Virus thread, the political one.

[theflashunc]

McConnell to Cities: Drop Dead.

History doesn't repeat always itself, but it does rhyme.

McConnell pushes 'bankruptcy route' as local governments struggle - POLITICO

[mzilliox]

Sorry, for a moment I thought you were talking about the Biden campaign.

im sure you think this is clever, but its not. im not interested in the biden campaign right now, im not a biden guy, but if we want to compare penis size on biden vs trump, im all for it, as im out of patience for nonsense. to make light during this is getting boring, it says something about ones character.

meanwhile: this guy... such a nobel american, such a pathetic creep and perfect reason why our government is failing to serve us.
McConnell taps brakes on next round of coronavirus aid as state, local governments plead for help

[zachateseverything]

The drugs aren’t available to the people who NEED them.
I know 3 different elders just here in the SW VA mountains who are without their proscribed meds right now due to hoarding by opportunists with prescription pads.

Simply, the drugs, like masks and toilet paper, evaporated into the illogical morass.

Right, the shortage of drugs for autoimmune patients is also a problem. but what I think is a much larger issue is that there are an awful lot of misinformed people running around that are trying to use the existence of Chloroquine as a justification for discontinuing all of the behavior modifications that are required to slow down the spread of this.

Yeah, it probably doesn't do anything. and you're right, we don't have enough of it to treat everyone even if it did. but all of that is immaterial to people that are getting their information from dubious sources.

[mjbabcock]

The drugs aren’t available to the people who NEED them.
I know 3 different elders just here in the SW VA mountains who are without their proscribed meds right now due to hoarding by opportunists with prescription pads.

Simply, the drugs, like masks and toilet paper, evaporated into the illogical morass.

Thanks for acknowledging elders as opposed to old people. The local indigenous communities have it right when they value the collective experience and knowledge of the elder population as paramount. This “let the old people die” mentality is just gonna speed our descent into idiocracy.

[theflashunc]

A reminder that our leaders should be elected to lead, not abdicate responsibility in a crisis. But when it starts at the top, not suprising to see those further down the food chain model that behavior. Each individual business owner is supposed to figure it out for themselves? This is monstrous:

Las Vegas mayor won't give businesses social distancing guidelines for reopening: 'They better figure it out. That's their job' - CNNPolitics

[King Of Dirk]

Meh - it was a joke. If you don't find it funny, well, that won't be the first time I've failed to make someone chuckle. But if you think it impugns my character, I'll have to inform you that what you think means jack shit to me.

[Chik]

Thanks for acknowledging elders as opposed to old people. The local indigenous communities have it right when they value the collective experience and knowledge of the elder population as paramount. This “let the old people die” mentality is just gonna speed our descent into idiocracy.

Speaking of which, the policy in Sweden is that anyone who is 80+ will not be admitted to intensive care, and neither will 60+ with an underlying medical condition.

Severe.

[Sbti]

Meanwhile Trump just shitcanned an HHS doctor for daring to question the malaria drug. And it sounds like he's about to throw the CDC director under the bus for saying that a second wave this winter could be worse. Trumps says the fake CNN misquoted him(It was WAPO that had the story) and that the CDC guy will be issuing a new statement. So he'll probably be gone, or come out at the campaign event this afternoon and sheepishly walk it back.

[guido]

Opinion | Who’s Behind the ‘Reopen’ Protests? - The New York Times

"I first became aware of the political influence of Charles and David Koch in 2009 when I started looking into who was behind the protests at health care town halls.

The Tea Party, formed after America elected its first black president, used a series of health care town halls to spur angry Republicans to oppose the Affordable Care Act as a socialist takeover of American medicine. Little matter that it was modeled on a plan devised by Mitt Romney, a Republican, when he was the governor of Massachusetts.

Such false claims about the act have not aged well, as millions of Americans now depend on the law for health care coverage as the coronavirus contagion sweeps across the nation. And yet a Tea Party co-founder, Mark Meckler, is using the same tactics and same phony claims to stir his followers to protest against governors seeking to mitigate the Covid-19 death toll by closing businesses and banning public gatherings.

