Corona Virus Numbers???

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But I will add what I said elsewhere: the economic consequences are likely to be devastating, and the more so the longer the shutdown lasts. So we have a Sophie's choice: save hundreds of thousands of lives (both due to the virus, and due to other causes because the health system is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients that it cannot deal with other critical cases) but wreck the economy for possibly years, vs. sacrifice those lives so that the economy is left unscathed. Not a pretty choice.
 
azure said:
But I will add what I said elsewhere: the economic consequences are likely to be devastating, and the more so the longer the shutdown lasts. So we have a Sophie's choice: save hundreds of thousands of lives (both due to the virus, and due to other causes because the health system is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients that it cannot deal with other critical cases) but wreck the economy for possibly years, vs. sacrifice those lives so that the economy is left unscathed. Not a pretty choice.
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Agreed but don’t forget that a wrecked economy costs lives, too.
 
azure said:
But I will add what I said elsewhere: the economic consequences are likely to be devastating, and the more so the longer the shutdown lasts. So we have a Sophie's choice: save hundreds of thousands of lives (both due to the virus, and due to other causes because the health system is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients that it cannot deal with other critical cases) but wreck the economy for possibly years, vs. sacrifice those lives so that the economy is left unscathed. Not a pretty choice.
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Or we could choose to both save lives and stop the virus and actually provide progressive programs for the poor and lower middle class by taking the hundreds of billions of dollars that flowed to the top 0.1% and redistribute it to those people that are hardest hit. Apple and Amazon are worth about the same as the entire stimulus bill. And that is only two companies. We just had a billionaire spend nearly 1/2 billion dollars just to toot his own horn and try to be president. He spent 250 million in a single day. How about these companies that have been not paying their Federal Income Tax pay for it all?
Here is just one year of tax filings -

An in-depth analysis of Fortune 500 companies’ financial filings finds that at least 60 of the nation’s biggest corporations didn’t pay a dime in federal income taxes in 2018 on a collective $79 billion in profits, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said today. If these companies paid the statutory 21 percent federal tax rate, they would owe $16.4 billion in federal income taxes. Instead, they collectively received $4.3 billion in rebates.

I'll bet Amazon and Netflix will owe the country a lot more than that for 2019 in taxes that they should be paying to fund the country. But since I am not supposed to get political, I won't say who the companies paid to get these loopholes into law.
 
JOhnH said:
Are you ready to provide proof of that?
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Does poverty increase crime? Does poverty increase drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Does poverty result in poorer health care, nutrition, child care, etc., etc.?

All those things cost lives, even if it’s more difficult to quantify.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
3/11 was the day when a whole crap-ton of stuff started happening to contain the spread. The good news is, that chart appears to indicate that it's working so far.
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I think most of the state shutdown policies started on or about 3/17. (That is when NY issued its first stay-at-home policies.) Since the incubation time for COVID-19 can be up to 10 days or more, the effects of any policies on the rate of growth of confirmed cases would not be expected to be apparent until around 3/27 or later. But confirmed cases are slightly sensitive to the rate of testing, and that has varied quite a bit as things have progressed. Early on, testing was poor, then it ramped up, and as regions became overwhelmed, testing rates may have declined again. A better measure of how well we are doing to contain the epidemic is death rates, as they are not subject to sampling error. If someone dies, it gets counted and almost always correctly assigned to the cause of death. If you see the death rates go down, we will know for sure things are working. Unfortunately, it death rates trail confirmed cases by about another 14 days, so we should not expect to see the effects of isolation policies for a month, or mid- to late April.
 
deonb said:
What's the end of that argument though? If the argument is, yeah, if we also peak at a 0.1% overall infection rate like Italy did, we can deal with it better than Italy, then sure. That implies we cap out at 360'000 infections, which we can handle better than Italy. But Italy had to institute something pretty close to Martial Law in order to actually peak at 0.1%.

But we're not doing anywhere close to what Italy did, and people in the US are talking about doing even less and letting it run lose and just braving a 40% to 60% infection rate - which is 500 times higher than Italy. At that point 3 times the number of ICU beds does nothing.
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At the moment, using publicly available data, the U.S. is well on the way to 500,000 total confirmed cases in a week's time, with a well-maintained doubling time of 2.2 days. The rate of new cases requiring hospitalization at that point is likely to outstrip available capacity. We haven't allowed enough time yet to see if we can flatten the curve. (That takes about 14 days minimum to start seeing any effect, due to the incubation time of the disease. Infections already in the pipeline can't be stopped.)
 
JOhnH said:
Are you ready to provide proof of that?
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FWIW: If you look back at the 1930 Great Depression era the overall death rate declined except for the suicide rate which increased by 2%. If you adjust for 2020, as they do with all statistics, the rate would exceed the current projected rate of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2. Since the CDC states that 80%+ of all current SARS deaths are those aged 65 and above why not declare a mandatory quarantine for those aged 60 and above, along with those individuals with underlining health issues, and allow the remaining population to return to work and try and save the economy and by extension, the country as we know it? If one of those individuals under mandatory quarantine decides to venture out and catch SARS and die, then it falls to them for making that decision. The CDC states 80% that have SARS do not exhibit symptoms or have mild symptoms with no requirement of additional medical care. Regardless, there's no single solution to this problem. But sticking your head in the sand and thinking if everyone stays home that everything will be okay once the SARS-CoV-2 virus goes away, is not realistic either.
 
chemgeek said:
At the moment, using publicly available data, the U.S. is well on the way to 500,000 total confirmed cases in a week's time, with a well-maintained doubling time of 2.2 days. The rate of new cases requiring hospitalization at that point is likely to outstrip available capacity. We haven't allowed enough time yet to see if we can flatten the curve. (That takes about 14 days minimum to start seeing any effect, due to the incubation time of the disease. Infections already in the pipeline can't be stopped.)
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Correct, I’m just responding to his hypothesis. In reality the curve can’t flatten while we have no nationwide lockdown and free and unencumbered travel between states where one is locked down, and the other one has no interest in locking down.

