Coronavirus 2019-nCov: Political Thread

[wichshock65]

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?

I guarantee the answer they are looking for is a 0% chance. That's where I get so frustrated with all the crap going on right now. I did a quick Google search and find out that between October of last year and April of this year, CDC estimates up to 65,000 people died of the flu. The flu is something that a vaccine is available and that is spread around school, and even taken home to parents and grandparents. Sound familiar?

[Stickboy46]

I guarantee the answer they are looking for is a 0% chance. That's where I get so frustrated with all the crap going on right now. I did a quick Google search and find out that between October of last year and April of this year, CDC estimates up to 65,000 people died of the flu. The flu is something that a vaccine is available and that is spread around school, and even taken home to parents and grandparents. Sound familiar?

It is familiar. The counter to that is that in 2 months less time (March - July), there have been ~160k deaths due to COVID. So less time, triple the amounts of deaths AND during that time we had multiple months of crazy lock down measures.

As I stated above, we know what the impacts of the Flu are and we've accepted them. We do not know what the impacts would be from COVID if we just went along life as usual. While I agree 0% is unreasonable and will never happen, there has to be a better understanding of exactly what those impacts are before we go full bore open everything up.

[wichshock65]

It is familiar. The counter to that is that in 2 months less time (March - July), there have been ~160k deaths due to COVID. So less time, triple the amounts of deaths AND during that time we had multiple months of crazy lock down measures.

As I stated above, we know what the impacts of the Flu are and we've accepted them. We do not know what the impacts would be from COVID if we just went along life as usual. While I agree 0% is unreasonable and will never happen, there has to be a better understanding of exactly what those impacts are before we go full bore open everything up.

I get what youre saying Stick but the "up to 60k dying" over the flu season (~ 6 months) is WITH a vaccine. Is ~120k COVID deaths per year once we have a vaccine a going to acceptable? 200k? 300k?

[Shockm]

It is familiar. The counter to that is that in 2 months less time (March - July), there have been ~160k deaths due to COVID. So less time, triple the amounts of deaths AND during that time we had multiple months of crazy lock down measures.

As I stated above, we know what the impacts of the Flu are and we've accepted them. We do not know what the impacts would be from COVID if we just went along life as usual. While I agree 0% is unreasonable and will never happen, there has to be a better understanding of exactly what those impacts are before we go full bore open everything up.

All deaths are up. How many consequences and deaths will we have if we don't try to live normal lives?

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...lassified-suc

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/0...-from-covid-19

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925e2.htm

[Stickboy46]

I get what youre saying Stick but the "up to 60k dying" over the flu season (~ 6 months) is WITH a vaccine. Is ~120k COVID deaths per year once we have a vaccine a going to acceptable? 200k? 300k?

I don't have a magic number on that. I'd be disappointed if with a Vaccine it's 200 to 300k but if that's the case we have to re-evaluate at that time. To me, that means we really don't have a useable vaccine if that's the case. Yet again, not for sure why we need to come up with a magic number in order to go to one extreme or the other. Whole lot of middle ground in this.

[Stickboy46]

All deaths are up. How many consequences and deaths will we have if we don't try to live normal lives?

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...lassified-suc

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/0...-from-covid-19

I'm not sure I got the same conclusion from the articles that you did.

First article basically says that there are actually more COVID deaths than reported because the increase in "excess deaths" happened before testing ramped up or impacts of COVID were understood as well. So therefore there were likely things that were classified as heart failures and such that were actually COVID, but they didn't test them because it wasn't respiratory (which was the focus at the time). So that actually pushes for the opposite than "try to live normal lives"

For the second article article also mentions the same effect. It also mentions a few other causes. I agree that suicides are up because of the impacts of lockdowns/shutdowns. Is that amount higher than the amount of people that would have died from COVID if we never shut down? I don't know, and no one does. The other is the fear of contracting COVID preventing people from going to get health care otherwise. As far as I'm aware, there was never a lockdown on going to get health care. That was just a self imposed thing by many people. If we just say "Hey lets all go live our lives like there isn't COVID", that isn't going to likely change many of those peoples minds that are trying to avoid catching it. So I don't really see how that will lower those deaths by much. The only thing that will change that is when we have it either under control or a vaccine/treatment for it.

