Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Mike41]

19 minutes ago, TomBAvoider said:

Completely expected. Food prices are driven not just by demand, which isn't much different than at other times (except for the initial hoarding), but by supply chain issues. The meat production problems are well known, same with milk etc. - some sector differences, as people stopped eating out, and the demand for things like flour and eggs skyrocketed. The upward pressure on rents is slightly eyebrow raising - as incomes shrink, it should ease price pressures, but I guess something else is driving it; commercial rents must have taken a hit one would think, as more and more businesses shift to work from home schemes (those that can, that is), and it looks like this might persist even once the Covid-19 situation is resolved, so long term demand for office space might be much lower.

Right now the big danger is demand collapse as unemployment keeps going up - I don't think the government can keep printing and distributing money indefinitely - eventually too many people are out of work. So it's all in the timing. The economy must be opened up before too much long term damage is done - already some sectors are hurt badly enough that they may not recover. Eventually the world-wide debt situation must be addressed and the bills will come due - what then? It's a recipe for prolonged doldrums - as in decades. I was looking at the post WWII scenarios for how things might work out economically, but believe it or not, the debt levels are much worse today than even back then!

Also consider the top tax rates were much higher for decades after WWII. That meant a rather quick lessening of debt burden. Now, after Reagan, Bush II AND Trump we have the lowest top rates and corporate taxes in many decades. That is something that will need to be rectified once the economy picks up. Politically though not too likely.

[corybroo]

The death count may be going down soon:   https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts

Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death Counts

Though he has previously publicly attested to the accuracy of the COVID-19 death count, the president in recent weeks has privately raised suspicion about the number of fatalities in the United State

Officials inside the CDC, five of whom spoke to The Daily Beast, said they are pushing back against that request, claiming it could falsely skew the mortality rate at a time when state and local governments are already struggling to ensure that every person who dies as a result of the coronavirus is counted. Scientists and doctors working with the task force, including Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said the U.S. death-toll count is likely higher than is being reflected in government data sets. And several local officials in hot spot areas said they’ve seen hundreds if not thousands more deaths over the last two months than in the same time period over the last several years. 

Personally, I wonder if there's anywhere in the world where reliable counts are available.  Indeed, a century ago it was called the Spainish Flu because other countries concealed how bad it was.

[Gordo]

You know its bad when the fed chairman is talking about a solvency problem:
Fed’s Powell says economic path ahead ‘highly uncertain’
GE hitting a 30 year low today. American Airlines trading like its going bankrupt (Boeing CEO this week said one of the airlines would likely go under).  People have been talking about a "second wave" of coronavirus, no idea about that, but I do expect a "second wave" of market declines.

I drove around observing businesses yesterday evening (in my state, only essential businesses which includes restaurants for take out, are open), it was really grim from my perspective. Fast/quick food places that don't have drive throughs were absolutely dead, this included Panera, Five Guys, and of bunch of no-name places near me (Indian restaurant, pizza place, etc). Even Chipotle which had a decent last quarter report, was doing far less than normal business (1/2 to 1/3 the normal activity).  I feel like there was more activity out there a week or two ago, I wonder if there is a new downturn...

Edited May 13, 2020 by Gordo

[Ron Put]

3 hours ago, Gordo said:

I find it pretty bizzare that some people have fixated on the 3 child deaths  from covid-19 related inflamatory disease when all indications are that covid-19 is safter for kids than the regular flu.  ...

The whole thing is bizarre, at least from a public health viewpoint.  But it makes perfect sense if you look at this as a political crisis.  As noted earlier, the stars aligned:

1. WHO's leadership was a China pick who delivered an absolution to Xi, while presenting the Chinese "containment" model as the only way to deal with the virus (based on clearly false information about transmissibility (WHO claimed it's lower than the flu's) and mortality (WHO claimed it's much higher than the flu).