I think we won’t hit a peak until we’ve seen 10s or 100s of millions of cases. Unless we have something like a Military Coup that takes over and actually lock the country down.

One thing for sure: After this, China is the economic world leader.
 
Half Fast said:
Does poverty increase crime? Does poverty increase drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Does poverty result in poorer health care, nutrition, child care, etc., etc.?

All those things cost lives, even if it’s more difficult to quantify.
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Bell206 said:
FWIW: If you look back at the 1930 Great Depression era the overall death rate declined except for the suicide rate which increased by 2%. If you adjust for 2020, as they do with all statistics, the rate would exceed the current projected rate of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2. Since the CDC states that 80%+ of all current SARS deaths are those aged 65 and above why not declare a mandatory quarantine for those aged 60 and above, along with those individuals with underlining health issues, and allow the remaining population to return to work and try and save the economy and by extension, the country as we know it? If one of those individuals under mandatory quarantine decides to venture out and catch SARS and die, then it falls to them for making that decision. The CDC states 80% that have SARS do not exhibit symptoms or have mild symptoms with no requirement of additional medical care. Regardless, there's no single solution to this problem. But sticking your head in the sand and thinking if everyone stays home that everything will be okay once the SARS-CoV-2 virus goes away, is not realistic either.
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I agree with both of you. I was just reacting to the fact that I was asked to provide proof when I made a similar claim. How does one provide proof of an opinion of what might happen in the future?
 
JOhnH said:
Are you really asking for proof? Huh?

Don't make me resort to name calling.
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Name calling? Why would you do that? Is it because you're a 5 year old? Or it is it because you just can't respond to the question in a more valid way? Both of those were rhetorical questions by the way. Food for thought for you and nothing more really. Please don't feel obligated to try to answer them.

Of course I can't offer proof of what will happen, but financial disasters often result in suicides. Do you remember the pictures of people jumping out of windows in 1929?

Just search for "suicide" and "financial loss" and see what you get.
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Ok there's a bit to take apart here so lets start at the beginning. You say financial disasters often result in suicides. The market has had many corrections of the years but to my knowledge it has only crashed once in the last 100 years. So I'm not sure where the 'often' qualifier comes into play in that statement but I digress, lets move on.

I do not recall the pictures of people jumping out of windows in 1929. No memory of it at all in fact. So I took your advice and googled it. Exactly 3 secondly later I found this link:
https://www.history.com/news/stock-market-crash-suicides-wall-street-1929-great-depression

The information provided on that page more or less says 'yeah, that sh*t never happened.' Now that's only one link so it does not in any way qualify as valid research. But it was in fact the very first link at the top of the search results which I think you'll have to admit does at the very least suggest that perhaps the stories of 'people jumping out of windows in 1929' could possibly be something less than the truth.

So yeah, I think I'm going to stick with my first response. Show me hard proof that many people who would otherwise have never committed suicide did so because the stock market tanked and you'll have a valid point. Short of that, you got nothing as far as I'm concerned. Sorry nothing personal, just how I see it.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Name calling? Why would you do that? Is it because you're a 5 year old? Or it is it because you just can't respond to the question in a more valid way? Both of those were rhetorical questions by the way. Food for thought for you and nothing more really. Please don't feel obligated to try to answer them.

Ok there's a bit to take apart here so lets start at the beginning. You say financial disasters often result in suicides. The market has had many corrections of the years but to my knowledge it has only crashed once in the last 100 years. So I'm not sure where the 'often' qualifier comes into play in that statement but I digress, lets move on.

I do not recall the pictures of people jumping out of windows in 1929. No memory of it at all in fact. So I took your advice and googled it. Exactly 3 secondly later I found this link:
https://www.history.com/news/stock-market-crash-suicides-wall-street-1929-great-depression

The information provided on that page more or less says 'yeah, that sh*t never happened.' Now that's only one link so it does not in any way qualify as valid research. But it was in fact the very first link at the top of the search results which I think you'll have to admit does at the very least suggest that perhaps the stories of 'people jumping out of windows in 1929' could possibly be something less than the truth.

So yeah, I think I'm going to stick with my first response. Show me hard proof that many people who would otherwise have never committed suicide did so because the stock market tanked and you'll have a valid point. Short of that, you got nothing as far as I'm concerned. Sorry nothing personal, just how I see it.
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Are you of the opinion that stock market crashes are the only financial disasters one can suffer? I offered '29 as an example; not proof. I cannot offer proof that if people suffer a financial disaster, many will commit suicide. Can you offer proof that no one will?
 
JOhnH said:
How does one provide proof of an opinion of what might happen in the future?
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FYI: As before, you look to history. Fortunately or unfortunately, there are only so many scenarios available in human history. We just got better or worse at regurgitating the same social/political issues that have happen in the past. Regardless, life is still a krap-shoot. But I think one of my favorite quotes speaks for itself: "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."
 
JOhnH said:
I cannot offer proof that if people suffer a financial disaster, many will commit suicide. Can you offer proof that no one will?
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Atheists are very acclimated to believers asking them to prove that god doesn't exist. So pretty much all of them will respond with a recommendation that the believer read up on the philosophy of burden of proof. You're the one making the claim, its up to you to prove it. If your only proof is that I haven't yet disproved it, you lose.
 
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