And how do you "prove" someone does/doesn't have a comorbidity? Many are hidden.

Dr.HeadCase said:

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So if you're 65 and die in the ICU from coronavirus, don't count that as a death because they are 'too old'? And can we just stop with the hospitals making money off coding deaths as coronavirus cases. Explain to me how they are making money off attributing a death to coronavirus.

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Thank you.

California Ag 90 said:

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TXAggie2011 said:

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California Ag 90 said:

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TheAngelFlight said:

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Stop trying to portray yourself as a robotic moderate on this. You're not one, and that's been clear from the start.

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try taking a long walk. pour yourself a stiff drink. put your flame thrower down. you aren't changing the world here dude. its just an Aggie message board. and congrats, btw. with this post you are officially the first person i've blocked. feel free to do the same - you won't be subjected to my radical robotic moderation that way.

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I'll respond for him. What a dork.

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we'll see where we are as this plays out, courtesy of handing public health policy over to the one-note siren crowd with their singular objective of zero COVID deaths.

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That isn't the objective at all. You're just not listening and deliberately distorting what people are saying so that you don't have to come to terms with the fact that nothing you have said is a well-rounded perspective (despite repeatedly saying your opinion is). I've addressed multiple times that the economic damage comes from the virus not from the government policy. Don't believe me? Then why is passenger traffic down 96%? There's no law that says you can't fly throughan airport. You constantly pretend like what I, and others are saying is that we want no COVID deaths ever. But it just turns out that minimizing COVID deaths and normalizing the economy are related things.

Sid Farkas said:

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Knucklesammich said:

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Their healthcare is funded by its citizens and administered by its government.

They , along with their Nordic neighbors have some of the best healthcare to be found anywhere.

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Pretty sure it's not better than mine...im not too hot on rationing and queues. I don't need permission for really anything. Maybe eurpoeans like that stuff...
Perhaps northern eurpoean bureaucrats are trustworthy. I wouldn't want demonstrably politicized American bureaucrats anywhere near my personal healthcare

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I'm with you in that I don't need permission but there is a large number of people that is not the case for. ~530k families a year file for bankruptcies due to medical costs.

My biggest issue with our system is that while we can get the choice we want, the system itself is stuck between a free market and a nationalized system. I'm not all in on a nationalized system like Sweden's but nor do I discount the effectiveness of said system when administered correctly that's all I'm saying.

Notice how poor people for example have such high death rates and also associated comorbidities (sp)? Is it because they made bad choices? Perhaps...but is it also because they can't get access to even basic primary care healthcare and/or afford medicines that can help deal with those conditions?

Doc Rev's latest update has me thinking about that. He has several patients that didn't want to go to the ER for health issues so came to him instead at his urging and it saved their lives. The poor use the ER's as their urgent care (which is picked up by our social safety nets). Folks without decent insurance are conditioned not to use medical care unless it is truly dire. There is no real maintenance of health at scale esp. in terms of proactive healthcare.

Those folks would have had nobody to call, until they dialed 911 when their relative basically died at home. Its the underlying argument in NYC about undercounting COVID-19 deaths for folks dying at home...look at the 911 call out volume. Those calls I guarantee aren't coming from 5th avenue.

Is there personal choice there? absolutely, but is there an associated societal cost that burdens all of us substantially and the healthcare system specifically? Yes, whether we pay in taxes or pay in burden to a system that collapses under its own weight, we have to find a better way.

California Ag 90 said:

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Gordo14 said:

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California Ag 90 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

---

i don't believe, nor have stated, any such thing. we will never know what alternate courses of action may have created in terms of outcomes. we do know the outcome we have is dismal.

Please don't shove me into the wearisome simplistic food fight buckets of 'the policy has been right' vs. 'open everything up'.

i don't live in either place - i occupy the real world where we've (America) ****ed up just about every aspect of this, and should self examine and question EVERY THING that has transpired here.

i expect better of people than being incapable of seeing that this entire thing has been a colossal policy cluster ****, and that people with concerns on all sides are not evil greedy *******s nor conspiratorial leftists taking over the world.

and the models that are unforgivable did incorporate social distancing - that was not the problem, and were comically inaccurate.

with regard to the modeling efforts, that isn't what bothers me. the problem is, in a world of exceedingly complex multi-variate modeling capability in almost every sector of the economy, we used single variable (COVID19 death rate) epidemiological models to drive extremely complex policy decisions.

---

I disagree that America has ****ed up. Arguably out biggest **** up was not reacting a week or 2 sooner. This whole shut down would have been so much shorter and less costly in that scenario.

