Will Joe Biden Drop Out of the Presidential Race

[tstorm823]

Was he listening to scientists when he said it's "like a flu", and "should be treated like a flu"?

Yes, and you can find no shortage of professionals who were saying literally the same thing the day before.

Was he listening to the scientists when he claimed the WHO death rate was false, and claimed it was 1%, based on what he himself described as "a hunch"?

Yes. To be fair, that's not a hunch, and he's full of crap in that regard, but he was 100% being fed that information by more educated people.

Was he listening to scientists when he suggested a vaccine would be available within months?

There are reports coming out now about fast tracking a vaccine by September. Also, yes, yes he was.

Was he listening to scientists when he suggested the disease would just disappear "like a miracle"?

Probably not on that one, that's all Trump.

Jesus, was he listening to the scientists when he suggested untested drugs, disinfectant, and strong light to kill the virus?

Freaking yes! Are you listening to the experts at all? People were talking about hydroxychloroquire in advance of Trump. Experts were actively testing it. Bayer was donating a mountain of it to the federal government.

He made those comments about disinfectant and light immediately after CDC experts gave a presentation on the effectiveness of disinfectant and light. Imagining that would work inside people is pure Trump and extra dumb, but it was in the form of a question directed at the experts that he's been following the guidance of. Geez.

Is anyone else following these events outside the context of Trump? Anyone at all? Do you all not know what experts have been saying as things occur? The whole world isn't Trump, you can't just mock him in hindsight without context. Most of your criticism was him repeating expert advice.

Edit to hammer this home:

The man jumps on a readily available potential treatment the moment it shows promise, exactly what you'd want him to do, and you're still dogpiling because initial results weren't repeated under closer scrutiny. What the hell do you want?

 

[Trunkage]

Continued: ( there is a spoiler below but for some reason you have to highlight it to be visible?)

Spoiler: What Trump did wrong since we already know this

From 2016-2019 Prior to Pandemic:
*What Trump did: Trump cut funding and resources for medical and scientific research, leading to having less programs and researchers dedicated for viral research being able to predict and counter new viruses, such as COVID-19. Trump fired the guy on his National security counsel that told him that Pandemic preparation needed more resources allocated. Instead of allocating the resources his own experts told him were needed, his administration cut them, disbanded his pandemic response team and mixed in some of their members with another team that had them focus their efforts on bio weapons instead of pandemics. He made no new preparations to be able to handle a pandemic, at all.
* Trump worked to reduce healthcare funding, rather than increasing it so that less people had access to healthcare needed to be able to detect new viruses earlier.
* Trump did not allocate the resources necessary to maintain their pandemic response stockpiles, and ignored calls to do so.
*Trump ignored early warnings of a new virus breaking out in China calling it a hoax, saying it would go away and not to worry about the "Chinese virus", promoting an irresponsible xenophobic response and an increased attacks on Asian Americans regardless of if they were born her or not or whether they were even related to anyone in China.
*Trump belatedly put together a " Pandemic response team" after the fact, then put unqualified people on the team that had no business being there, like his son in law who then matters worse rather than better. Luckily, Trump started to partially listen to Fauci after he put up a fight to make him listen, but was also making it more difficult for everyone involved to do their jobs at every level while overriding all their decisions with his " hunches".
* Trump's son in law hired an unqualified team whose primary focus was to make allocate contracts to Trump allies and supporters to source the resources needed to the states and hospitals and ignored what the seasoned experts in the field were telling him causing further delay and bunk contracts that were never fulfilled. This team was found to be lacking on every level and were even responsible for the failed $69 million NY contract that tied up state money while they were needing these supplies on the front lines. They were referring people for contracts based on their praise of Trump on twitter rather than their actual capabilities to come through or legitimacy.
*When Trump was criticized for his failings on the National Stockpile, he lied, made excuses, told the states to fend for themselves, had his son in law come out and tell people that the Federal stockpile was for them to use, not for the states ( who happen to be the actual people here, including first responders). Then he directed FEMA to get stockpiles by any means necessary, so they then took it from first responders on the front lines instead of get their own. Yes the Federal government told the states to get their own, when they did, Trump's people then stole it from them instead and put it in the warehouse to be used later leaving hospitals, clinics, care and veteran's homes without when they needed it most. Leaving many those who already paid for these things in limbo with their money tied up until they could get it back and then worse than square one because of the time lost in the process.
* From the beginning, healthcare workers pleaded for more PPE to protect themselves, instead of acknowledging this, he said that the Federal government was not a "shipping service" and claimed it was up to the states to figure out. When even his own supporters called on him to act, he finally implemented the defense production act to work on ventilators, but was extremely slow going in regards to PPE. Trump didn't even understand the difference between Respirators and Ventilators and thought they were talking about the same thing he already did and became angry and belligerent when they tried to discuss it with him. He then accused Healthcare workers of stealing PPE to avoid trying to supply them what they needed. He tries to silence anyone who disagreed with him on this no matter how desperate the need for PPE became on the ground. He then moved to fire the inspector General for reporting that they failed to meet the mass shortages of PPE because Trump was afraid of it making him look bad.
*Trump's encouraging of conspiracies and division is making it more difficult for first responders to do their job and putting lives in danger. People are confused about what is and isn't due to his constant mixed messages and failed leadership. Trump calling it a hoax is giving legitimacy to those spreading misinformation and putting more lives at risks. This combined with his poor decisions, inaction and little action combined is leading to far more deaths than would be otherwise be expected.