2. In many of the liberal democracies political opinions are more polarized than ever, with much of the media in opposition to the governing parties.  The WHO statements gave ammunition to the media and opposition politicians to attack the current governments as lacking "leadership" and the hysteria spiraled from there, with only a few governments, like Sweden and Belarus, being able to withstand the pressure to follow WHO's urging and China's model of "containment."  Fear is a primary political driver and much of the population was whipped into being terrified of the "unknown enemy" and willing to cooperate in an unprecedented way.  Dissent was quashed through censorship and personal attacks, and experts who disagreed with the media-driven hysteria were polloried as a deterrent to others who now have to consider if speaking out is worth the likely damage to their careers.

Now that the truth is starting to emerge and that we know that while deadly and serious, Covid-19 is not much different than other coronaviruses and not much deadlier than a relatively bad flu season, those who were responsible for the lock-down and the tremendous damage to the Western economies are scrambling to save their careers and control the narrative.  Which they still do, as most of the media is with them.

The media made Ferguson and Fauci "stars" and the opportunist politicians who jumped on the bandwagon "true leaders."  Now the media is peddling a soft landing while making them into "saviors."  This is why we are subjected to the absurd claims from Fauci and Cuomo, and from the countless recent liberal arts graduates who write the clickbait nonsense dominating today's "news" and blurring the lines between the Fourth Estate and social media's 15 minutes of fame seekers.

Sometimes smart people make really stupid decisions for the rest of us.  The start of WWI was one such event (and the subsequent peace treaty), and if you want to go further back, the adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire.  Covid-19 is close, as it is likely to change the geopolitical landscape and end the unprecedented time of relative peace and prosperity most of the world has enjoyed under while the Western liberal democracies were the dominant political and economic force.

[TomBAvoider]

Well, if the economy collapses - and I sincerely hope we can avoid it - you're gonna see massive political change too. It's inevitable - whenever in history there's been a radical economic change in a short period of time, it's always followed by radical political change.

I listen to all the talk about lockdowns that are to drag on for months or even years, and I find it extremely worrisome, because it's not ever paired with any discussion about the economic and political consequences. It's as if you can blithly close down the economy and not worry about what will happen. 

I mean, if you really believe that we need to lock down for this long - fine. But you absolutely MUST map out how you see society surviving this not just from a health point of view, but economic and political - a REALISTIC plan must be formulated. Instead, the assumption seems to be it'll be a lockdown but otherwise business as usual. This is extremely dangerous. The debt is absolutely unsustainable. You can only kick the can down the road for so long. I am very, very concerned if this goes beyond August at the latest.

[BrianA]

I believe we are witnessing an acceleration in "software is eating the world", and innovation in general. I'm not saying don't worry at all about "old school" companies like GE or the airlines, but let's recognize the future of our economic growth is going to be in tech-driven businesses. I think we're going to look back at this a few years from now and see this increased the pace of that transformation. The old ways of doing things are changing.

 

Why Software Is Eating the World

https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/

 

162 benefits of coronavirus

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5u5Het5Lkcb2nSWJp/162-benefits-of-coronavirus

[Todd Allen]

Worldometer has been adding Covid-19 statistics per county for some states.  Just noticed they now have it for New York:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/

If we divide the deaths for Queens county by its population in millions we get

5878 / 2.23 = 2636 deaths per million

If we hit that same death rate across the US, probably a conservative estimate for achieving herd immunity before there is effective treatment =

2636 deaths per million * 331 million US  pop. = 872,516 US deaths

There are currently 53000+ active cases in Queens with daily hundreds of new cases and tens of deaths.  The deaths per million in Queens could go up significantly but until we get adequate testing it will be hard to estimate.

edit:  just did the same calc for Bronx county and got 935,570 US deaths

Edited May 13, 2020 by Todd Allen

[Ron Put]

14 minutes ago, Todd Allen said:

... If we divide the deaths for Queens county by its population in millions we get

5878 / 2.23 = 2636 deaths per million

If we hit that same death rate across the US, probably a conservative estimate for achieving herd immunity before there is effective treatment =

2636 deaths per million * 331 million US  pop. = 872,516 US deaths....

