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Post 10 Apr 2020, 5:33 am

Ricky:
I admit I have a bias towards the use of evidence and rationale thought in making decision. Which is why I think peoples faith may be affected if they expect their faith to offer protection when it won't. Maybe your right and it won't matter...


For most religious people their faith offers solace, not protection.
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Post 10 Apr 2020, 8:23 am

I don't discount the gifts provided by a strong faith Ray Jay. But you can have a strong spiritual life without discounting worldly knowledge.

However fundamental faiths breed ignorance because they require the adherent to ignore evidence that contradicts their fundamental belief. Once you are able to do this in order to protect your fundamental belief (i.e. the bible is the literal truth, the Koran is the literal truth etc.) you will do this with all subjects.

Which is where we get this:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/us/louis ... index.html

Of course you also get the spring breakers in Florida and I'm guessing they aren't driven there by the word of God.
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Post 11 Apr 2020, 6:21 am

Rickyp who thinks of himself as Mr. evidence:

The fact that nations didn't act, after noting the severe actions China took, isn't Chinas fault. Nor is a lack of information or data from China. There were lots of infectious disease experts from all over the world in Wuhan.
On January 23, this is what Chinese experts were telling the world:(The Chinese View)
“Conservative estimates suggest that the scale of infection may eventually be 10 times higher than SARS,” said Dr. Guan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong, told China’s Caixin media group on Thursday. Dr. Guan spent two days in Wuhan this week.


https://canadanewsmedia.ca/sars-virolog ... far-worse/


SARS spread to about 8,000 people and killed 800. So saying that Chinese experts were transparent when they said it may be 10X more infectious is poor evidence indeed. It is so far 250X worse and I imagine that will double pretty soon.
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Post 11 Apr 2020, 7:37 am

Ricky (aka Mr. evidence):
Yes from Dec. 24 to Dec 29 the local Party officials tried to stop local health officials from communicating their findings. Once the National administration got involved WHO was notified, and as soon as the genome was sequenced (Jan.4?) it was shared with the world. A day later many countries had working tests.
Do you think the 4 days made a huge difference in the response by the rest of the world?


On Jan. 14th both China and the WHO said that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. This ste has a good summary of the information that was coming out of China on Jan. 1th as it was digested in the US and elsewhere.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspec ... now-deadly

Yes, China did share the genome. However, they also misled (intentionally?) as it relates to extent of infection and method of transmission.

The infamous Wuhan banquet was on Jan. 18th. There were 40,000 families at this banquet. That was the key date; afterwards the virus was out of control. The WHO declared a public health emergency on Jan 30th.
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Post 11 Apr 2020, 1:16 pm

rayjay
SARS spread to about 8,000 people and killed 800. So saying that Chinese experts were transparent when they said it may be 10X more infectious is poor evidence indeed. It is so far 250X worse and I imagine that will double pretty soon.


The reason SARS didn't infect that many people was that the response to it was immediate, and effective. Almost 10% of infected people died which is on a par with Covid 19. Warned that something was 10X worse than SARS required a SARS like response don't you think? What, its an excuse not to react because they only said it was 10X worse?

The reasons Covid 19 is worse? In many countries a late response. (You can legitimately blame China for not starting a lock down a week or two earlier but they were, after all, the first to have to deal with the illness and its entire epidemiology was still completely unknown at the end of December).

Countries that responded to what was coming out of China early (Austria began moving into lockdown in early March and completed it March 14.) managed to keep Covid 19 to Sars like levels.. Countries that dawdled did worse.
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Post 12 Apr 2020, 9:56 am

China is taking steps to make sure that only the "truth" about the origins of COVID-19 gets published...


https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/chi ... s-intl-hnk
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Post 12 Apr 2020, 4:10 pm

In December, 2017 I posted here about Trump's 2020 campaign slogan:



His slogan for 2020 (if he gets there): "Vote for me: You're still here, aren't you?"
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Post 15 Apr 2020, 10:55 am

I hope that as a result of the pandemic people will reflect on what jobs are really important. There are a lot of people in the food industry risking their lives on a daily basis to make sure we have food to eat. A lot of people in health care doing the same. Not necessarily highly paid. The "essential" jobs.

I hope that causes people to realize how dependent we are on each other we are, how interconnected we are. And that everyone who works hard, who puts in their 1750 hours of work in a year should have a liveable wage, health care coverage, something set aside for retirement out of their pay, sick pay (for a reasonable number of sick days they can actually take without repercussions), at least 2 weeks vacation after 6 months employment (I would say this should be bumped up as time goes by), paid family/pregnancy leave. Let's try to come out of this as a better country. Greed is not "good". Nor is selfishness.
Last edited by freeman3 on 15 Apr 2020, 12:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post 15 Apr 2020, 12:00 pm

Ah, found an article sort of related to what I just posted...

