Coronavirus General Discussion

[vnatale]

Fox News has leftists? I don't watch, what do you consider leftist? Would that be like Chris Wallace? The definition of left vs right is probably also in question!

IIRC, I saw several years ago that most Fox News employees were Democrats.

Tried to confirm that but could not. However came across the following.

Vinny

5 facts about Fox News

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -fox-news/


3On an ideological scale, the average Fox News consumer is to the right of the average U.S. adult, but not as far to the right as the audiences of some other outlets. As part of the November survey, the Center grouped the audiences of 30 news outlets on a scale based on the self-described ideology and partisanship of those who said they had gotten political news from each outlet in the past week. (You can read more about this classification system in this Q&A.) Based on this scale, the average audience member for Fox News is more likely than the average U.S. adult to be conservative and Republican. But the average audiences for four other outlets in the study – the Daily Caller, Breitbart News, and the Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh radio shows – are to the right of the average Fox News viewer

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[Tortoise]

You’ve got some good responses, for sure.

The realistic comment is in the US, in the current environment, regardless of Nov 3, makes your scenario less likely than an 18 year old dying of Covid. A vaccine is going to be rolled out even if it is only 50% effective. No way is herd immunity an option, unless we just get there naturally. Things may improve as things go on just because they are and people are tired, before a vaccine, but I see no other path.

Oh, I completely agree with you that the chance of most American states switching directions and adopting the herd immunity approach is close to zero now. That ship has sailed.

But I disagree that it's not an option. It always has been -- and still is -- a sensible option. Our society just refuses to seriously consider it because we've gone collectively bonkers over Covid-1984.

[Tortoise]

The strategy to dealing with experts on any topic seems to insert an element of doubt or the appearance of disagreement where there really isn't one. The same strategy is always used whether it is tobacco, human induced climate change, or face masks.

Are you seriously suggesting that there is no significant disagreement among virology and epidemiology experts (meaning all experts, not just the ones leading government agencies) regarding the efficacy of face masks and lockdowns in reducing total Covid-1984 hospitalizations and deaths?

It's bizarrely humorous to me how most people seem to have forgotten what the epidemiologists told us repeatedly in the beginning of the pandemic during the "15 Days to Flatten the Curve" campaign. They told us masks, social distancing, and lockdowns would spread the hospitalizations and deaths over a longer span of time but not reduce the total number of them. In other words, "the area under the curves is the same."

How quickly we forget.

Fauci has been constantly quoted as flip flopping by the right wing media.

I don't fault Fauci for changing his position on masks months ago as more data became available. I fault him for not changing his position now that we have even more data showing that Covid-1984 is an extra-large nothingburger for everyone except very old and/or sick people. It shows me quite clearly that Fauci has a political agenda to exaggerate the importance of his government agency (NIAID) and maximize its Covid-1984 funding for as long as possible at the expense of Americans' freedom and prosperity.

[drumminj]

ctest.jpg

Who knew I've been administering self-testing protocol during the entire pandemic!

[Cortopassi]

Fox News has leftists? I don't watch, what do you consider leftist? Would that be like Chris Wallace? The definition of left vs right is probably also in question!

IIRC, I saw several years ago that most Fox News employees were Democrats.

Tried to confirm that but could not. However came across the following.

Vinny

5 facts about Fox News

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -fox-news/


3On an ideological scale, the average Fox News consumer is to the right of the average U.S. adult, but not as far to the right as the audiences of some other outlets. As part of the November survey, the Center grouped the audiences of 30 news outlets on a scale based on the self-described ideology and partisanship of those who said they had gotten political news from each outlet in the past week. (You can read more about this classification system in this Q&A.) Based on this scale, the average audience member for Fox News is more likely than the average U.S. adult to be conservative and Republican. But the average audiences for four other outlets in the study – the Daily Caller, Breitbart News, and the Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh radio shows – are to the right of the average Fox News viewer

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Interesting chart. Now I know why I am most comfortable with CBS.

[WiseOne]

CDC study show 85% of Covid cases were people who Often or Always wear masks.

Rewrite that. "CDC shows mask wearing prevents 15% of cases"

Does that sound better? Currently there's about 7.83M cases, 215k deaths, .02746 CFR. If we prevented 15% of those cases with 100% mask usage (1.1745M), possibly could have saved (doing the math), ~32,250 deaths of the 215k so far.

I think I did that right.

Is that not a good enough reason?

Good math but faulty logic.

