Da Corona

[Winden]

Checking in on my old Brell people during these tough times. How is everyone hanging in there? Corona impacting any of you ? I mean it is pretty much impacting everyone in some shape or form. Hope everyone is as well as can be!


Winden

[Kulaf]

Just hanging out at home. WA closed pretty early. I don't think I will be back to work until the 8th.

[Ddrak]

Doing ok in Oz. Still at work, which is a lot better off than many. Restrictions are really starting to ramp up - maximum of 2 people indoors/outdoors (family excluded), most states have effectively closed borders, retail is basically shut down nationwide. Lots of "interesting" panic buying.

Dd

[Kulaf]

Well, now it looks like I won't be back to work until May. This is crazy. I am all for helping to stem the tide of the virus, but we fought world wars without shutting down the economy. We are fast approaching the "cure" being worse than the disease. If millions of people lose jobs, homes, businesses, wtf are we doing?

[Kulaf]

For reference, in the US Civil War we lost 520 people per day for 4 years accounting for 750,000 dead, 2.4% of the entire US population and never shut down a thing.

[Ddrak]

For reference, in the US Civil War we lost 520 people per day for 4 years accounting for 750,000 dead, 2.4% of the entire US population and never shut down a thing.

Because if you don't shut down then you lose around the same (percentage-wise), which is much more expensive these days, and people have a strong aversion to dying for no reason as opposed to dying for a patriotic war.

It's also a fallacy to say you didn't shut down anything - anything that wasn't war production collapsed. I think you'll find the economy of the south was torched for almost half a century.

Dd

[Ddrak]

For what it's worth, our government has been pitching "this will last at least 6 months, so create a sustainable plan" from day 1. It's pretty horrific economically, but basically they are paying a universal income until we can fire up again.

[Kulaf]

The problem I have is that if you die for any reason, and test positive for COVID-19 at autopsy, you died from COVID-19. Also, the statistics being tracked are great at accounting for positive tests, and "deaths" from COVID-19, but they SUCK at tracking recovery because a LOT of people have been exposed, never tested, recovered and are not being tracked at all.

This is skewing the data massively in one direction.

[Kulaf]

It's also a fallacy to say you didn't shut down anything - anything that wasn't war production collapsed. I think you'll find the economy of the south was torched for almost half a century.

Dd

That is normal in any war. The economy shifts, but people keep working and keep producing.

With respect to the South, slavery ending kinda does that. ;p

[Kulaf]

Here is a video of a Dr. in Minnesota being instructed by their department of health to falsify death certificates:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1247680994821509121

And here is the document:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVHThSTUEAA ... me=900x900

[Ddrak]

The problem I have is that if you die for any reason, and test positive for COVID-19 at autopsy, you died from COVID-19. Also, the statistics being tracked are great at accounting for positive tests, and "deaths" from COVID-19, but they SUCK at tracking recovery because a LOT of people have been exposed, never tested, recovered and are not being tracked at all.

This is skewing the data massively in one direction.

The mortality rate in the US is a good measure of how many people are not being tested. We already have a pretty good idea that the baseline mortality given appropriate symptomatic care is between 1-2%, so numbers higher than that indicate that there's a bunch of people simply not being tested that contract the disease and recover (and spread it far and wide) without anyone knowing. Doesn't necessarily say they weren't symptomatic, just untested.

This is a pretty good paper on estimating what percentage of undiagnosed people are out there.

Pretty happy to be in Oz with pretty much 100% of cases accounted for, but we now face a really interesting problem of "now what?"

Dd

[Kulaf]

The US is the third most populated country in the world and we rank #1 for total tests performed at almost 3 million. I think the problem is attributing COVID-19 as the cause of death at a higher rate than other countries do.

There is a big money grab going on in the US right now.

[Minute]

Already worked remote, so not a lot has changed for me in that regard, but I haven't been to the gym in a month and that is killing me. Did ok with an at home routine for about 2 weeks, but it's dropping off fast. The lack of social interaction is the worst of it. Maybe the younger folks are better suited for the online only setup, but I guess I'm a social butterfly. I honestly can't remember a time in my life when I've been so secluded and I'm finding out that my personality just is not geared for it.

I'm in SoCal and it is so weird how similar the cities look to apocalyptic movies. Even the simple lack of white-noise that is the city really does seem creepy af.

