Originally Posted by tom444
Your confession is duly noted.
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Your confession is duly noted.
I think the very non-scientific question that needs to be asked is: At what point are we better off admitting there is no perfect medical solution and there is never going to be a perfect medical solution? There are lots of competing opinions of "Can't do it without X, can't do it without Y."
Well, in truth, you absolutely could lift the restrictions without reliable testing, you just might not like the outcome you'd get. They could say tomorrow, "Anything is allowed to be open; each individual owner and employee can decide whether s/he wants to participate or not, and if not, you are free to keep taking handouts." They won't do that, of course, and even though a part of me thinks that they ought to, another part says that would still be too reckless.
But the real decision that it comes down to is, what level of tradeoff is acceptable, simply because we can't all hide forever. More people might die if you err on the side of doing it too early, but for the most part, I am fine with that. It sucks, but at some point, life needs to be lived, not feared.
In the meantime, while I have always been critical of government overreach during this incident, it would appear the most recent decrees in Michigan have really crossed a line that ought to make anyone do a double-take. No traveling between houses; sale of "non-essential" items banned entirely (this includes clothing, electronics,and toys); police to pull you over and question you if you are driving too far from your home; can't travel too far to exercise; fines and jail time for violators, all by the governor's executive order. Honestly, that lady ought to be sitting in a military prison right now awaiting the consequences.
It is one thing to make relevant suggestions and even orders that directly discourage dangerous situations, but increasingly, you are starting to see things that just look as if they are individual government officials pushing the limits of how far they can go - taking symbolic actions that do not do much to curb the spread of infection, but invade on your individual freedom enough to make you feel it. Or issuing declaration after declaration that the lockdown "may" be extended. "We're extending it through the end of May!" "Oh yeah, well we're likely to extend it through JUNE!" "Well WE'RE looking like we'll lock everyone down indefinitely into the summer!" "Well WE might do it for another 6 months!"
Just the government flexing its muscles, so to speak. It often seems as if there is a game of one-upsmanship going on between the governors and big-city mayors of roughly Michigan, Illinois, California, Oregon, and Washington, to see who can score the most points by imposing the most of these unpleasant but ultimately superficial restrictions. "Look at me, I'm decisive! I ignored the repercussions and made people do what's good for them! Please pick me for vice president or a cabinet position! Or, I mean, uh, Newsom 2024!" Just shameful and disgusting to see the way some of these people are.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Smart move if true.
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coro...-20200410.htmlLANSING, Mich. — After Friday, Michigan residents will no longer be able to jump in the car — or cross the street — to visit friends and relatives inside the state, or to go to the cottage Up North, with limited exceptions.
That is one of the major changes in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “stay home” order, issued Thursday, which also extends the expiration of the order to May 1.
Until now, travel between two Michigan residences has been permitted.
Beginning Saturday morning, that will end, except for purposes such as caring for a relative, an elderly friend, or a pet, visiting a nursing home or similar facility, attending a funeral with no more than 10 people, or complying with a court order related to child custody.
“All public and private gatherings of any size are prohibited,” Whitmer said at a news conference. “People can still leave the house for outdoor activities,” and outdoor “recreational activities are still permitted as long as they’re taking place outside of six feet from anyone else.”
I was just on Yahoo news.... yea, I know. Some dude just said we should be prepared for another 18 months of shut down. Ummm.......... I don't think so!
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Yahoo News
They are about equal to the papers at the grocery store checkout. You know like the ones that say ...Bigfoot takes a job as a NY City taxi driver
There is a medical solution to the testing issue -- buy the tests on the open marketplace that other countries have demonstrated and documented work reliably and efficiently. Stop using tests produced by the CDC that suck ass. It is just that simple.
As to Governors going off the rails with excessive orders and impinging on civil liberties -- this is what happens when you lack effective and strong national leadership on an issue. You have 50 individual decisions being made from50 different starting premises and for different end goals.
It is not hard to see the stark distinctions between places where there was proactive, decisive, and effective national leadership. They are mostly through the worst of this. We are maybe halfway and no one knows what the plan will be for moving forward.
Clear leadership and identifying and executing a gameplan is important in any situation. We have a gameplan that changes daily and leadership that says that potentially needed lifesaving equipment is not for the states or the people but "ours" and then changes the wording on websites to ret-con it to be true like a bad comic book.