You would need to determine the prevalence of mask wearing in the general population, then compare that to mask wearing prevalence in the coronavirus cases. If 85% of the general population wears masks regularly, then (after adjusting for differences between the cases & the general population) you might conclude that mask wearing makes no difference. If 90%+ of the general population wears masks regularly and correctly (which I doubt) then you could conclude that masks might have a protective effect.

What I would actually expect to see is that a SMALLER proportion of the general population wears masks. That's because the population sick enough with COVID to show up at hospitals and get tested are probably more likely to be high risk, and more of them wear masks for personal protection.

[Cortopassi]

Ok, sure.

I'm certainly not always logical, but I'm typically realistic. Just like the local parents who want 100% School open right now are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to find every little possible thing that the school board is doing wrong to bolster their case. All it does is create animosity and it's not at all helpful in actually trying to solve the problem of getting kids back to school as soon as possible.

So your mask comments-- it would be great if a study could be done detailing all of this but I don't see that happening for years, if ever because this is all such real time stuff, and I would guess a lot of these relationships are not being documented.

It could eventually be determined they were utterly useless, sure.

But in the meantime just like washing your hands, just wear a mask, it's not going to kill you most likely!

I'm almost surprised there isn't some group somewhere against washing hands.

[I Shrugged]

Thank you WiseOne. I woke up this morning with the realization I had seen something wrong on the internet last night, and needed to fix it today. But you beat me to it!

You probably think I'm kidding.

[Mark Leavy]

Thank you WiseOne. I woke up this morning with the realization I had seen something wrong on the internet last night, and needed to fix it today. But you beat me to it!

You probably think I'm kidding.

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[Kriegsspiel]

Fox News has leftists? I don't watch, what do you consider leftist? Would that be like Chris Wallace? The definition of left vs right is probably also in question!

IIRC, I saw several years ago that most Fox News employees were Democrats.

Tried to confirm that but could not. However came across the following.

It might have been this, from 2013? I can't remember:

When it comes to political donations, Fox News’ parent company is lately catering to liberals as much as conservatives.

News Corp.’s News America-FOXPAC political action committee contributed to five Democratic political candidates during January, with Republican candidates scoring a goose egg, Federal Election Commission records show. link

[Kriegsspiel]

idiots

That's a plausible theory for why high school students SAT scores have fallen so much in recent years. Kids who wouldn't have bothered taking them, in the past, are taking them now. Maybe because colleges have lowered admission standards, or most jobs require a bachelor's degree now.

[Kriegsspiel]

That meme was satirical?

[Libertarian666]

idiots

That's a plausible theory for why high school students SAT scores have fallen so much in recent years. Kids who wouldn't have bothered taking them, in the past, are taking them now. Maybe because colleges have lowered admission standards, or most jobs require a bachelor's degree now.

What is this world coming to when satirical memes actually express the truth?

I'm sure the editors of the Babylon Bee wonder that every day.

[vnatale]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... i=17258835

Dr Anthony Fauci says letting Covid-19 spread to achieve herd immunity is 'ridiculous' as infections in the US reach a two-month high with 59k cases in a single day

Dr Anthony Fauci has argued that letting Covid-19 spread in the US to achieve herd immunity is 'ridiculous'
He made the comments on Thursday when asked about the anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration that was published earlier this week

The declaration, which was written by experts at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford, calls for the protection of people most at risk of dying from Covid-19

It argues that the rest of the population should be able to return to life as normal

Fauci said the declaration hides that fact that 30% of the population have underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible to Covid-19

It comes as the United States reached its highest number of daily Covid-19 infections in two months with more than 59,000 cases reported on Wednesday

Deaths, however, continue to trend downward nationally with an average of more than 700 Americans dying per day

[Kriegsspiel]

The declaration, which was written by experts at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford, calls for the protection of people most at risk of dying from Covid-19

It argues that the rest of the population should be able to return to life as normal

Fauci said the declaration hides that fact that 30% of the population have underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible to Covid-19

Umm...

"The declaration calls for the protection of people most at risk of dying from Covid-19."

So the people with underlying health conditions (or anyone who wants to, really) can continue locking themselves down.

[pp4me]

The Corona Virus Experts were wrong and now they need Scapegoats....

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/1 ... reenfield/

I found nearly every paragraph in this article to be highly quotable so I'll just share the last one....

The rule of the experts isn’t fighting the virus. It has become the virus.

