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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
All eyes will be on the "dangerous" and "irresponsible" states of Georgia and Florida: Trump-haters are rubbing their little hands together and preparing their schadenfreude snark as they eagerly await rising infections and death counts.
Hysterical Democrats are calling those refusing to cower in their homes ignorant MAGA hicks and selfish a-holes for wanting to get out in the sunshine and get back to work, although there is no scientific connection between people basking in the sunshine and breathing fresh air in Florida and people dying in New York City. Indeed, there is scant statistical correlation between lockdowns and Conronavirus cases.
Politicians like the mayor of El Lay state it more politely:
"We can't let one weekend reverse a month of work that you have invested in."That's a nice piece of Sunk Cost Fallacy that resonates with the human mind (as many fallacies do), and it only makes sense if we're holding out until the cavalry can come riding over the hill to save us, but that's not going to happen. A vaccine is problematic due to the nature of the virus, and in the best of circumstances will take years. There is no imminent fix for this. We are not eradicating Covid-19. It will remain on this earth until it finds no more hosts to attach itself to.
My answer to the good mayor is...
We’re not saving lives—we’re deferring deaths
The experts tell us we have "flattened the curve," but given the poor quality of data and the multiple revisions downward of morbidity and mortality rates, how do they know? Sure, a little logic and reason tells us the number of infections and deaths would most likely have been higher if we had done nothing, but which actions worked to slow the rate of infection? Cowering in our homes? Washing our hands? Quarantining the sick and the vulnerable? Masks? Keeping our distance?
Edward Ziegler thinks we'll be fully reopened soon, and not because of successes in contact tracing* (which is an "impossible" pipe dream that could metastasize into one more massive federal jobs program), testing, and vaccines. He says delays and failures in these touted saviors will give us no choice but to Keep Calm and Press On.
What say you?
* - When you're a Silicon Valley robber baron, every solution looks like an app.
LINKS:
For our part, Mr. AOW and I are staying in as much as possible. After all, we are considered "the most vulnerable."
ReplyDeleteI can afford to stay sequestered. As a teacher of groups of homeschoolers and a private tutor, I haven't missed a single paycheck. I was up and ready to go immediate, thanks to FaceTime, Google Groups, Skype, and Zoom.
In fact, as far as I know, all groups of homeschoolers were up and ready to go immediately upon the lockdown.
Contrast the above with this:
Highly Ranked, Wealthy Virginia School District Still Can’t Teach Kids Online After Six Weeks.
Of note about the above school system, the system did not upgrade their existing platform Blackboard for at least two summers in a row. Even worse, nobody has been held accountable, nobody has missed a paycheck.
I had read that the thinking was it wasn't fair for VA to offer anyone online education if it wasn't available to all students in the state as it gave richer kids an advantage. Better for all to remain ignorant apparently. I was thinking of you at the time... sorry I don't have a citation.
Delete@ AOW: "nobody has been held accountable, nobody has missed a paycheck."
DeleteIndeed. A standard luxury for government workers that we in the private sector do not enjoy.
No one will hold Gov Klanhood Blackface to task for it.
DeleteI too am "considered the most vulnerable." By others, since I do not apply that adjective to myself, having no particular fear of the future. Age 76, Parkinson's, severe emphysema, several strokes, heart attack...
DeleteAnd so, of course, I got the Coronavirus disease. Moderately sick and rather highly uncomfortable for a little over three weeks, lost 18 pounds that didn't really look good on me anyway, took some Zithromax and never went within ten miles of a hospital.
Pretty much everything that terrorizes us turns out to be much less in reality than it was in our minds before it happened.
Bunkerville,
DeleteI had read that the thinking was it wasn't fair for VA to offer anyone online education if it wasn't available to all students in the state as it gave richer kids an advantage.
That was what we heard. At first. But there are so many in Fairfax County who are not disadvantaged that the powers that be decided to opt for online learning for all those with Internet access and send packets to those who didn't have access.
And lo! The Internet option collapsed.
@Jayhawk: it's a roll of the dice. I'm glad you got a relatively mild case, but there was luck involved.
DeleteLuck? How about working out with a personal trainer twice a week and on my own for 12+ hours per week, to keep fit and be sure my immune system is in the best shape it can be? How about a disciplined and healthy diet to keep my weight the same as it was when I was in high school? How about a rigorous schedule of taking my prescribed medications and nothing other than prescribed? Is that all luck?