So, I dont think this falls under your FEMA point.
Trump has paid Federal tax payers fund to get needed medical equipment from other countries. Then gave it to private enterprise to sell it to the states, so the State taxpayers can pay again. He has decided that even if the State does find equipment, he confiscates it. States are now using the National Guard to protect shipments from the Federal Government

But, you know, State's Rights...

Edit: Sorry I didn't see there was two posts

 

[Trunkage]

It is not a useless -let's call it- ideology. It is part of the defensive mechanism, which made us successful as a species. We are programmed to withhold every ounce of energy we have unless it is necessary.

That's a massive assumption. Eg. Hierarchy is more about control people to make them do what you want. Funnily enough, the more you break tradition, the more successful everyone is, including the rich. Capitalism broke the traditions of Mercantilism and now people are way more successful. Traditions is what holds the world back

A change in social structure, lifestyle, or even habits requires energy. Learning playing the piano costs huge amounts of energy until it becomes properly ingrained into your brain.

You know that just makes Conservatives sound lazy, right?

What I want to point at is, that we wouldn't have a considerable advance in anything, if there wouldn't be a steadfast force in society clinging to the bitter end to solutions which work. I am sorry, but I do agree with the notion that liberals fight for the new rules, conservatives will maintain and make them efficient.

Anther massive assumption. Let's take Mercantilism again. It sure worked... FOR A VERY SELECT FEW. That's the point of any hierarchy and similar traditions, to make bank off others. Your only holding onto traditions because they suit you and don't care a whiff about. People fight against traditions because it definitely doesn't suit them.

This is perfect as it is.

No, this might be perfect for you. That doesn't make it perfect for anyone else. In fact, the fact that it IS perfect for you, means someone else is being disadvantaged to give you what you want. That's how hierarchies work

Every solution proposed by liberals has to be sound/ powerful enough to "convince" the conservative safety lock. Otherwise, we would spin around our own heels to every notion of novelty, in every few years, achieving the total amount of zero efficiency.

This I completely agree with. It also explains the current discourse on social media. Conservatives WILL NOT listen until it made into life and death terms, because of what you are pointing out here. It works well, because then they can just those libs are overblowing the situation. (Conservatives only get half the blame here, Progressives should realise by now what actually going on and working around it, but sometimes they are stuck in traditions too.)

Thus, as you put it :

your idea for reform has a negative point already against it, as it doesn’t not exist and hasn’t proven its worth.

It is completely normal. We have a finite amount of Earth under us, we don't have all the resources and time to give a chance to every half-baked idea 2 generations to prove itself. Until every new idea has the potential to throw us back for decades/centuries or could be a waste of time for that matter, they must start with default minus one point.

If it hasn't been made abundantly clear, Progressive usually don't take too much stock in tradition. It's seen as a negative, because traditions are usually about hurting others to get what you want. For a progressive, being a tradition is a negative point. If it helps the downtrodden, that's a positive point. If you feel frustrated why you cannot convince a progressive on your ideals, it's because they are already two points ahead on their own scoreboard. So everyone is working on their own scoreboard and not realising that's not how you win arguments.

PS Now, I actually did a bit of hyperbole on tradition here. I don't think every tradition is bad. But I need to sell it as really bad because I know you wouldn't listen otherwise, as you've already stated, my ideas don't exist yet so I'm two points down. I personally think we regularly should look at traditions but a lot are fair so there is no need to change. That doesn't make all of them fair and pretending they are is not beneficial to society.

 

[Agema]

Yes, and you can find no shortage of professionals who were saying literally the same thing the day before.

Yes. To be fair, that's not a hunch, and he's full of crap in that regard, but he was 100% being fed that information by more educated people.

People who run governments and receive expert advice from specialist scientific advisors representing whole scientific agencies should not be taking expert advice from random talking heads. Of course you will find some professionals disagreeing (although are they actually experts in the right specific area? Are they cranks?), and media might like to give them undue air time because headlines. But there is no way the CDC, WHO and countless other vital scientific bodies that a president should be paying attention to were saying it was basically just the 'flu.

Suggesting that the president is not taking reasonable scientific advice from appropriate and reliable scientific sources is tantamount to arguing the president is not basing his decisions on science.

There are reports coming out now about fast tracking a vaccine by September. Also, yes, yes he was.

Wasn't he immediately contradicted by the very same scientific advisor that you also claim he always listens to about when a vaccine would be available? If we do get a vaccine by September, that'll be great - but Trump's prediction back in March will have been all luck and no judgement.