That public anger is both real and manufactured. The same was true in 2009, when the Koch fortune fueled the Tea Party’s attacks on the Obama administration’s health care law.

Still, the legend that the Tea Party was a spontaneous uprising took hold and continues to be peddled. As we face Tea Party 2.0, let’s not be fooled again."

[thollandpe]

I'll have to inform you that what you think means jack shit to me.

That's disappointing.

[BBB]

Honestly we are trying really hard to be fair about this. We’ve asked a number of people to stop with the name calling of political figures. We’ve asked people not so simply shout out accusations and instead support their criticism with news articles or other information from newspapers of record or scientific resources.

Politics is politics though. Everyone has a viewpoint. But we are trying to encourage it to move towards a more reasonable tone and fact based criticism.

One thing I will say, is that I have started being able to hear Trump’s advisors behind the things that Trump says. He has a strong will and a selective attention, so he feels he is saying what he heard from his advisors and perhaps rightly feeling frustrated and indignant when he is criticized for what he views as factual information from reputable sources. And if you read along the news thread of statements he’s made, articles written subsequently over several days start to figure out where the info came from and what information was actually presented to Trump. And sometimes, that info is good. It just never made it through the messenger.

In short, I think he has some good people working for him right now, but the loss in translation that occurs in the process of transmitting their findings to him is significant. Add to that his natural tendency to aggrandize everything and his thirst for dramatic pronouncements, he sets himself up time and again to get dissected by the media because that’s what they are trained to do (and that what they should do) when things come out sideways from people in government.

It's hard to be fair when, from the outset, Trump has been a disaster. From the lies (my crowd was bigger than his) to the name calling to the demonising the media to the sheer clusterf*ckery that surrounds nearly everything this guy does (requiring a special counsel investigation and an impeachment - and these were seperate issues). That he's responded to a pandemic poorly should be a surprise to no one. Total deaths in the US will sail past the numbers of casualties from the Vietnam War in the coming days. Some hoax.

It's frustrating as an Australian when we have such close relations with the US. If Trump was a tin pot dictator from say Belarus (not meaning to pick on them in particular), then we would condemn his antics on an official level. But, given our close economic and military ties with the US we bite our tongue.

Trump is a nufty. I don't need a credible source to back that up.

Please vote him out and then let history condemn him, which it will.

[caleb]

@BBB You Aussies have the coolest words: "nufty," "punter." American English needs better words for this situation.

[Sbti]

@BBB You Aussies have the coolest words: "nufty," "punter." American English needs better words for this situation.

How 'bout wanker?

[caleb]

@Sbti Good and appropriate word, but people in the US occasionally use it. I had to Urban Dictionary "nufty."

[j44ke]

When I wrote this:

Honestly we are trying really hard to be fair about this. We’ve asked a number of people to stop with the name calling of political figures. We’ve asked people not so simply shout out accusations and instead support their criticism with news articles or other information from newspapers of record or scientific resources.

Politics is politics though. Everyone has a viewpoint. But we are trying to encourage it to move towards a more reasonable tone and fact based criticism.

I was writing as a moderator in response to Dirk's comment, now erased by him.

What I meant was the moderators (we) are working hard to encourage substantive discussion. And on average, the thread is substantive.

When it breaks down into name calling the negative energy is just a waste.

Otherwise this is the best bike framebuilding forum ever that has been known. Or invented by people. We probably are geniuses. We've all known smart people. And we've been smart. Ourselves. Terribly smart. They've told us that. Smart people. So maybe we are. I don't know. But they've said things like that it could be. The other ones. We could be great.




Edit: Etymology is in the category of substantive discussion, btw.

[bcm119]

Meanwhile Trump just shitcanned an HHS doctor for daring to question the malaria drug. And it sounds like he's about to throw the CDC director under the bus for saying that a second wave this winter could be worse. Trumps says the fake CNN misquoted him(It was WAPO that had the story) and that the CDC guy will be issuing a new statement. So he'll probably be gone, or come out at the campaign event this afternoon and sheepishly walk it back.