It should be clearly evident by now that the NY numbers do not make any sense.  The extrapolation above makes even less sense.  Unless we use the silly argument the media is making by comparing Sweden's death rate per million to Norway's, to claim that lock-downs work.  Of course, in this case one can claim that the NY lock-down caused a nine-fold increase in deaths.... ;)

Either that, or we must conclude that there is some major problem with NY's healthcare system, or that the counting is wrong.  It's likely both: the NY hospitals have been underfunded for about a decade. In addition, stupid state regulations likely caused unnecessary deaths by requiring nursing homes to accept suspected Covid-19 patients, while they were busy locking up the healthy.

The counting is also very suspicious, as many nursing homes (where much of the deaths occur) are reporting more "presumed" than actual Covid-19 cases (there are also financial incentives to do so).

Add to this the fact that there are as much as 50% fewer reported heart attacks and strokes, and you can safely assume that the numbers are wildly inflated. 

We'll know better in a year or two, when we compare the excess death rate in NY, which in an average year has about 160,000 deaths from all causes.

[Gordo]

Just out this morning, another 3 million file new unemployment claims, Labor Dept. says

The increase pushes the eight-week total to more than 36 million

Economists had expected an increase of 2.7 million new claims. The peak was 6.9 million new claims in late March.

The unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in April, the highest since World War II. Thursday's report said the rate increased to 15.7 percent by May 2. If adjusted to include furloughed workers who have not made insurance claims, the figure is nearly 20 percent.

The unemployment rate in Georgia hit 30% before their governor threw in the towel and "reopened", I'm not really sure how "open" things actually are, but after everyone was expecting a big surge in new infections, so far that isn't happening (after two weeks of "reopening").

[corybroo]

Using https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6   I was curious about country diffferences in Deaths/Cases and Recoveries/Deaths.  I realize both ratios would be affected by how long the corona virus has been rampaging in a country *AND* how accurate a country's statistics are.  Nonetheless here's what if found:

	Cases	Deaths	Recovered	Deaths/Cases	Recovered/Deaths
World	4,371,611	297,682	1,562,673	0.068094	5.249471
US	1,390,764	84,136	243,430	0.060496	2.893292
China	84,025	4,637	79,252	0.055186	17.091223
Russia	252,245	2,305	53,530	0.009138	23.223427
UK	230,985	33,264	1,032	0.144009	0.031025
Italy	222,104	31,106	112,541	0.140052	3.617984
Germany	174,098	7,861	1,503,000	0.045153	191.197049
Sweden	28,582	3,529	4,971	0.123469	1.408614

Germany is a real standout in the ratio of recovered/deaths.

Btw, MedicalXpress reported another reason to be skeptical of test results:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-coronavirus-touted-trump-false-negatives.html

Coronavirus test touted by Trump produces many false negatives: study

A rapid coronavirus test touted by President Donald Trump and used to test White House officials produces false negatives in almost half of all cases, according to new study by researchers at NYU Langone Health.

The manufacturer disputes the study results:

"Abbott has distributed more than 1.8 million ID NOW tests and the reported rate of false negatives to Abbott is at 0.02 percent," Scott Stoffel, a spokesman for the company said.

[Gordo]

Don't want to veer off topic, but is anyone else noticing a lot of parallels between COVID-19 and "climate change" only in a compressed hyper fast time scale?

I mean:

1) You've got your "Covid-deniers" (people who don't even think it exists) like "climate change deniers".

2) You've got endless academic models - with "all over the board" projections.

3) You've got your "experts" with dire predictions of catastrophe (millions of dead / end of the world as we know it).

4) You've got your "everyone is an epidemiologist" syndrome (like "everyone is a climate scientist").

5) You've got your "man made" vs. "natural" origins debate.

