914 replies to this topic

[Hip]

The continued insistence on lock-downs for everyone is now just killing a lot of people who didn't have to worry about dying from COVID-19. It is a society-wide tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

 

The need for lockdowns is just a sign of government incompetence at dealing with the pandemic. Plenty of countries have avoided lockdown, and still have far less coronavirus deaths than Europe or the US, by taking the pandemic more seriously, and applying better means to control it.

Edited by Hip, 26 May 2020 - 06:00 PM.

[pamojja]

Pamojja, thanks for putting in the effort to track the statistics. You were close to spot on from the beginning, unlike many others who are not looking at the current data, but seem to cling to the original "millions and millions are going to die, run hide, fear, panic" mantra...

 

The continued insistence on lock-downs for everyone is now just killing a lot of people who didn't have to worry about dying from COVID-19. It is a society-wide tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

 

The sad truth is, that everyone with education could have simply done to put it in perspective. I feel admist a sea of simpletons. Most of the academics seem to have forgotten simple calculus.

 

Caring societies do not count anyone as expendable, even if they are obese, have underlying health conditions, or are old. 

 

 

But the really bottom-deep sad story is, its plain population control, under the disguise of compassion:

 

 

2020 in the EU till now saw a 2.9 times rise, the US a 2.4 times rise from average influenzia and pneumonia mortality. Which together has affected about 10 percent of the world population this year only.

 

Every single f***ing year about 15% of our world population (*) experience even 3 times the average flu/pneumonia mortality. Not just 2020.

 

 

(*) by adding up in 2017 worst affected: Philippines, Guinea, Peru, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Gabon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, DRCongo, Kenya, South Africa, Togo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, Liberia, Benin, Ethiopia, Malawi, Djibouti, Somalia, Eswatini, Guinea Bissau, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Prinicipe, South Sudan and Madagaskar.

 

And it isn't comforting that in those countries now almost none died of covid-19. After all, these countries life-expactancy together in average is only at about 62 years.

 

 

 

Sure. Let everyone else die in the southern hemisphere, past and future, but not New Yorker or London elderly this year. As it ever could have been prevented.

Edited by pamojja, 26 May 2020 - 07:30 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

Data without context and logical/rational interpretation is worse. That is a problem when people lack critical thinking skills and are never taught it.

[Mind]

Leading Russian doctor calls BS on the over-reaction to COVID-19 :https://russia-insid...ll-invu/ri30462 I hve been saying the same thing for over a month now. The data is in. The policy of extreme lockdowns is not optimal for a vrus that is fatal in a small fraction of the world's population. I am unsure why smarter more targeted measures are not being implemented. It really is starting to look like there is an agenda - and it is not "public health".

 

Some other doctors are revolting as well.: https://off-guardian...-and-democracy/

[gamesguru]

Leading Russian doctor calls BS on the over-reaction to COVID-19

 

Won't be long before he's tossed from a building.  Or maybe the Kremlin will keep him along in case he complies perfectly lol

 

It's the summertime, sir.  Respiratory viruses typically proliferate in the Fall and Winter.  Don't assume the pandemic is over!!

 

And the phenomenon is exactly opposite in Australia in the Southern Hemisphere (and likely Brazil)

 

Please ease up with your shorthand swearwords and bitter protests against an otherwise modest and justified response

[Daniel Cooper]

Please ease up with your shorthand swearwords and bitter protests against an otherwise modest and justified response

 

Something like 40 million people in the US have been unemployed due to the covid response.  Regardless as to whether that response is right or wrong, I don't think you can call it modest.

[gamesguru]

Something like 40 million people in the US have been unemployed due to the covid response.  Regardless as to whether that response is right or wrong, I don't think you can call it modest.

 

Feds should have had the masks in February.  We're just dealing with the fallout now.

 

And by this, I interpret as "immodest" anything less than leaving completely open schools, bars and gyms?  If interpreted correctly, it like a right-wing conspiracy to me

[Mind]

The extreme over-reaction to the novel coronavirus is leading to a tsunami of horrible health and societal effects. Protecting the frail elderly and obese with chronic health problems is a much better approach which is being oddly rejected by most health authorities in Europe and the U.S.