Side note... Dd & Kulaf really need to start a podcast. I still pop into this board once every couple months & to date I don't know a source on the planet that does a better job of presenting different perspective of issues with legit reasoning from each side. It amazes me how often I read something from both of you that is in direct opposition of my current thinking and makes me at least examine my previous conclusions. It's pretty great

[Ddrak]

The US is the third most populated country in the world and we rank #1 for total tests performed at almost 3 million. I think the problem is attributing COVID-19 as the cause of death at a higher rate than other countries do.

There is a big money grab going on in the US right now.

I don't see much of a difference in the way the US attributes to anywhere else in the world. Maybe 10% one way or the other. In either case, the number of deaths to COVID-19 is significantly underreported by a big margin when you compare the average death rate to the current one. Sure, maybe a few extra get dropped down on COVID-19 at a hospital, but a ton that never made it to hospital (couldn't afford it, maybe, after becoming unemployed and losing health insurance?) just get flagged as regular.

Not sure where the money to grab is coming from, though I'll bet there's companies trying. Overall the US has done relatively little for the population on a per-capita basis compared to most first world nations from what I've seen.

Similarly, the 3 million tests is farily late to the party, not that great on a per-capita basis and pretty awful on a per-positive-result basis. On the bright side, most people seem to be understanding how to stop it spreading as much as it could, which is a good thing and means 50-100k deaths instead of 2 million.

Having said all that, with the virus less contained in the US than other similar nations it does mean you'll likely burn it out faster and bring the economy back online more quickly. Hell of a price.

Dd

[Kulaf]

If the US has one advantage, it is the size of the country. Our population density is much lower than China and India. The numbers eventually coming out of India have the potential to be truly dreadful in scope. China probably already has over 50k deaths but is simply not reporting. Leaks getting out of the country estimate over 50k deaths in Wuhan alone.

India has basically tested 117 out of every 1 million people. They have 1.3 billion people. We are very likely to see deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

[Kulaf]

If this turns out to be true......holy crap:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/corona ... us-sources

[Ddrak]

If the US has one advantage, it is the size of the country. Our population density is much lower than China and India. The numbers eventually coming out of India have the potential to be truly dreadful in scope. China probably already has over 50k deaths but is simply not reporting. Leaks getting out of the country estimate over 50k deaths in Wuhan alone.

India has basically tested 117 out of every 1 million people. They have 1.3 billion people. We are very likely to see deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

Definitely agree that the US has a ton of innate advantages, though I'm skeptical on the idea that China is really that bad. The Chinese government is *really* good at locking people down when they need to and they really aren't afraid to use them at all. The less well developed nations without strong governments are really going to suffer.

It's sort of ghastly watching it slam the first world as highly mobile tourists and others spread it rapidly, but then see the slow tide of infections in the less mobile less developed nations.

I'm not really buying the "escaped from a Chinese lab" idea, though not completely ruling it out. The initial breakouts in Wuhan were nowhere near the virus lab, but they weren't near the wet markets either. It seems pretty confused to me.

Dd

[Kulaf]

Reports I read indicated that most but not all had some contact with the open food market. The Chinese version of the CDC has a building some 200m from the market. Initial speculation was that someone from that building may have been patient 0 and spread contamination at and around the market.

A leaked document from within China reported on by The Epoch Times was part of an interesting story of comments and actions by Xi that did not follow the official CCP narrative of "It was the market", or "The US planted it here to blame China." Basically in Feb at the early stages of the fight against the virus in China, Xi wanted to fold virus research back under full government control and issued the following directive which I will quote for those without a sub to The Epoch Times:

“In order to protect people’s health,” biosafety should be “integrated into national security,” biosecurity laws should be drafted, and a national system to control biosecurity risks should be set up, Xi said.

The next day, the Science and Technology Ministry rolled out new regulations via a document titled “Guiding opinions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses at the same level as the new coronavirus.”

I find it interesting that Xi would focus an effort at strengthening biosecurity at labs, while the narrative being pushed was anything but.

On a separate note, here is a source of the body count in Wuhan from Breitbart via reporting from The Epoch Times:

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/02/ ... -patients/

[Kulaf]

Reasoning for possible overstatement of US death total:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/us-data/

A confirmed case or death is defined by meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence for COVID-19. A probable case or death is defined by i) meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19; or ii) meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence; or iii) meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19"

[Kulaf]

I think the CCP is starting to realize that people are VERY skeptical of their numbers:

April 17 - Wuhan (China), the epicenter of the pandemic, today reported 1,290 additional deaths that had not been previously counted and reported, bringing the total number of deaths in Wuhan from 2,579 to 3,869, an increase of 50%, as reported by the Wuhan New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control