You're assuming that the economy (local, national, and global) would have just hummed along permenantly had no action been taken - which is not true. Again, we might of had 2 more weeks of blissful ignorance, but then people's behaviors would have changed due to this virus. And then to fix the problem (or ignore the problem) would have been orders of magnitude more damage - both economically and in terms of lives lost. I don't even think that's debatable if you really try to imagine a world where every day that we don't act you can add 40% to the total cumulative number of expected deaths. A lot of people that catch this virus get very ill even if they don't go to the hospital. And at hospitals you would have run out of space very quickly. It's very likely our healthcare system would have collapsed. So I reject that we ****ed this up unless you are suggesting we should have shut things down 2 weeks earlier (we'd be a lot closer to the end had that happened). I don't think you live in the real world. There is no "real world" where there isn't significant damage to the economy; the long term damage the economy is larger the more people get sick with this virus.

The models were not "unforgivable". And you're missing the point that social distancing isn't even binary. At the end of the day, the IHME mpdel was originally predicting 80,000, now it says 60,000. The difference between those numbers are 1-2 days of shutting down. Furthermore, the model has to incorporate some amount of non-adherance to social distancing... So again the point is there are still some very significant variables that were uncertain and therefore assumed. I mean even some parameters of the virus are not really understood, just ballparked. We didn't know how many people had the virus even! The point of the model is to make educated decisions. To notionally understand what decisions mean and should make. Sure accuracy is never going to be great when their are as many unknowns. But for the purpose of decision making 80,000 deaths is the same as 60,000 deaths or 100,000 deaths. If you are slightly wrong with one of two parameters you could easily have double the modeled result. This *****ing about the model is completely missing the point. And it's dangerous. You're arguing basically that we shouldn't project the result of actions because thise projections are wrong. I know why you're doing it - if you discredit models the default is do nothing.
That's how you make a terible situation disasterous. Because businesses incorrectly predict revenue doesn't mean they shouldn't model their business and make educated decisions. Sure there's a bit less uncertainty in business modeling because it's not modeling exponential growth with a bunch of unknown variables. But that's besides the point. You either model outcomes and make educated decisions knowing full well that the model is wrong or you cover your eyes and hope **** works.

I am very certain that the economy doesn't get better until we get control of this virus - which is possible if we have the infrastructure and resources dedicated to it. I would argue the single most important variable for America until we get a vaccine is the active number of infected people in America. The economy won't improve until we have that under control no matter what anybody says. The number of deaths from this virus are a function of how many people get infected by the virus. So that is what matters. We're getting this virus under control. If we reverse course now, we will never get this virus under control. So we better fully understand the consequences of our actions. Maybe we should model outcomes (hint: all models, both economic and health are going to say we need to try to control this virus before we give up).

---

pandemic readiness: cluster **** - check

testing fiasco: cluster **** - check

masks don't work, oh yes they do: cluster **** - check

send kids home from school: cluster **** - check

use defense production act to turn an auto company (!) into a ventilator manufacturer because 'panic': cluster **** - check

2M dead let's panic: cluster **** - check

200K dead including distancing: cluster **** - check

oops not 200K, 60K less than a week later: cluster **** - check

consolidate at grocery stores in your neighborhood but don't go to work no matter what: cluster **** - check

on every side this has been a fiasco. which is why the food fight over 'my side's right yours is wrong' is a waste of time. all sides have created a complete fiasco.

modeling outcomes means modeling total health impact of policy decisions - all deaths over time (just the next several months), not just modeling only COVID death rate and ignoring all other health impacts as we have done - that single change in approach would have led to vastly more sophisticated decisions - not 'do nothing'.

the default is not to 'do nothing'. that is your simplistic effort to reduce this to some sort of politically motivated food fight and pigeon hole every argument into 'stay home' versus 'ignore it and reopen'.

---

Potential pandemics have infinite variables and might only come once a century. I actually am shocked at how well we've handled it, all things considered. Sure we could have been more prepared, but we will never be "prepared".

There was no supply chain for the testing. It's hard to develop a test for a new virus. Again it's something that maybe could have been started a month earlier, but testing isn't something you can be ready for before the virus is known to exist.

They were trying to let the healthcare system get ahold of masks over the general public. There was always going to be a shortage of masks. Furthermore, why is it shocking things change as our understanding of a virus that's only a few months old changes.

Sending kids home from school has likely slowed community spread more than any single policy. How is that a fiasco.

