Covfefe-19 The 12th Part: The Only Thing Worse Than This New Board Is TrumpVirus2020

[SJHovey]

And here's one thing about it being ok for old people to die- if that's an honest answer- why in the world do we bother to keep them safe and alive in the first place? Why do we have nursing homes? Why do we have long term care? Why do people try to keep their parents and grandparents alive, or even spouses? By the argument that Covid is going after the old population, and that's acceptable- then you should be questioning why you are spending money on keeping old people alive in your life.

Don't tell me that it's a loaded point- that's one of the KEY parts of that person's argument that lockdowns and harsh actions are not needed.

Nursing Homes or long term care facilities are really interesting. They are a necessity when a person physically or mentally deteriorates to a point where they can't live alone, and either don't have someone to care for them, or their care is significant enough that an untrained family member really isn't capable of handling it.

I'd really be curious how many people who live in nursing homes really want to be there. I suspect that number is fairly low.

I would also be curious as to the number of people in their 80's or 90's who have executed health care directives or living wills, or signed do not resuscitate documents.

None of that is to say that their lives are unimportant, or not worth protecting to the extent we can. But I think what he is saying is that most of these individuals are at the very end of their lives. If, as in Minnesota, 75% or more of the victims of this disease are such people, then when it comes time to evaluate the societal costs of our preventative measures, we really need to look at the extent to which those preventative measures contribute to other risk factors like poverty and suicide, and balance it against say the 25% of the people victimized by the disease who are not at the very end of their lives. If I'm 95 and have maybe months to live anyway, is it worth it to put millions on soup lines to make sure I get those last few months?

 

[WisconsinWildcard]

You mean Mr. "I Got China Right (if you believe their numbers)" is still living off that BS and is now tweaking his data even worse than before? At least now he is using Sweden as his "model" and not the other BS data point. I bet Stanford loves this guy giving these interviews....

He is a living example of Nobel's disease. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/0...irrationality/

Not sure why a structural biologist fancies himself a epidemiologist.

I am going to go tell my 73 year old dad his life doesnt matter and if he dies no one should care.

No shit. We could close down so many hospitals and save hundreds of billions a year if we just let people over the "average age of death" just succumb to whatever. It is like these morons have no understanding of what modern medicine even is.

 

[Jeb2020]

The guy said he expects 170,000 deaths. Total. At the conclusion of the virus. He will be proven wrong in 2 weeks.

Let me know when you are ready to discuss the models that were used and put on blast by the media.

 

[WisconsinWildcard]

Nursing Homes or long term care facilities are really interesting. They are a necessity when a person physically or mentally deteriorates to a point where they can't live alone, and either don't have someone to care for them, or their care is significant enough that an untrained family member really isn't capable of handling it.

I'd really be curious how many people who live in nursing homes really want to be there. I suspect that number is fairly low.

I would also be curious as to the number of people in their 80's or 90's who have executed health care directives or living wills, or signed do not resuscitate documents.

None of that is to say that their lives are unimportant, or not worth protecting to the extent we can. But I think what he is saying is that most of these individuals are at the very end of their lives. If, as in Minnesota, 75% or more of the victims of this disease are such people, then when it comes time to evaluate the societal costs of our preventative measures, we really need to look at the extent to which those preventative measures contribute to other risk factors like poverty and suicide, and balance it against say the 25% of the people victimized by the disease who are not at the very end of their lives. If I'm 95 and have maybe months to live anyway, is it worth it to put millions on soup lines to make sure I get those last few months?

You are really doubling down on being a heartless idiot, aren't you. Just some education...

Plenty of people derive meaning while in nursing homes. You also are conflating a lot of things. Many discharged patients from the hospital go to a nursing or long term care facility for further recover and rehab. Most return home. They are included in the death counts included in the LTC counts. Do they not deserve our compassion?

