Bad News Thread

[dad4]

The reading comprehension always alludes you. I said we agree on the policy prescription: which is people should wear masks. We probably disagree on the edges (e.g. masks outside are stupid) but you indicated on a prior post you'd be happy to concede those points in return for a universal indoor mandate. We do disagree on the utility, which is a different question, and one which the experiences around the world has shown you are wrong about.

Your ”experiences around the world” argument tends to be cherry picking data after the fact. For example, you don’t seem to like to include east asia in your data.

I don’t mind being “proven” wrong by arguments that weak. Besides, your most recent chart was a nice example of how much you can do with masks but without business closures.

 

[kickingandscreaming]

This is the most hilarious stay at home order that's just been issued for the city of Los Angeles. It prohibits, under penalty of misdeamenor, leaving your house or traveling by foot, bike, public transport, car or scooter. It then exempts the homeless. It then exempts a long line of business activities. Such business activities include hard ware stores, piercing shops, tanning shops, dog groomers, tattoo parlors, bike repair shops, taxis, and retail shops (at reduced capapcity) It exempts outdoor worship (which is now clearly unconstitutional since this is the very scenario addressed in the SCOTUS case...they could have done a percentage cap but chose to ignore it). It pretty much keeps the outdoor recreation sites open with a handful of tweaks here and there (sorry water poloers). Of course film and TV production remain open. Zoos are o.k. Pro sports and day camps still allowed. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Basically it's a plea to do the one thing they can't control: private socialization....and it takes them pages to do it. History might very well record this as one of the most ludicrous documents to emerge from the pandemic. Make sure to tell your kids they can't go outside scooting in the city of LA...they might get charged with a misdemeanor.

https://www.lamayor.org/sites/g/files/wph446/f/page/file/20201202%20Mayor%20Public%20Order%20Targeted%20SAH%20Order_1.pdf

This takes a bit of the bite out of the enforcement of the order.

Some California Sheriffs Won't Enforce Newsom's New COVID Curfew

At least four sheriffs of major counties in California say they will take a hands off approach in enforcing Governor Gavin Newsom's month-long COVID-19 curfew, which is set to begin in most of the state on Saturday

www.newsweek.com

 

[espola]

You said it was different, they say it wasn't.

Neither of those statements is true. I sad this -- "In order to use the NY SCOTUS decision as precedent, one must show that the two situations are equivalent. Just because both mention churches is not enough." What's wrong with that?

As for the SCOTUS action today - they granted an expedited hearing. There is no decision yet. The NY decision included language that the churches were being dealt with more harshly than other similar, but non-religious, businesses. Is that the case in the California restrictions?

 

[Grace T.]

Your ”experiences around the world” argument tends to be cherry picking data after the fact. For example, you don’t seem to like to include east asia in your data.

I don’t mind being “proven” wrong by arguments that weak. Besides, your most recent chart was a nice example of how much you can do with masks but without business closures.

You really want to relitigate this? You have to throw out N Korea/China/Vietnam because of their governments fiddling with the numbers. You have to throw out South Korea because of the vastly different policies. That leaves us with Japan and the Phillipines (the latter of which has had a very vigorous mask mandate). You know as well as I do that one of the theories floating around is the reason Asia is doing better is because of cross-immunity from other coronaviruses (which an anthropolgy paper I cited in the old COVID forum shows has been endemic in Asia since Han dynasty times). Japan and the Phillipines is evidence of it....because the Phillipines had a history of much less trade with mainland China than Japan did (and IndoChina had much more trade with China than Japan which is also consistent with the results). And then there's this....taken a look at how Japan is doing recently?......masks working really well in Japan apparently (and that's with an estimated count by 2 studies now before the current surge of maybe 40% antibody prevalence in Japan...Japanese testing, which has been a shambles, is only catching up now....people in Japan are coming down with it, they are just much more asymptomatic than Europe/the US).

Japan COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Japan Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Philippines COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Philippines Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Experts suspect cross immunity explains Japan's low coronavirus death rate - The Mainichi

TOKYO -- Some experts say cross immunity is the reason for the low death rate among novel coronavirus patients in Japan and other parts of Asia compar

mainichi.jp

 

[Grace T.]

Neither of those statements is true. I sad this -- "In order to use the NY SCOTUS decision as precedent, one must show that the two situations are equivalent. Just because both mention churches is not enough." What's wrong with that?