6) You've got your "THINK OF the children" emotional pleas.

7) You've got your debates over what deaths are attributable to (Covid/climate).

8 ) You've got your endless conspiracy theories (i.e. it's all a political take over / overreach for power grabbing or other political purposes).

9) You've got your politicized mainstream media vs. elected officials.

10) You've got your "career suicide" threat for speaking out against the mainstream media narrative.

11) Both have a major element of "fear of the unknown" and worst case scenario thinking (also known as "doom porn").

12) You've got your "the science is settled" groups implying "if you don't think the way I do you are a moron".

Edited May 14, 2020 by Gordo

[corybroo]

Gordo,

Following your tangent 🙂 and having recently watched The Great Hack, I’ll venture a view on the agitation of the anti-government lockdown protestors.  The movie was about Cambridge Analytica and the last election but one very interesting point was that the Russian trolls would fire up *BOTH* sides.  Fx, if there were going to be a black lives matter or a whites’ rights meeting, they would make sure everyone on both sides were urged to attend.  Their goal was not the cause espoused by either side but rather internal conflict here.   

[Dean Pomerleau]

14 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

If we hit that same death rate across the US, probably a conservative estimate for achieving herd immunity before there is effective treatment =

2636 deaths per million * 331 million US  pop. = 872,516 US deaths

Thanks Todd.

Ignoring baseless claims and wishful thinking that there must be something wrong with the NYC data and that it's not that bad, these estimates are in pretty close agreement with new serology study results from two of the hardest hit countries, France and Spain, especially when you consider that even the hardest hit areas of NYC are only about half way to herd immunity according to the recent NY serology survey. 

Based on antibody tests of a representative sample of the French population, an estimated 2.8M (4.4%) French citizens have been infected so far. France has 27K deaths, which equates to a 0.96% infection mortality rate (27,000 / 2,800,000). Assuming herd immunity requires ~65% penetration in a population, that would be 330M * 0.65 *. 0.0096 = 2.05M deaths in the US.

A similar new study in Spain found that ~5% of citizens had been previously infected based on antibody testing. Spain has a population of 47M so 5% equates to 2.35M people. Spain has also experienced 27K deaths from Covid-19. So the estimated infection mortality rate in Spain is 27K/2.35M = 1.08%. By the same calculation as above, that would equate to 2.3M deaths to reach herd immunity in the US.

We almost certainly will have to try to end the lockdown to avoid an economic depression. Hopefully other measures (masks, social distancing, testing and tracing, isolating the most vulnerable) will allow us to avoid the herd immunity outcome while waiting for a vaccine. But ignoring the clear evidence that allowing such an outcome would result in a lot more dead people isn't being very honest.

--Dean

[Gordo]

1 hour ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

Based on antibody tests of a representative sample of the French population, an estimated 2.8M (4.4%) French citizens have been infected so far. France has 27K deaths, which equates to a 0.96% infection mortality rate (27,000 / 2,800,000). Assuming herd immunity requires ~65% penetration in a population, that would be 330M * 0.65 *. 0.0096 = 2.05M deaths in the US.

One big question that I think is still unknown at this point is this - are the available treatments responsible for the relative far lower death rates in most parts of the country compared to early "hotspots"?  I don't actually know how widely prescribed various treatments have been (or home remedies for that matter, any way to see if supplement sales have surged?).  There are some anecdotes from doctors who report tremendous success and very low death rates.  Its funny I just did a quick internet search about hydroxychloroquine studies and see:

So to recap the above 3 out of the 4 featured results say "doesn't work" or "no benefit".  The media seems to smile with glee every time a new study comes out showing "Trump was wrong!!!" haha even though this should not have anything to do with politics.  Anyway, looking at the studies showing that it does work, including the one above, it seems fairly clear that zinc is an important component as is "hitting it early", when you include both of those, it looks quite promising, this one was just announced two days ago:

Drug Combo with Hydroxychloroquine Promising: NYU Study

The zinc connection is apparently important, and also something we discussed ages ago in this thread and was even described long ago in one of those MedCram videos by an actual medical doctor.  