This development is really interesting (ok, not exactly the right word).

Why is he so obsessed with the malaria drug?

[j44ke]

This development is really interesting (ok, not exactly the right word).

Why is he so obsessed with the malaria drug?

The quote from Dr. Bright clearly indicates what he thought was going on:

“I will request that the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services investigate the manner in which this administration has politicized the work of BARDA and has pressured me and other conscientious scientists to fund companies with political connections and efforts that lack scientific merit,” he said. “Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics.”

(emphasis mine)

But as to why Trump is obsessed with the malaria drug, I think at best he wants a magic bullet to bolster his chances in the election and is convinced once again of his gut feeling that the malaria drug is that magic bullet. At worst it is due to potential personal profit, but Snopes has decided that any benefit he gains financially is minimal, even though he is invested in Sanofi and Novartis through mutual funds as part of family trusts. No company has controlling rights to the drug. Any company can make it. So it isn't a cash cow anyway.

So I think it has to be Trump's desire to solve the virus or at least appearing to be doing something substantive.

Of course, if he wanted to do something more substantive, why doesn't he focus national resources on improving the accuracy of tests and solving the shortage of testing reagents. I am afraid the answer there is that in some fashion he sees infection and mortality numbers as a type of polling data, so he isn't at all convinced that accurate numbers on infections and mortality are in his best interests and those who demand them (governors scientists doctors) are thus his adversaries. But that's just my read of the situation.

[thollandpe]

Of course, if he wanted to do something more substantive, why doesn't he focus national resources on improving the accuracy of tests and solving the shortage of testing reagents. I am afraid the answer there is that in some fashion he sees infection and mortality numbers as a type of polling data, so he isn't at all convinced that accurate numbers on infections and mortality are in his best interests and those who demand them (governors scientists doctors) are thus his adversaries. But that's just my read of the situation.

Could the plateau and possible roll-off in the number of confirmed cases per day be affected by the quantity of tests as much as it’s affected by mitigation measures? Note that a plateau or lessening of the cases per day (which is the slope of the confirmed cases line) is not the same as reaching or passing the peak. We in the US are still on a precipitous rise in the the number of active cases.

This is the administration that didn’t want to dock a cruise ship with runaway cases because it would make the numbers look bad.

[Sbti]

This is the administration that didn’t want to dock a cruise ship with runaway cases because it would make the numbers look bad.

Yes:"They would like to have the people come off. I’d rather have the people stay [on the ship]. But I’d go with them. I told them to make the final decision. I would rather — because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault."

[j44ke]

Could the plateau and possible roll-off in the number of confirmed cases per day be affected by the quantity of tests as much as it’s affected by mitigation measures? Note that a plateau or lessening of the cases per day (which is the slope of the confirmed cases line) is not the same as reaching or passing the peak. We in the US are still on a precipitous rise in the the number of active cases.

This is the administration that didn’t want to dock a cruise ship with runaway cases because it would make the numbers look bad.

Testing currently is controlled by (at least) a couple factors - guidelines for who can get a test and availability of testing materials & reagents. The first comes from the second. Because there are shortages, testing must be prioritized. So is what the testing reveals not the actual number of confirmed infections but the number of people who meet the criteria to be tested and who are confirmed to be positive? Are any patients who do not meet the criteria for testing/have not been tested considered to be confirmed infections? I don't know.

But to me, it makes sense that a lack of comprehensive testing might result in data that only shows when there is a plateau of people who meet the criteria to be tested, not when the number of infections has plateaued in the overall population. And if you are going to use these plateaus as part of your economic argument, you are running the risk of sending the work force out into a more infectious environment than the numbers might indicate. Or even - if, like you say, the quantity of tests being performed is controlling the numbers to a greater degree than mitigation measures - you could be sending people out into an environment that is not actually any better than when the mitigation measures were begun.

NYTimes says that 42,000 people in the US with Covid 19 have died, and the number increases by 2000+ per day. 832,325 have tested positive. Is this a plateau? What would the numbers look like if everyone who wanted a test got a test?