Health care directives and living wills are notoriously not helpful when coming to 95% of medical decisions by the way they are written. They are written by lawyers, not doctors. If you want your wishes to be respected, your HCPOA is the most important decision you can make. Have conversations early about what you want.

DNR does not mean do not treat. 99.99% of healthcare can be done with an active DNR. It literally only comes in play if your heart stops.

Good luck with your actual death panels you fucking idiot.

 

[Jeb2020]

He is a living example of Nobel's disease. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/0...irrationality/

Not sure why a structural biologist fancies himself a epidemiologist.



No ****. We could close down so many hospitals and save hundreds of billions a year if we just let people over the "average age of death" just succumb to whatever. It is like these morons have no understanding of what modern medicine even is.

Who has said anything close to that?

You guys really do need some Sun and Fresh air, probably some human contact also.

 

[Swansong]

Instead, we have somehow justified that people should be risking their lives to make a living. Or at least be risking the lives of their elderly friends and family for people to make a living. By "we" I don't mean me- I mean you. The idea that I should risk anything WRT health to make money for some other person is not something that I think is reasonable. It's why we have work safety laws, it's why we have air quality laws, it's why we have water quality laws, it's why we have building codes, it's why we have food safety laws, etc. Because companies have always chosen to make money than look out for either customers or employees.

Funny that we keep finding people who are happy to sacrifice others for their own good.

To say nothing about the people who live with or are a caregiver for an immunocompromised friend or family member. I guess they should give up any ability to work too?

The idea that we shouldn't have locked down, to me, is absurd. Even the mastermind of Sweden's decision not to changed his tune - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e-things-wrong

 

[Swansong]

You are really doubling down on being a heartless idiot, aren't you. Just some education...

Plenty of people derive meaning while in nursing homes. You also are conflating a lot of things. Many discharged patients from the hospital go to a nursing or long term care facility for further recover and rehab. Most return home. They are included in the death counts included in the LTC counts. Do they not deserve our compassion?

Health care directives and living wills are notoriously not helpful when coming to 95% of medical decisions by the way they are written. They are written by lawyers, not doctors. If you want your wishes to be respected, your HCPOA is the most important decision you can make. Have conversations early about what you want.

DNR does not mean do not treat. 99.99% of healthcare can be done with an active DNR. It literally only comes in play if your heart stops.

Good luck with your actual death panels you ****ing idiot.

I'm avoiding any pile-ons, but this is correct. Many people - who live long lives after a hospital stay - require some amount of non-acute care facility stay. Inpatient rehab after a knee replacement. Or, in many cases of long-term COVID recovery, weeks and weeks of non-acute care as they regain strength and learn to do simple things like have a bowel movement on their own again.

And DNR/DNI (advanced care planning in general) is often there to help you live longer, not end your life. Real example time:

My mother, due to years of prednisone use, had bones made of ... well, they were super brittle. She signed a DNR/DNI order not because she was ready to die, but because if somehow she was found unresponsive, chest compressions would shatter her ribs and likely kill her.

 

[SJHovey]

Health care directives and living wills are notoriously not helpful when coming to 95% of medical decisions by the way they are written. They are written by lawyers, not doctors. If you want your wishes to be respected, your HCPOA is the most important decision you can make. Have conversations early about what you want.

Under Minnesota law, a health care directive is a health care power of attorney.

 

[jerphisch]

Beyond not giving a crap about old people dying, another friendly reminder that dying is not the only outcome. I don't know if every state has the data available, but CO has some pretty good info on their site https://covid19.colorado.gov/data/case-data . The % of cases hospitalized by age is not so top heavy. Almost 11% of cases in the 40-49 age group are hospitalized (sure it's probably lower due to not all cases being diagnosed). It only goes up from there, and the longer this goes the more it sounds like there will likely be long term effects to those people. Even children are 3-5% of cases ending up hospitalized, so at least 1 kid per classroom when we send em back to learn. But I guess if they die early because they had a touch of COVID back in the day, it was just their time.