 

More than 2 million people waiting for cancer care in the UK.

 

More than 52,000 cancer ops delayed in Germany.

 

Add in all the other delayed medical procedures, social unrest, people on the edge of starvation, food riots, and you have orders of MAGNITUDE more deaths possible than COVID-19 could have ever produced. Sad that so many continue to support the destruction of future lives and health.

 

 

[Daniel Cooper]

Feds should have had the masks in February.  We're just dealing with the fallout now.

 

And by this, I interpret as "immodest" anything less than leaving completely open schools, bars and gyms?  If interpreted correctly, it like a right-wing conspiracy to me

 

How do you figure that?  Both the CDC (including Fauci who everyone seems to love) and the WHO were both saying "masks don't do anything" in February.

 

And exactly how would "the Feds" conjure up hundreds of millions of masks out of thin air even if the CDC and WHO said they were useful?  There have never been hundreds of millions of masks sitting in Federal warehouses ever - not during Republican nor Democrat administrations.  So, how does one suddenly produce those quantities of masks in weeks?  

[Hip]

How do you figure that?  Both the CDC (including Fauci who everyone seems to love) and the WHO were both saying "masks don't do anything" in February.

 

And exactly how would "the Feds" conjure up hundreds of millions of masks out of thin air even if the CDC and WHO said they were useful?  There have never been hundreds of millions of masks sitting in Federal warehouses ever - not during Republican nor Democrat administrations.  So, how does one suddenly produce those quantities of masks in weeks?  

 

Firstly, it's a cock and bull story that masks are not useful for the general public. It's embarrassing to see how the WHO and many Western scientists have made fools of themselves with their stance that masks are no proven benefit for the public in this pandemic, and should only be used by medical staff. 

 

Masks are vitally important for frontline medical staff, and make the difference between life and death for these staff. But the WHO would have us believe that although highly effective for medics, masks don't work at all for the general public.

 

That is like saying bulletproof vests work for policemen, but don't work for ordinary people! 

 

This "masks have no benefit" statement has made Western science look decidedly dubious and second rate. I know the advice on masks is more to do with politics than science, because it's being said to protect the supply of masks for medical staff who need them most. But once scientists start lying for political reasons, they are no better than any other fake news peddlers online. 

 

 

 

Secondly, it appears easy enough to make enough masks if you want to: when Taiwan realized that a pandemic was likely coming (which was pretty obvious given the what was happening in China), they opened up 60 new factory production lines in advance to make more masks, so that everyone in the country had ample supply. Taiwan have only had 6 coronavirus deaths, and have never needed to implement a lockdown.

 

If a country is too incompetent to see a pandemic coming, and to stupid make advanced preparations for it, then it's a second rate country. In this respect, the US and Europe are looking decidedly second rate.

Edited by Hip, 01 June 2020 - 07:25 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Don't misunderstand me.  I am making no comment on whether masks do or don't work.  

 

My point is that the idea Federal government should have magically conjured up a 100 million masks in February is unrealistic.  No government was going to be able the accomplish that.  The masks have never been sitting in warehouses, and the official line of the major US and international health organizations as of February was that "masks don't help".  Faulting a government for not having these masks at that time is just not a reasonable position in my opinion.  

 

As far as the US and Europe being second rate countries because they weren't prepared - there simply is no precedent for stockpiling the types of material that some are expecting.  The only countries that had masks were the ones that had a culture of wearing masks when there was no pandemic - i.e. a number of Asian countries.

 

As far as stockpiling other material like ventilators - initially there was a great uproar that we didn't have 100,000 ventilators sitting in a warehouse.  However, ventilators are perishable items.  They have rubber seals and valves that deteriorate if the are just sitting.  So how long ago were we have to put these on the shelf?  A decade ago?  As it turned out, NYC predicted that they would need 30,000 ventilators.  At the end of the day I believe their peak usage was 5,000 vents as doctors started to question whether these vents were doing any good and perhaps might even do some harm.