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... ng/609919/
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Post 16 Apr 2020, 12:41 pm

China is taking steps to make sure that only the "truth" about the origins of COVID-19 gets published..


https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society ... m=referral

But science has not stopped other theories from percolating. One theory – debunked last month by a genetic analysis by a group of the world’s top epidemiologists – is that the virus was bioengineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, the pandemic’s first epicentre.

These accident theories – and the lab-made theories before them – reflect a lack of understanding of the genetic make-up of Sars-CoV-2 and its relationship to the bat virus,” said Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University in New York.
“If someone had that virus in the lab, and say it escaped, it would not have been able to infect humans – the human Sars-CoV-2 has additional changes that allows it to infect humans,” he said, adding that the bat virus would have had to circulate, and evolve, for a number of years before mutating enough to be able to infect people.
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Post 16 Apr 2020, 12:43 pm

freeman3
I hope that causes people to realize how dependent we are on each other we are, how interconnected we are. And that everyone who works hard, who puts in their 1750 hours of work in a year should have a liveable wage, health care coverage, something set aside for retirement out of their pay, sick pay (for a reasonable number of sick days they can actually take without repercussions), at least 2 weeks vacation after 6 months employment (I would say this should be bumped up as time goes by), paid family/pregnancy leave. Let's try to come out of this as a better country. Greed is not "good". Nor is selfishness


There's only one nation in the OECD that doesn't offer guarantees for each of these in law.
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Post 17 Apr 2020, 7:22 pm

This anti-body test sampling study estimates that Santa Clara County has 50 to 85 more people infected with COVID-19 than the official positive case list. That would seem to have consequences for the reopening strategy if it's duplicated by similar studies. if the virus is that mild for most people--assuming that the test is not picking up a lot of false positives--then perhaps the focus should be on protecting vulnerable groups rather than closing society down. At least once the curve gets flattened enough. Not sure.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/s ... index.html
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Post 23 Apr 2020, 1:12 am

There is a quote from a New York Times article that was discussing Remdesivir that I think is thought-provoking:

"It’s also worth asking what this story says about the notion that the pandemic somehow proves Bernie Sanders right. Medicare For All, achieved through wrenching changes at ruinous expense, might provide “coverage” for every American, including the millions of newly unemployed.

But that’s of little help without effective diagnostic tests, therapies and vaccines, which typically emerge from profit-seeking companies operating in fiercely competitive and well-regulated marketplaces. Whatever the fate of remdesivir or any other drug, one lesson from this pandemic is how dependent we are for our survival on an innovative and robust pharmaceutical industry. Maybe we should do more as a country to cultivate it than tear it down."

For all the screw-ups in our response to this pandemic--a good many due to Trump's inept leadership--I kind of feel like our country is the best bet to come up with some innovation that will at least significantly alleviate the pandemic. And our individualistic, competitive society plays a significant part in that.

The downside to that is having a weak safety net and allowing economic equalities and lack of access to healthcare that I find appalling. And I think the sort of financialization of our economy that has gone on in the last 35 years is not necessary to that. At least I don't think it is. And there are definitely excesses with regard to Big Pharma. But, man, when you need a drug or vaccine really, really bad...it's nice to have a pharmaceutical industry that is really good at what they're doing. I think RJ had something to say about this a long time ago, like dont regulate the pharmaceutical industry too much because that might hinder the development of new drugs that could help him as he gets older.

Competition is still the best driver of human achievement. That doesnt mean we have to forego an adequate safety net or not cover everyone with regard to medical care or not have a decent minimum wage. But you do have to be careful to not hinder the incentives that drive competition.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... s.amp.html
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Post 23 Apr 2020, 8:59 am

freeman3
But, man, when you need a drug or vaccine really, really bad...it's nice to have a pharmaceutical industry that is really good at what they're doing.


Do they? The first test kits released by the FDC in failed. Most of the other early test kits came in from China or South Korea. And because they weren't properly validated they were of questionable quality. (Weren't actually in use in either country either.)

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/3/ ... korea.html

The FDA dropped standards on testing, and a lot of tests, like Abbot labs 15 minute test have been rushed into the market.
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic tested 239 specimens known to contain the coronavirus using five of the most commonly used coronavirus tests, including the Abbott ID NOW. The ID NOW has generated widespread excitement because it can produce results in less than 15 minutes.
But the ID NOW only detected the virus in 85.2% of the samples, meaning it had a false-negative rate of 14.8 percent, according to Dr. Gary Procop, who heads COVID-19 testing at the Cleveland Clinic and led the study.
"So that means if you had 100 patients that were positive, 15% of those patients would be falsely called negative. They'd be told that they're negative for COVID when they're really positive," Procop told NPR in an interview. "That's not too good."
Procop says a test should be at least 95% reliable
.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... id-19-test

There's going to be a lot of mistakes in responding to Covid, and rushing things to market to look good politically isn't a great idea.
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Post 23 Apr 2020, 9:09 am

As usual...a one-sided picture. If it is stored in a special solution there are issues.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... test/index.

What's China doing with regard to innovation here?