1. Who are those people and why should I care what they’re bleating about?

   1. Mostly, because they vote.

      1. Nancy Pelosi is one of them. She’s just not quite so blatant about it.

      2. So? The question remains: who are they, and why does ANYONE pay attention to what they say? Twitter doesn’t make their bleatings any more intelligent or interesting.

2. Nothing new here. The Democrats & unions did this back at the beginning of WWII, with the intention of instituting a New Deal based centrally planned Fascist state.
   The men in industry who worked super hard to build the Arsenal of Democracy were alternately vilified as either greedy war profiteers increasing their powers on the worker’s backs, or as a bunch of ineffectual do-nothings fiddling away precious time.
   The Unions fought hard to prevent this buildup, unless they got their way- strikes were sadly common in defense plants up until Pearl Harbor, and continued long after.
   And it’s no real surprise that the Democrats got the public credit for something they had fought against after the war.

3. First of all, I always thought #metoo (pound me too) was the worst hashtag, but this one is worse for a whole host of different reasons.

   No matter what, we can always rely on your left leaning friends to demonstrate their greed and jealousy. Refusing to go back to work in order to harm wall street… Sure…. good plan.

   Look, the reason we shut down was not because this disease has a ridiculously high death rate. (It doesn’t, do the math) It was because the transmission of the virus is much higher than that of the seasonal flu. From everything I have read, it is because an infected person is contagious for about seven days before showing symptoms. Net result, they infect two to three people, compared to the flu with almost a one to one infection rate. Add to that, if you do develop full blown symptoms, they stick around for a week or more, compared to the flu’s three-four days.

   People are not dying from this left or right, and the seriousness of this disease is no where as drastic as the news makes it out to be. I know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of businesses can go back to work without seriously increasing the number of infected with a few precautions in place.

   1. The real issue, as I understand it, with covid-19 is that because of the propagation model, we are likely to see our medical system overwhelmed.

      Bad numbers ahead:
      Assume we have 100 beds in the state that can used to care for people that are critically ill AND need a ventilator.

      During normal times, 20% (20 of those beds) are in use. That leaves excess of 80 beds. As these beds are spread across the state, this isn’t really a whole lot of beds being wasted (not to mention that just because they can be used with a ventilator they must be only used with a ventilator).

      If we have a population of 10,000 people in that state and 5% get sick from covid-19, that means we have 500 people that are ill with covid-19.

      Of those 500 people, 10% require hospitalization, 50% show symptoms and 40% show no symptoms.

      That 10 is 50 people. That means we are now using 70 of the 100 beds. No problem.

      But if the population is 20,000 all the numbers double and now we have 100 people that need hospitalization, that’s 20 more than the beds we have. That means that 20 people die.

      BUT what if people only need those ventilators for 2 weeks. If all 100 people get sick the same week, people die, but what if we space that out over 4 weeks instead. That is, 25 the first week need beds, 25 more the second week for 50, 25 more the next week for 75, 25 more for the last week but 25 come off the ventilators. These means we only hit a bed count of 95. Nobody dies from lack of a ventilator.

      This is what all the isolation is designed to do. It is to stretch out the 100 people getting sick over a longer period of time so that our medical services can deal with everybody as the become sick.

      When a bunch of people go to the St. Paddy’s day parade in Boston and a bunch of them catch the sickness, that means in two weeks to three weeks there is going to be an influx of people needing hospitalization. And that surge could cause a shortage of ventilators.

      It is my opinion that just about everybody in the United States is going to catch this thing. It is just a mater of win. Our goal is to delay that as much as possible.

      The other solution is that we’ll get to the summer months when we expect covid-19 to have difficulty infecting people and the spread will slow, greatly. During this time we’ll develop a vaccine and by fall everybody can get a vaccine and we “catch” a very mild version of covid-19 and don’t catch the deadly version.

      1. “Just about everybody … is going to catch this thing”. I think you said that before, and I pointed out that the data don’t support that, not by many miles. Do you have any basis for this feeling?

         1. New virus entering a greenfield population, and the virus spreads more easily than the usual flu (according to the data we have).
            *shrug*

            None of us here are epidemiologists, so pick your own favorite model. I hope the optimistic one is the way to go, but I’d rather not have my father die to this, so I’ll err on the pessimistic side.

         2. pkoning: Aesop, at Raconteur Report, very cogently explains the problem, from doubling times, to rate of climb, and compared above to estimates of #ICU beds, and ICU staff, and estimates of number of vents.

            Should Things take a moderately bad path, # needing vents likely >number of vents, let alone # ICU nurses (IMO likely to be the rate determining step. You can add a second or third shift at The Ventilator Factory, but you can run nursing schools 24/7/365, and you’re STILL around 3-5 years out, before those proof-nurses will be ready/able to solo, with no-shit sick folks.)

            So, no TODAY’S data do not support the “everybody’s gonna get it” appraisal, but, with like a 2 week latency, today’s data, if it is to be bekieved, reflects the number infected TWO WEEKS AGO!

            And, those folks have been incubating, and, perhaps, infecting others, for those 2 weeks.

            That’s why there is some reason for concern.

            1. Not “proof”, PROTO.

         3. Right now the detected cases are showing around a 1.7 infection rate. Not the right term, sorry. This means that for every person that becomes infected and it is detected, they are infecting 1.7 others.

            This was the number a week or so ago.

            Given that this is an exponential growth curve, unless it changes “everyone” will catch it.

            I cheat by claiming that getting vaccinated for it counts as catching it. That does not play into the 1.7 number.

            Lastly, I have tried to be consistent in stating it is my opinion. I have to many years of getting these sorts of numbers right.

            I also look at this as a risk analysis. If I’m wrong and only 50% get this thing and we prepare for 100% no problem. If we don’t restock our n95 masks and respirators, don’t get the ventilators we need because only 50% well get it then we might have serious issues

         4. @pkoning, here are the actual number and terms as of earlier this month:
            R⌀

            R⌀ is the average number of people that an infected person transmits the virus to.
            If R⌀ is 1, the epidemic will increase exponentially.
            Current estimates put R⌀ at ~2.5-2.9 (Peng PWH et al, 2/28). This is a bit higher than seasonal influenza.
            R⌀ is a reflection of both the virus and also human behavior. Interventions such as social distancing and improved hygiene will decrease R⌀.
            Control of spread of COVID-19 in China proves that R⌀ is a modifiable number that can be reduced by effective public health interventions.
            The R⌀ on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship was 15 – illustrating that cramped quarters with inadequate hygiene will increase R⌀

            (Peng PWH et al, 2/28) https://bjanaesthesia.org/article/S0007-0912(20)30098-2/pdf

4. Not doing enough. Being a dictator. Still not doing enough. I wish the left would make up their minds.

   Oh, wait…

5. Idk we bit the bullet once, I think the effects of restarting and having to stop again will be much worse than waiting it out an additional two weeks to reevaluate. I’m in aerospace so I’m staring down the barrel of something really ugly but I still think the above. You want to talk about depression I think starting and stopping again will cause that, that is uncertainty and volutility to the extreme.

   I also agree 1200 is not enough, that doesn’t pay my mortgage either and I’m not living in some mcmansion, the cost of living is much higher where I live. Income being a deciding factor is not helpful either, I effectively pay two mortgages a month to service my student loans and my actual mortgage and living costs you can easily make 100k in my area and be struggling because of this.

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