Gyroscopic Investing

jalanlong wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:35 am https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens ... n-doing-it

I am very confused. Most every major city already has a mask mandate and has for quite some time. At this point the only places that do not have one are very rural towns. I have not seen any widespread flaunting of the mask rules in my city at all. So if anything the recent rise in cases would suggest masks are not really effective, not that we need to "mask harder." What am I missing here? Or is this pure signaling with the appearance of just doing "something" to make people feel better?

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:39 am Humans are amazing when they want to be, part one million:

Hopefully this can be rolled out faster than expected and we can return to something normal in the first half of 2021!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/heal ... e=Homepage

The drug maker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people.

Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with the German drugmaker BioNTech, released only sparse details from its clinical trial, based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts.

The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. If the results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles. No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said.

----------And for the conspiracy minded-----------

The news comes just days after Joseph R. Biden Jr. clinched a victory over President Trump in the presidential election.

pp4me wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:16 pm I'm guessing they decided to wait until after the election for financial reasons rather than political. Allowing it to be labeled as the "Trump Vaccine" would have been bad for business.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:27 pm

pp4me wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:16 pm I'm guessing they decided to wait until after the election for financial reasons rather than political. Allowing it to be labeled as the "Trump Vaccine" would have been bad for business.

Last I checked, Trump is President until at least Jan 20 (and possibly four years beyond that, depending on the outcome of the legal battle), so it could still be labeled the "Trump Vaccine".

It's not like the MSM's coronation of Biden on Saturday gave Pfizer's scientists the innovative nudge they needed to finally identify the last piece of the biochemical puzzle unlocking the secret to developing their vaccine.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:27 pm

pp4me wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:16 pm I'm guessing they decided to wait until after the election for financial reasons rather than political. Allowing it to be labeled as the "Trump Vaccine" would have been bad for business.

Last I checked, Trump is President until at least Jan 20 (and possibly four years beyond that, depending on the outcome of the legal battle), so it could still be labeled the "Trump Vaccine".

It's not like the MSM's coronation of Biden on Saturday gave Pfizer's scientists the innovative nudge they needed to finally identify the last piece of the biochemical puzzle unlocking the secret to developing their vaccine.

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 2:30 pm Pfizer did not take government funds and was not part of Warp Speed.

The federal government is making investments in the necessary manufacturing capacity at its own risk, giving firms confidence that they can invest aggressively in development and allowing faster distribution of an eventual vaccine.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:16 pm By "ND won't let you leave," I assume you mean they'd suspend or expel the student if they leave anyways? I don't think ND has the legal right to physically restrain any students.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 6:01 pm People who are on the spectrum often think about issues in very concrete terms that relate directly to themselves rather than in more abstract terms that relate to other people.

Maddy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:14 pm ...
Instead of picking up instinctively on nuances and subtle social cues, people with autistic traits often require information be presented in a more concrete, logical way. A person on the spectrum may be entirely unable to discern what is meant by a disapproving glance, but when told "Your talking for 10 minutes straight is causing people to be bored," they can incorporate and appreciate the other person's meaning quite well.
...

WiseOne wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 8:54 am So Biden is saying we are in for a "very dark winter". Laughable....lots of COVID positive tests (which is how you should translate "cases" as reported in the media) but deaths will be pretty much within the norm for flu season.

What are you all planning for the "dark winter", which I presume is his way of signaling nationally enforced lockdowns? He doesn't say he will do that specifically in his todo list, but I don't know how else to translate this reference. I also suspect we will start hearing efforts to ban family holiday gatherings.

Interestingly, in my immediate family there are (so far as I am aware) two Trump voters besides me. One is my sister who is an ER doc, having been on the front lines of COVID back in March & April, and who still wears a mask in the house and is terrified of catching COVID at work and passing it to her kids. The other is my mother, who firmly believes that the COVID scare is overblown. None of us ever really discussed our voting choice except a couple of passing comments - none of which I initiated. My brother on the other hand, is a rabid anti-Trump type who has said stuff like hooray for the end of fascism, and fits in quite well with his state of residence (CA).

This background is interesting because of how we have all decided to handle the holidays: we are getting together for a series of visits and to heck with the rules. This is because COVID is indeed a thing but we all believe that this concern has to be balanced with my mother's quality of life & mental health - and that it's not the government's business to judge this for us.

Interesting how a fundamentally libertarian outlook interacts with voting decisions....seems kind of random, doesn't it?

doodle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:34 am North Dakota hospitals at 100% capacity

https://www.kfyrtv.com/2020/11/10/burg ... apacity/

WiseOne wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:04 am

doodle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:34 am North Dakota hospitals at 100% capacity

https://www.kfyrtv.com/2020/11/10/burg ... apacity/

Perfectly normal for this time of year. Remember that hospitals like to stay at 95%+ capacity all year round. During flu season, it is not uncommon for hospitals to fill up and go into bypass mode, where ambulances are directed to nearby hospitals that have capacity. They also typically have plans for expanding capacity, so the real ceiling is something like 105% of usual max. Depends on the hospital though.

You may be interested in this historical article reporting on hospital capacity issues during the 2017-2018 flu season:

https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-hand ... -patients/

Somehow, the world did not come to an end and I bet you never noticed anything was amiss. I'm going to guess we will see the same type of articles this winter, except with an added level of hysteria because COVID, plus you will be far more aware of them than you were in years past. That won't make it any more severe.

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 12:11 pm So this is just going to be a normal flu season?

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:46 pm But, -- if Covid already culled a large portion of those who would have been at risk of dying from flu, why are we still seeing these seemingly out of normal increases in hospitalizations/deaths? Wouldn't many of those have succumbed already?

Tortoise wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:54 pm

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:46 pm But, -- if Covid already culled a large portion of those who would have been at risk of dying from flu, why are we still seeing these seemingly out of normal increases in hospitalizations/deaths? Wouldn't many of those have succumbed already?

I've asked this question many times before, so I'm sorry to be a broken record, but...

How many of those people who recently died after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 were also tested for the flu or the common cold? Are the doctors who are filling out the death certificates fairly certain that those patients are dying as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and not because of the flu or common cold viruses?

Let's put our thinking caps on and imagine what sorts of graphs we would be seeing if every SARS-CoV-2 test were accompanied by a flu and cold test...

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:59 pm I think what I'm asking is cause-independent, mostly. If we had 200k+ excess deaths, from whatever reason, Covid or Covid induced, or heart attacks, or stress, between say Feb and Sept, then it would stand to reason that unless Covid (or something else) is still killing at a higher rate than "normal" that we should drop below the 5 year average of excess deaths?