[wichshock65]

I don't have a magic number on that. I'd be disappointed if with a Vaccine it's 200 to 300k but if that's the case we have to re-evaluate at that time. To me, that means we really don't have a useable vaccine if that's the case. Yet again, not for sure why we need to come up with a magic number in order to go to one extreme or the other. Whole lot of middle ground in this.

And that's the problem is going down that rabbit hole. If we have a vaccine and still have 200k plus deaths per year, do we shut down the country until an acceptable vaccine Is available? Unfortunately, I think the answer is who happens to be in the White House. If it's Trump, unacceptable loss of life and shut down the country. If it's Biden, Perfectly acceptable.

[Stickboy46]

And that's the problem is going down that rabbit hole. If we have a vaccine and still have 200k plus deaths per year, do we shut down the country until an acceptable vaccine Is available? Unfortunately, I think the answer is who happens to be in the White House. If it's Trump, unacceptable loss of life and shut down the country. If it's Biden, Perfectly acceptable.

I think that answer says more about you than it does about the situation. Yet again. There are more than two options. It doesn't have to be shut down the country or Open everything back up.

Also, I don't know why you are referring to "looking at the data and making a logical choice then adjusting as we gain more knowledge" as a rabbit hole. The real rabbit hole is saying we have to make a choice and stick with it no matter what or else we will look bad.

[ShockerFever]

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.

So in your new normal, socializing is a thing of the past. Do you think work productivity is better at home or at the office? I’m not even gonna ask that same question in regards to schools because studies have already shown that experiment failed miserably last spring.

If you want to permanently take away the social aspects of work and school, you’re gonna end up with a bunch more serious problems than Covid.

[ShockingButTrue]

There are more than two options. It doesn't have to be shut down the country or Open everything back up.

My apologies for jumping into this late. But if it's not an either/or why are people, mostly on the left, condoning shutting down schools when more children have been killed in Chicago in '20 than have died from this virus? Science hasn't even yet verified the validity of wearing masks 8+ hours a day. And really, shutting down the country was nothing but an experiment, and still is, with not much success to show for it. No? So using that model of failure it's now "let's shut down every institution of learning?" It's been nothing but either/or up to now, per -ahem- expert suggestion.

How many cases in this country are asymptomatic? What are the traits of the people most at risk for fatality? Shouldn't we by now be extending extra attention in their direction? We know that for a fact; it's really the only one to work with up to this point. That's just plain common sense.

Your obviously a biden supporter right? Please don't be offended by that question as this is the political forum. I'm just trying to gather some context because there seems to be a pattern to one's opinions concerning this virus in the absence of any reliable science, other than morbidity trends.

Not trolling. This is an open debate.

[ShockerFever]

I think that answer says more about you than it does about the situation. Yet again. There are more than two options. It doesn't have to be shut down the country or Open everything back up.

Also, I don't know why you are referring to "looking at the data and making a logical choice then adjusting as we gain more knowledge" as a rabbit hole. The real rabbit hole is saying we have to make a choice and stick with it no matter what or else we will look bad.

This economy and job situation if stuck in the same tweener situation as it is now is not that viable and will have worse outcomes than the official Covid death count.

[Stickboy46]

My apologies for jumping into this late. But if it's not an either/or why are people, mostly on the left, condoning shutting down schools when more children have been killed in Chicago in '20 than have died from this virus? Science hasn't even yet verified the validity of wearing masks 8+ hours a day. And really, shutting down the country was nothing but an experiment, and still is, with not much success to show for it. No? So using that model of failure it's now "let's shut down every institution of learning?" It's been nothing but either/or up to now, per -ahem- expert suggestion.

How many cases in this country are asymptomatic? What are the traits of the people most at risk for fatality? Shouldn't we by now be extending extra attention in their direction? We know that for a fact; it's really the only one to work with up to this point. That's just plain common sense.