Freaking yes! Are you listening to the experts at all? People were talking about hydroxychloroquire in advance of Trump. Experts were actively testing it. Bayer was donating a mountain of it to the federal government.

He made those comments about disinfectant and light immediately after CDC experts gave a presentation on the effectiveness of disinfectant and light. Imagining that would work inside people is pure Trump and extra dumb, but it was in the form of a question directed at the experts that he's been following the guidance of. Geez.

Is anyone else following these events outside the context of Trump? Anyone at all? Do you all not know what experts have been saying as things occur? The whole world isn't Trump, you can't just mock him in hindsight without context. Most of your criticism was him repeating expert advice.

He's not repeating expert advice, is he? If he were, it wouldn't be so bloody stupid.

He's listening to stuff (which may or may not be from experts), and then passing on a garbled version of that as overhyped rumour, conjecture and garbage with apparently little discrimination between them and the reality he was told.

Do you know what he should be doing? Sticking Fauci or Birx up there and letting them do the talking. But he restricts them, because he thinks it's his limelight (his obsession with TV ratings), and then after that he either doesn't have the temperament or cognitive capability to explain what he was told correctly. This is even without stopping to bear in mind that his coronavirus briefings are 5 minutes on coronavirus and 2 hours boasting and insulting the press and opposition politicians.

 

[ObsidianJones]

He's not repeating expert advice, is he? If he were, it wouldn't be so bloody stupid.

He's listening to stuff (which may or may not be from experts), and then passing on a garbled version of that as overhyped rumour, conjecture and garbage with apparently little discrimination between them and the reality he was told.

Do you know what he should be doing? Sticking Fauci or Birx up there and letting them do the talking. But he restricts them, because he thinks it's his limelight (his obsession with TV ratings), and then after that he either doesn't have the temperament or cognitive capability to explain what he was told correctly. This is even without stopping to bear in mind that his coronavirus briefings are 5 minutes on coronavirus and 2 hours boasting and insulting the press and opposition politicians.

That is not the most bothersome part.

Let's put aside the fact that there was absolutely no census with hydroxychloroquire. Because oddly enough, that isn't the most ergious thing. It would be one thing to have hope about a drug and say we're going to do more and more test to make sure this can be the answer to our prayers.

But that isn't what we got. We got Trump and his officals pushing medical doctors to just give hydroxychloroquire without the evidence to back it up. And Trump legitimately telling people to just take it because, and I quote "What do you got to lose?" (at 1:52)

There's a difference between listening to advice, being a stooge, and picking patsies that you can blame if things come back to blow on you. Trump has a history of removing people who don't agree with him. Trump has a history of saying he knows people when they are great, and that he barely talked to them when they are harmful. All this leads me to believe that he's not listening to advice, that he isn't anyone stooge but his own, and that he is strictly interested in picking patsies that he can point at to blame if his course of action fails.

 

[Silvanus]

Yes, and you can find no shortage of professionals who were saying literally the same thing the day before.

He was still making the comparison way into the latter half of March, long after we definitively knew the novel virus was drastically more dangerous.

Yes. To be fair, that's not a hunch, and he's full of crap in that regard, but he was 100% being fed that information by more educated people.

Pray tell, which experts were preaching that we should disregard the WHO death rate?

There are reports coming out now about fast tracking a vaccine by September. Also, yes, yes he was.

Oh, lord. A reports of a vaccine by September... at the stage at which it can proceed to testing. The very most optimistic timescale for it to be available for public use is around 12 months after the end of that testing process. So, not readily available in the slightest.

But his claim was that "we even have the final vaccine", before the testing phase has even been entered. This is categorically peddling false hope.

Freaking yes! Are you listening to the experts at all? People were talking about hydroxychloroquire in advance of Trump. Experts were actively testing it. Bayer was donating a mountain of it to the federal government.

Am I "listening to the experts at all"? I'm listening to their actual instructions and statements. Nobody with any expertise or authority on the subject-- nobody-- has encouraged people to take untested drugs.

The fact that a drug is being tested for something is not grounds to broadcast to the country that it works. Why do you think Dr. Fauci and others scrambled to downplay expectations?

He made those comments about disinfectant and light immediately after CDC experts gave a presentation on the effectiveness of disinfectant and light. Imagining that would work inside people is pure Trump and extra dumb, but it was in the form of a question directed at the experts that he's been following the guidance of. Geez.

In the form of a question. Ok. I'm sure it was a question highly informed by expert opinion on the subject. & I'm sure the spike in hospital admissions that followed it was a coincidence.

Is anyone else following these events outside the context of Trump? Anyone at all? Do you all not know what experts have been saying as things occur? The whole world isn't Trump, you can't just mock him in hindsight without context. Most of your criticism was him repeating expert advice.

Experts have not been advocating untested, potentially harmful drugs and treatments. Experts have not been making outlandish claims about its death rate long after such things were definitively ruled out. Experts have, in fact, mostly had to scramble to correct what he's said, or reset expectations after some wild claim or other.