We have been short on ventilators in our hardest hit cities. And at the time it was entirely possible we would need many more than we think we do now. Again, the virus is new. There's a lot we still don't know. Things could have played out much worse than it looks like they are when that decision was made. So again, you're not appreciating the complexity and fluidity of the situation. (Why would anybody be upset over the ventilator thing???)

The 2MM dead was a (low) possibility if we did nothing. We did something. That still might be a possibility if we reverse course. Reversing course is the same thing as doing nothing originally, just occuring later. Most people modeled 1MM-2MM dead if we did nothing. There's obviously a lot of variables that go into that number, like how overwhelmed the healthcare system is. Once we enacted social distancing, literally nobody modeled 2MM dead. 200k wasn't even the p50 of the model you're making fun of, but again our behavoir is an input in the model. You're just being ignorant about models here.

Obviously people going to grocery stores isn't ideal, but people have to eat. Everything we can do to stop the spread matters. So that's why businesses are closed. It's not hard to understand. Going to the grocery store once a week is a lot less of a deal than seeing everybody in your office every week day who all went to the grocery store once this week.

COVID-19 is too widespread to realistically open anything up without a dramatic increase in spread in most urban communities. So I'm not really sure what the middle ground is. Again, this isn't a permenant thing we are doing or even until we have a vaccine we just need to get enough of a handle on it to manage the spread which means testing capacity, isolation, vigilance, some social distancing measures (at least some of: capacity limits, lack of handshakes, masks, no concerts or live sporting events), contact tracing etc.

All deaths are down quite substantially due to COVID-19. No traffic related deaths, fewer alcohol, and social related deaths etc. That still doesn't matter, because then you also have to model the COVID-19 deaths that will come about from policy changes (which will be wrong), and timing things incorrectly will mean that COVID-19 deaths dwarf everything else. Timing things right and everything is manageable.

Then what should we do. The virus went from a few people by the end of February to half a million in just over a month. If you don't control the virus the numbers are going to get so big so fast you will never be able to recover the situation since every infection is a function of the currently infected. Again, I think all of the policies enacted have been very reasonable given the threat... And the plan is to add things back in a measured way at the end of May or early June. There's no real middle ground there, because sending kids to school and employees to work and restaurants open is closer to "do nothing" than the current plan forward.

This **** is working. If we're patient, there is a really positive outcome (all things considered) that's possible in ~a month/month and a half. If we aren't we will have to start this over again if it goes south. And it'll take longer to fix next time. We will not recover economical until we have control over the virus.

California Ag 90 said:

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Gordo14 said:

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California Ag 90 said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

---

i don't believe, nor have stated, any such thing. we will never know what alternate courses of action may have created in terms of outcomes. we do know the outcome we have is dismal.

Please don't shove me into the wearisome simplistic food fight buckets of 'the policy has been right' vs. 'open everything up'.

i don't live in either place - i occupy the real world where we've (America) ****ed up just about every aspect of this, and should self examine and question EVERY THING that has transpired here.

i expect better of people than being incapable of seeing that this entire thing has been a colossal policy cluster ****, and that people with concerns on all sides are not evil greedy *******s nor conspiratorial leftists taking over the world.

and the models that are unforgivable did incorporate social distancing - that was not the problem, and were comically inaccurate.

with regard to the modeling efforts, that isn't what bothers me. the problem is, in a world of exceedingly complex multi-variate modeling capability in almost every sector of the economy, we used single variable (COVID19 death rate) epidemiological models to drive extremely complex policy decisions.

---

I disagree that America has ****ed up. Arguably out biggest **** up was not reacting a week or 2 sooner. This whole shut down would have been so much shorter and less costly in that scenario.

You're assuming that the economy (local, national, and global) would have just hummed along permenantly had no action been taken - which is not true. Again, we might of had 2 more weeks of blissful ignorance, but then people's behaviors would have changed due to this virus. And then to fix the problem (or ignore the problem) would have been orders of magnitude more damage - both economically and in terms of lives lost. I don't even think that's debatable if you really try to imagine a world where every day that we don't act you can add 40% to the total cumulative number of expected deaths. A lot of people that catch this virus get very ill even if they don't go to the hospital. And at hospitals you would have run out of space very quickly. It's very likely our healthcare system would have collapsed. So I reject that we ****ed this up unless you are suggesting we should have shut things down 2 weeks earlier (we'd be a lot closer to the end had that happened). I don't think you live in the real world. There is no "real world" where there isn't significant damage to the economy; the long term damage the economy is larger the more people get sick with this virus.

