Bruddah IZ
DA
Yeah. Let’s put millions more in 10 story buildings in earth quake prone Cali.
Bad News Thread
- Thread starter kickingandscreaming
- Start date
Bruddah IZ
DA
You poor fragile people.
If they had followed your advice, where would they have found staffing for the extra ICU beds you would need? Or do you advocate no NPI and no extra nurses?
NPI itself was successful. LA had a 45% infection rate when faced with a high R variant. The infection rate was considerably lower than it would have been without NPI. If LA had followed your advice and done no NPI, an 80% infection rate is not unlikely. (Many states reached 60% or so, despite having an easier variant and more diffuse population.)
NY is partly running that experiment for us, right now. They have open restaurants, the high R UK variant, and just announced they will open stadiums. We will see what their seroprevalence (natural + vaccine) they have at peak.
The millions are here right now. They cut your grass and fix your roof. They live in quake-unsafe soft first story apartment buildings with the bedrooms over the carport.
At least now we are talking cost and benefits. I don't happen to think the 80% rate is likely...it's not what happened in Madrid or Stockholm. It's just likely we would have reached the 50% sooner than we did. Whatever that difference is has to be weighed against the disastrous costs Los Angeles has taken on, including the harm to children.
And I'm not arguing for no NPIs. That's not even the Swedish approach. I think masks for indoor situations like grocery stores where people could be exposed for short periods of time are useful. I also think "flattening the curve" is a good idea when the hospital situation is under tremendous strain and near collapse, and that business closures should be reserved for these key time periods (not keeping them in place 18 months as you seem to want, where an exhausted population just gives up on them....again few 20 something unmarried males are going to go 18 months without a booty call but if you tell everyone hey for this month we need you to cooperate they might actually do it). LA did the opposite....it kept restrictions in place for a year.
Bruddah IZ
DA
How is rezoning free and for whom?
p.s. what we know from the Belgium situation is that people adapt naturally in times of high crisis without the government having to issue NPIs. They generally reduce mobility on their own. Mobility in Belgium (and the bend in the new infection curves) fell almost 2 weeks before the government issued a new round of lockdowns in the winter.
Bruddah IZ
DA
I have zeroscape. My roof is shake tin. So no, they don’t do either for me. And they don’t live in quake unsafe homes. California doesn’t allow it.
Be on the look out for "Murder Hornets" fellas. First we had the Rona, now we got Hornets that can sting through a bee suit and murder you, just like that. This is nuts!!!
Scientists in US, Canada gear up for battle against murder hornets
Scientists in the U.S. and Canada are opening new fronts in the war against so-called murder hornets as the giant insects begin establishing nests this spring.
"This is not a species we want to tolerate here in the United States," said Sven-Erik Spichiger of the Washington state Department of Agriculture, which eradicated a nest of the Asian giant hornets last year. "The Asian giant hornet is not supposed to be here."
"We may not get them all, but we will get as many as we can," he said of eradication efforts this year.
Paul van Westendorp of the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries said the hornets pose threats to human life, to valuable bee populations needed to pollinate crops and to other insects.
"It’s an absolutely serious danger to our health and well-being," he said. "These are intimidating insects."
Scientists in US, Canada gear up for battle against murder hornets
Scientists in the U.S. and Canada are opening new fronts in the war against so-called murder hornets as the giant insects begin establishing nests this spring.
"This is not a species we want to tolerate here in the United States," said Sven-Erik Spichiger of the Washington state Department of Agriculture, which eradicated a nest of the Asian giant hornets last year. "The Asian giant hornet is not supposed to be here."
"We may not get them all, but we will get as many as we can," he said of eradication efforts this year.
Paul van Westendorp of the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries said the hornets pose threats to human life, to valuable bee populations needed to pollinate crops and to other insects.
"It’s an absolutely serious danger to our health and well-being," he said. "These are intimidating insects."
Drive around. You will see plenty of buildings from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that have bedrooms above the car port.
