Refusing To Wear A Mask: What Does It Say About Us?

[c_hawkbob]

What I was trying to get at is when a family member or neighbor gets the virus and has some moderate to severe
symptoms that might linger, it opens peoples eyes a little and some or many may start to change their views. Or at
least begin to doubt what they are hearing from the news sources they frequent.

Yeah, like Chuck Woolery: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/chuck ... index.html

[RiverDog]

What I was trying to get at is when a family member or neighbor gets the virus and has some moderate to severe
symptoms that might linger, it opens peoples eyes a little and some or many may start to change their views. Or at
least begin to doubt what they are hearing from the news sources they frequent.

Yea, maybe. But when you look at the raw numbers, 150k deaths represents a tiny fraction of the population, and with most of the victims being elderly with one foot already in the grave, it just doesn't have the shock value that a couple hundred 20-30 something year olds getting killed in a war. In 6 months, COVID has already claimed nearly 3 times what we lost during the entire Vietnam War and it doesn't seem to be making any difference.

[Aseahawkfan]

What I was trying to get at is when a family member or neighbor gets the virus and has some moderate to severe
symptoms that might linger, it opens peoples eyes a little and some or many may start to change their views. Or at
least begin to doubt what they are hearing from the news sources they frequent.

It can have the opposite effect as well. If you know someone who had COVID, but they didn't get serious symptoms you start to disregard it even more. The fact is the vast majority of people who test positive for COVID19 have mild to no symptoms. This is what the data shows us. The mortality rate is extremely low. The symptoms for 80% plus of people who test positive is extremely mild. The hospitalization rate is lower than thought. The asymptomatic carrier rate is extremely high estimated in the 35 to 60% range.

I guarantee if COVD19 were dropping people like Ebola, every measure and then some would be followed.

[Aseahawkfan]

Yea, maybe. But when you look at the raw numbers, 150k deaths represents a tiny fraction of the population, and with most of the victims being elderly with one foot already in the grave, it just doesn't have the shock value that a couple hundred 20-30 something year olds getting killed in a war. In 6 months, COVID has already claimed nearly 3 times what we lost during the entire Vietnam War and it doesn't seem to be making any difference.

Yeah, but we lose more from car accidents and the flu than we do from war in a given year.

Here is the reality we face:
1. Death rate at roughly 4.24/10000 of population in the United States meaning about 4 in 10,000 people die of COVID19. Well below the 1% death rate and especially well below the 3 to 5% fear-mongering death rate they started with. This information is consistent across nations and only reaches this high level if you tend not to handle the lock down and preventive measures very well such as the United States. Brasil and Sweden didn't even bother to lock down and their death rate is in this range as well. Sweden's death rate with no lock down is 6 deaths per 10,000, so higher than the United States. Brasil is at a death rate of 3.65 deaths per 10000. These are some of the highest death rates per population in the world and ongoing.

And in good news for Washington State we are at 1.9 deaths per 10,000 in Washington State. So I guess Inslee has to be given some credit for that as much as I can't stand that guy. Then again we do have some of the smartest medical people in the nation in Washington State, especially at the UW medical center.

2. With all the blame being spread on Republicans for their handling of COVID19, there is little evidence to indicate they handled COVID19 any worse than Democrat run states. The states in general vary by population size and density. So this whole blame game is pretty ridiculous and not data driven at all. It's driven by emotion and political bias.

3. Dumb as Dirt should be doing far more to get this under control. His total lack of interest in Contact Tracing, improving testing, quarantining, and the like is ridiculous. He's the primary reason for guilt by association for being Republican at the moment. He has no national plan. He doesn't seem to be interested in a national plan. His administration is attacking their own experts like Fauci. The response has reached a level of stupid that I can't even fathom. We all have to wait for November election day to see if the American people are ready get rid of this idiot.

If America isn't ready to be done with the Dumb as Dirt experiment, I'm not even sure where to go from there other than make sure to protect yourself because Dumb as Dirt don't care about this pandemic.

[RiverDog]

Yeah, but we lose more from car accidents and the flu than we do from war in a given year.

Which proves my point. Car accidents and death by natural causes just aren't very scary when you compare it with a war, a plane crash, an active shooter, or a terrorist attack.

Here is the reality we face:

1. Death rate at roughly 4.24/10000 of population in the United States meaning about 4 in 10,000 people die of COVID19. Well below the 1% death rate and especially well below the 3 to 5% fear-mongering death rate they started with. This information is consistent across nations and only reaches this high level if you tend not to handle the lock down and preventive measures very well such as the United States. Brasil and Sweden didn't even bother to lock down and their death rate is in this range as well. Sweden's death rate with no lock down is 6 deaths per 10,000, so higher than the United States. Brasil is at a death rate of 3.65 deaths per 10000. These are some of the highest death rates per population in the world and ongoing.