[Cortopassi]

Gift from God keeps on giving.
-----------
Freshman enrollment has dropped more than 16 percent from last year at American colleges and universities — and by nearly a quarter at community colleges — as the threat of the coronavirus has disrupted the nation’s higher education system, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported Thursday.
-----------
Assuming it is still free, this animation is cool: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... e=Homepage

[Tortoise]

Biden campaign halts Kamala Harris' travel after two people in campaign's orbit test positive for coronavirus

Oopsie! Look what we have here...

[flyingpylon]

As Gov Cuomo and his extensive PR team attempt to “reimagine” his response to COVID-19, here’s a Twitter thread to remind everyone what an epic fail it really was.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1316 ... 96448.html

[Maddy]

One of the hallmarks of totalitarianism is mass conformity to a psychotic official narrative. Not a regular official narrative, like the “Cold War” or the “War on Terror” narratives. A totally delusional official narrative that has little or no connection to reality and that is contradicted by a preponderance of facts.
* * *
These narratives are invariably paranoid, portraying the cult as threatened or persecuted by an evil enemy or antagonistic force which only unquestioning conformity to the cult’s ideology can save its members from. It makes little difference whether this antagonist is mainstream culture, body thetans, counter-revolutionaries, Jews, or a virus.

The point is not the identity of the enemy. The point is the atmosphere of paranoia and hysteria the official narrative generates, which keeps the cult members (or the society) compliant.

In addition to being paranoid, these narratives are often internally inconsistent, illogical, and … well, just completely ridiculous. This does not weaken them, as one might suspect. Actually, it increases their power, as it forces their adherents to attempt to reconcile their inconsistency and irrationality, and in many cases utter absurdity, in order to remain in good standing with the cult.

Such reconciliation is of course impossible, and causes the cult members’ minds to short circuit and abandon any semblance of critical thinking, which is precisely what the cult leader wants.

Moreover, cult leaders will often radically change these narratives for no apparent reason, forcing their cult members to abruptly forswear (and often even denounce as “heresy”) the beliefs they had previously been forced to profess, and behave as if they had never believed them, which causes their minds to further short circuit, until they eventually give up even trying to think rationally, and just mindlessly parrot whatever nonsensical gibberish the cult leader fills their heads with.

Also, the cult leader’s nonsensical gibberish is not as nonsensical as it may seem at first. Most of us, upon encountering such gibberish, assume that the cult leader is trying to communicate, and that something is very wrong with his brain. The cult leader isn’t trying to communicate. He is trying to disorient and control the listener’s mind.
* * *
It is happening to most of our societies right now. An official narrative is being implemented. A totalitarian official narrative. A totally psychotic official narrative, no less delusional than that of the Nazis, or the Manson family, or any other cult.
* * *
When reality falls apart completely, the mind will create a delusional narrative, which appears just as “real” as our normal reality, because even a delusion is better than the stark raving terror of utter chaos.

This is what totalitarians and cult leaders count on, and exploit to implant their narratives in our minds, and why actual initiation rituals (as opposed to purely symbolic rituals) begin by attacking the subject’s mind with terror, pain, physical exhaustion, psychedelic drugs, or some other means of obliterating the subject’s perception of reality.

Once that is achieved, and the subject’s mind starts desperately trying to construct a new narrative to make sense out of the cognitive chaos and psychological trauma it is undergoing, it is relatively easy to “guide” that process and implant whatever narrative you want. . .
* * *
Their initiation into the Covidian Cult began in January, when the medical authorities and corporate media turned on The Fear with projections of hundreds of millions of deaths and fake photos of people dropping dead in the streets. The psychological conditioning has continued for months.

The global masses have been subjected to a constant stream of propaganda, manufactured hysteria, wild speculation, conflicting directives, exaggerations, lies, and tawdry theatrical effects. Lockdowns. Emergency field hospitals and morgues. The singing-dancing NHS staff. Death trucks. Overflowing ICUs. Dead Covid babies. Manipulated statistics. Goon squads. Masks. And all the rest of it.

Eight months later, here we are. The Head of the Health Emergencies Program at the WHO has basically confirmed an IFR of 0.14%, approximately the same as the seasonal flu.
* * *
The “science” argument is officially over. An increasing number of doctors and medical experts are breaking ranks and explaining how the current mass hysteria over “cases” (which now includes perfectly healthy people) is essentially meaningless propaganda. . .
* * *
Which does not matter in the least, not to the members of the Covidian Cult. Facts do not matter to totalitarians and cult members. What matters is loyalty to the cult or the party.

