We Need a Sacrifice to Mammon

[turtlespeed 220]

11 minutes ago, aonsquared said:

Knowing what's to come - what preparation can the US do to avoid getting the healthcare system overwhelmed?

1. Manufacture more PPEs, ventilators, etc? Yes this could be done
2. Train more doctors and nurses? Takes years and years.
3. Build 10x hospital bed capacity? China built a hospital in 10 days. Granted, quality was probably pretty bad, but it would be interesting to see the US match this.

So the US can probably address the equipment shortage (1) quickly. But (2) and (3) will be challenging to address. There is of course, (4): reducing the number of infected via lockdowns. Which authoritarian China was structurally more oriented at doing.

Good luck, you'll need it.

Unfortunately we all will.  

I'm looking it up, but I think the WHO said we were the most prepared for a pandemic . . .

Nope!  I was wrong - it was a study from Johns Hopkins

>>>>The U.S. scored 83.5 and ranked No. 1 in five of six categories: prevention, early detection and reporting, rapid response and mitigation, sufficient and robust health system, and compliance with international norms. It ranks 19th in overall risk environment and vulnerability to biological threats, a category that assesses political and security risk, socioeconomic resilience, the adequacy of infrastructure, environmental risks, and public health vulnerabilities that may inhibit a country's ability to prevent or respond to an epidemic or pandemic.

Johns Hopkins states pretty clearly to me that no one was really ready.

Being the top of a class that is wholly failing isn't a very big comfort.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

37 minutes ago, turtlespeed said:

I'm hoping it's because we will be better prepared.

That isn't a reflection on the healthcare system though. You specifically addressed the Italian healthcare system.

[turtlespeed 220]

1 minute ago, SkyDekker said:

That isn't a reflection on the healthcare system though. You specifically addressed the Italian healthcare system.

Yes.  They were woefully inadequate and unprepared.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

7 minutes ago, turtlespeed said:

it was a study from Johns Hopkins

That same study gave the US a 100 index score (listing it as number 1 of 195 countries) in the "detect" category.

I think now that we have real world experience, it would seem that the US really isn't that good at detecting, considering there are huge problems with testing kits.

Think that report maybe got some other things wrong?

[wmw999 2,447]

19 minutes ago, turtlespeed said:

That is simply because I don't hate the the Chinese government.  I distrust their wanting to save face due to embarrassment on this issue.

Pretty much every government does this. Because nearly every other government, and every dissident, does their best to find all that stuff. Doesn’t make it right, but I’m sure we do it too; and especially folks who push a narrative because it’s American, or who don’t believe America should ever apologize for anything. 

Wendy P. 

[jakee 1,489]

9 minutes ago, turtlespeed said:

No - you are using a black and white analogy, that holds little, if any, merit.

Analogy? I'm directly describing what happened. There's no analogy of any kind.

Quote

You are also wrongly associating my suggestions of a different motivation as trust.

I have no idea what this sentence means. Are you trying the 'baffle with bullshit' approach? Regardless, I said nothing about trust, just as I said nothing about maliciousness. A second thing for you to retract, if you possessed any honesty.

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NOW - if I had a years long posting history of berating, belittling, along with showing massive amounts of contempt, and disrespect for the Chinese government at every turn, as you do with Trump, that might make a difference in your argument.. . . But, I don't. 

There's a long posting history of disagreeing with Trump because there's an even longer history - documented history - of Trump constantly lying. Yet you say it must be hate to say that yet another known falsehood is a lie. How does that make any sense?

 

You don't have anything like that history with China and health matters yet you assume they are still intentionally lying even though you don't know that what they are saying is false. It makes no sense to say that only one of those views can be rational.

 

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There is no Hypocrisy.. . . . on my end.

Except for the brazen hypocrisy I have outlined already, and the additional hypocrisy above of you assuming malicious motivation, the very thing you wrongly accused me of doing with Trump. 

[aonsquared 9]

16 hours ago, turtlespeed said:

Being the top of a class that is wholly failing

Nope, as much as I respect John Hopkins, those ratings mean as much as "bookie odds" on which particlar horse will win a race. Sure there are favourites to win, but they actually have to race to find the winner.

South Korea has flattened their curve, Singapore has flattened their curve. Sure the US was the favourite to perform best, but as we speak cases are increasing about 10,000 a day.

[turtlespeed 220]

6 minutes ago, aonsquared said:

Nope, as much as I respect John Hopkins, those ratings mean as much as "bookie odds" on which particlar horse will win a race. Sure there are favourites to win, but they actually have to race to find the winner.

South Korea has flattened their curve, Singapore has flattened their curve. Sure the US was the favourite to perform best, but as we speak cases are increasing about 10,000 a day.

Performance and preparedness are not the same things.

Other factors come into play as performance. For instance, when the government says stay off the beaches, and don't gather in large groups, and the population says FU government, we need to go to the beach, it makes a huge difference.

[airdvr 210]

10 minutes ago, aonsquared said:

South Korea has flattened their curve, Singapore has flattened their curve. Sure the US was the favourite to perform best, but as we speak cases are increasing about 10,000 a day.

Don't forget that we are approximately 10 days behind Asia in the progress of this.

[aonsquared 9]

4 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Don't forget that we are approximately 10 days behind Asia in the progress of this.