Yes, most should be retrofitted by now, but it is still less safe than new construction if any type.
You really believe you don't depend on immigrant labor. What did you eat for lunch?
Bruddah IZ
DA
Korean style Ramen.
I don't depend on immigrant labor. If I like the quality of their work and the price is right, I hire them. I hired the Russians to do my AC/Heater work, Mexicans to do paver and zeroscape work. I was very happy with both.
I haven't seen a lot of bedrooms over car ports. Regardless, if a big one hits, I'd rather be one floor up then ten floors up.
Burp!
I have a pal in the AC biz Bruddah. Grace calls him AC Tech guy. He does ER back up for a few of the big Home Warranty (HW)) companies when you buy a house. These companies are trip and they do NOT want to come out for emergencies and dont want to replace any of your appliance or ac unit or water heater for that matter if something were to fail the first year. First off, the person buying the house thinks he has "everything" covered with his cheap plan. My pal only gets a call when "The Russians" cant make it out, his words, not mine. The HW company goes with the lowest avg ticket and the Russians beat him all the time on price. I told him to lower his price to compete and says, "never." His dad is from Mexico and his prices are perfect for OC. He just can;t beat the Russians he says and I hear about it every freaking week. Low ballers he calls them. I told him you need to change your attitude and your price to compete bro. He says, "I sell on value bro." I told him price is important too, especially during Rona.
Bruddah IZ
DA
My Russians did excellent work. Cleaned up everyday. They put my AHU in the attic which I thought was nuts and impossible to do!! When it was all done I was amazed at how clean and un-obnoxious it all looked. If I can afford that kind of value, OC should be okay?
Reminds me of my days selling Sparkletts water with my best pal Bruno in OC back in early 90s. Yes folks, I lived a full life, full of adventure and misfortunate. We were trained by the finest in class trainers ever. The only problem was that these "trainers" never sold in the real world. Meaning, door to door combat on PCH and all over socal. In class trainig said to sell feature and benefits. I cut to the chase and ask how much a bottle. I swear these old Sparkletts guys from the 60s were saying dont give price out until you share where our water comes from and basically why you should pay full price at $8.50 a bottle. Share how we get our water from Eagle Rock they said and 200 feet under the ground in a Artesian well he said. I took the training and tried it and it didnt work. Bottom line, how much a bottle they would ask? I said, "How much you spending with Arrowhead? He said $7.00, I said, $6.00. That's how you close quickly and cut out all the BS! I was #1 and asked to help teach the training class and it went ok.
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Bruddah IZ
DA
I have posted plenty of charts showing case drops before mask mandates and case increases after mask mandates. Fauci just hitch hikes on those trends because he knows who his sheep are.
Bruddah, this is all one big trip. I swear I went to the store and this nice guy says, "sir, sir sir, those carts are not wiped down yet." I said, "I dont care." He said, "Suit yourself." I turned around and told him "thank you" for thinking of my safety and I I just dont think I can catch Rona this way. We had a cool chat and he agreed and just doing his part to spread some love.
Bruddah IZ
DA
The most adverse effect of the corona virus has been, by far, a softening of the brain.
What is common sense? I know of five that man only cares about. Touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. This is why folks only use less than 10% of their brain. Q me this Bruddah, where is the other 90% of the brain and why not work? DNA=Light. My advise for all is to get as much sun from the sunlight as possible.
And a half million deaths. Softening of the brain, and 535,000 deaths.
Or do you not like thinking about that part?
As long as we are piling on: economic ruin (there would have been without lockdowns but not as much), children (particularly less privileged ones) losing a year plus education and the inequity which results, the mental suffering put on people (particularly children), increased suicides, increased illnesses from lack of screening (my mother and bestie finally scheduled their 2+ year delayed no mammograms....earliest appointments they could get is June), increased OD and substance abuse, increased physical abuse of kids/spouses locked away with their loved ones. The real question is how many of the 535,000 deaths are baked it (it's not even zero in Australia) and how much of this list is avoided without the NPIS (some of it would always be baked in too from just the pandemic existing).