"Those receiving the triple-drug combination had a 1.5 times greater likelihood of recovering enough to be discharged, and were 44 percent less likely to die, compared to the double-drug combination."  "Hydroxychloroquine, on the other hand, acts as an agent that transports the zinc into cells, increasing its efficacy, he suggested"

Researchers said the patients given zinc were one and a half times more likely to recover, decreasing their need for intensive care.One theory is that hydroxychloroquine may aid a cell’s ability to absorb the zinc which has antiviral properties and responds to the infection.

These results are far more impressive than the touted (by some like Dr. Fauci) Remdesivir which barely showed any improvement, requires an expensive and invasive infusion, and failed to show efficacy in numerous studies (which admittedly may have also been because it was only used in the most severe, late stage cases where you really aren't treating the virus anymore but the destructive immune response to the virus).

I'm guessing if every American just took a zinc supplement, a vitamin D supplement, and a green tea extract supplement, death rates from COVID-19 would plummet.

 

I stumbled upon this list recently of studies & analysis & anecdotes about Hydroxychloroquine/zinc (i.e. we have a pretty effective treatment)

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/02/pseudo-science-behind-the-assault-on-hydroxychloroquine/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.27.20073379v1

https://nationalfile.com/busted-media-uses-va-study-to-launch-easily-debunked-attack-on-hydroxychloroquine/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300881

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/04/06/here-are-five-doctors-whose-patients-have-seen-recovery-with-hydroxy-chloroquine-n2566409

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040758v3

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/stop-using-hydroxychloroquine-to-politicize-physicians

https://nypost.com/2020/04/11/doctors-pols-urge-use-of-miracle-coronavirus-drug-cocktail/

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/03/states-are-trying-chloroquine-to-treat-covid-19-it-could-be-a-game-changer/

https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/04/this-is-wrong-licensed-physician-in-utah-unable-to-prescribe-hydroxychloroquine-because-state-has-taken-over-distribution-of-drug/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/10/doctors-urge-trump-remove-federal-state-limits-hyd/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-update-on-the-coronavirus-treatment-11585509827

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/03/covid-19-patient-successfully-treated-with-unproven-drug-in-nj-is-a-ray-hope-opinion.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20200401220357/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/health/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-malaria.html

Dr. Testimony:

https://abc7.com/coronavirus-drug-covid-19-malaria-hydroxychloroquine/6079864/

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-elderly-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-treatment-texas-city/287-7383185c-940c-4cb2-82ea-c4a5ffad3ffb

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/dr-oz-hydroxychloroquine-shows-real-promise-against-coronavirus

More Links:

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-as-a-treatment-of-covid-19/

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/14/1/14_2020.01047/_article

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/Zhan-Wuhan-Trial.pdf

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040758v1.full.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883944120303907

Why it must be given early in disease onset:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20047886v1

Edited May 14, 2020 by Gordo

[AlPater]

Early 'excess death' data for Canada suggests decrease in deaths in early days of pandemic
Preliminary StatsCan figures capture January-March, before the peak hit
Valérie Ouellet, Roberto Rocha · CBC News · Posted: May 13, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/excess-death-january-to-march-statistics-canada-1.5568040

[Saul]

19 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Sometimes smart people make really stupid decisions for the rest of us.  The start of WWI was one such event (and the subsequent peace treaty), and if you want to go further back, the adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

I suspect that you're not a theist.