10 days behind, but you already have 5.5 times the number of infected. Isn't that an even worse statistic? They got it under control as it reached about 9,000 cases. The US now has 55,081 and no signs of slowing down. In fact it's still accelerating.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[airdvr 210]

2 minutes ago, aonsquared said:

10 days behind, but you already have 5.5 times the number of infected. Isn't that an even worse statistic? They got it under control as it reached about 9,000 cases. The US now has 55,081 and no signs of slowing down. In fact it's still accelerating.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Think about the size of China for a second.  Do you really believe they know the real numbers?  Hell we don't know the real numbers here either.

Where are you seeing 5.5 times the number infected?

[aonsquared 9]

3 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Think about the size of China for a second.  Do you really believe they know the real numbers?  Hell we don't know the real numbers here either.

Where are you seeing 5.5 times the number infected?

I was comparing South Korea (9,137) vs USA (55,081).

I also don't trust China. But there are indications that the outbreak has been contained there, due to the fact that they are weeks and weeks ahead and if it wasn't contained, with the exponential projections it would be around 100,000 deaths a day. That would be impossible to hide even for them.

Stolen from another forum:

Quote

You know, before China locked down all of Hubei on 23rd Jan, they were on the same ~25% growth, quadruple-every-week curve that a lot of Western nations are now. That curve started flattening out around 3rd Feb (in line with the 8-10 day case lead), showing that the lockout was really helping. But if it hadn't - if you assume they're lying about controlling their cases - then it's easy enough to calculate what the situation should look like there today.

Assuming the reported ~20,000 cases on 3rd Feb, in the 7 weeks since, their cases would've skyrocketed by 4^7 or 16,384 times, to 327 million infections, and adding an astonishing 46 million more every day (though case growth might've peaked naturally in the near future). If their reported 2.3% death rate continued then they'd have close to 7.5 million dead by now, maybe 100,000 dying every day - quite probably a lot more, given that kind of massive overload of their healthcare system.

That sort of scenario would be pretty hard to sweep under the rug, don't you think?

 

[airdvr 210]

We also have about 6 times the number of people here so the 5.5 factor is about right.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

21 hours ago, billvon said:

I'd suggest you go to a local shopping center and see if it's deserted.  In most states, people are still partying in bars.

Not in Wisconsin. 

They closed the bars.

Let me repeat that:

They closed the bars in Wisconsin.

[aonsquared 9]

4 minutes ago, airdvr said:

We also have about 6 times the number of people here so the 5.5 factor is about right.

It was 3.8 the day before yesterday, and 4.9 yesterday. I hope you see where this is going...

Edited March 25, 2020 by aonsquared

[airdvr 210]

You're making a huge assumption that all numbers are known.

[aonsquared 9]

Just now, airdvr said:

You're making a huge assumption that all numbers are known.

I think you're being confused between China and South Korea.

You can absolutely distrust China.

But South Korea is a democratic, capitalist country, and most of all a staunch ally of the US. Remember the Korean war? China and South Korea are NOT the same country!!!

South Korea did a LOT more testing (more than quarter of a million tests) so if the numbers are uncertain...it's that the US numbers are underestimated. For their cases:

For the USA:

[Phil1111 1,149]

5 minutes ago, aonsquared said:

I think you're being confused between China and South Korea.

You can absolutely distrust China.

But South Korea is a democratic, capitalist country, and most of all a staunch ally of the US. Remember the Korean war? China and South Korea are NOT the same country!!!

South Korea did a LOT more testing (more than quarter of a million tests) so if the numbers are uncertain...it's that the US numbers are underestimated. For their cases:

Democracy and capitalism have nothing to do with the points that you're trying to make.

If you hold your cursor on the curve for a country. It will extrapolate anticipated future outcomes based upon current cases.

Currently the US death rate is doubling every three days.

[wmw999 2,447]

1 hour ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Not in Wisconsin. 

They closed the bars.

Let me repeat that:

They closed the bars in Wisconsin.

They closed the recreational pot stores here 

Wendy P.

[turtlespeed 220]

Just now, wmw999 said:

They closed the recreational pot stores here 

Wendy P.

But those are essential !!!!

[wmw999 2,447]

They stayed open a week and a half after the bars

Wendy P.

[jakee 1,489]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

We also have about 6 times the number of people here so the 5.5 factor is about right.

10 days earlier...

[jakee 1,489]

1 hour ago, turtlespeed said:

Performance and preparedness are not the same things.

Other factors come into play as performance. For instance, when the government says stay off the beaches, and don't gather in large groups, and the population says FU government, we need to go to the beach, it makes a huge difference.

They did a lot more than just ask, which plays straight back into preparedness.

[airdvr 210]

1 hour ago, aonsquared said:

I think you're being confused between China and South Korea.

You can absolutely distrust China.

But South Korea is a democratic, capitalist country, and most of all a staunch ally of the US. Remember the Korean war? China and South Korea are NOT the same country!!!

South Korea did a LOT more testing (more than quarter of a million tests) so if the numbers are uncertain...it's that the US numbers are underestimated. For their cases:

For the USA:

So they tested 4.5% of their population.  What conclusions can you draw when testing that small a percentage?

[turtlespeed 220]

1 minute ago, jakee said:

They did a lot more than just ask, which plays straight back into preparedness.

I don't see it that way - Asking is an action - not a preparation.

That is all attributed to performance.

The government wasn't as stern, in hindsight, as it should have been.  That is performance.