Bruddah IZ
DA
I think about how you've avoided my multiple request to provide the R-squared for cases vs. deaths.
Bruddah IZ
DA
First, in order to explain away the clear failures of lockdowns and other alleged mitigation measures, the lockdowners have tried to pretend that Americans weren't really all that locked down after all, and that in any case Americans didn't really change their behavior all that much.
Atlas threw cold water on both of those claims:
Here's the unacknowledged reality: almost all states and major cities, with a handful of exceptions, have implemented severe restrictions for many months, including closures of businesses and in-person school, mobility restrictions and curfews, quarantines, limits on group gatherings, and mask mandates dating back to at least the summer.
And let’s clear up the myths about the behavior of Americans – social mobility tracking of Americans and data from Gallup, YouGov, the COVID-19 Consortium, and the CDC have shown significant reductions of movement as well as a consistently high percentage of mask wearing since the late summer, similar to Western European countries and approaching those in Asia.
He then proceeded to lay out some of the costs of lockdown, of which I offer a sample here:
A recent study confirms that up to 78% of cancers were never detected due to missed screening over three months. If one extrapolates to the entire country, up to a million new cases or more over nine months will have gone undetected. That health disaster adds to missed critical surgeries, chemotherapy, organ transplants, presentations of pediatric illnesses, heart attack and stroke patients too afraid to call emergency services, and others, all well documented.
Beyond hospital care, CDC reported four-fold increases in depression, three-fold increases in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults – college age – after the first few months of lockdowns, echoing the AMA reports of drug overdoses and suicides. An explosion of insurance claims for these psychological harms in children just verified this, doubling nationally since last year; and in the strictly locked down Northeast, there was a more than 300% increase of teenagers visiting doctors for self-harm.
Domestic abuse and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and specifically to the loss of jobs, particularly in the strictest lockdowns.
Was anybody even bothering to consider these effects?
That, said Atlas, was why someone like him needed to be part of the discussion:
To manage such a crisis, shouldn’t policymakers objectively consider both the virus harms and the totality of impact of policies? That’s the importance of health policy experts – my field – with a broader scope of expertise than that of epidemiologists and basic scientists. And that’s exactly why I was called to the White House – there were zero health policy scholars on the Task Force; no one with a medical background who also considered the impacts of the policies was advising the White House.
He also spoke about the policy of universal masking:
Regarding universal masks: 38 states have implemented general-population mask mandates, most since at least the summer, with almost all the rest having mandates in their major cities. Widespread, general-population mask usage has shown little empirical utility for stopping cases, even though that evidence has been censored by Twitter and Amazon. Widespread mask usage showed only minimal impact in Denmark’s randomized controlled study. Those are facts. And facts matter.
I posted a list where mask mandates empirically failed to stop cases, along with direct quotes, without any edit, from WHO, CDC, and Oxford University. That was censored by Twitter. And I stated numerous times that it would be irrational to wear a mask “when alone riding a bicycle outside, when driving your own car alone, or when walking in the desert alone.” I stand by those words.
Those who charge that it is unethical, even dangerous, to question broad population mask mandates must not realize that several of the world’s top infectious disease scientists and major public health organizations explicitly question the efficacy of general population masks. The public needs to know the truth.
For instance, Jefferson and Heneghan of University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine wrote: “It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks.” Oxford’s renowned epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta said there is no need for masks unless one is elderly or high risk. Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya stated “mask mandates are not supported by the scientific data … there is no scientific evidence that mask mandates work to slow the spread of the disease.”
Throughout this pandemic until December, the WHO’s “Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19” stated: “At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.” In December, the WHO changed their wording to today’s “At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.”