 🙂

  --  Saul

[Mike41]

16 hours ago, Ron Put said:

It should be clearly evident by now that the NY numbers do not make any sense.  The extrapolation above makes even less sense.  Unless we use the silly argument the media is making by comparing Sweden's death rate per million to Norway's, to claim that lock-downs work.  Of course, in this case one can claim that the NY lock-down caused a nine-fold increase in deaths.... 😉

Either that, or we must conclude that there is some major problem with NY's healthcare system, or that the counting is wrong.  It's likely both: the NY hospitals have been underfunded for about a decade. In addition, stupid state regulations likely caused unnecessary deaths by requiring nursing homes to accept suspected Covid-19 patients, while they were busy locking up the healthy.

The counting is also very suspicious, as many nursing homes (where much of the deaths occur) are reporting more "presumed" than actual Covid-19 cases (there are also financial incentives to do so).

Add to this the fact that there are as much as 50% fewer reported heart attacks and strokes, and you can safely assume that the numbers are wildly inflated. 

We'll know better in a year or two, when we compare the excess death rate in NY, which in an average year has about 160,000 deaths from all causes.

Considering the epidemiologists and virologists cited here and elsewhere and research published by the lancet a reasonable guess is somewhere in the area of .5% CFR. So if it spreads widely would it be reasonable to assume (make an ass out of you and me) a CFR of approximately 1.7 million. OTOH, herd immunity would be reached well before that so Todd’s estimate And Dean’s reasoning appear on spot to me.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Mike41

[Mike41]

2 hours ago, Gordo said:

Don't want to veer off topic, but is anyone else noticing a lot of parallels between COVID-19 and "climate change" only in a compressed hyper fast time scale?

I mean:

1) You've got your "Covid-deniers" (people who don't even think it exists) like "climate change deniers".

2) You've got endless academic models - with "all over the board" projections.

3) You've got your "experts" with dire predictions of catastrophe (millions of dead / end of the world as we know it).

4) You've got your "everyone is an epidemiologist" syndrome (like "everyone is a climate scientist").

5) You've got your "man made" vs. "natural" origins debate.

6) You've got your "THINK OF the children" emotional pleas.

7) You've got your debates over what deaths are attributable to (Covid/climate).

8 ) You've got your endless conspiracy theories (i.e. it's all a political take over / overreach for power grabbing or other political purposes).

9) You've got your politicized mainstream media vs. elected officials.

10) You've got your "career suicide" threat for speaking out against the mainstream media narrative.

11) Both have a major element of "fear of the unknown" and worst case scenario thinking (also known as "doom porn").

12) You've got your "the science is settled" groups implying "if you don't think the way I do you are a moron".

Anthropologists would say that we evolved to react in unison to threats that are immediate and tangible. A hurricane or a flood or tribal infiltration of your hunter gatherer territories. These kinds of things unite us. Intangibles like corona virus, after all most of us don’t even know of a person who died of covid 19, or climate change tend to divide us. Natural selection at work. There were always the alarmist types and the ho hum or denier types. Science is supposed to bridge the gap, but it really doesn’t 

[Gordo]

Just saw this alert and find it pretty amazing on so many levels, 68% of Covid deaths in my state have been in nursing homes!

[Ron Put]

3 hours ago, Gordo said:

Don't want to veer off topic, but is anyone else noticing a lot of parallels between COVID-19 and "climate change" only in a compressed hyper fast time scale? ...

Not really. Climate change is a weird subject.  While it divides the Left and the Right, both sides are pushing their agenda while ignoring the giant elephant in the room: HUMAN POPULATION.

In 1800 the world's population was 813 million.  By 1900 it had gone up to 1.65 billion.  In 2000 it reached 6.12 billion.  Today, merely two decades later, we are at 7.65 billion.

Africa's population in 1900 was 120 million in 1900, it's well over a billion today and it's projected to surpass 4 billion. Asia was 749 million in 1900, projected to be more than 4.5 billion in 2100.  South America was barely at 20 million in 1900 but it is projected to reach over 650 million in 2100.

The forces of natural selection have functionally stopped having an effect on the human population long ago.  The population explosion is primarily the result of Western knowhow transfers and aid, but without the all-important balance of family planning. And herein lies the problem.