===

Oh, this is pretty new: was he following expert advice when he claimed, just today, that the virus will just "go away without a vaccine", and that "we'll never see it again"?

 

[tstorm823]

Pray tell, which experts were preaching that we should disregard the WHO death rate?

Me. The WHO death rate is wrong. Serology testing is consistently showing on order of magnitude of infections greater than official counts, for more than anyone is suggesting deaths are undercounted, the death rate is therefore much lower than reported. But what do I know, I only predicted that months ago.

Oh, lord. A reports of a vaccine by September... at the stage at which it can proceed to testing. The very most optimistic timescale for it to be available for public use is around 12 months after the end of that testing process. So, not readily available in the slightest.

Coronavirus vaccine: Target of a million doses by September, scientists say

Oxford team are hoping to have millions of vaccine doses ready by the end of 2020, but will it work?

www.bbc.com

I'm guessing you missed this and didn't bother googling it.

The fact that a drug is being tested for something is not grounds to broadcast to the country that it works. Why do you think Dr. Fauci and others scrambled to downplay expectations?

I'm guessing you've heard at least one, potentially a dozen, other drugs broadcast as potential treatments over the past few months. Were all of those news reports horrible and unjustified? Would you describe managing expectations for those things as "scrambling"?

In the form of a question. Ok. I'm sure it was a question highly informed by expert opinion on the subject. & I'm sure the spike in hospital admissions that followed it was a coincidence.

Oh, I've covered this already. That's on the media. What actually happened is Trump turned to his experts on camera and asked if light or disinfectant could treat the virus inside people's bodies, explicitly saying it was a question for doctors before and after he said it. It's a dumb question, but nobody watching the press conference could have inferred they should drink or inject bleach based on that raw footage. If anyone tried that, it's because they saw the headlines "Trump suggests treating covid-19 by injecting disinfectant", because making fun of Trump is more important to them than public safety.

Experts have not been advocating untested, potentially harmful drugs and treatments. Experts have not been making outlandish claims about its death rate long after such things were definitively ruled out. Experts have, in fact, mostly had to scramble to correct what he's said, or reset expectations after some wild claim or other.

Based on this paragraph, I'm pretty sure you're going to find the truth pretty outlandish.

Oh, this is pretty new: was he following expert advice when he claimed, just today, that the virus will just "go away without a vaccine", and that "we'll never see it again"?

Yes. Guaranteed. And if you take the entire statement and not cut out the part where he says it will probably flare up, it's 100% what you should expect to happen. That pattern of the pandemic is happening all over the world as we speak. It is disappearing. We still want a vaccine to prevent future flare ups, but if you think this isn't going to almost entirely burn out before then, you just aren't paying attention.

 

[lil devils x]

Me. The WHO death rate is wrong. Serology testing is consistently showing on order of magnitude of infections greater than official counts, for more than anyone is suggesting deaths are undercounted, the death rate is therefore much lower than reported. But what do I know, I only predicted that months ago.

Coronavirus vaccine: Target of a million doses by September, scientists say

Oxford team are hoping to have millions of vaccine doses ready by the end of 2020, but will it work?

www.bbc.com

I'm guessing you missed this and didn't bother googling it.



I'm guessing you've heard at least one, potentially a dozen, other drugs broadcast as potential treatments over the past few months. Were all of those news reports horrible and unjustified? Would you describe managing expectations for those things as "scrambling"?



Oh, I've covered this already. That's on the media. What actually happened is Trump turned to his experts on camera and asked if light or disinfectant could treat the virus inside people's bodies, explicitly saying it was a question for doctors before and after he said it. It's a dumb question, but nobody watching the press conference could have inferred they should drink or inject bleach based on that raw footage. If anyone tried that, it's because they saw the headlines "Trump suggests treating covid-19 by injecting disinfectant", because making fun of Trump is more important to them than public safety.



Based on this paragraph, I'm pretty sure you're going to find the truth pretty outlandish.



Yes. Guaranteed. And if you take the entire statement and not cut out the part where he says it will probably flare up, it's 100% what you should expect to happen. That pattern of the pandemic is happening all over the world as we speak. It is disappearing. We still want a vaccine to prevent future flare ups, but if you think this isn't going to almost entirely burn out before then, you just aren't paying attention.

I think what most do not understand that the reason we need to have so many vaccine trials going on at once because the vast majority of vaccine trials fail. Most of them do not actually work as hoped, that is why it takes so many all at once in order to hopefully find one that works as intended, and ALSO why I have stated previously, I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen and if you want to be able to do more now, you have to focus on PPE and wide scale, accurate testing. Both of which we fail to have right now.

If you want to make things safer for me and everyone else sooner, write your officials, tweet Trump and tell him to get PPE to the public( because somehow he finds that more legitimate than what doctors pleading for PPE tell him). That can happen NOW since we already KNOW how to make that.

