Coronavirus 2019-nCov: Political Thread

[wufan]

I don't believe you have sufficient evidence to accuse someone of purposely lying. When you make those kinds of value judgments, and you are relying on information you have not been able to validate, you will be wrong about 100% of the time.

What direct provable evidence do you have that this is a deliberate distortion? I'm talking something that you have, directly seen (not read), were directly involved in. Not relying on someone's POV.

I read an article with charts and quotes presented. I’m not attending any press conferences, and I’m guessing you aren’t either. So if neither of us can rely on charts and quotes presented as written information, then how can either of us say anything on the subject?

I flatly reject this line of thinking, so I’m going to go on trying to decipher what’s happening. I’m guessing that since you buy into this logic that you won’t be posting anymore.

[wufan]

I'd argue it's closer to true if you said "Why are ALL government entities lying about COVID". We as a country have made this political .. both sides have. Until most Americans can step back and see that and stop pointing fingers to the other side, it's not going to get any better. This also applies to just about anything with politics. Their entire jobs have turned into saying what they think the American public needs to hear to gain their next vote rather than actually telling the truth.

You’ve the lost the plot. I was using a specific example with charts and quotes and was referring to that specific entity in my post. Can you not accept that? Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t there so it couldn’t have happened.

[wufan]

WuDrWu alluded to this in another thread. If we are masking and social distancing, then why can’t schools be open? Either it works and we should do it, or it doesn’t work so why bother?

[Stickboy46]

You’ve the lost the plot. I was using a specific example with charts and quotes and was referring to that specific entity in my post. Can you not accept that? Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t there so it couldn’t have happened.

No you are trying to take 1 specific example that benefits your side while asking that everyone ignore all the examples that don't benefit your side. So no I can't accept that only one side does this, because it's not reality.

[Stickboy46]

WuDrWu alluded to this in another thread. If we are masking and social distancing, then why can’t schools be open? Either it works and we should do it, or it doesn’t work so why bother?

I think if we had 100% masking and social distancing we could. The question is ... how do you get a bunch of young kids to do that all the time? I don't know if that is actually possible without some crazy draconian measures.

To be clear, I'm all for a mixed model that lets people choose. There is no reason in this day and age that we can't stream classes. Let the people that want their kids to stay home to have that option. It puts extra burden on the parents to make sure the kids are doing what they are supposed to but that's their choice. For the ones that want to send their kids, give them the option to go to class with mandated masks/distancing. By opening up those options you will likely created additional space for distancing to be more realistic.

[wufan]

No you are trying to take 1 specific example that benefits your side while asking that everyone ignore all the examples that don't benefit your side. So no I can't accept that only one side does this, because it's not reality.

I literally quoted a specific article. This was a specific event. Why are you projecting I’ll intent?

[wufan]

I think if we had 100% masking and social distancing we could. The question is ... how do you get a bunch of young kids to do that all the time? I don't know if that is actually possible without some crazy draconian measures.

To be clear, I'm all for a mixed model that lets people choose. There is no reason in this day and age that we can't stream classes. Let the people that want their kids to stay home to have that option. It puts extra burden on the parents to make sure the kids are doing what they are supposed to but that's their choice. For the ones that want to send their kids, give them the option to go to class with mandated masks/distancing. By opening up those options you will likely created additional space for distancing to be more realistic.

It’s required in the school. If they aren’t doing it, you send them home.

We chose to send our kids. They said we are at medium risk, (because one in 2000 people are infected) so they can’t go.

[Stickboy46]

It’s required in the school. If they aren’t doing it, you send them home.

We chose to send our kids. They said we are at medium risk, (because one in 2000 people are infected) so they can’t go.

We have people screaming at retail employees for asking adults to wear a mask. You really think schools want to be responsible for sending a kids home that refuses to wear a mask or "not play with their friend".

[Stickboy46]

I literally quoted a specific article. This was a specific event. Why are you projecting I’ll intent?

I was expanding on it. You quoted "certain entities". I was expanding that it's likely closer to all than just "certain" entities when it comes to government. None should be lieing or faking data. I'm of the opinion that the majority of them do.

[WuDrWu]

I think if we had 100% masking and social distancing we could. The question is ... how do you get a bunch of young kids to do that all the time? I don't know if that is actually possible without some crazy draconian measures.

To be clear, I'm all for a mixed model that lets people choose. There is no reason in this day and age that we can't stream classes. Let the people that want their kids to stay home to have that option. It puts extra burden on the parents to make sure the kids are doing what they are supposed to but that's their choice. For the ones that want to send their kids, give them the option to go to class with mandated masks/distancing. By opening up those options you will likely created additional space for distancing to be more realistic.

What is your stance on returning to "normalcy"? And it's an honest question even though you may think I'm being snarky or otherwise.

In your mind, is there no return to any school unless there's a zero chance of transmitting or catching COVID? I can't think that's your or anyone's stance because it's not just unreasonable it's impossible. So a 1% chance? 10%? I guess I'm looking for where and when it's going to be ok. Or is it never going to be ok?

And you can't just say "well it has to be better than it is now"...….there has to be a threshold where it's ok to let people return to school and large events and it has to be measured, or it's never going to happen.

UNLESS it's going to happen when things politically favor the decision makers. (I know, black helicopters and all)

And will it just be COVID that's the concern or are there other illnesses that can't be transmitted? Will it be ok to transmit the flu for instance?

[ShockerFever]

What is your stance on returning to "normalcy"? And it's an honest question even though you may think I'm being snarky or otherwise.

In your mind, is there no return to any school unless there's a zero chance of transmitting or catching COVID? I can't think that's your or anyone's stance because it's not just unreasonable it's impossible. So a 1% chance? 10%? I guess I'm looking for where and when it's going to be ok. Or is it never going to be ok?