And in good news for Washington State we are at 1.9 deaths per 10,000 in Washington State. So I guess Inslee has to be given some credit for that as much as I can't stand that guy. Then again we do have some of the smartest medical people in the nation in Washington State, especially at the UW medical center.

The death rate isn't the gold standard for measuring the impact of COVID. It varies depending on who contracts the disease and how robust the testing is. In March and April, it was nursing home patients that were contracting the disease and only those with symptoms were tested, but in May and June, more younger people became infected and testing ramped up to where asymptomatic people were tested. Naturally that will drive down the death rate.

I'd give Inslee an overall B- for his performance. Of the governors, DeSantis is probably the worst, waiting to shut down beaches, opening up too soon and not in a safe manner. They had it under control once, but now they're the epicenter in the entire world.

2. With all the blame being spread on Republicans for their handling of COVID19, there is little evidence to indicate they handled COVID19 any worse than Democrat run states. The states in general vary by population size and density. So this whole blame game is pretty ridiculous and not data driven at all. It's driven by emotion and political bias.

3. Dumb as Dirt should be doing far more to get this under control. His total lack of interest in Contact Tracing, improving testing, quarantining, and the like is ridiculous. He's the primary reason for guilt by association for being Republican at the moment. He has no national plan. He doesn't seem to be interested in a national plan. His administration is attacking their own experts like Fauci. The response has reached a level of stupid that I can't even fathom. We all have to wait for November election day to see if the American people are ready get rid of this idiot.

If America isn't ready to be done with the Dumb as Dirt experiment, I'm not even sure where to go from there other than make sure to protect yourself because Dumb as Dirt don't care about this pandemic.

I haven't had time to go back and analyze every governor's performance, but it sure seems like the states with Republican governors are doing worse than those with Democratic governors, but I'm not prepared to give them all grades or rank them against each other. We really need to table performance evaluations until after this pandemic is in the history books.

But except for the hard core holdouts, it's nearly universally accepted that Trump's response from start to finish has been absolutely 'deplorable'.

[Aseahawkfan]

The death rate isn't the gold standard for measuring the impact of COVID. It varies depending on who contracts the disease and how robust the testing is. In March and April, it was nursing home patients that were contracting the disease and only those with symptoms were tested, but in May and June, more younger people became infected and testing ramped up to where asymptomatic people were tested. Naturally that will drive down the death rate.

The death rate absolutely is the standard by which this pandemic will be judged. The mortality rate is the most important predictor of the danger of this pandemic.

I'd give Inslee an overall B- for his performance. Of the governors, DeSantis is probably the worst, waiting to shut down beaches, opening up too soon and not in a safe manner. They had it under control once, but now they're the epicenter in the entire world.

Their death rate will be how they are judged. They have a lot of old folks there. The death rate should be high if the spread is as bad as hit New York or New Jersey.

I haven't had time to go back and analyze every governor's performance, but it sure seems like the states with Republican governors are doing worse than those with Democratic governors, but I'm not prepared to give them all grades or rank them against each other. We really need to table performance evaluations until after this pandemic is in the history books.

Seems a lot of people aren't waiting. The left wing media certainly isn't waiting. Which is why I take exception to the broad brush that 80% of the bad is on the Republicans. I think that is horse crap. I don't see Cuomo as having done a great job. I don't think you can blame one political party for a global pandemic. Bunch of horsecrap politics.

This will all come down to how the death rate goes. It is main fear of this pandemic. COVID19 absent much death is an inconvenience that can be overcome and will most assuredly be overlooked if people can get back to work and productivity again. That's why I focus on death rate according to population. That is the how you determine how dangerous an infectious disease and pandemic is. This is what will guide our actions from here on out and in the future should another outbreak of the same disease breaks out. It's why we don't shut down every year during the flu.

[RiverDog]

The death rate absolutely is the standard by which this pandemic will be judged. The mortality rate is the most important predictor of the danger of this pandemic.

If your argument is deaths per capita, then I could partially agree. But not if you're basing your death rate on the number of infections.

Even deaths per capita isn't a completely accurate measurement of a country/state's performance as there are differences in population density, average age, hospital capacity/health care, etc, that determines outcomes. Besides, some countries, most notably China and Iran, are vastly under reporting deaths while others don't have the means to determine a cause of death so it's difficult to get a complete picture.

Bottom line is that there is no one, tell all stat that can define this pandemic. Every stat has it's weakness.

As of July 17th, the top 10 countries in COVID deaths per capita are: (1)Belgium, (2)UK, (3) Spain, (4)Italy, (5)Sweden, (6)France, (7)USA, (8)Peru, (9)Chile, and (10)Brazil. I wouldn't consider those stats as compliments for the way that the US, Sweden, and Brazil have handled the pandemic, at least to this point.

Amongst other industrialized nations, Canada checks in at #15, Germany #25, Japan #95, and South Korea #104. But we likely aren't even at the halfway point, so those rankings are apt to change.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/110 ... habitants/