 

I know people want to stamp their feet and say "damnit, they should have been ready!". And certainly there were things that could be done better. But pandemics are unpredictable in both timing and what resources will be required to combat them.  If this pandemic had happened 5 years ago, or 10 years ago, we would not have been materially more prepared then compared to now.  There were no mask or ventilators sitting at the ready then either.

 

Now, what would have really helped?  A broad spectrum anti-viral like DRACO.  I think it borders on criminality that Todd Rider has been trying to get funding for this treatment since 2011 now.

 

 

[gamesguru]

My point is that the idea Federal government should have magically conjured up a 100 million masks in February is unrealistic.

 

The CDC and Trump administration could have at least ramped up testing capacity and loosened the early restrictions on who got tested.  "Gotta have traveled to an affected country, or have had contact with someone who tested positive"

 

Germany did a great job of early testing, being in the highest per capita testing for much of March.  If you look at their active cases, they're well passed their peak

 

No DRACOs in Germany, no magic super powers.  Just a well-orchestrated, intelligent Federal response and a tightly-knit, rational population base

[Daniel Cooper]

What is the evidence that Germany achieved their low infection rate through testing?  My impression is that they did a better job of social distancing but I may be mistaken.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 02 June 2020 - 01:20 PM.

[gamesguru]

What is the evidence that Germany achieved their low infection rate through testing?  My impression is that they did a better job of social distancing but I may be mistaken.

 

Germany was one of the first countries to reach 2% of total population tested, i.e. 20,000 per 1 million.  The only countries ahead of them in March were small ones like Iceland, Lichtenstein, and the Faeroe Islands.  Trump repeatedly (falsely) claimed in early April we were doing more testing than any major country but Germany.

 

Sure the German people have been more reasonable and co-operative than the American people, but I definitely can't agree with your stance that testing and contact tracing were non-factors in Germany's success.  They were pivotal instruments, like with Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam (a country where still nobody has died of COVID).  A good government response, combined with civil obedience, are the countries currently seeing the best results.

 

While U.S. struggles to roll out coronavirus contact tracing, Germany has been doing it from the start

May 25, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

BERLIN — There's no sophisticated technology in the northern Berlin office where Filiz Degidiben spends her days tracking down contacts of people infected with the novel coronavirus.

 

Her main tools are the phone by her side, a yellow calendar on the wall and a central database, accessible from her desktop computer, that was developed with infectious diseases such as measles in mind.

“When coronavirus came, I wanted to help,” said Degidiben, who used to work assisting people with filling out forms in the social services department.

 

As the United Kingdom and the United States scramble to hire teams of contact tracers, local health authorities across Germany have used contact scouts such as Degidiben since they confirmed their first cases early this year.

 

Epidemiologists say the effort has been essential to the country’s ability to contain its coronavirus outbreak and avoid the larger death tolls seen elsewhere, even with a less stringent shutdown than in other countries. Germany has experienced about 10 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people. The United States has seen nearly three times as many. France, more than four times. Britain, more than 5½ times.

 

As restrictions here are lifted, Chancellor Angela Merkel has singled out tracking infection chains as the key, above “all else.” Germany aims to have five contact tracers for every 25,000 people — or about 16,000 for its population of 83 million.

 

In Reinickendorf, the Berlin district where Degidiben works, a lack of scouts is not a problem. There are about 75 in place for the district’s 260,000 people. A post-lockdown spike in infections has not yet materialized here. Four out of 6 contact tracing teams are in hibernation.

 

Degidiben picks up the phone and dials her first case for the day: an 82-year-old man whose lab results have come back that morning. It’s one of just two positive cases in the district, down from a peak of around 30 in March.

[Daniel Cooper]

Germany was one of the first countries to reach 2% of total population tested, i.e. 20,000 per 1 million.  The only countries ahead of them in March were small ones like Iceland, Lichtenstein, and the Faeroe Islands.  Trump repeatedly (falsely) claimed in early April we were doing more testing than any major country but Germany.