The models were not "unforgivable". And you're missing the point that social distancing isn't even binary. At the end of the day, the IHME mpdel was originally predicting 80,000, now it says 60,000. The difference between those numbers are 1-2 days of shutting down. Furthermore, the model has to incorporate some amount of non-adherance to social distancing... So again the point is there are still some very significant variables that were uncertain and therefore assumed. I mean even some parameters of the virus are not really understood, just ballparked. We didn't know how many people had the virus even! The point of the model is to make educated decisions. To notionally understand what decisions mean and should make. Sure accuracy is never going to be great when their are as many unknowns. But for the purpose of decision making 80,000 deaths is the same as 60,000 deaths or 100,000 deaths. If you are slightly wrong with one of two parameters you could easily have double the modeled result. This *****ing about the model is completely missing the point. And it's dangerous. You're arguing basically that we shouldn't project the result of actions because thise projections are wrong. I know why you're doing it - if you discredit models the default is do nothing.
That's how you make a terible situation disasterous. Because businesses incorrectly predict revenue doesn't mean they shouldn't model their business and make educated decisions. Sure there's a bit less uncertainty in business modeling because it's not modeling exponential growth with a bunch of unknown variables. But that's besides the point. You either model outcomes and make educated decisions knowing full well that the model is wrong or you cover your eyes and hope **** works.

I am very certain that the economy doesn't get better until we get control of this virus - which is possible if we have the infrastructure and resources dedicated to it. I would argue the single most important variable for America until we get a vaccine is the active number of infected people in America. The economy won't improve until we have that under control no matter what anybody says. The number of deaths from this virus are a function of how many people get infected by the virus. So that is what matters. We're getting this virus under control. If we reverse course now, we will never get this virus under control. So we better fully understand the consequences of our actions. Maybe we should model outcomes (hint: all models, both economic and health are going to say we need to try to control this virus before we give up).

---

pandemic readiness: cluster **** - check

testing fiasco: cluster **** - check

masks don't work, oh yes they do: cluster **** - check

send kids home from school: cluster **** - check

use defense production act to turn an auto company (!) into a ventilator manufacturer because 'panic': cluster **** - check

2M dead let's panic: cluster **** - check

200K dead including distancing: cluster **** - check

oops not 200K, 60K less than a week later: cluster **** - check

consolidate at grocery stores in your neighborhood but don't go to work no matter what: cluster **** - check

on every side this has been a fiasco. which is why the food fight over 'my side's right yours is wrong' is a waste of time. all sides have created a complete fiasco.

modeling outcomes means modeling total health impact of policy decisions - all deaths over time (just the next several months), not just modeling only COVID death rate and ignoring all other health impacts as we have done - that single change in approach would have led to vastly more sophisticated decisions - not 'do nothing'.

the default is not to 'do nothing'. that is your simplistic effort to reduce this to some sort of politically motivated food fight and pigeon hole every argument into 'stay home' versus 'ignore it and reopen'.

---

Think this sums up your position and debate skills.

California Ag 90 said:

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jwoodmd said:

---

California Ag 90 said:

---

Gordo14 said:

---

California Ag 90 said:

---

ORAggieFan said:

---

You seem to think that not having a government shutdown wouldn't result in either behavior changes that would affect businesses or a massive increase that would prove the models (that were without social distancing) true and putting is in a worse place.

I completely agree we need to start coming back as we remain below capacity, but that doesn't mean the policies didn't save lives. And just as easily as you want to throw the out risk to the dead because they're old or fragile, I'd ask why care about those who aren't financially stable to live months without income as we are told to plan for.

In the end, there is no easy decision here. We must balance everything and likely error on the side of cation.

---

i don't believe, nor have stated, any such thing. we will never know what alternate courses of action may have created in terms of outcomes. we do know the outcome we have is dismal.

Please don't shove me into the wearisome simplistic food fight buckets of 'the policy has been right' vs. 'open everything up'.

i don't live in either place - i occupy the real world where we've (America) ****ed up just about every aspect of this, and should self examine and question EVERY THING that has transpired here.

i expect better of people than being incapable of seeing that this entire thing has been a colossal policy cluster ****, and that people with concerns on all sides are not evil greedy *******s nor conspiratorial leftists taking over the world.

and the models that are unforgivable did incorporate social distancing - that was not the problem, and were comically inaccurate.

with regard to the modeling efforts, that isn't what bothers me. the problem is, in a world of exceedingly complex multi-variate modeling capability in almost every sector of the economy, we used single variable (COVID19 death rate) epidemiological models to drive extremely complex policy decisions.