The Right, which is largely socially conservative, has been traditionally opposing family planning, primarily on religious grounds. Every Republican President since the 1980s has resurrected the Mexico City Policy and the US is the largest donor to many of the health-related world programs.  At the same time traditional industries, which largely still feed, clothe and provide necessities to the exploding population, are reluctant (and likely incapable, at least without disrupting capacity and dramatically increasing costs) to implement drastic pollution controls, so they choose to ignore the effects on the environment.  The developing nations also refuse to implement pollution controls, as it would slow their industrial development, instead blaming the developed world while increasing pollution.

The Left, which is increasingly being taken over by tribal interests, is focussing on reducing emissions and pollution, which is a bit like using a Band-Aid on a severed limb.  Because it's really "THE POPULATION GROWTH, STUPID!"  But the Left is silent on population growth, because virtually all of it is happening in the developing world and anyone who dares point to this fact is at risk of being painted as racist and evil Eugenist.

Of course, even if we suddenly half the emissions in the developed world, the exponential growth of people will dwarf such reductions.  Because the vast majority of all these new people want what those in the First World have and will stop at nothing to get it.

The bottom line is that currently, neither the climate change deniers, nor the environmentalists, are really offering a solution to the real problem.
------------------
 

2 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

... Ignoring baseless claims and wishful thinking that there must be something wrong with the NYC data ...

Dean, if you bother to click on the links embedded in my statements, you may find that the arguments are not "baseless," unlike your claim.  If you disagree, please address the facts cited and explain why you believe that they are irrelevant.  Just calling something "baseless" is a vacuous statement and truly "wishful thinking."

"Either that, or we must conclude that there is some major problem with NY's healthcare system, or that the counting is wrong.  It's likely both: the NY hospitals have been underfunded for about a decade. In addition, stupid state regulations likely caused unnecessary deaths by requiring nursing homes to accept suspected Covid-19 patients, while they were busy locking up the healthy.

The counting is also very suspicious, as many nursing homes (where much of the deaths occur) are reporting more "presumed" than actual Covid-19 cases (there are also financial incentives to do so).

Add to this the fact that there are as much as 50% fewer reported heart attacks and strokes, and you can safely assume that the numbers are wildly inflated."

------------------

1 hour ago, AlPater said:

Early 'excess death' data for Canada suggests decrease in deaths in early days of pandemic
Preliminary StatsCan figures capture January-March, before the peak hit
Valérie Ouellet, Roberto Rocha · CBC News · Posted: May 13, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/excess-death-january-to-march-statistics-canada-1.5568040

It was a relatively mild flu season in many places, which left people who were likely to die from the flu susceptible to Covid-19.  This was one of the plausible explanations for some of the high death rates in Italy, where initial estimates for flu deaths were as low at 40% of the flu mortality during an average year.

But overall excess death rates are likely lower in the US and Europe, based on preliminary data.  We'll know in a year or so.  But it's notable that Covid-19 worldwide deaths are at 300,000, just about a quarter of the 1.2 million who died during the 2017-2019 flu season.

39 minutes ago, Saul said:

I suspect that you're not a theist....

Hah, you got me there! :D  But I feel that human knowledge was set back centuries because of it.  And while I feel Christianity occupies a special place, most religions, or religious-like dogma, have similar effects.

[Gordo]

22 minutes ago, Ron Put said:

4 hours ago, Gordo said:

Don't want to veer off topic, but is anyone else noticing a lot of parallels between COVID-19 and "climate change" only in a compressed hyper fast time scale? ...

Not really. 

Greta Thunberg added to CNN’s expert coronavirus panel

You can't make this up!  😉

 

[Ron Put]

12 minutes ago, Gordo said:

Greta Thunberg added to CNN’s expert coronavirus panel

You can't make this up!  😉

 

Yep :(  Which shows that this is also largely driven by politics, with the aid of media and social media.  Even more ridiculous than the favorite son-in-law tackling the pandemic or the Middle East mess.