 

Sure the German people have been more reasonable and co-operative than the American people, but I definitely can't agree with your stance that testing and contact tracing were non-factors in Germany's success.  They were pivotal instruments, like with Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam (a country where still nobody has died of COVID).  A good government response, combined with civil obedience, are the countries currently seeing the best results.

 

See, you're attributing arguments to me that I never made.  I did not say that testing and tracing were non-factors - I only asked for the evidence that they were the determining factors as your prior posts seem to imply.

 

I have no doubt that testing played a role.  But to say it made the difference is to engage in a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument.  You can not say "Germans did more testing and they have a lower infection rate, therefore the one caused the other".

 

There are a host of differences between the US and other European countries and Germany.  Population genetics, social traditions, population density, the way the mass transit systems work, covid testing, etc. etc.  Germans are for one notoriously more standoffish than Italians.

 

Certainly testing and tracing played a role.  But, I suspect (but I have no proof) that social issues probably played a bigger role and one that I haven't heard a lot of comment on - differences in their mass transit systems.  Germany like most of Europe makes extensive use of trains, and subways.  But, my impression is that the German mass transit system tends to be much less densely packed compared to the UK, Italy and NYC.  At least it was the last time I was there in the 1990s.  I think trains/subways are going to end up being an extremely important vector for covid - look at where covid really took off in the US - NYC and New Jersey where one third of all US cases reside.  Both places where mass transit is extensively used and has run uninterrupted through this ordeal.  You have so many people in such close proximity in those systems that it's hard to see how it wouldn't be an important vector.  And btw, a situation where masking is likely to be most effective.  

 

I'm all for testing and fault the CDC for having "not invented here syndrome" in deciding that they would not use the test that China and South Korea were already using.  Someone should certainly be fired over that.  But I don't know how significant of a difference it would have made.  Nobody except South Korea were testing asymptomatic people in the early stages (and even South Korea wasn't testing many asymptomatic people until April).  Since we know that a very significant percentage of the infected population have little or no symptoms, I'm not sure that testing is the silver bullet you believe it to be.

 

But, I freely admit you may be more right than I.  We won't know the answer to this question for a number of years after a lot of academic investigation and analysis.

[gamesguru]

But, I freely admit you may be more right than I.

 

Thank you.  The decision from the CDC to restrict testing came from the Trump administration, so if anyone is fired, it should be them.

 

Whatever your stance it's clear the federal response has only made things worse, and investigations need to begin from the top.  Encouraging anti-lockdown protests, muzzling health officials, befudging numbers, and now tear gassing peaceful protestors?  This tyrant has gone too far.

 

Also worth mentioning Sweden has just displaced France as #7 in terms of deaths per capita.   They continue to gain numbers rapidly despite their flu season ending and their oft repeated claim that herd immunity is right around the corner

[Daniel Cooper]

Thank you.  The decision from the CDC to restrict testing came from the Trump administration, so if anyone is fired, it should be them.

 

Whatever your stance it's clear the federal response has only made things worse, and investigations need to begin from the top.  Encouraging anti-lockdown protests, muzzling health officials, befudging numbers, and now tear gassing peaceful protestors?  This tyrant has gone too far.

 

Also worth mentioning Sweden has just displaced France as #7 in terms of deaths per capita.   They continue to gain numbers rapidly despite their flu season ending and their oft repeated claim that herd immunity is right around the corner

 

I agreed that testing might be more important than I think (and you btw should agree that it might be less important than you think), but I disagree with your further conclusions.  I think you are letting your political animus show.

 

The federal response was imperfect.  As all human endeavors are imperfect.  Some countries did better, some countries did worse. The US response was not so good as South Korea and perhaps Germany (its still unclear to me to what extent that was due to government response versus Germans just being Germans), but it was also significantly better than most other European countries (Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Belgium).  That's not nothing.  You want to indict our response in comparison to those that did the best, yet you give no credit for our response compared to other major European countries which we significantly outperformed.  That seems irrational and unfair.