Is it any wonder that Governors and states are left to push whatever ideas they feel like?
I know, but I have exhausted every avenue of "entertainment" at this point...lol.Yahoo News
They are about equal to the papers at the grocery store checkout. You know like the ones that say ...Bigfoot takes a job as a NY City taxi driver
They can push whatever they feel is appropriate... That doesn't mean the general public is going to stand for it. This is becoming an issue of what is good for us.... and what is good for us, if that makes any sense.Is it any wonder that Governors and states are left to push whatever ideas they feel like?
By and large, people have been very "good" about following the directives. BUT... this is NOT going to last. "They" keep pushing the time line forward every day. At some point, this country NEEDS to get back to work. "They'" can't print enough money to keep this going for an extended period of time before the country is beyond coming back, or people just say fuck it... we have had enough.
Never disagreed with that. But the current situation is what an almost total lack of national leadership looks like. And it looks like 50 governor's and 1000's if mayors running around sticking their fingers in the dike with no coordinated efforts.
This only ever needed to be 6-8 weeks of lockdown at most. And that wouldnt have had to be for everywhere. Only parts of China ever got locked. But because it was bungled from the jump, it's a rolling bit of nonsense with no firm timeline.
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Thanks guys for all of your responses to my earlier post. I appreciate hearing all of your opinions. It's just hard to know what to think/believe anymore about all of this. Rumors are rampant and who knows if what you hear in the media is true. They all have their own agenda.
I thought the purpose of the quarantine was to keep the hospitals from becoming overloaded, not reduce the number of cases to zero.
Given that even New York says it's through the worst, and medical workers everywhere else seem to be so "overwhelmed" that they have plenty of time to make choreographed dance videos ... well, it sounds like we ought to be getting close to the stated goal soon.
Oh yeah, remember that time when the governor of New York said he was going to need 30,000 more ventilators than what they had, and I said that was crazy? Who turned out to be right about that one, anyway? Weird. The sad thing is, it's literally his entire job to know shit like that.
See you Space Cowboy ...
The worst is over if New Yorkers remain resolute...is what he said...
"Meanwhile, China is acting like a leader. This status may be undeserved; the virus took hold within its borders, and the Communist Party leaders suppressed the earliest reports of its spread and have falsified data ever since. Still, China is the source of much of the world’s medicine and medical gear, and party leaders have made a great show of airlifting supplies to other countries, including the United States. As Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, tweeted, “Let’s be honest. It hurts to see China sending humanitarian aid to the U.S. and Europe.”
All over the world, people are asking: Who is the superpower now?
The impression is a bit misleading; much of the Chinese medical gear turns out to be defective. But the image is still powerful: At least, in the eyes of many, China is doing something. What, they ask, is America doing for the rest of the world’s suffering? What, for that matter, is it doing for the suffering of its own people?"
-Freed Kaplan reporting: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...rus-china.html
I am well aware of the leanings and biases of this particular source. However, Kaplan is typically a reasoned discussant of global political power structures and military affairs. But we keep talking about America first and being great...is that happening? Or are we going backwards? I just don't get it.
I'm 40+ years old and remember global events back to the late '80's. I can not think of another global catastrophe where the sending of supplies, medical aid, and other material support wasn't one of the lasting images of the crisis. Guess that is what China does now.
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Bonus points for slurring nurses and recirculating right wing talking points in one post
Good to see the consistency of your latest post and your first one in this thread posted on March 8 on parroting the party line
How many people does lightning strike every year get killed? Do you know that? You want to know how many lightning strikes? Six thousand people die every year from lightning strikes in America. Coronavirus death toll right now is 3,500. - Rush Limbaugh March 6, 2020
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2...e-coronavirus/
I think you are absolutely right that we have taken a step backwards. But it is more of a "lose-lose" situation than it is China "taking over" or "becoming a superpower."
Basically, we gutted our manufacturing capability to take advantage of cheap labor in Asia, and ocean freight became so cheap that it is a superficial cost. We are overly reliant on others for basic necessities, because we outsourced 99% of our production capacity, so we lose.