---

I disagree that America has ****ed up. Arguably out biggest **** up was not reacting a week or 2 sooner. This whole shut down would have been so much shorter and less costly in that scenario.

You're assuming that the economy (local, national, and global) would have just hummed along permenantly had no action been taken - which is not true. Again, we might of had 2 more weeks of blissful ignorance, but then people's behaviors would have changed due to this virus. And then to fix the problem (or ignore the problem) would have been orders of magnitude more damage - both economically and in terms of lives lost. I don't even think that's debatable if you really try to imagine a world where every day that we don't act you can add 40% to the total cumulative number of expected deaths. A lot of people that catch this virus get very ill even if they don't go to the hospital. And at hospitals you would have run out of space very quickly. It's very likely our healthcare system would have collapsed. So I reject that we ****ed this up unless you are suggesting we should have shut things down 2 weeks earlier (we'd be a lot closer to the end had that happened). I don't think you live in the real world. There is no "real world" where there isn't significant damage to the economy; the long term damage the economy is larger the more people get sick with this virus.

The models were not "unforgivable". And you're missing the point that social distancing isn't even binary. At the end of the day, the IHME mpdel was originally predicting 80,000, now it says 60,000. The difference between those numbers are 1-2 days of shutting down. Furthermore, the model has to incorporate some amount of non-adherance to social distancing... So again the point is there are still some very significant variables that were uncertain and therefore assumed. I mean even some parameters of the virus are not really understood, just ballparked. We didn't know how many people had the virus even! The point of the model is to make educated decisions. To notionally understand what decisions mean and should make. Sure accuracy is never going to be great when their are as many unknowns. But for the purpose of decision making 80,000 deaths is the same as 60,000 deaths or 100,000 deaths. If you are slightly wrong with one of two parameters you could easily have double the modeled result. This *****ing about the model is completely missing the point. And it's dangerous. You're arguing basically that we shouldn't project the result of actions because thise projections are wrong. I know why you're doing it - if you discredit models the default is do nothing.
That's how you make a terible situation disasterous. Because businesses incorrectly predict revenue doesn't mean they shouldn't model their business and make educated decisions. Sure there's a bit less uncertainty in business modeling because it's not modeling exponential growth with a bunch of unknown variables. But that's besides the point. You either model outcomes and make educated decisions knowing full well that the model is wrong or you cover your eyes and hope **** works.

I am very certain that the economy doesn't get better until we get control of this virus - which is possible if we have the infrastructure and resources dedicated to it. I would argue the single most important variable for America until we get a vaccine is the active number of infected people in America. The economy won't improve until we have that under control no matter what anybody says. The number of deaths from this virus are a function of how many people get infected by the virus. So that is what matters. We're getting this virus under control. If we reverse course now, we will never get this virus under control. So we better fully understand the consequences of our actions. Maybe we should model outcomes (hint: all models, both economic and health are going to say we need to try to control this virus before we give up).

---

pandemic readiness: cluster **** - check

testing fiasco: cluster **** - check

masks don't work, oh yes they do: cluster **** - check

send kids home from school: cluster **** - check

use defense production act to turn an auto company (!) into a ventilator manufacturer because 'panic': cluster **** - check

2M dead let's panic: cluster **** - check

200K dead including distancing: cluster **** - check

oops not 200K, 60K less than a week later: cluster **** - check

consolidate at grocery stores in your neighborhood but don't go to work no matter what: cluster **** - check

on every side this has been a fiasco. which is why the food fight over 'my side's right yours is wrong' is a waste of time. all sides have created a complete fiasco.

modeling outcomes means modeling total health impact of policy decisions - all deaths over time (just the next several months), not just modeling only COVID death rate and ignoring all other health impacts as we have done - that single change in approach would have led to vastly more sophisticated decisions - not 'do nothing'.

the default is not to 'do nothing'. that is your simplistic effort to reduce this to some sort of politically motivated food fight and pigeon hole every argument into 'stay home' versus 'ignore it and reopen'.

---

Think this sums up your position and debate skills.

---

thanks coach.

your 'stay locked down indefinitely' and 'we've handled this perfectly' 'because i'm a doctor and therefore an expert on public health policy' position has been deeply considered and brilliantly argued.

statistics are catching up with you. well see how convinced you are in months to come as the full impact of this policy debacle plays out.

take care and stay safe.

---

You do have some comprehension problems. Show me where I explicitly stated these positions.