 

I see no evidence for "muzzling heath officials and befudging numbers" and as to your last claim of "tear gassing peaceful protesters" you show a profound misunderstanding of how our federal system works.  Federal troops are not tear gassing anyone and Trump has ordered no such action.  To the extent anyone is getting tear gassed, those are local city police or state national guards doing the tear gassing - in other words these actions were ordered by mayors and state governors - not Trump. 

 

As to your claim that these are "peaceful protesters", that is certainly not true in many cases.  Looting, setting fires, and attacking other people are not "peaceful protests".  Now, certainly not all protesters have engaged in these activities, but enough have to say that these are in many cases not peaceful protests.

 

I get that you hate Donald Trump.  He's not my ideal President either. But, judge things on the evidence not on emotion.  Go look at covid deaths per captia.  Among major Western countries, the US did better than most of them.  Not the best, but much better than many.  So, a dispassionate analysis would say that it's a mixed bag but generally favorable. 

 

As far as Trump being a tyrant - the fact that he is so routinely protested against and ridiculed in the media puts the lie to that statement.  He's not a nice guy and he says a lot of stupid things, but you don't have those sorts of things under real tyrannies.  Nobody was protesting Hitler or making fun of him within the German media within a very short period of time after he obtained power. That would have been an excellent way to end up in one of the camps. So let's quit throwing around words like "tyrant" against someone because you don't like them or their policies. It cheapens the word and disrespects the people that have suffered at the hands of real tyrants.

[gamesguru]

I see no evidence for "muzzling heath officials and befudging numbers" and as to your last claim of "tear gassing peaceful protesters" you show a profound misunderstanding of how our federal system works.  Federal troops are not tear gassing anyone and Trump has ordered no such action.  To the extent anyone is getting tear gassed, those are local city police or state national guards doing the tear gassing - in other words these actions were ordered by mayors and state governors - not Trump. 

 

As to your claim that these are "peaceful protesters", that is certainly not true in many cases.  Looting, setting fires, and attacking other people are not "peaceful protests".  Now, certainly not all protesters have engaged in these activities, but enough have to say that these are in many cases not peaceful protests.

As far as Trump being a tyrant - the fact that he is so routinely protested against and ridiculed in the media puts the lie to that statement.

 

Trump Hasn’t Talked To Dr. Fauci In Weeks As He’s Officially Given Up On The Coronavirus

In the latest indication that Donald Trump got bored and gave up on managing the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Monday that it’s been weeks since he’s interacted with the president.

According to CNN, “Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the most prominent members of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Monday that he has not spoken to or met with President Donald Trump in two weeks.”

 

 

The peaceful protestors who were wrongly tear gassed were the ones in front of the White House.  No looting or anything occurred there, just police brutality.  Please get out of your Fox News bubble, Twitter and Reddit are great sources for live News.

 

The fact that he tries to silence them.  By suing Twitter, by silencing protestors, replacing all the liberal judges.  It's fine to show your political animus by doing less than denouncing him.

[gamesguru]

I see no evidence for "muzzling heath officials and befudging numbers" and as to your last claim of "tear gassing peaceful protesters"

 

Are you serious right now??  Please get out.

 

Fauci says Trump no longer talks much to him or the rest of the coronavirus task force

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US's top infectious-disease expert, said President Donald Trump was now only rarely meeting with public-health experts on the coronavirus crisis.

 

In an interview with the health-news outlet STAT News published early Monday, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked whether he was in frequent contact with the president on the progress of vaccine candidates.

 

"No," Fauci said.

 

Trump and some top aides question accuracy of virus death toll

President Trump has complained to advisers about the way coronavirus deaths are being calculated, suggesting the real numbers are actually lower — and a number of his senior aides share this view, according to sources with direct knowledge.

 

Bad state data hides coronavirus threat as Trump pushes reopening

Test counts inflated, death tolls deflated, metrics shifted.

Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus' spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly.

