Just to keep track of the nonsense that has wrecked our economy and generally made our politicians run around as if their fool heads were on fire, each day I publish the corona virus total death toll in the US based upon the latest data I can find. A single death is an immense tragedy if you love the person. However, we are not talking about love, but rather public policy, which should always involve a sober analysis of risk and cost. Please recall that in a bad normal flu year our death toll in the US can be as high as 90,000.
Note: this will be a total death toll since the beginning of this bad farce, and not a daily toll. As of the beginning of April 25 the death toll is 52,217. May the Perpetual Light shine upon them.
I asked a while ago where the key transition points are for people. I know we’re talking about data quality and counterfactuals, which make it tougher. But for me, if there had been less than 10k deaths, I would take as a given that the whole thing was an overreaction. For me, if we reach 70k deaths with all of the conditions we’ve set up, I have to take it that this was a serious virus. That doesn’t mean every precaution was necessary or even beneficial, but it does put this virus in the category of extreme health concern.
Conditions like forcing nursing homes to take known infected patients back in, refusing treatment if people can’t be revived on site, and deciding to add thousands of COVID-19 on top of that?
Oh, and don’t forget, not shutting down the subway system.
Was the First Great Depression of the 21st century – with 170+ million in desperation and poverty – worth the “precautions?”
“Their intentions were pure.”, they said.
For me, the “this was a massive over-reaction that’s headed into malice” was hit when we didn’t do basic precautions until it was too late, we only some of the proposed solutions, and our numbers were still way below the projections for if we did everything suggested, immediately.
More evidence for tipping the scales from stupid to homicide:
“New York refused to send nursing home’s COVID-19 patients to nearly empty USNS Comfort”
Ernst, last I heard the Comfort was only taking non-coronavirus patients. That might not be a good plan, but it isn’t homicidal.
Your information is out of date.
Fox – A Christian can speculate on efficacy, or even on competence. I don’t see how we have the right to speculate on malice.
Depraved indifference? Negligent homicide?
OK, I was out of date. It sounds like the Comfort took in coronavirus patients for a while, but isn’t taking any more, and is preparing to leave. Is that homicidal? It sounds like bad planning.
OT: The book lovers here should appreciate this.
My oldest is organizing a book drive, and, in the latest batch of donated books, was a hardcover 1st edition of The Godfather. No dust jacket, boards are soiled, (looks like coffee stains) but the binding is tight and the edges aren’t bumped.
Jackpot! right?
Library Discard.
In some cases the motivations are so clear that we can speculate on malice. For example, the mainstream media claimed that President Trump told people to drink or inject bleach.
This was a malicious lie. It was much too far away from what was actually said to be a conclusion that they could have reached through an honest mistake. Furthermore, spreading the lie not only is evil in how it defames the president, but by saying that the president advised people to put bleach into their bodies (which, again, he did not even get close to saying) there is a good chance that someone might now take it as good advice. And we can be sure that the media know this, and would love to see someone actually do it. After all, they have already blamed President Trump for a family that ingested fish tank cleaner (despite that not even being close to the medical version of hydroxychloroquinine and despite several aspects of that case being very suspicious).
They intentionally lied about what the president said not only to try to damage him, but in the hopes that someone would die which they could use as further ammunition to damage him further. To say otherwise at this juncture would we require ignoring what was actually said by the president along with everything that the media has already done.
We are meant to be innocent as doves yes, but also as wise as serpents.
Addendum to my previous comment:
I just found out that there are already articles blaming President Trump’s comments for people actually drinking bleach. See for example:
https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-new-yorkers-household-cleaners-trump-20200425-rnaqio5dyfeaxmthxx2vktqa5m-story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true
http://archive.is/ZJEqw
I did not know this when I wrote the comment, though I’m not surprised in the slightest.
The media wants people to die to better serve their goals. There is no exaggeration in that statement.
I don’t see how we have the right to speculate on malice.