DeleteThat's weighting the dice. I think those are all worthwhile things (and not only to increase longevity), but luck is still involved.
DeleteAnd genetics.
DeleteLife is a crap shoot, and those who weight the dice in their favor have better odds.
DeleteA cautionary tale:
ReplyDeleteSan Francisco had the 1918 flu under control. And then it lifted the restrictions.
Different times, different health care and medicine, right?
DeleteYou beat me to it, Ed. This is not 1918, and this disease is not the 1918 flu.
DeleteYes, there are differences.
DeleteBut the principles of virology and epidemiology remain the same -- until vaccination possibly intervenes.
1918 is a useful example. We are not any the less susceptable to a novel infection like this than we were back then. If anything, with our cities more densely populated and increased travel, things have moved in the virus' favour.
Delete1918 may be illustrative. The virus lurks.
DeleteOf course it will come back.
We "flattened the curve".
Did we ever get a vax for Coid-1918? No.
I'll roughly paraphrase JEFFERSON in an attempt to address this tiresome issue obliquely but with a modicum of seriousness.
DeleteWhat does it matter if a few hundred thousand lives are lost during a worldwide "health crisis," if the sacrifice means that LIBERTY, COMMERCE and FINANCIAL SOLVENCY LOVE and JOY will be able to continue relatively unabated for the vast majority?
The paralysis and susquent demise of a nation's economy would be bound to produce far more DEATH, and lengthier, more attenuated AGONY in the long run than to allow a pandemic to run its course while taking as much practical precaution possible to keep its spread to a minimum, of course.
What we've been doing for the past two months is tantamount to the implemention of a long range plan to commit NATIONAL –– possibly GLOBAL –– S_U_I_C_I_D_E.
Ed,
DeleteDid we ever get a vax for Coid-1918? No.
True enough. But our nation did end up with a lot of orphans as a result of the 1918 Flu as it targeted young adults, sparing the old and the very young.
COVID-19 targets more age groups -- or so it seems.
Anyway, we shall see what we shall see over the next two years or so.
Franco,
DeleteWhat we've been doing for the past two months is tantamount to the implemention of a long range plan to commit NATIONAL –– possibly GLOBAL –– S_U_I_C_I_D_E.
Yes.
a few hundred thousand lives
Or millions. We have no way of knowing, do we?
What we need is balance and common sense, commodities in very short supply in the 21st Century. **sigh**
"a few hundred thousand lives ... or millions. We have no way of knowing ..."
DeleteSaturation of our hospital capacity would not only compromise our ability to respond to other health needs (causing indirect deaths, to add to all the direct CV-19 ones) but also impact the wider economy. I don't have any easy answers: I don't see it as a straight-forward choice between health and the economy.
"What we need is balance and common sense, commodities in very short supply in the 21st Century. **sigh**"
Deleteit's a bring-your-own party.
Jez,
DeleteI don't see it as a straight-forward choice between health and the economy.
I agree with that statement.
There are roughly SEVEN-BILLION human souls on the planet.
DeleteIt woulfn't matter if even TWO-HUNDRED-M ILLION died of the Wuhan Plague [I'm determind to keep on calling ii what it IS. To HELL with Political correctness!]
I outlined a PRINCIPLE above, and will not let that PRINCIPLE be violated by playing some sort of Numbers Game.
The willingness to allow oneself to suffer death as a personal sacrifice in the cause of preserving LIBERTY is not foolish, it is NOBLE.
To a GENUINE American preserving LIBERTY and personal INDEPENDENCE trumps all OTHER considerations.
Once we stop believing that we will no longer BE a free and independent nation, but just a Failed Experiment ready to be swept into the Dustbin of History.
The ONLY alternative to fighting vigilantly to maintain FREEDOM would be a surrender to SLAVERY.
"LIVE FREE or DIE" is the BEST motto.
"The willingness to allow oneself to suffer death as a personal sacrifice in the cause of preserving LIBERTY is not foolish, it is NOBLE."
DeleteIt's one thing to kill yourself. But to kill your neighbours, is a sacrifice of a very different sort. This is also a point of principle. Take care.
I understand your point, Jez, but the LARGER concern remains, because avparalyzed, nn-functioning society is a MORIBUND society.
DeleteOnce we reach the point of no return on the bleak journey w are beingforced to take right now, there will very soon be NOTHING LEFT to live FOR.
In seeking "safety" we will have KILLED the very social institutions that made a relatively comfortable, pleasant life POSSIBLE..