 

In at least a dozen states, health departments have inflated testing numbers or deflated death tallies by changing criteria for who counts as a coronavirus victim and what counts as a coronavirus test, according to reporting from POLITICO, other news outlets and the states' own admissions. Some states have shifted the metrics for a “safe” reopening; Arizona sought to clamp down on bad news at one point by simply shuttering its pandemic modeling. About a third of the states aren’t even reporting hospital admission data — a big red flag for the resurgence of the virus.

[Daniel Cooper]

Ok, let's address those.

 

1.) Trump not talking to Fauci isn't "muzzling" Fauci.  Fauci can call a press conference or grant an interview any time he likes, and I assure you each would be given prominent coverage.  In fact Fauci has given interviews where he's criticized Trump and the only reason that you know that Fauci isn't meeting regularly with Trump is because he told you so in an interview.  So you've actually made the case against him being "muzzled".

 

2.) Trump and his aides "question(ing the) accuracy of virus death toll" isn't muzzling anyone and it isn't "befudging the numbers".  It's raising questions.  Which is ironic if you think about it since both of you guys are apparently "questioning the numbers".

 

3.) If the states aren't reporting accurate numbers to the CDC, that's the state's fault, not Trumps. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the states with the numbers of covid cases such that their numbers would make a significant difference in the total are all without an exception run by Democrat governments, so one could hardly imagine that they are fudging the numbers to help Trump out. Also be aware there have been charges of inaccuracy in both directions.  For instance, what most states are reporting is actually "deaths with covid" not "deaths from covid".  If a person with end stage lung cancer gets covid and dies, in most states that will be reported as a covid death.  Is it actually? Not really. But, I do not think the difference between "deaths with covid" and "deaths from covid" would be materially different numbers in my opinion.

 

I think you guys are letting your emotions (and I understand the hate for Trump) overrule your objectivity.  There's much to criticize this administration over (mainly not using the existing covid-19 tests when this started).  But the US is far from the worst in handling this pandemic.  

 

Look at the big picture between Europe and the US - we have numbers from left wing governments and numbers from right wing governments.  The numbers a very similar within a range of about 2:1 with the US being on the lower end of that range with the exception of Germany which is an outlier.  Why they are an outlier I have no clue.  And neither do you.  We won't know the answer to that for a couple of years after academic papers have been written on the subject and I can assure you there will be many.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gamesguru]

Ok, let's address those.

 

1.) Trump not talking to Fauci isn't "muzzling" Fauci.  Fauci can call a press conference or grant an interview any time he likes, and I assure you each would be given prominent coverage.  In fact Fauci has given interviews where he's criticized Trump and the only reason that you know that Fauci isn't meeting regularly with Trump is because he told you so in an interview.  So you've actually made the case against him being "muzzled".

 

2.) Trump and his aides "question(ing the) accuracy of virus death toll" isn't muzzling anyone and it isn't "befudging the numbers".  It's raising questions.  Which is ironic if you think about it since both of you guys are apparently "questioning the numbers".

 

3.) If the states aren't reporting accurate numbers to the CDC, that's the state's fault, not Trumps. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the states with the numbers of covid cases such that their numbers would make a significant difference in the total are all without an exception run by Democrat governments, so one could hardly imagine that they are fudging the numbers to help Trump out. Also be aware there have been charges of inaccuracy in both directions.  For instance, what most states are reporting is actually "deaths with covid" not "deaths from covid".  If a person with end stage lung cancer gets covid and dies, in most states that will be reported as a covid death.  Is it actually? Not really. But, I do not think the difference between "deaths with covid" and "deaths from covid" would be materially different numbers in my opinion.

 

But the US is far from the worst in handling this pandemic.

 

Fauci doesn't have the authority to call WH press conferences.  He doesn't even have the social permission to speak up or contradict the president anymore.  He'll get fired.  The only thing he's done is gone on a few news interviews and voiced mild concern like he had a gun to his head.