What are you talking about " it disappearing?" It disappears when people follow social distancing and lock down orders. In order for the virus to disappear, it has to stop having people to infect, we are a LONG way from that. In addition, we still do not know how long someone is contagious after they recover, we have found it in semen, as with what happened with Ebola, and that is worrisome as we found that the virus had survived long after they had recovered:

Ebola detected in Liberia man's semen 565 days after recovery

Preliminary findings from an ongoing screening program in Liberia showed that Ebola virus RNA persisted in the semen of some survivors for 1 year or more, including one case where it showed up after 565 days.The Men’s Health Screening Program (MHSP) also showed a marked increase in men reporting...

www.healio.com

American doctor cured of Ebola finds the virus in eye - CNN

American doctor Ian Crozier was treated for Ebola last year and declared free of the virus. But he had no way of knowing it still lurked in his eye.

www.cnn.com

And now we have more cases of children having strange symptoms as well:

Children With Kawasaki-Like Disease Positive for COVID-19

An usually high number of children have presented at ICUs across France with a Kawasaki-like syndrome that appears to be a late manifestation of COVID-19 infection, say experts.

www.medscape.com

First child death from mysterious COVID-19-related illness is reported in the U.S

Nearly 100 children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with the newly identified syndrome associated with COVID-19.

www.nbcnews.com

We just do not know what the long term side effects of this new virus are, how long a person can be contagious, whether or not the virus can be reactivated and so much more because we simply have not had time to gather that data yet. As new symptoms become noticed, we have to then go back and review old cases to see if it was happening prior and we just hadn't noticed yet.

In addition, if you review the timeline, you can see that there were numerous attempts to get the President and other's in his administration to act, but Trump was more concerned with getting vaping flavors on the shelf and his rallies than he was in hearing about a pandemic he didn't understand what they were even talking about.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yes, and you can find no shortage of professionals who were saying literally the same thing the day before.



Yes. To be fair, that's not a hunch, and he's full of crap in that regard, but he was 100% being fed that information by more educated people.



There are reports coming out now about fast tracking a vaccine by September. Also, yes, yes he was.



Probably not on that one, that's all Trump.



Freaking yes! Are you listening to the experts at all? People were talking about hydroxychloroquire in advance of Trump. Experts were actively testing it. Bayer was donating a mountain of it to the federal government.

He made those comments about disinfectant and light immediately after CDC experts gave a presentation on the effectiveness of disinfectant and light. Imagining that would work inside people is pure Trump and extra dumb, but it was in the form of a question directed at the experts that he's been following the guidance of. Geez.

Is anyone else following these events outside the context of Trump? Anyone at all? Do you all not know what experts have been saying as things occur? The whole world isn't Trump, you can't just mock him in hindsight without context. Most of your criticism was him repeating expert advice.

Edit to hammer this home:

The man jumps on a readily available potential treatment the moment it shows promise, exactly what you'd want him to do, and you're still dogpiling because initial results weren't repeated under closer scrutiny. What the hell do you want?

Trump half-listens to experts, doesn't understand what they're saying, and then regurgitates what he thinks he heard.

It's like a high school student presenting a book report for a book he didn't read based on a Wikipedia summary that he skimmed.

Trump has experts working for him, and giving him information, and Trump is very much not the right person to be presenting that information to the public. He just really can't stand to share the spot-light, even when he ends up looking like a doofus.

 

[tstorm823]

Trump half-listens to experts, doesn't understand what they're saying, and then regurgitates what he thinks he heard.

It's like a high school student presenting a book report for a book he didn't read based on a Wikipedia summary that he skimmed.

Trump has experts working for him, and giving him information, and Trump is very much not the right person to be presenting that information to the public. He just really can't stand to share the spot-light, even when he ends up looking like a doofus.

As someone who has watched through press conferences on covid-19, Trump has on multiple occassions needed to not only direct questions to the experts, but actively tell the reporters to ask the experts some questions. It's not refusing to share the spotlight, it's that they only aim the spotlight at Trump, almost certainly because they want him to look like a doofus.

 

[Agema]

Me. The WHO death rate is wrong. Serology testing is consistently showing on order of magnitude of infections greater than official counts, for more than anyone is suggesting deaths are undercounted, the death rate is therefore much lower than reported. But what do I know, I only predicted that months ago.

The WHO death rate is not "wrong". In science, all data is dependent on the materials and methods by which they are collected and analysed. Scientific papers and reports spend a substantial amount of time and effort explaining what those materials and methods are. The WHO figures are correct according to the criteria used.

What you're talking about is the "infection fatality rate" (IFR), which is not what the WHO has been releasing data on. Studies using antibody testing have already been carried out to assess the infection fatality rate over the last few weeks. These are coming up with figures such as 0.37% (Germany), 0.66% (China), 1.3% (Italy).
These are largely consistent with early estimates from a few months ago.

I'm guessing you've heard at least one, potentially a dozen, other drugs broadcast as potential treatments over the past few months. Were all of those news reports horrible and unjustified? Would you describe managing expectations for those things as "scrambling"?

Dangling unrealistic hopes in front of people is the opposite of "managing expectations".