Once THAT's gone, what would we have left that could sustain us?
Truly the most dismal of dismal prospects, I'd say.
A society that places the welfare of each and every individual above the welfare of the social fabric as a whole cannot survive. It dissolves into chaos of dog eat dog and survival of the fittest. Society is, by definition, a cooperative entity.
Delete@ Jez: "But to kill your neighbours, is a sacrifice of a very different sort."
DeletePlease explain how someone could "kill their neighbors." Explain also how to keep from doing so.
i) by infecting them
Deleteii) by social distancing (statistically)
iii) mV' = -v_e m' (not relevant, but the above seemed far too simple)
All of these precautions are unnerving.
DeleteFor example....
Mr. AOW fell the other day, and we had to call 911 the to have the EMT's come and get him back onto his mobility scooter. We didn't, at that time, have masks (We do now, thanks to my quilting friend Janet).
There was quite a delay in everything as (1) we answered a bucket-load of questions and (2) the EMT's got all garbed up in PPE.
For my part, I stayed well over 6 feet away. Quite the dance! That distancing meant, of course, that I couldn't help.
Mr. AOW bumped his head pretty badly, but no way in hell was he going to opt for a trip to the hospital. So, I didn't find out about the bumped head until well after the EMT's left.
It occurs to me that quite a few people must have died because they don't want to go to the ER and risk getting the Ripley.
DeleteAnd many of us are postponing our wellness visits to our primary care doctors. I'm one of those who has postponed any such visit. Again, who wants to get the Ripley?
@Jez: By that logic, tens of thousands kill their fellow human beings every year by passing on the flu.
Delete@SF: "By that logic" is another way of saying "persuing one objective at the expense of all others." At risk of being accused of nuance, obviously we need to strike a balance between competing objectives. This year's novel precautions are justified (maybe) by the different sort of risk posed by CV-19 compred to regular 'flu.
DeleteBut this is all quite wide-ranging compared to the much smaller point I was trying to make to Franco: I only wanted to remind him that the health objective has a loving (as in agape) community aspect to it, whereas I felt he was only accounting for the selfish fear for one's own individual safety.
Jez, I know you would never do this, but we have too many instances of people outside getting screamed at by uptight concerned citizens that they don't care that they are murdering people.
DeleteNew York took very strict measures, Florida did not. Go look at the numbers.
NYC would be in worse shape without the measures though, wouldn't it?
DeleteWe've gone from long-standing social norms to a curious mix of social expectation and legal enforcement. This is genuinely confusing on an emotional level, especially for anyone who is very frightened of the disease and/or struggling with their own lockdown. The histrionic dynamic between the Press and the President is not helping* those people.
*understatement
Jez,
DeleteI stated in my blog post:
"Sure, a little logic and reason tells us the number of infections and deaths would most likely have been higher if we had done nothing, but which actions worked to slow the rate of infection?"
Can you explain why stringent lockdown New York's cases are 10X the rate of those in "stupid, irresponsible, lax" Florida?
No special insight from me, except to note that New York (according to its own hype at least) is your largest, busiest, most cosmopolitan city, so I would have expected its outbreak to be at a more advanced stage when you went into lockdown.
DeleteThat's what I think as well. Different circumstances call for different measures. People walking on the beach didn't kill one person in New York.
DeleteOf interest?
ReplyDeleteNY Times Reporter Got Cedar Sinai Doctors Video Of UV Light Treatment Removed Because It Sounded Like What Trump Described
Note the videos at the above link.
Delete" We’re not saving lives—we’re deferring deaths "
ReplyDeleteI agree, and it's worth doing.
As for lifting restrictions, of course it makes sense to open up rural areas sooner and more quickly than dense urban centers. Even so, I'd opt for doing it slow enough that youstart to see the outcome (with its annoying 2-week lag) before commiting fully.
Too many people are using language like "...beat this thing." People do not have an understanding of how this works.
DeleteWe know how to conduct business safely, so lets get to it.
SF,
DeleteToo many people are using language like "...beat this thing." People do not have an understanding of how this works.
That is the unvarnished truth. Can't they read? Here we are in the Information Age, and people are as dumb as stumps!
Computers may be twice as fast as they were in 1973, but the average voter is as drunk and stupid as ever. (Richard Nixon / futurama)
DeleteThe excess supply of hospital beds and ventilators is all you have to know about easing the lockdowns, given the earlier justifications for locking down.
DeleteA Constitutional infringement regardless.