 

They did more than question it, they called straight BS on the democratic governor's stats and said the pandemic was under control.  Never mind the fact that all 12 states reporting bad data are Republican, or that these incidents often came days after meetings with the President (as in the cases with Georgia and Florida).  With facts like these it's impossible to conceal the fascist narrative.

 

But that's true, there's always Brazil and Russia.  Nothing like comparing yourself to the absolute worst to make yourself feel better

[Daniel Cooper]

Fauci can certainly call a press conference at the CDC, or even more powerfully simply grant an interview with any major news outlet.  He's hardly being muzzled.  

 

And "calling BS" is not muzzling or fudging.  It's stating an opinion which Trump and his White House are certainly entitled to do.  And the news of that opinion was reported skeptically in our news media if I recall.  

 

Give me the list of the 12 states allegedly reporting bad data and the specifics of what is bad about the data and I'll address that.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Daniel Cooper]

The peaceful protestors who were wrongly tear gassed were the ones in front of the White House.  No looting or anything occurred there, just police brutality.  Please get out of your Fox News bubble, Twitter and Reddit are great sources for live News.
 
The fact that he tries to silence them.  By suing Twitter, by silencing protestors, replacing all the liberal judges.  It's fine to show your political animus by doing less than denouncing him.

 
Do you think the non-peaceful protests the night before might have anything to do with their decision to disperse the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets?

 

And how did our discussion of covid alternative views and theories turn into a discussion about the George Floyd protests?

 

 

 

 

[mikeinnaples]

How do you figure that?  Both the CDC (including Fauci who everyone seems to love) and the WHO were both saying "masks don't do anything" in February.

 

The is a bit out of context. That was being said because of supply issues to ensure health care professionals had them.
 

[Daniel Cooper]

The is a bit out of context. That was being said because of supply issues to ensure health care professionals had them.
 

 

 

No, at that time they were saying "masks don't help prevent the spread of covid-19" not "they work but there isn't enough to go around".  And as far as I know, the WHO is still saying "masks don't help prevent the spread of covid-19" (at least they were a month ago).  Now, you may impugn that they were lying because there wasn't enough supply, but that's an assumption on your part.  At the time I was certainly saying they probably did some good.

 

And none of you addressed the larger point - gamesguru says that the administration was negligent in not having enough mask available in February.  Where exactly were these 100's of millions of masks to come from?  They weren't in a federal warehouse - not during the Trump, Obama, Bush, or Clinton administrations.  They've never been warehoused by any US government.  They are almost not produced in the US at all.  The vast majority of mask production is in Asia, specifically China and they were blocking exports of all masks at that time for many months.

 

So, if you're going to charge an administration with negligence you have to have a plausible scenario where they would have been able to supply the country with mask on a few weeks notice, especially in light of the fact that the official position of the CDC and the WHO (and Fauci) was that they would not help.

 

The only countries that had a good supply of masks were the Asian countries where mask wearing was common before the covid pandemic.

[mikeinnaples]

They did more than question it, they called straight BS on the democratic governor's stats and said the pandemic was under control.  Never mind the fact that all 12 states reporting bad data are Republican, or that these incidents often came days after meetings with the President (as in the cases with Georgia and Florida).  With facts like these it's impossible to conceal the fascist narrative.

 

 

 

In regards to Florida there were a couple of issues.  Our county coroners were told to stop reporting numbers directly and that the state health department would do the reporting. The state itself was only reporting Florida residents that died (per order from the gov.). At first glance you might think that there is nothing to that, but if you know Florida it would be obvious to you. As a state, we have a large volume of what we call 'snow birds' that generally come down to escape the cold and generally leave around Easter every year. I am not talking tens of thousands of people, it is a few million that are not in the state long enough to be qualified as a resident. Of course there are a good portion of the snow birds that are also Canadians. Throw that into the mix. Anyhow all of these people were here when the pandemic started. With that said, we had people that died that were no longer being reported by the state because they were not residents. The likely were not being reported in their home states on a regular basis, if at all, because of the assumption that they were being reported in the state they died in because it is what is actually relevant to pandemic tracking. Regarding the elderly Canadians, I honestly have no idea. Even the raw data and counts of actual residents were often mismatched between the county coroners and the state health department. An investigative journalist in south Florida found that to be the case with pretty much every county in the state. To top it off, our health department official tasked with heading this up was 'fired' because she wouldn't play ball with DeSantis. She pledged full transparency and was relieved of duty for sticking to what she thought was right.