And you can't just say "well it has to be better than it is now"...….there has to be a threshold where it's ok to let people return to school and large events and it has to be measured, or it's never going to happen.

UNLESS it's going to happen when things politically favor the decision makers. (I know, black helicopters and all)

And will it just be COVID that's the concern or are there other illnesses that can't be transmitted? Will it be ok to transmit the flu for instance?

That’s where I’m lost at. I thought the whole initial goal was to “bend curves”. That’s now magically changed to the unattainable goal of zero percent infection rate.

[wufan]

We have people screaming at retail employees for asking adults to wear a mask. You really think schools want to be responsible for sending a kids home that refuses to wear a mask or "not play with their friend".

Yes

[Stickboy46]

What is your stance on returning to "normalcy"? And it's an honest question even though you may think I'm being snarky or otherwise.

In your mind, is there no return to any school unless there's a zero chance of transmitting or catching COVID? I can't think that's your or anyone's stance because it's not just unreasonable it's impossible. So a 1% chance? 10%? I guess I'm looking for where and when it's going to be ok. Or is it never going to be ok?

And you can't just say "well it has to be better than it is now"...….there has to be a threshold where it's ok to let people return to school and large events and it has to be measured, or it's never going to happen.

UNLESS it's going to happen when things politically favor the decision makers. (I know, black helicopters and all)

And will it just be COVID that's the concern or are there other illnesses that can't be transmitted? Will it be ok to transmit the flu for instance?

Depends on how you define normalcy IMO. Will we ever go back to the exact way things were at the end of 2019? No i don't think so, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think this has sped up the adoption of some changes that had gotten held up because "that's not the way we do it" got in the way. Things like working from home and remote learning. There was already a trend there and no reason it shouldn't be more prevalent beside not wanting to stray from the norm and the way things have always been. So i think things like that will never get back to the way they were completely.

As far as when for everything else? That's a tougher question. The two things to me that make this different than most other things like the "flu" is 1. it appears to be way easier to spread. 2. There appear to be potential unknown long term health risks even if you don't die or get really bad up front. That's why to me, when you focus on just the number of people that died vs the number of cases, it's a little misleading. There is a huge range of outcomes that fall in between. That's a huge unknown. I'm not a doctor, but i do have close family members that are in the front line of this. One of their quotes has been something to the effect of "The virus doesn't behave like a normal virus. We don't know when we admit a patient if tomorrow they will be going home or they will be on a ventilator." The reason i used the word "appears" in both of those is because this is all new. This isn't the flu that we know what to expect. Yes we know people will get sick, some will die, but we have a general understanding of how it operates year to year along with ways to mitigate it. We don't know with COVID if we just go full bore open up, if half the population will end up disabled or dead (not saying that is what I think would happen, just stating we don't know). To me, there isn't a magic number of what we need to hit, but we do need to have 1 or 2 of a couple different things.

1. A way to limit spread (Vaccine)
2. A cure
3. A treatment that mitigates long term consequences
4. Enough knowledge about the virus to know how/why it does what it does so we mitigate the impact.
5. Confidence/ability/turnaround on testing

From where we are at right now, #1 and 5 looks like the most realistic and potentially quickest options. I do think masks/social distancing would help and have seem to help in other countries. The hardest part is the compliance part (which is where it starts to get REALLY political). and unfortunately, the people that aren't compliant aren't the ones at risk normally, it's the people around them. As far as #5, if we can get a test that is accurate on/before you are able to spread it and can be turned around quickly, it would help a ton with planning larger scenarios like schools/sports/events etc until we can get to #1. Right now, the tests either aren't reliable enough, don't show positive until after you could have been infecting others, or just take too long to get a result back.

I don't think #2 (a cure) will happen anytime soon if ever. I think we have some options for 3 but as we are looking at "long term" consequences, that will likely take a while until we can feel confident of exactly what those long term effects are. This same question applies to the vaccine unfortunately. There are potential side effects from a rushed vaccine that we might not see for a while. For #4, We are starting to gain knowledge of how it works but at least in the US, the knowledge has become political and it's really hard to trust either side ride now. There are too many people with vested interests in putting out knowledge that might not be fully vetted or just flat out untrue in order to get a temporary benefit from it.

So that probably halfway answered your question. As with most things I see both sides. There is a huge middle ground between "Let's open everything up, every man for himself and act like nothing is different in the world" and "let's close everything down and hide in our basements until a vaccine is created". There are some things that are harder than others to get opened up and back to "normal". Let's just face those and not act like we have to be extreme on one end or the other.

[Stickboy46]

Yes

Ok, then we just agree to disagree there.

[wufan]

What is your stance on returning to "normalcy"? And it's an honest question even though you may think I'm being snarky or otherwise.

In your mind, is there no return to any school unless there's a zero chance of transmitting or catching COVID? I can't think that's your or anyone's stance because it's not just unreasonable it's impossible. So a 1% chance? 10%? I guess I'm looking for where and when it's going to be ok. Or is it never going to be ok?

And you can't just say "well it has to be better than it is now"...….there has to be a threshold where it's ok to let people return to school and large events and it has to be measured, or it's never going to happen.

UNLESS it's going to happen when things politically favor the decision makers. (I know, black helicopters and all)

And will it just be COVID that's the concern or are there other illnesses that can't be transmitted? Will it be ok to transmit the flu for instance?

That’s my question too. The policy makers in my county are using “low, medium, and high” risk as their defined standards, however I can’t find where they have defined those. I just don’t understand how we are at medium risk with so few cases.

the current infected population (active cases) is 0.05% of the population. You can’t get a ton lower than that.