 

[psych]

The problem some of us have is that he is doing exactly what he says others do...looking at specific data that seems to prove his point and ignoring any and all context or data that contradicts his point. He did it before too (he used the Cruise Ship to extrapolate what would happen in the US...and surprise surprise he was wrong) and in reality the only thing he has ever been right on was China. (which the article mentions) Random people on Twitter have been closer to correct about everything since April which is why this guy stopped being brought up until he gave this interview.

I give him credit on the mask thing, but again you cant use masks as a reason why we dont need a lockdown because half the country wont wear them. If we could get full buy in he would have a point...but we cant. As such his mentioning them is worthless. (and I am guessing he would be against mandatory masks for the same reason he is against everything else) I bet we could all rattle off a bunch of ways to mitigate...but if we cant trust the person next to us to do it then it is meaningless as an option.

The Right tried once already to use him as their "Lone Voice of Reason in the Wilderness" and it went nowhere. Now I guess at least he isnt using a Cruise Ship...he upgraded to Sweden. Cause the US and Sweden are so similar in population, economics, geography and health care.

I understand what you’re saying. I agree with most of it. I don’t even remotely agree with Levitt’s core argument that a lockdown wasn’t effective, and especially not with that older people’s lives are worth sacrificing compared to younger lives’ futures being sacrificed. All lives matter kind of goes out the window with that argument.
Anyways, I was giving Hovey the benefit of the doubt that he posted the article to show that someone who’s smart, though not necessarily in epidemiology, was arguing that lockdowns weren’t effective, like he does. Based on his last post, that benefit got a lot harder to justify.

 

[psych]

The guy said he expects 170,000 deaths. Total. At the conclusion of the virus. He will be proven wrong in 2 weeks.

You’re right. Looks like his original estimate was 220,000, and he revised it downwards. Whoops. My bad. More his though.

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

None of that is to say that their lives are unimportant, or not worth protecting to the extent we can.

And this is the key part to point out in what you posted. This country has not done anywhere near what could have been done "to the extent we can" to protect lives during this pandemic.

There were things we could have done, like more forcefully and much earlier enacting stay-at-home measures. And once the mask supply began to come back online and more people were learning to make them at home, much more forcefully enacting mask-wearing mandates.

These are simple things that had we as a nation done them, and more importantly the president and about a dozen governors led by example on those ideas, we would have prevented thousands of deaths. Some of those deaths would be 90 year old people who may have died subesquently. But who the fvck cares. We could have and we should have. But also some of those deaths would have been 60 year olds who lived another 10 years. Or 30 years. Some were 40 years old and in the middle of raising families. Some were 21 and getting ready to become taxpayers. Some were little children, and no little child should ever die because they caught a virus they didn't need to catch.

Instead we live in a country where profits matter over everything else, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And we live in a country where a feeble-minded minority has chosen to believe game show hosts and carnival barkers and conspiracy spreading presidents instead of people who have devoted a lifetime of education, study and practice to the fields of medicine and epidemiology and we are held hostage by them.

We need to find a way to eliminate the influence of 25% of the population. It is ridiculous that this minority can do the damage it is doing.

 

[Kepler]

We need to find a way to eliminate the influence of 25% of the population. It is ridiculous that this minority can do the damage it is doing.

Back in the day the dumbest 25% were divided between the parties.

The trouble began when they all migrated to the Republican party. For the first time in American history we have a moron-majority major party. And in just 40 years it has nearly destroyed the entire country.

 

[Handyman]

Nursing Homes or long term care facilities are really interesting. They are a necessity when a person physically or mentally deteriorates to a point where they can't live alone, and either don't have someone to care for them, or their care is significant enough that an untrained family member really isn't capable of handling it.

I'd really be curious how many people who live in nursing homes really want to be there. I suspect that number is fairly low.