[Dean Pomerleau]

Regarding death counts being overestimated in NYC. The CDC just released a report on all-cause mortality in the city between March and May. Here is the finding:

During March 11–May 2, 2020, a total of 32,107 deaths were reported to DOHMH [New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene]; of these deaths, 24,172 (95% confidence interval = 22,980–25,364) were found to be in excess of the seasonal expected baseline. 

So the total number of deaths in NYC was 400% higher than would be typical during that period of time. Claiming that deaths were misclassified and therefore coronavirus deaths were inflated, whether true or not, doesn't touch the fact 4x more people died in NYC than would be expected, most of them with lab-verified SARS-CoV-2 infections. 

--Dean 

[Ron Put]

42 minutes ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

Regarding death counts being overestimated in NYC. The CDC just released a report on all-cause mortality in the city between March and May. Here is the finding:

... were found to be in excess of the seasonal expected baseline....

Well, back to garbage in, garbage out.  The expected baseline for the summer is generally much, much lower (we've discussed this way back, too, with regards to your claims about cold exposure health benefits).  Again, we need to wait until real, reliable data is released.  Until then, this should be filed together with your posts of sources predicting 750,000 dead Britons and two million dead Americans by August.

Just imagine what the graph would have looked like during the 1969 flu pandemic, which proportionally killed close to three times more Americans, and over ten times more people worldwide than even the worst Covid-19 excess mortality speculations.  But back then Americans were focused on the Moon landing and Woodstock....

[Mike41]

https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2020/05/14/Cyril-H-Wecht-Time-to-end-the-COVID-19-hysteria/stories/202005140031
 

opinion piece by Dr. Cyril Wecht. I found it to be a very compelling case for reopening our society and our  overreaction to this virus!

Cyril Wecht
Allegheny County Medical Examiner
In office December 29, 2005[1] – January 20, 2006[2]
Preceded by	Himself as Coroner
Succeeded by	Abdulrezak Shakir (Acting)[a]
Allegheny County Coroner
In office January 1, 1996 – December 29, 2005
Preceded by	F. James Gregis (Acting)

Succeeded by Himself as Medical Examiner In office
January 2, 1970^[3] – January 9, 1980 Preceded by Ralph Stalter Succeeded by Joshua Perper (Acting)^[c] Member of the Allegheny County
Board of Commissioners In office
January 7, 1980 – January 2, 1984^[4] Preceded by Jim Flaherty Succeeded by Pete Flaherty Chairperson of the
Allegheny County Democratic Party In office
June 1, 1978^[5] – May 30, 1984^[6] Preceded by Eugene Coon Succeeded by Ed Stevens Personal details Born

Cyril Harrison Wecht

March 20, 1931 (age 89)
Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania Political party Democratic Alma mater University of Pittsburgh(B.S.), (M.D.), (LLB)
University of Maryland School of Law (J.D.) Occupation Forensic pathologist
Politician
Attorney a.^ Shakir held the title of Acting Medical Examiner while a national search was undertaken to find a permanent successor to Wecht.^[7] In December 2006, Karl Williams was formally appointed Medical Examiner.^[8]
b.^ Gregis held the title of Acting Coroner from the date of Joshua Perper's resignation in July of 1994, until Wecht was elected to permanently fill the vacancy.^[9]
c.^ Perper held the title of Acting Coroner from the date of Wecht's resignation, until the State Supreme Court upheld Dr. Sanford Edberg's appointment to the office on March 2, 1981.

Cyril Harrison Wecht (born March 20, 1931) is an American forensic pathologist. He has been a consultant in numerous high-profile cases, but is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's findings concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

He has been the president of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American College of Legal Medicine, and headed the board of trustees of the American Board of Legal Medicine.^[10] He served as County Commissioner and Allegheny County Coroner and Medical Examiner serving the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.