 

I would like to add that even the number of positives is misleading because during the weeks of the first peak there simply wasn't testing being done despite what Gov. DeSantis claims. In my county alone, the two major health care systems (Advent and Health First) were turning away 250-400 people WITH symptoms each day simply due to lack of available tests. Also due to lack of testing, we also had people dying in their homes or in assisted living facilities that never were tested. I can't speak for the other counties on that, but I would have to assume this was the same throughout the state at the time. A good friend of mine lives one county over had his entire family (wife and kids) come down with a respiratory illness. Even with negative flu and rhinovirus tests they were turned away for covid-19 testing because they weren't in a risk group and didn't travel out of country. As such and due to another couple of less direct examples, I have to assume that this was indeed widespread throughout the state.

 

 

Edited by mikeinnaples, 03 June 2020 - 07:22 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

No, at that time they were saying "masks don't help prevent the spread of covid-19" not "they work but there isn't enough to go around". 

 

I take it that you didn't see Dr. Fauci's interview where he explained on national tv that this was the line they chose for the exact reason I specified. Look it up.

 

Here (there were other times too, not just this PBS interview):

 

 

Edited by mikeinnaples, 03 June 2020 - 07:27 PM.

[gamesguru]

Maybe instead of forcefully dispersing a peaceful crowd—simply because there was a non-peaceful one the night before—the president should have rather simply called off the photo op at the Church?  He's just too vain for that though, he'd rather harm hundreds than inconvenience himself.

 

Some states acknowledge mixing together the numbers

Contacted by CNN, public health officials in most states said they haven’t combined numbers from antibody and diagnostic tests.

But 11 states reported mixing the numbers together at some point.

 

Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont and Virginia have all done so, but some states have stopped the practice.

 

Officials in Virginia and Vermont said they’ve fixed the issue.

 

New Hampshire said it only reported the combined numbers for a day, and Colorado said it did so for about a week. Maine now separates out its numbers as well.

 

Texas said it will be separating the numbers this week, and Georgia says it’s working to provide greater transparency.

 

Of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, CNN has not yet received responses from Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, and Kentucky.

 

You're right that Fauci can go on News interviews.  He has been doing so lately voicing his concerns.  But that's different from being given room to speak at the WH press conferences, a privilege which he is clearly denied of late.  It's all part of a systematic right-wing effort to misinform the public and take control of the situation.

 

Trump administration is funding website spreading Covid-19 disinformation

 

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington and Andrew Roth in Moscow

6 days ago

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Annegret Hilse/Reuters

The US government is funding a website in Armenia which is spreading disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, including warnings that Armenians ought to “refuse” future vaccine programmes.

 

The website, Medmedia.am, was launched with the help of a US State Department grant meant to promote democracy, but instead has been used to promote false information about Covid-19, according to an investigation by the British news website openDemocracy.

 

Among Medmedia’s most popular articles are pieces that have called Covid-19 a “fake pandemic” and falsely reported that a morgue offered to pay hundreds of dollars to a dead patient’s family if they claimed the death had been caused by the coronavirus.

[mikeinnaples]

I would also add the disclaimer that I voted for DeSantis. It shouldn't have relevancy by rights, but there are people who unfortunately try to politicize everything.

[Daniel Cooper]

I take it that you didn't see Dr. Fauci's interview where he explained on national tv that this was the line they chose for the exact reason I specified. Look it up.

 

Here (there were other times too, not just this PBS interview):

 

 

Ok, let's accept that Fauci and the CDC were lying when they said "Masks don't work".

 

We're still left with the accusation that "Trump should have had enough mask in February".  

 

How does Trump do that?  Explain it to me.