The CDC, in a review of influenza pandemics, “did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility.” And until the WHO removed it on October 21, 2020 (almost immediately after Twitter censored my tweet highlighting the WHO quote), the WHO had written, “At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider.”
Atlas then slammed the academic community, particularly at Stanford (his home institution), which conducted itself appallingly in his case.
It's a great summary of the insanity.
Atlas threw cold water on both of those claims:
Here's the unacknowledged reality: almost all states and major cities, with a handful of exceptions, have implemented severe restrictions for many months, including closures of businesses and in-person school, mobility restrictions and curfews, quarantines, limits on group gatherings, and mask mandates dating back to at least the summer.
And let’s clear up the myths about the behavior of Americans – social mobility tracking of Americans and data from Gallup, YouGov, the COVID-19 Consortium, and the CDC have shown significant reductions of movement as well as a consistently high percentage of mask wearing since the late summer, similar to Western European countries and approaching those in Asia.
He then proceeded to lay out some of the costs of lockdown, of which I offer a sample here:
A recent study confirms that up to 78% of cancers were never detected due to missed screening over three months. If one extrapolates to the entire country, up to a million new cases or more over nine months will have gone undetected. That health disaster adds to missed critical surgeries, chemotherapy, organ transplants, presentations of pediatric illnesses, heart attack and stroke patients too afraid to call emergency services, and others, all well documented.
Beyond hospital care, CDC reported four-fold increases in depression, three-fold increases in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults – college age – after the first few months of lockdowns, echoing the AMA reports of drug overdoses and suicides. An explosion of insurance claims for these psychological harms in children just verified this, doubling nationally since last year; and in the strictly locked down Northeast, there was a more than 300% increase of teenagers visiting doctors for self-harm.
Domestic abuse and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and specifically to the loss of jobs, particularly in the strictest lockdowns.
Was anybody even bothering to consider these effects?
That, said Atlas, was why someone like him needed to be part of the discussion:
To manage such a crisis, shouldn’t policymakers objectively consider both the virus harms and the totality of impact of policies? That’s the importance of health policy experts – my field – with a broader scope of expertise than that of epidemiologists and basic scientists. And that’s exactly why I was called to the White House – there were zero health policy scholars on the Task Force; no one with a medical background who also considered the impacts of the policies was advising the White House.
He also spoke about the policy of universal masking:
Regarding universal masks: 38 states have implemented general-population mask mandates, most since at least the summer, with almost all the rest having mandates in their major cities. Widespread, general-population mask usage has shown little empirical utility for stopping cases, even though that evidence has been censored by Twitter and Amazon. Widespread mask usage showed only minimal impact in Denmark’s randomized controlled study. Those are facts. And facts matter.
I posted a list where mask mandates empirically failed to stop cases, along with direct quotes, without any edit, from WHO, CDC, and Oxford University. That was censored by Twitter. And I stated numerous times that it would be irrational to wear a mask “when alone riding a bicycle outside, when driving your own car alone, or when walking in the desert alone.” I stand by those words.
Those who charge that it is unethical, even dangerous, to question broad population mask mandates must not realize that several of the world’s top infectious disease scientists and major public health organizations explicitly question the efficacy of general population masks. The public needs to know the truth.
For instance, Jefferson and Heneghan of University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine wrote: “It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks.” Oxford’s renowned epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta said there is no need for masks unless one is elderly or high risk. Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya stated “mask mandates are not supported by the scientific data … there is no scientific evidence that mask mandates work to slow the spread of the disease.”
Throughout this pandemic until December, the WHO’s “Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19” stated: “At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.” In December, the WHO changed their wording to today’s “At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.”
The CDC, in a review of influenza pandemics, “did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility.” And until the WHO removed it on October 21, 2020 (almost immediately after Twitter censored my tweet highlighting the WHO quote), the WHO had written, “At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider.”
Atlas then slammed the academic community, particularly at Stanford (his home institution), which conducted itself appallingly in his case.
It's a great summary of the insanity.