Bocopro posted earlier at Z’s blog, “The horrific truth is if people were told to get into boxcars to be taken to ‘Virus Protection Camps’ many would rush to get in line.” This comes to us from the notion of entitlement. There are some who, beginning around the early 1970s, believe that they have a constitutionally protected right to live forever. Death isn’t fair, but it does come to us all. The question we ought to ask ourselves is not how long we should live, but how well should we live in our allotted time on earth. Citizens locked away in their homes by order of government authority may not offer us much quality of life. If government can lock us up for a virus, what other issues can the government manufacture to curtail our inalienable right to choose? Government controls us through fear and anxiety and it always seems to work out to the benefit of the government. There is no benefit to longevity if we end up shackled to our beds.
DeleteMustang +1
DeleteMustang +1000!
DeleteBRAVO! You said it ALL, and said it brilliantly and succinctly.
Jez, your above attribution should read (Richard Nixon's head / "Futurama").
DeleteMost of us old fogies aren't going to know what "Futurama" is.
Well, you should find out ;)
DeleteMe with my hippity hop music and 20-year-old cultural references.
@ Jez:
DeleteGood news, everyone!
It's still on the Sci Fi channel every night.
:^)
I tried to explain it to AOW a few weeks ago. I think she yawned.
From KAROL MARKOWICZ: Wait, how long are we supposed to stay in lockdown?:
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning, we had a goal: to flatten the curve. We were warned that COVID-19 would overtake our hospitals and cause a health-system collapse. We were to stay home to give our medical heroes a fighting chance.
So we did, and thanks to the strength of our system, it worked. The Javits Center never filled up; the USS Comfort is sailing away. Three weeks ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was vowing to seize ventilators from upstate hospitals and send them to Gotham. Last week, we were dispatching our ventilators out to other states.
We did our part; we flattened the curve. So why is there no move to loosen regulations?
In February and March, expert and elite opinion seemed to understand that patience with lockdowns would at some point wear thin. But not anymore. . . .
It’s also becoming apparent that staying closed is some weird poke in the eye to President Trump. Hyper-polarization means that if the president wants to awaken the nation from its devastating economic coma, it must mean that he and his cornpone followers are wrong. Smart people — who tend to have lockdown-immune jobs in academe, government and media — must know better, and they have a license to mock and demean.
God, I'm getting so sick of all this thump-Trump crap!
"We did our part; we flattened the curve. So why is there no move to loosen regulations?"
DeleteBecause of the power it gives them.
We set sail with three ships and the purpose of finding a new route to India. We got to America and stopped. We declared the voyage a success because it was a voyage of discovery to find a new world.
DeleteWe shut down the economy to flatten the curve, and having done that we are continuing to keep destroying the economy until we eradicate the disease.
Ed +1000!
DeleteThat's IT, Ed. It never has been about anything BUT increasing, and maintaining GOVERNMENT'S stranglehold on POWER..
Leftist Government longs for ABSOLUTE power, and every time the people get really SCARED it gives GOVERNMENT (Leftist-Socialist-ELITIST- Style, of course) a good opportinity to tighten their chokehold on every one of us.
Those who think otherwise are nothing but CULTURAL MARXIST-INDOCTRINATED ... N_I_N_N_I_E_S ... quasi-LEMMINGS ––– SOULESS, CASTRATED AUTOMATA.
Another good read:
ReplyDeletePeople don’t appreciate being condescended to and bossed around, especially when the leaders ask them for sacrifices without empathy and humility.
I'm still getting a paycheck -- not the same amount as before, but still okay. I have friends and adult children of friends are sidelined without pay. Hell, they can't even get a job scrubbing floors in these mega-mansions because the owners of said mega-mansions don't want to be exposed to the Ripley.
Our governess is "allowing" us to powerboat, lawncare and shop in previously locked down areas.
ReplyDeleteBut now we must wear masks.
Why now?
To show us she can.
I don't know where we get them, but I do know that we regularly elect them to reign over us. It must be something in the water ...
ReplyDeleteDon't miss this:
ReplyDeleteMedia Mocked Trump But His Idea for Using UV Light, “Disinfecting” People to Fight Disease Is Already Being Done!