Your obviously a biden supporter right? Please don't be offended by that question as this is the political forum. I'm just trying to gather some context because there seems to be a pattern to one's opinions concerning this virus in the absence of any reliable science, other than morbidity trends.

Not trolling. This is an open debate.

As far as the Chicago thing. The fear isn't the kids will die IMO .. it's that the kids will create additional spread to adults .. that will die or have long term consequences. As far as masks, you are correct they haven't 100% verified the validity of it stopping the spread. I'm for masks, because frankly, it's not that big of a deal and if it has a pretty good chance of slowing it down even if not 100% verified, I'm all for it. Wearing a mask has stopped me from doing exactly zero things that I wanted to do. I had zero impacts to my freedom because of the mask. Now the US letting everything get out of control by making it political? That has 100% prevented me from doing stuff I wanted to do. My US passport is worthless and I've had to move my trip to Europe multiple times now because we are no longer welcome there until we figure this out. I'm hoping by Spring I'll finally be able to go.

Also, we never really shut our country down. Certain pockets did. With how much freedom of movement there is in the US, unless everyone does it, then it's just going to spread from the places that didn't shut down. We also staggered our shut downs and put a lot of exceptions in it. Fully shutting the country down is what places like Greece and New Zealand did. Even places like Italy that were extremely hard hit in the very beginning are in way better shape than we are. Those shut downs for the most part controlled the spread (yes WAY smaller countries so much easier to control than in the US). I'm also think we are WAY past that and there is no way it would ever work in the US. If we could realistically do that, it would stop the spread very quickly. We can't maintain our economy like that and the cost to maintain our people during a shutdown compared to a Greece/New Zealand is astronomical. That's why we have to find some middle ground on our response at this point in time.

As far as the traits for fatality .. I'm still not sure we have enough data. It's very unpredictable and yet again fatality is only one outcome. There appears to be more cases coming up with people having long term consequences from it. So i don't think we have enough data on that. We only have half a year, whereas the Flu that everyone likes to compare it to... we have a century or more worth of data. That's why the responses are different.

As far as who I'm voting for? ... So far I've stated that I'm not for shutting everything down nor for opening everything up full bore. So right down the middle. I actually stated in this thread I was for a hybrid back to school approach. Why would you assume that means I'm for Biden? Are you saying that unless you are for full bore no exceptions everything is open and "back to normal", you must be a Biden voter?

[WuDrWu]

If I understand the CDC article (and I'm not about to claim that I do) the hospitalization rate for children under 18 due to COVID is 8 per 100,000 (under 18). ****ING EIGHT.

And that's hospitalization.....where we've gotten a ton better treating this thing. Does anyone even know of a serious athlete that has had COVID, and suffered a life altering change? Anywhere?

8 per 100,000 under 18. That's science. Saying kids are going to die....not science.

[WuDrWu]

And I want to be clear about something....this has nothing to do with my own want of personal entertainment. Sure, I want to watch the kids compete, it's fun.

But I couldn't care less to be honest, as far as I'm concerned. I want these kids to compete because I believe it makes them better adults. And not EVERY athlete, but enough of them to make a huge difference. It is being taken away from them by crazy people that aren't using science or common sense. And it's the kids that are suffering and I will defend them any way I can.

[Stickboy46]

If I understand the CDC article (and I'm not about to claim that I do) the hospitalization rate for children under 18 due to COVID is 8 per 100,000 (under 18). ****ING EIGHT.

And that's hospitalization.....where we've gotten a ton better treating this thing. Does anyone even know of a serious athlete that has had COVID, and suffered a life altering change? Anywhere?

8 per 100,000 under 18. That's science. Saying kids are going to die....not science.

This is all new and not verified at all.. but apparently this factored into the Big 10 decision. 10 players have myocarditis after getting Covid and at least 1 MLB pitcher is out for the season with it. That's the fear. They don't know what they don't know at this point.

https://syndication.bleacherreport.c...ditis.amp.html