Charity does not demand that we pretend that no man ever wishes the deliberate harm of another.
The facts we have are that medical officials, while there was a lock down on nursing homes to prevent the spread of the virus to them, with the full knowledge that nursing homes contain exclusively the population which is most vulnerable to deadly cases of this virus, when there was no overcrowding of the hospitals, used the force of law to introduce known infected cases into that locked down population.
As well insist that a toxicologist that dumps antifreeze into the soup with his own hand cannot be ‘speculated’ to be acting out of malice.
There is nothing loving about pretending that there is no detectable pattern in New York.
OK, I was out of date. It sounds like the Comfort took in coronavirus patients for a while, but isn’t taking any more, and is preparing to leave. Is that homicidal? It sounds like bad planning.
How is unneeded hospital space that went mostly unused leaving the area after it becomes clear it isn’t needed, a matter of bad planning?
Contrast with kicking people out of empty hospitals and sending them into highly vulnerable populations, rather than the empty hospital ship, because your models say there will be a surge in infections Any Day Now, which will overwhelm your population.
Great viewing:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/two-california-emergency-room-covid-doctors-may-start-a-revolution-with-calm-science-data-based-press-conference-questioning-of-extreme-measures
The New York Post reported body bags were also sent to the nursing homes as the Covid19 patients.
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Back in March before this house arrest we are still under, a fellow sports club member made a reference to the Chinese government wanting/needing to unload the country of its elderly population-their one-child policy has caused a severe demographic imbalance. It is an imbalance many countries suffer.
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I’ve seen articles here and there for years now how Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid will completely destroy the state and federal government budgets in the future–which is looking more and more like the present.
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Democratic governors do not care about unborn babies. The unborn do not vote or donate money. It’s a pretty good guess they are not too concerned about nursing home residents who probably do not tend to vote or give money either–although the State supports them financially, with money the state increasingly does not have. It is most convenient the dead do not cost as much.
DJH, you’re wrong about nursing home residents not voting. Friendly volunteers from your county’s Democratic party organization go to the nursing homes and help them to fill out their absentee / mail-in ballots.
So helpful of them!
models say […]
there will be a surge in infections Any Day Now,
[edited for sarcasm with apologies for foxfire]
The IMHE model for South Dakota on April 13 predicted the Wuhan flu would start to rain down like the Holy Ghost on the Mount Rushmore State on May 1st. The updated model for April 23 moved the reckoning to mid May.
I guess the Wuhan Flu was busy on the 1st and had to reschedule.
The IHME recently released estimates about when lockdowns, in their view, would be able to be relaxed in each state. Or to use their exact phrase “when US states could consider easing social distancing”. The assumption is that no one would even dare consider relaxing the lockdown orders before the IHME wants to, but if they want to be extra cautious and keep them up after the dates given the IHME doesn’t have a problem with that.
What criteria did they use to get their dates? When their 95% confidence interval allows for less than 1 infection requiring hospitalization per one million people. For example, in Minnesota there would have to be less than 6 people in the entire state who are hospitalized with the Coronavirus before the IHME would even like us to consider opening the state. And really it’s even worse than that, since they are taking the high end of their confidence interval which has never even been close to the actual counts. For example, today the top of their interval predicts 1,500 hospitilzations; in reality there are 288.
So following their model Minnesota is not allowed to open up until May 31 where the IHME’s worst case scenario posits 4 people in the hospital. Even May 24 would be far too early because at that point their worst case scenario predicts 39 in the hospital (while their average prediction gives 7 and if reality stays as far below the prediction as it has in the past we might have 3 or 4 in the hospital at this point).
Even if we grant the absolute worst case scenario predicted by their own models at this point, their suggests still don’t make sense.
Yes, absurdities abound. In my town of Venice, FL populated by 23,376 exactly 3 have died due to the virus. No statistics are available for those who died because of lock down parameters at the local hospital.