I will agree that Restaurant’s, Bars, and Sports Aeneas are places that should be SHUT DOWN, but businesses like Super Markets, Doctors Offices, like grocery stores and healthcare facilities do, and should be counted as essential during a shutdown. Basic necessities such as food, water, sanitation items like Toilet Paper, transportation, essential non-operations, healthcare, banks, etc… are needed to keep the country running. However, the point has been made time and time again, with everyone crowding in a large busy supermarket, how is this different from people socially distanced in the workplace such as in office cubicles or working outdoors in the fresh air?, but many workplaces can institute ways to screen employees who might have COVID-19 and cut off the public from coming through in certain jobs so it’s you and per-screened coworkers. Hospitals, which are required are to remain open.
ReplyDeleteEven if one could argue that still wouldn’t work, why do liquor stores for example get to be open? Getting drunk is not essential ! Alcoholics whining about their cravings does NOT count as a need for survival? A need is not simply what you want to whine about the most, or is merely a convenience. The need to get Americans back to work and earning outweighs many of the risks of dying from COVID-19 for many able bodied healthy people. Millions die from the flu every flu season, and nobody has ever made a stink over that!.
However, I can not agree with the police ticketing Church members $500 for attending services. There has got to be another way. There is even talk of the possibility of tracking down each and everyone who does having their license plates traced , to give them fines.
I even heard that quarantine orders and threatening the Pastor with arrest is a possibility that Andrew Cuomo has been considering
@ Howard Brazee:
DeleteThe states of Alabama, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia own liquor stores directly. They also have a large State tax on liquor which I imagine, is a large source of revenue in addition to the federal tax on alcohol. That's why the moonshiners call the still busters revenuers.
People think that it's against the law to make moonshine when actually it's against the law to not pay the tax on it.
Why do you think the liquor stores stayed open?
I find it curious that America, the most medically and scientifically advanced nation on Earth had the MOST deaths from a relatively mildly-lethal virus. Is it because we had more critically ill people being kept alive and on the brink of death that just a small push ws needed to tip the vulnerable over the edge? Or is it TDS from cooking the statistics to make Trump look bad? I can't explain it. You'd think India and China would have WAY more deaths due to their greater populations.
ReplyDeleteI think it's because the LEFTISTS in charge of keeping score have been attributing virtually ALL deaths to the Wuhan Plague, wHIch THEY in their militantly political correct fashiOn insist on calling "Covid-19" –– THE NAME DREAMT UP BY THE W.H.O. WHCH OUR PUSILLANIMOUS OLITICOS AND NEWS ORGANIZATIONS IMMEDIATELY ADOPTED AND FOISTED ON THE REST OF US –– JUST TO SPITE PRESIDENT TRUMP NO DOUBT WHO CALLED IT BY ITS RIGHT NAME, The Wuhan Virus or th Chinese Virus.which the LEFT just could NOT tolerate –– the BASTARDS!
DeleteREGULATION AND Control of TERMINOLOGY AND PRONINCITION is a maddeningly ... B___I___G ... thing with the LEFT.
THAT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE BY NATURE OPPRESSIVE, ULTRA CONTROL-FREAKS.
Well, in part it is the guy who got run over by a truck and was counted as a death due to Corona virus.
Delete-FJ... regarding the numbers and the possibility of the books being cooked, President Trump has publicly accepted the numbers we are too are seeing... here's one of his many quotes confirming that.
Delete"“I think we’ll be substantially, hopefully, below the [100,000] number,” he said. And I think, right now, we’re heading at probably around 60-, maybe 65,000.”
Now, whatever our numbers are, or are not, that does not mean others countries, like China, are not fudging the numbers. But clearly here, even Pres Trump is accepting the reported numbers.
I guess he could just be wrong on that though...
Expect both India and China to be massively under-reporting.
DeleteAnd DEMOCRATS (LEFTISTS) to be massively over-hyping –– forever doing ther damndest –– to paint pictures of Gloom, Doom, Misery, Panic, Hyper-Anxiety, Despair, Anger and limitless DREAD all of which make up the Political Capital from which the Left derives its POWER.
DeleteExcellent reasoning here and worth reading (dated April 27, 2020):
ReplyDeleteI’ve worked the coronavirus front line — and I say it’s time to start opening up.
ReplyDeleteGood article , AOW. Fear has been ruling the day.
“While COVID-19 is serious, fear of it is being over-amplified. The public needs to understand that the vast majority of infected people do quite well”
And goes on to state how prevalent it is with 43% testing positive in the Bronx. It’s past time to open up.
DaBlade,
DeleteThank you for the compliment about this blog post. This post, however, is Silverfiddle's. He a team member here.
Hope that you'll stop by again soon. One of us team members posts at least twice a week.