Oh, I've covered this already. That's on the media.

No, it definitely isn't. Everyone with half a brain cell to spare knows that when a top politician suggests something incredibly stupid in public about drinking bleach it's going to be all over the headlines. You may as well break your mum's prize vase by dropping it and blame gravity. The way this is managed is for politicians to not talk about incredibly stupid things in public, and especially not in an actual press briefing itself. It's a president's baseline responsibility to get his shit together and run an effective media communication platform. It is not the media's responsibility to protect the president from his own incredible stupidity and failings, or to shelter the public from finding out what an incompetent fool their president is.

Blaming the media this way is just Trump supporters' way of shooting the messenger. They intend to vote for an incompetent, venal, orange toad no matter what, but they feel bad about it - so a way to ameliorate the pain is to attack the people who keep reminding them just how bad he is.

Let's be clear here: the US government's own published guidelines on effective public communication in the case of emergency or outbreak stress the importance of clarity and consistency. Instead, Donald Trump spreads chaos and bullshit.

 

[Silvanus]

Me. The WHO death rate is wrong. Serology testing is consistently showing on order of magnitude of infections greater than official counts, for more than anyone is suggesting deaths are undercounted, the death rate is therefore much lower than reported. But what do I know, I only predicted that months ago.

You're not an expert, tstorm823.

Coronavirus vaccine: Target of a million doses by September, scientists say

Oxford team are hoping to have millions of vaccine doses ready by the end of 2020, but will it work?

www.bbc.com

I'm guessing you missed this and didn't bother googling it.

Oh no, I did indeed read that. Including the following bits from that very article:

"Most experts still estimate it will take 12 to 18 months to develop and manufacture a vaccine."

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, who will lead the taskforce, said it was important to remember that the successful vaccine could come from anywhere.

Sir Patrick said: "Just to put some realism on vaccine development, each single project does not have a high probability of success.

"So although everyone goes out with great enthusiasm and we hope they work, it's never the case that you know you've got a vaccine that's going to work."

It remains the view of scientists advising the UK government and of the World Health Organization that 12-18 months is a more realistic timescale for a vaccine.

You've also snipped out the bit where Trump said that they already had the final vaccine, which this study categorically does not represent.

I'm guessing you've heard at least one, potentially a dozen, other drugs broadcast as potential treatments over the past few months. Were all of those news reports horrible and unjustified? Would you describe managing expectations for those things as "scrambling"?

Uhrm, no, I haven't seen anything comparable, and I've been following quite a few sources on this. Oh, I've seen various names seen as potential treatments in need of testing. But Trump didn't say that, did he? He said we should be taking Hydroxychloroquine, because "what have we got to lose?"

(Note that the Hydroxychloroquine also has side-effects, so the "what have we got to lose" line is dangerous quite in its own right).

Oh, I've covered this already. That's on the media. What actually happened is Trump turned to his experts on camera and asked if light or disinfectant could treat the virus inside people's bodies, explicitly saying it was a question for doctors before and after he said it. It's a dumb question, but nobody watching the press conference could have inferred they should drink or inject bleach based on that raw footage. If anyone tried that, it's because they saw the headlines "Trump suggests treating covid-19 by injecting disinfectant", because making fun of Trump is more important to them than public safety.

I don't really think I need to pick this apart, because it's undoubtedly quite clear to anybody else reading what patent nonsense this is.

Yes. Guaranteed. And if you take the entire statement and not cut out the part where he says it will probably flare up, it's 100% what you should expect to happen. That pattern of the pandemic is happening all over the world as we speak. It is disappearing. We still want a vaccine to prevent future flare ups, but if you think this isn't going to almost entirely burn out before then, you just aren't paying attention.

You're interpreting the lowering rate-- during the first wave, long after a pandemic is underway, under lockdown-- as evidence that it's just "disappearing"? This is a basic misunderstanding of epidemiology.

On a side-note, the lead researcher in that Oxford team described the vaccine as "the exit strategy for coronavirus". Y'know, in the study that you posted as evidence that a vaccine will be available in months (though that's not what they said, and not what the article said).

You're not actually representing expert opinion. You're finding snippets which could be stretched to provide some thin basis for Trump's statements (like that 'September' statement), and happily disregarding anything the same people might say that outright, categorically contradicts him (like the 'exit strategy' statement in the very same article).

 

[tstorm823]

The WHO death rate is not "wrong". In science, all data is dependent on the materials and methods by which they are collected and analysed. Scientific papers and reports spend a substantial amount of time and effort explaining what those materials and methods are. The WHO figures are correct according to the criteria used.

What you're talking about is the "infection fatality rate" (IFR), which is not what the WHO has been releasing data on. Studies using antibody testing have already been carried out to assess the infection fatality rate over the last few weeks. These are coming up with figures such as 0.37% (Germany), 0.66% (China), 1.3% (Italy).
These are largely consistent with early estimates from a few months ago.