I would also be curious as to the number of people in their 80's or 90's who have executed health care directives or living wills, or signed do not resuscitate documents.

None of that is to say that their lives are unimportant, or not worth protecting to the extent we can. But I think what he is saying is that most of these individuals are at the very end of their lives. If, as in Minnesota, 75% or more of the victims of this disease are such people, then when it comes time to evaluate the societal costs of our preventative measures, we really need to look at the extent to which those preventative measures contribute to other risk factors like poverty and suicide, and balance it against say the 25% of the people victimized by the disease who are not at the very end of their lives. If I'm 95 and have maybe months to live anyway, is it worth it to put millions on soup lines to make sure I get those last few months?

That would make sense...if it was proven that people under the age of 70 have no ill effects of the disease. Since we know that isnt true it doesnt really hold water.

Again should my dad who is 73 with underlying conditions just accept his fate?

And we didnt shut down anyways. This country is filled with whiny, selfish candyasses.

 

[TalonsUpPuckDown]

None of that is to say that their lives are unimportant, or not worth protecting to the extent we can. But I think what he is saying is that most of these individuals are at the very end of their lives. If, as in Minnesota, 75% or more of the victims of this disease are such people, then when it comes time to evaluate the societal costs of our preventative measures, we really need to look at the extent to which those preventative measures contribute to other risk factors like poverty and suicide, and balance it against say the 25% of the people victimized by the disease who are not at the very end of their lives. If I'm 95 and have maybe months to live anyway, is it worth it to put millions on soup lines to make sure I get those last few months?

Evaluating societal costs? Prioritizing preventative measures based on economic worth? If this isn’t the definition of a death panel I don’t know what is.

 

[Handyman]

Back in the day the dumbest 25% were divided between the parties.

The trouble began when they all migrated to the Republican party. For the first time in American history we have a moron-majority major party. And in just 40 years it has nearly destroyed the entire country.

I dunno man there are as many "Non-Vaccine" Liberals pushing the hydroxychloroquinie BS these days as there are Trumpers. It is starting to get scary...

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Evaluating societal costs? Prioritizing preventative measures based on economic worth? If this isn’t the definition of a death panel I don’t know what is.

And said the Dems are the hypocrites lol

 

[Handyman]

I understand what you’re saying. I agree with most of it. I don’t even remotely agree with Levitt’s core argument that a lockdown wasn’t effective, and especially not with that older people’s lives are worth sacrificing compared to younger lives’ futures being sacrificed. All lives matter kind of goes out the window with that argument.
Anyways, I was giving Hovey the benefit of the doubt that he posted the article to show that someone who’s smart, though not necessarily in epidemiology, was arguing that lockdowns weren’t effective, like he does. Based on his last post, that benefit got a lot harder to justify.

From an academic standpoint I get what Stanford guy is trying to say...but in the real world he is just completely wrong. Even worse, he was proven wrong already and got so used to being the GOP darling he pivoted to another of their talking points and did it all over again. Lots of people are doing that...they just cant force their ego to shelter in place.

 

[First Time Long Time]

I dunno man there are as many "Non-Vaccine" Liberals pushing the hydroxychloroquinie BS these days as there are Trumpers. It is starting to get scary...

Really? Thankfully I've missed those people. I only see Trumpers doing that.

 

[Kepler]

I dunno man there are as many "Non-Vaccine" Liberals pushing the hydroxychloroquinie BS these days as there are Trumpers.

No there aren't, the anti-vax liberals are down in the noise.

We do have the dumbest 25% POC because we have all POC. But since POC are only half the left only about 12% of the left is dumb.

If we can take power across the board we have an opportunity to disenfranchise stupid whites. The problem has been that by bribery, fear mongering, and cheating conservatives have managed to hold on to power long after their numbers should have made them electoral roadkill.

Hence their desperation to destroy democratic institutions. They know one man one vote means they will never win another election. There are a lot of stupid whites, but there aren't enough.