As for the SCOTUS action today - they granted an expedited hearing. There is no decision yet. The NY decision included language that the churches were being dealt with more harshly than other similar, but non-religious, businesses. Is that the case in the California restrictions?

Reading comprehension...they didn't grant an expedited hearing. They sent it back to the California courts with instructions to apply their instructions in the New York case. They are slapping the lower courts down, telling them to do their homework over again because its got errors in it.

 

[espola]

Reading comprehension...they didn't grant an expedited hearing. They sent it back to the California courts with instructions to apply their instructions in the New York case. They are slapping the lower courts down, telling them to do their homework over again because its got errors in it.

Quoting from the article you posted -- "sending a California church's challenge back to lower courts".

Perhaps you comprehend that differently than I do.

 

[Grace T.]

Quoting from the article you posted -- "sending a California church's challenge back to lower courts".

Perhaps you comprehend that differently than I do.

Yeah with instructions. Like I said, it's the equivalent of a kid turning in his homework to the teacher and the teacher sending it back telling him its wrong and to do it over and this time follow the instructions. The Supreme Court could have also just let the situation stand (which would mean that either they agree with the California courts or felt it was sufficiently different they wanted to see how it played out and what arguments might arise). This isn't that....this is you got it wrong, redo it.

 

[dad4]

You really want to relitigate this? You have to throw out N Korea/China/Vietnam because of their governments fiddling with the numbers. You have to throw out South Korea because of the vastly different policies. That leaves us with Japan and the Phillipines (the latter of which has had a very vigorous mask mandate). You know as well as I do that one of the theories floating around is the reason Asia is doing better is because of cross-immunity from other coronaviruses (which an anthropolgy paper I cited in the old COVID forum shows has been endemic in Asia since Han dynasty times). Japan and the Phillipines is evidence of it....because the Phillipines had a history of much less trade with mainland China than Japan did (and IndoChina had much more trade with China than Japan which is also consistent with the results). And then there's this....taken a look at how Japan is doing recently?......masks working really well in Japan apparently (and that's with an estimated count by 2 studies now before the current surge of maybe 40% antibody prevalence in Japan...Japanese testing, which has been a shambles, is only catching up now....people in Japan are coming down with it, they are just much more asymptomatic than Europe/the US).

Japan COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Japan Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Philippines COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Philippines Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Experts suspect cross immunity explains Japan's low coronavirus death rate - The Mainichi

TOKYO -- Some experts say cross immunity is the reason for the low death rate among novel coronavirus patients in Japan and other parts of Asia compar

mainichi.jp

How many data points do you get to throw out because you find them inconvenient?

You don't get to wait until you have the data and then ignore the parts that don't fit your narrative.

So you wanted to ignore New Zealand and South Korea, because they are (effectively) islands. Then now you want to include Philippines, which somehow does not qualify under the island exemption.

Cherry picking.

 

[dad4]

Yeah with instructions. Like I said, it's the equivalent of a kid turning in his homework to the teacher and the teacher sending it back telling him its wrong and to do it over and this time follow the instructions. The Supreme Court could have also just let the situation stand (which would mean that either they agree with the California courts or felt it was sufficiently different they wanted to see how it played out and what arguments might arise). This isn't that....this is you got it wrong, redo it.

More like your class gets a new teacher, except this one wants to teach creationism. And yes, that new teacher will give you back your evolution essay and ask you to put some God in it.

It happens, but it doesn't mean the teacher is right.

 

[Grace T.]

How many data points do you get to throw out because you find them inconvenient?

You don't get to wait until you have the data and then ignore the parts that don't fit your narrative.

So you wanted to ignore New Zealand and South Korea, because they are (effectively) islands. Then now you want to include Philippines, which somehow does not qualify under the island exemption.

Cherry picking.

Not cherry picking. Reasoning. New Zealand got hit very late and to their credit effectively shut down their borders (remember when Trump partially tried to do that....New Zealand even left its own citizens stranded overseas until they could set up quarantine centers to get people back home off island). South Korea has very different policy outcomes. What I'm trying to do is filter out the circumstances to compare masks to masks. Japan and the Phillipines are perfect....they have similar policies and similar mask usage, but a very different history of coronavirus exposure.

You just want to ignore everything that distrupts your image that something (anything) might work and might control it. And the harder someone tries to tear that blue pill out of your hand, the tighter you clutch at it, crying for dear life.

 

[Grace T.]

It happens, but it doesn't mean the teacher is right.

Coming from a math teacher this is really funny. You've outdone yourself.