Which means we have a serious problem, those of us to whom facts still matter, and who have been trying to use them to convince the Covidian cultists that they are wrong about the virus … for going on eight months at this point.
* * *
What we are up against is not a misunderstanding or a rational argument over scientific facts. It is a fanatical ideological movement. A global totalitarian movement … the first of its kind in human history.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/13/the-covidian-cult/

[Cortopassi]

Chris Christie statement after his time in the ICU:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/politics ... index.html

Most important part, for me, my highlight:

I have also concluded that like much else in 2020, that the virus is governed by our two dominant
political and media extremes: those who believe there is nothing to this virus and those
alarmists who would continue to close down our country and not trust the common sense
of the American people. Both are wrong. This is not an either/or proposition. The public
health consequences of ignoring the virus and the responsible safeguards that we need to
take will be additional illness and death caused by COVID-19. The public policy
consequences of continuing to shut down or re-shut down our country will be further
economic devastation to families, even more loss of education by our students and the
continuing loss of life through the drug abuse, suicide and depression caused by taking
away people’s ability to support their families. There is another way.

[I Shrugged]

As Gov Cuomo and his extensive PR team attempt to “reimagine” his response to COVID-19, here’s a Twitter thread to remind everyone what an epic fail it really was.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1316 ... 96448.html

I went down this road with a friend who blames Trump for the early days of bad information. What see the Woodward book. So how does the March timeline of Cuomo's statements compare with information that was known or suspected by DC, and when was said info communicated to the states?

ie Did Cuomo know the situation yet, in early and mid March?

[Tortoise]

Chris Christie statement after his time in the ICU:
[...]

Christie goes on in his statement to describe his recommended approach (boldface mine):

Every public official, regardless of party or position, should advocate for every American to wear a mask in public, appropriately socially distance and to wash your hands frequently every day. At the same time, we should be reopening in every corner of this nation under these guidelines. Reopen all those places which have taken the brunt of these shutdowns and allow our country to get back to a life where citizens can support their families using common sense. Even during a contentious election year, we must trust the American people with the truth. I believe that these two steps can bring our country together while our pharmaceutical companies invent the therapeutics and vaccines which will rid us of this virus.

The problem with recommending that all Americans socially distance is that it's not viable long-term for many businesses like restaurants, movie theaters, and performance venues. If those businesses are allowed to operate only at 25-50% capacity to meet social distancing requirements, they will bleed red ink until they eventually go out of business. Many of them already have, even though they've "reopened". Christie doesn't acknowledge that in his letter.

Christie missed a good opportunity to point out that Covid-1984 doesn't pose the same risk to all Americans. It poses near-zero risk to most of the population and a much higher risk to the morbidly obese like Christie and to the very old.

It's really sad that "Let businesses reopen at full capacity while protecting the very old and the morbidly obese" is widely seen as an extreme position for some reason.

[doodle]

Chris Christie statement after his time in the ICU:
[...]

Christie goes on in his statement to describe his recommended approach (boldface mine):

Every public official, regardless of party or position, should advocate for every American to wear a mask in public, appropriately socially distance and to wash your hands frequently every day. At the same time, we should be reopening in every corner of this nation under these guidelines. Reopen all those places which have taken the brunt of these shutdowns and allow our country to get back to a life where citizens can support their families using common sense. Even during a contentious election year, we must trust the American people with the truth. I believe that these two steps can bring our country together while our pharmaceutical companies invent the therapeutics and vaccines which will rid us of this virus.

The problem with recommending that all Americans socially distance is that it's not viable long-term for many businesses like restaurants, movie theaters, and performance venues. If those businesses are allowed to operate only at 25-50% capacity to meet social distancing requirements, they will bleed red ink until they eventually go out of business. Many of them already have, even though they've "reopened". Christie doesn't acknowledge that in his letter.

Christie missed a good opportunity to point out that Covid-1984 doesn't pose the same risk to all Americans. It poses near-zero risk to most of the population and a much higher risk to the morbidly obese like Christie and to the very old.

It's really sad that "Let businesses reopen at full capacity while protecting the very old and the morbidly obese" is widely seen as an extreme position for some reason.

I think that is probably the most rational position at this time....at least it is worth a try...there will be casualties for sure. Children and young people will get sick and die. This will complicate the situation..but as has been mentioned before kids die in car accidents too and we don't stop driving... I think that if our politicians behaved like adults and we had a leader who was better at communicating in the white house that might actually be very possible. Unfortunately none of those are true...humans suck.

[I Shrugged]

The death rate doesn't seem to be much worse than a bad flu though.
ALTHOUGH, if the PCR tests are indeed putting out a lot of positives that are functional false, then that would make the death rate look lower.