And like, if you add in New York City, they imply like 0.5 - 1%. All of these come from places that got hit like a truck, (Note: that fatality rate isn't from Germany as a whole, it's from specifically a town that got hit hard early on.) The studies coming from places not hit super hard all at once are coming in at least below that 0.37%, and typically suffer from the comically obvious flaw that they don't include the sick or dead in their samples. A reasonable rough estimate based on these things puts IFR of covid-19 at around 0.2%. This is double the flu at 0.1%. It's a little less than early estimates from a few months ago, but WAY less than when they were talking 2-5%. Yes, because they were talking about CFR instead of IFR. I understand that. The people trying to compare things didn't understand that. A month+ ago I was arguing with people laughing at Trump for saying the actual mortality rate would be a fraction of 1%. If you take only the worst hit places on Earth, you almost get 1%. Almost. But that doesn't apply to everywhere. Italy quite obviously had people die of covid-19 that could have been prevented with more time and more available care. It's the single biggest example of not flattening the curve and barely tops that 1%.

And I mean like, what sort of monster would estimate a 1% CFR and call it 10x the flu's IFR?

South Korea has successfully restricted its infection cases to under 100 a day. They are currently at ~10,000 infected and 150 dead (~1.5%). However, of that 10,000 only 6000 cases are resolved: 150 of 6000 is 2.5%. Germany is at ~60,000 infected with over 500 deaths, a touch under 1%. However, again to look at resolved cases, it's over 500 deaths out of 9000: that's over 5%. So a figure of 1%, ten times higher than 'flu, seems credible.

Notice how not only did you personally compare covid confirmed cases to flu IFR, you used the best managed places for that comparison, rather than the early epicenters of destruction this time to reach close to the same number. Hmmm, but how did I respond to your estimate?

It does, based on positive cases.

But until proven otherwise, I'm more than willing to hold onto the hope implied by the Diamond Princess... yada yada yada... That puts the number below 0.2%, which is quite a bit closer.

So, yes, I understand the difference between CFR and IFR, I brought it up a month ago. And then based on my slightly optimistic math, I tossed out 50k deaths as a possible US total.

Admittedly, I was off by a bit, but I was on the right track at least. My magic math was guessing that 10% infection rates would shut down exponential growth through herd immunity, rather than the ~60% implied by basic formulas. Well, some scientists have looked into that sort of thing, and with both more data and more expertise have suggested the actual number is more like 20%. So my intuition wasn't quite literally perfect, but man that's close enough to brag about.

 

[Kuplung]

Trump half-listens to experts, doesn't understand what they're saying, and then regurgitates what he thinks he heard.

It's like a high school student presenting a book report for a book he didn't read based on a Wikipedia summary that he skimmed.

Trump has experts working for him, and giving him information, and Trump is very much not the right person to be presenting that information to the public. He just really can't stand to share the spot-light, even when he ends up looking like a doofus.

I wonder if this is deliberate attempt by the republicans to keep him in the spotlight anyway.

 

[Kuplung]

That's a massive assumption.

I wouldn't call these baseless assumptions; I was following enough scientific literature which supports this conclusion. Take for instance the bestseller
Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind.

Don't want to convince you about this. I just want to provide some food for thought, maybe.

Another case for energy conserving defensive mechanism is the fact that xenophobia exists. It is easier to put people in a box and treat them with a finite set of matching relational habits. All this, well before you get to know them because understanding and exploring, adapting to someone takes energy. We wouldn't live without preemptive categorization. Nature built that into us.
The fact that you don't want to delve into my point too deeply may prove this also, that you chose not to invest energy in understanding all of this.

Your only holding onto traditions because they suit you and don't care a whiff about.

I am not holding onto traditions. Without breaking them properly, we would still be in the dark ages.

We need to change traditions, to advance, without the fear to tread, unless we want the fools to rush in, and oh boy, fools did rush in to change everything in these decades.

 

[Kuplung]

Eg. Hierarchy is more about control people to make them do what you want.

Hierarchy is more or less voluntary; you confused it with tyranny, which is built in a descending direction. Hierarchy creates itself in an ascending direction, where a set of people having the same value structure agree what/who has more of those values, thus should have the capability to lead/tell what to do.

Tyranny forces its value structure from above to everyone on the chain (controlling people to make them what you want).

Objectively you don't belong to a specific hierarchy if you don't agree with its value structure.

Funnily enough, the more you break tradition, the more successful everyone is, including the rich.

Unless you break it completely, ushering a reign of pure Anarchy, which is not the desired state for anyone, but I am sure you didn't want to include that extreme, so I agree.

You know that just makes Conservatives sound lazy, right?

Maybe you are searching for the word cowards instead of lazy? Cowards to delve into new ideas, but I wouldn't call a man working 12 hours in a shit job to provide his family and himself lazy. He is just a coward/exhausted to try new opportunities.

I totally followed your analogy here to make a point. I don't really think you can conclude energy efficiency in laziness that plain and simple.

 

[Kuplung]

It's seen as a negative, because traditions are usually about hurting others to get what you want.