Meanwhile, China gets a huge trade surplus and hosts the manufacturing capabilities, but the joke's on them (or more specifically, on their working class). They do not really see the same benefits that would have come along with that 50 or 100 years ago when the U.S. was in that position. The whole scheme depends on labor being significantly cheaper - which means the whole thing also depends on the rank-and-file Chinese citizen having a pretty damn low standard of living. If that goes up to Western standards, the cost goes up, and then there is no advantage to making things in China anymore. So they get to be the world's factory, but the position they are in is more like they are doing everyone's laundry than being the powerhouse captains of industry.
So the result is this weird double-subservience thing where we have the upper hand on China because their entire scheme depends on low pay - but they also have us by the balls because when push comes to shove, the factory is over there, not here. Honestly a pretty crappy situation for all parties involved.
I cannot honestly say whether the Trump tariff war was aimed at breaking up that unhealthy relationship by forcing diversity of supply chains, but if that is a side effect of it, then that's a good thing. And if there is a silver lining in the virus crisis, it could be that it wakes everyone the hell up to the fact that having all your eggs in one basket because it is cheaper that way is not a good thing. Kind of like how the whole world used to be dependent on the Middle East for oil, before various events made it clear that was a bad idea also.
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Yes, yes, our brave "frontline heroes."Bonus points for slurring nurses and recirculating right wing talking points in one post
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Maybe hospital workers in New York specifically deserve that title, but from what I can tell, basically every other doctor or nurse in the country who does not work at a hospital has gone into hiding.
"Go to the hospital if you are experiencing trouble breathing, otherwise try again later." There, I just did the job of 100,000 doctors right now.
See you Space Cowboy ...
We haven't made anything here since the 70s. China has all the factories is an excuse for feckless and totally incompetent leadership.
On top of that, we actual do make pharamacueticals, ventilators, and PPE here.
Your analysis on the relationship between labor, capital, and consumer goods is basically spot on. Interestingly, it's been going on since at least the 1700's. So I just don't buy it as an insurmountable obstacle.
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My sister is a hospital nurse who has continued working with exposure to coworkers and patients. Two weeks ago she spiked a 101 degree fever and had extreme dizziness. Her test for COVID-19 came back negative (1/3 of COVID-19 tests in the US may be inaccurate) and she is feeling better now but I was scared shitless.
I do not know what you do for a living (I am a retired attorney) but now that you have taken your tiresome act on here to attacking health care workers go fuck yourself.
Yeah. He's outta line. At least a dozen people I know really well are working 10+ hours everyday at some medical facility or another.
At least 2 of them are currently in quarantine with no testing available.
I'll play devil's advocate here. My niece is a RN at the Cleveland Clinic. She has had her shifts cut and hours lessened because of not enough "work". So.............
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I'm happy she is feeling better and understand how scary that could be (my mother-in-law is going through some serious health issues right now, we are 90 percent sure it isn't COVID-19, but she hasn't been isolating like she should, either, and she has several risk factors).
Also, as much as I've been disagreeing with SR here, I think you misread his post.
Seems like he's talking about the stand-alone doctor's offices and the two or three nurses who work in them rather than what your sister does.Maybe hospital workers in New York specifically deserve that title, but from what I can tell, basically every other doctor or nurse in the country who does not work at a hospital has gone into hiding.
That being said, I'd also be surprised if many of those doctors and nurses aren't actually on a list somewhere to be called up if or when necessary, so I can understand your response a bit more as well.
"Attacking" is a stretch, but if you really want to get into it, I have a hell of a lot more respect for the guy continuing to work at the grocery store 8 hours a day than for my regular doctor who basically bailed and said "good luck everyone." Some hospitals may be another matter, but then again, hospitals have been gouging the shit out of everyone for 20 years, so it's hard to have more than lukewarm enthusiasm.
That sucks about your sister, but I don't see what that has to do with anything, so I guess your objection is noted.
See you Space Cowboy ...
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Hospitals have been gouging people for 20 years so if their employees get exposed to novel corona (health care workers in hospitals are the employment category regarded as most at risk) it’s “hard to have more than lukewarm enthusiasm” for the risk they face
Good Lord
And given your vast expertise along with a hostility to certain enterprises such as hospitals what do you do for a living?
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In truth, this is a pretty ignorant statement.
