Losing your income and all the implications that follow vs less than a 0.2% chance of dying. I'm pretty sure those faced with the choice would take the risk of catching Covid overwhelmingly over losing their job. Could you imagine what a country designed to eliminate 99.8% of death risk would look like? It might look like the inside of Dad4's house.
Bad News Thread
- Thread starter kickingandscreaming
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Desert Hound
DA
People have to work. What you are doing is deciding that people who have biz cannot do it. You sit safely inside your home getting a paycheck. So your ideas have no affect on you, your family, your liveliehood, your savings, your college savings etc.
The people at risk are old individuals. I have always said target them, protect them.
You think that is crazy and instead want perfectly healthy and safe people to not return to school, to have financial ruin, etc.
As this thing lingers on, fewer and fewer people believe like you. More and more have come to the conclusion that what you propose is not working.
This is a disease that we are going to have to live with.
I think the final nail in your argument is when we watch what happens to TX over the next month.
There's not enough truth right now in the world, though. If worrying about insults masks the truth, then I'm not interested because remember it was a lack of truth (with the Chinese) that started all this.
Desert Hound
DA
Per the CDC.
Infection Fatality Rate by Age Group.
0-19 years: 0.00003
20-49 years: 0.0002
50-69 years: 0.005
70+ years: 0.054
The vast VAST majority of people have virtually no risk at all.
I know when I look at the above numbers I don't think wow...my kid is at risk. Or hey I am at risk.
When I hear someone testing positive for covid unless they are really old or have health problems I think, well they are out for a week or so. That is the reality.
Living with a contagious disease means changing your behavior to reflect the new reality. So far, you display absolutely no willingness to do that. You can’t even deal with the mask, which has almost no economic impact.
It’s possible to talk about cost/benefit, but only if we can agree on some facts. One of those facts is that indoor restaurants and bars spread covid. As long as you’re pretending otherwise, there is no possibility of a rational conversation on the topic of restaurant jobs.
I wondered when you’d realize you should drop FL from the argument and focus on TX. There is too much risk that b.1.117 will drive up numbers in FL, especially since their vaccinations are lagging. FL may end up the worst of the three states by May 01, but not because of policy differences.
For now, Florida has a little over twice California’s average daily case rate. Texas is at 1.6 times. So, not looking so great.
You should realize that an IFR of 0.054 is not a small number.
It means one death per 19 infections.
Desert Hound
DA
I am not dropping FL or TX.
Cases per million amongst all 3 states are about identical and have been for quite some time.
I am not changing my behavior to do something you think works...but the real world data shows an entirely different thing.
I wear a mask going to the grocery store or into 711. I wear a mask by the front door to the restaurant or bar. As I walk in and sit down I take it off. I guess the science says it only hangs by the door. Why do I do it? Because that is the rule to get in these places. Not because I have any belief in their actual utility.
I am not wearing it when I come over to a friends house, play golf, hike, ride a bike, sit outside, etc.
Soon enough the silly mask rules will go away. I wonder if guys like you who think masks really work will be in history books...kind of like the medieval "experts" whose solution for various things was bloodletting.
Desert Hound
DA
You realize this is the group that has ALWAYS been the problem and from day 1 I said should be the focus.
Instead you wanted EVERYONE to hide and shut down everything. For some reason you think/thought focusing on the at risk group was crazy and preferred shutting it all down. That isn't rational.
For now,
Desert Hound
DA
I am going to post this image here. I also saved a copy so in a month when I post the latest numbers we can compare. Remember @dad4 thinks it is crazy that TX and others have ditched the mask mandates and said biz can open up 100%. So let us review this in a few weeks and see if there is any noticeable difference. We will pay close attention to cases per million and deaths per million.
You left out the great state of Arizona!
You’re on your own there. You cannot get meaningful results by picking just 3 states. Worse, you’ve picked 3 states with 3 different dominant variants. You are literally comparing three different diseases, with three different growth rates, and using the results to make a policy claim.
I want no part of data that bad.
If you want to call this “we”, then “we” will accept the results when real statisticians run a county by county regression nationwide.
texanincali
SILVER ELITE
@dad4
Honest question for you. I appreciate the fact you hold true to your stance and you do so in a way that isn't detrimental to your own cause. That said, are you advocating for masks once Covid is under control via vaccine or herd immunity?
I ask because, most mask advocates like to use masks and social distancing as the reason that flu has virtually been eliminated. If masks are a big reason for that, and we can keep tens of thousands of people dying from flue each year, would you support that?
Honest question for you. I appreciate the fact you hold true to your stance and you do so in a way that isn't detrimental to your own cause. That said, are you advocating for masks once Covid is under control via vaccine or herd immunity?
I ask because, most mask advocates like to use masks and social distancing as the reason that flu has virtually been eliminated. If masks are a big reason for that, and we can keep tens of thousands of people dying from flue each year, would you support that?
I wouldn't concede now, you could get lucky if past history changes course.
I will wear my mask until we have a vaccine deployed that works against the known variants. That could be this summer, if the existing vaccines work well enough against the new variants.
If we have a variant showing exponential growth despite vaccinations, I believe we should keep our masks until a booster is available and deployed,
With respect to flu, mostly this has convinced me that I should get my flu shot every year. I would also wear a mask, depending on what the data said about the flu shot and transmissibility. (I do not know whether people with a flu shot are important as transmission vectors for the flu.)
Honestly, the masks are the easy part. The painful parts are school and business closures.
Desert Hound
DA
It isn't bad data.
If as you claim opening up 100% and no mask mandates is a very bad thing. Then we should expect to see the numbers diverge greatly from CA no?
And if TX/FL hold close to CA you will still say it doesn't prove anything?
Your claim for the past year has been biz closures and masks are VITAL to stopping the spread. So logically speaking since TX and FL have dumped those requirements, based on your claims should we not expect to see them start to head the other direction?
Desert Hound
DA
I guess more to the point. If TX, FL and add in AZ don't start heading in the other direction, where does that leave your argument.
Your claim has always been biz restrictions and masks prevent the spread.
If we don't know see a rise in cases in these states, where exactly does that leave your argument?
What will be the new goalpost?
Oh, no real luck required. b.1.117 is reasonably likely to make a mess of Florida’s April numbers. It’s been growing exponentially there as vanilla covid declines. If it continues like it has been, FL will see a large spike.
But, even if the data ends up showing my point, it’s still really bad data. I’m not going to use a variant spike to make a policy claim. It’s dishonest.
Is the vaccine less effective against this variant? I can't say I've paid much attention to the variants other than hearing anecdotally that they felt the vaccines would work OK.
whatithink
GOLD
I believe its a question of which vaccine and also which variant. From what I've read some are ok with some variants and others less so. All vaccines give you an "advantage", just like the flu shot does, but they are not bullet proof (like polio shots etc), as it mutates. Its hard to develop a vaccine for unknown new variants.