Tradition can have a forcing mechanism inherently in it, yes. It is inevitable if you want to keep the freshly obtained new value structure going.

For example, after abolishing slavery, what do you do with those who still want to keep slaves? You have to hurt them to abide by the new rules. You have to maintain a new tradition, of NOT keeping slaves.

Also, I see a bit of hypocrisy in this 'progressives are against hurting people' mantra because we both know progressives aren't the friendliest bunch.
Many of them are well armed with the arsenal of insults, belittling, slander even physical confrontation... all the corrosive type behavior.

If you preach against a weapon of choice (hurting people) to obtain an upper hand, but you still use it, you invalidate your claims.

 

[Agema]

It's a little less than early estimates from a few months ago, but WAY less than when they were talking 2-5%.

Who was, in what context precisely?

A month+ ago I was arguing with people laughing at Trump for saying the actual mortality rate would be a fraction of 1%.

Well, technically, 0.99% is a fraction of 1%. Following colloquial use, however, the implication is an awful lot less than 1%.

Notice how not only did you personally compare covid confirmed cases to flu IFR, you used the best managed places for that comparison, rather than the early epicenters of destruction this time to reach close to the same number. Hmmm, but how did I respond to your estimate?

I used the best managed places because they had relatively high levels of testing, thereby minimising overestimates from unconfirmed infections. Secondly, the point of also looking at unresolved ones is to note that many of the confirmed cases are deaths-in-waiting.

Incidentally, I do not know where you get the idea that the IFR of the Diamond Princess was 0.2%. The only study I can find on it suggests 1.3%, although accepting the age-heavy nature of the passengers, this would be more like half that for a more common population distribution. 0.2% is the low end of studies, the average is going in about 0.7-0.8%. Interestingly, more recent studies seem to be more heavily coverging towards ~0.7-0.8% as well. So 1% is still looking credible.

Admittedly, I was off by a bit, but I was on the right track at least. My magic math was guessing that 10% infection rates would shut down exponential growth through herd immunity, rather than the ~60% implied by basic formulas. Well, some scientists have looked into that sort of thing, and with both more data and more expertise have suggested the actual number is more like 20%. So my intuition wasn't quite literally perfect, but man that's close enough to brag about.

It's reason to be optimistic, but I'd advise being skeptical and not putting to much hope on lone studies.

Secondly, bragging about being right for the wrong reasons is like thinking you won the lottery because you did something virtuous.

 

[Trunkage]

A month+ ago I was arguing with people laughing at Trump for saying the actual mortality rate would be a fraction of 1%.

Wait... who was laughing at Trump for saying this?

Tradition can have a forcing mechanism inherently in it, yes. It is inevitable if you want to keep the freshly obtained new value structure going.

For example, after abolishing slavery, what do you do with those who still want to keep slaves? You have to hurt them to abide by the new rules. You have to maintain a new tradition, of NOT keeping slaves.

I'd point out that you are pointing to exactly how damaging hierarchy and traditions are, while then defending them when they change. Slavery was a tradition and exemplifies hierarchy. The hierarchy nor tradition change society for the better. ONCE it was change, they CAN maintain it. They can also maintain poor, ineffective or outright damaging policies too.

As I said, I'm more for looking at whether traditions are effective or not. Not outright saying all traditions are bad.

Also, I see a bit of hypocrisy in this 'progressives are against hurting people' mantra because we both know progressives aren't the friendliest bunch.
Many of them are well armed with the arsenal of insults, belittling, slander even physical confrontation... all the corrosive type behavior.

If you preach against a weapon of choice (hurting people) to obtain an upper hand, but you still use it, you invalidate your claims.

I agree with this. I would including threatening as well, including walking into state legislature with guns.

 

[tstorm823]

Wait... who was laughing at Trump for saying this?

You can dredge through the old forum if you like, I'm not gonna call people out who I'm not currently engaged with, that'd just be picking fights.

Incidentally, I do not know where you get the idea that the IFR of the Diamond Princess was 0.2%. The only study I can find on it suggests 1.3%, although accepting the age-heavy nature of the passengers, this would be more like half that for a more common population distribution. 0.2% is the low end of studies, the average is going in about 0.7-0.8%. Interestingly, more recent studies seem to be more heavily coverging towards ~0.7-0.8% as well. So 1% is still looking credible.

The non-age-adjusted CFR of the Diamond Princess was like 1.3%. I know they can test everyone in that case, but that doesn't account for those who recover quickly without incident, which apparently happens frequently enough to drive up these asymptomatic case numbers. And I wasn't saying the IFR of the Diamond Princess was 0.2%, but that the data from the Diamond Princess could be extrapolated to that in the general public.

But like, if in the end 1,000,000,000 people globally get infected by covid-19, do you seriously expect 10,000,000 more covid deaths to be on the way at this point? 1,000,000,000 cases would be an optimistic guess at how many people would need immunity before the world can all reconnect. Even if the current 200-300k deaths globally is a severe undercount, it's a single digit percent of a predicted death toll based on a 1% IFR. That is extreme prediction.