The virus is SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 causes a sickness called COVID-19. "Coronavirus" is meaningless as you use it. There are dozens of Coronaviruses. One causes the common cold. Another one causes MERS, a third causes SARS 1. Two strains are found in dogs only (Elmo /02 and NTU336/F/2008). Then, there's the Asian leopard cat coronavirus, the Beluga whale coronavirus (SW1), the Bovine coronavirus Mebus, Bulbul coronavirus (HKU11), the Carollia bat coronavirus, two versions of the Chaerophon bat coronavirus (22 and 44/kenya/2006). Of course, we also have two Chinese ferret badger coronavirus (DM95/03 and GX/247/06), the duck coronavirus (no, we can't blame lost football games last year on the coronavirus), at least three types in cats, two in horses, so on and so forth.
So, in effect, what your saying is that anyone who chooses to refer to the illness itself will cower while those who make wrong or misguided references to a family of viruses when they mean the SARS-CoV-2 virus will just go about their day. I fail to see how using proper taxonomic classification can determine someone's mental state, unless your saying those who are detail oriented or scientifically oriented will stay home while those who are not will not. Is that what you're stating?
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That may be the case in some larger cities but I don't think that is so in most places. I believe the long hour Doc's & RN's are in critical care (ICU) My wife works at a large pediatrics office and the doctors and RN's have been cut back to a 50% work schedule because of low patient flow. Seems to be so in Denver also
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/1...ealth-workers/
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
He referred to a video circulating on right wing sites taken who knows where to show hospital nurses have time on their hands, sneers about brave “frontline heroes” while accusing every doctor or nurse not working in a hospital of going into hiding (who knows what crackpot site he is parroting for that claim), then after my post and your reply posts it is hard to have more than “lukewarm enthusiasm” for any hospital workers who may be exposed since “hospitals have been gouging the shit out of everyone for 20 years”
He is a troll who knows enough to think he is knowledgeable while looking for responses by playing the outrageousness card. As far as whether his hostile posts are just an act or insecurities about his own status I have no clue
He got a vituperative response from me this time and I stand by what I posted. Hope it felt good for him because it sure did for me
That's an important point! I should've accounted for it. There's all kinds of docs and nurses. Some are in demand right now. Some aren't. Likely depends on their specialty.
I think it has something to do with the model your healthcare provider operates under. Mine is a nonprofit and has only closed one location. Others in the area that I think are for profit shuttered multiple locations.
It is, of course complicated and my post didn't account for that. I should have.
Ah I see, another attempt to steer it into the "mere fan" (you are unqualified to hold an opinion unless you also do X) argument. No thanks.
I can have a distaste for hospitals without wishing harm on the people working there ... but in case you forgot, you are also talking to someone who simply DOES NOT THINK THE VIRUS IS VERY DANGEROUS.
I have friends and relatives working in healthcare too, I suspect we all do. One cousin is a nurse at a hospital, and is intermittently freaking out over something virus-related, but I genuinely do not give a shit, or think she's a hero. I think they've had something like 2 cases of the virus there, there is no major outbreak to speak of, and if she catches it, she probably will not die. Another friend lives with a woman who works at a nursing home, and a bunch of people including her came down with fevers and had to get tested, and both of their reactions were, "meh, it will suck if we have to be quarantined (in case you thought I was the only person in the world so dismissive of the risk).
It's fine if you are freaked out, even understandable to an extent, but given that you are talking to someone whose entire take on the virus thus far has been that it is overblown, I am not sure what you expected? That it was all an act and would suddenly change?
For what it's worth, I have been seeing various dancing-hospital-workers videos popping up in friends' social media feeds for about a month, and my reaction now is the same as then. Which one is it, you're overwhelmed doing a job of grave importance with not a minute to spare - or you have time to fuck around dancing, in protective gear that you are also telling me is in critically short supply? Not really a good look if you're seeking praise or sympathy.
See you Space Cowboy ...
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...r-state-s-peak
Actual data if anyone still gives a shit.
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In my wife's office, the only check-ups they are doing are newborns to 2 year-olds. All others have been pushed back to late May. ADHD and kids suffering from depression are using telehelp and of course they see kids that have accidents or have been injured. There are very few kids that are sick because they have been homebound and I'm guessing the parents will need some sort of mental healthcare because of that when this is over.
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