 

[dad4]

Not cherry picking. Reasoning. New Zealand got hit very late and to their credit effectively shut down their borders (remember when Trump partially tried to do that....New Zealand even left its own citizens stranded overseas until they could set up quarantine centers to get people back home off island). South Korea has very different policy outcomes. What I'm trying to do is filter out the circumstances to compare masks to masks. Japan and the Phillipines are perfect....they have similar policies and similar mask usage, but a very different history of coronavirus exposure.

You just want to ignore everything that distrupts your image that something (anything) might work and might control it. And the harder someone tries to tear that blue pill out of your hand, the tighter you clutch at it, crying for dear life.

Japan and Philippines might have a slightly different economy and culture.

There are people who do this for a living, you know. You might try listening to them. They have certain tricks. For example, they don't do paired country comparisons between rich elderly nations and impoverished youthful ones.

 

[dad4]

Coming from a math teacher this is really funny. You've outdone yourself.

And, out comes the first personal attack of the night. Drink!

 

[Grace T.]

And, out comes the first personal attack of the night. Drink!

Why is being a math teacher a personal attack? Do you really have such self loathing?

 

[N00B]

Be careful where you fart

Can farts spread COVID-19? This Australian researcher claims so! - Times of India

If you thought farts could just stink, think again. A new body of research suggests that farts might be the newest form of transmission to spread the

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

There was a ‘albeit without clothes’ statement in the article, not sure how they adjusted for that... it is interesting nonetheless.

I’ve always thought that restrooms pose the greatest issue due to lack of ventilation in an enclosed space for open businesses (restaurants, gas stations, hotels, etc.) and avoid them, but if you can smell it, through a mask and the pants of she who dealt it... how can you not receive arisolized particles from former visitors to the restroom, even if it’s not the flatulence, but their presence in the same enclosed space?

 

[Grace T.]

Japan and Philippines might have a slightly different economy and culture.

There are people who do this for a living, you know. You might try listening to them. They have certain tricks. For example, they don't do paired country comparisons between rich elderly nations and impoverished youthful ones.

I'm one of them. Comps are one of my things. You are right there is a difference in culture but that's true of any country (in fact, it's part of your point....if your point is we should all have Asian culture good luck with that and you are culturally appropriating too as a bonus). You have a good point of the economics, but I can flip that around on you...my entire argument is Asia is different so you can't compare government policies there to those here.....oooopppppssss!!!!

 

[crush]

 

[crush]

I'm one of them. Comps are one of my things. You are right there is a difference in culture but that's true of any country (in fact, it's part of your point....if your point is we should all have Asian culture good luck with that and you are culturally appropriating too as a bonus). You have a good point of the economics, but I can flip that around on you...my entire argument is Asia is different so you can't compare government policies there to those here.....oooopppppssss!!!!

I love our Melting Pot in da states. It's what makes our country so beautiful and unique and one I will help defend. The United States of America. One Nation under God. That's how it was started.

 

[Grace T.]

O.k. so here's a critique about the way to think about the metrics behind Newsom's order. The good thing is that its finally tied to an actual meaningful metric (which is ICU capacity). The bad news that ICUs never run empty. Hospitals don't sit around having ICU beds and staff free waiting there for people to come in because that would lose money. They do have "surge"capacity, but that capacity is limited because you can't suddenly retrain staff to do jobs overnight....you can take them from other areas of the hospital but you can't just go out into the streets and annoint people into nurses. And at this time of year, in Los Angeles at least, they run at least 80% staffed because people just get more sick (with a variety of ailments and not just respiratory diseases) in the winter. So it doesn't take an awful lot to capsize the boat. It's why in a typical bad flu season you'd see that surge capacity go into effect, and hospitals putting up tents in the parking lots. IHere's a good article in the local paper about why counting this metric is challenging. It also raises the question of the federal/state/local governments/hospitals knew this was coming months ago so why is it a problem all of a sudden now?

State, county in talks over ICU benchmark

One of the six requirements for counties to get off the state’s COVID monitoring list and reopen is the ability to demonstrate that they have a sufficient number of intensive care unit beds for patients who need the most medical attention. As of last week, despite Ventura County never having...

www.toacorn.com

 

[Grace T.]

outrageous if true

FDA Career Staff Are Delaying the Vaccine As Thousands of Americans Die

We’ve gone from ‘Operation Warp Speed’ to develop a vaccine to ‘Operation Turtle Speed’ to review It.

thedispatch.com