Every anti-vaxxer on the planet needs to be tied into a chair, have his/her eyelids propped open with toothpicks cartoon-style, and forced to watch this from Penn & Teller, while every time said anti-vaxxer says something anti-vaxxish, they get whacked by Sister Mary Stigmata.
That’s just IMHO, though.
And I would ask that the OP cite his credentials that establish his ability to discern who “people who should know what they are talking about” are.
Well, you got the first part right, but Weird Al got the rest right.
It looks like in the next few weeks we will have a much better idea on how high the infection rates actually are. Hopefully they will be much higher than any of us expected. The demographics of the disease should also become more clear cut. Once we can establish who needs to be protected and who doesn’t we can start to go back to somewhat normal living. We can’t depend on a vaccine coming along anytime soon. Still far more questions than answers. Will simply wearing masks and avoiding close contact sufficiently slow the disease? If we are in a low risk demographic should we just accept that we will probably get this? How much responsibility does the individual have in protecting himself? Should we attempt to feed the fire and keep it at an " acceptable" level of infections?
Still waiting for that list of authoritative sources with their science-based rationales for lifting isolation measures, chief. You can use both sides of the paper.
Stranger
For one thing I never suggested lifting isolation measures but easing up on them. I suggested those at risk isolate those in low risk go back to work and go about your business still practicing social distancing. I would still cancel large gatherings, subways and things like that for the time being. If that was working ease up a bit more every two or 3 weeks.
Hopefully, deniers will gracefully commit seppuku when they admit their mistaken beliefs as US deaths pass a million. Failure would indicate hypocrisy. They can’t risk hypocrisy, can they?
What you said upthread was:
The request was made by several people to identify who these “people who should know what they are talking about.”
As for your suggestions, we’ll take them under the advisement with weight given to your knowledge and expertise in virology, epidemiology, and public health.
Stranger
What exactly is it that you disagree with? Do you think we should stay on full lock down until the virus passes and then when it comes back go on lock down each time? You don’t agree that herd immunity should be a goal? You don’t agree that we should try to reach herd immunity in a timely manner?
You don’t want to build herd immunity faster by increasing the rate of fatalities. The goal is to save as many people as possible, not to kill off vulnerable populations.
If you identify the people you are agreeing with and let us see the exact proposals perhaps we can have that discussion. How difficult is it to give us that?
I can’t identify the people I agree with because I don’t pay any attention to who they are. Just reading I come across throughout the day. So Lets just say I have no cites.
I can give you proposals, Areas of the country that seem to be under the least pressure relax the safe guards while continuing to closely monitor. Stopping infections is never the goal.
All those considered high risk the government should assist however they can in making sure they can safely isolate themselves.
Other areas of the country under moderate pressure stick with social distancing and avoidance of large gatherings. If that doesn’t work tighten up some more.
One of the biggest things is testing of the general population so we can know more closely what are actual risk factors are per age and physical condition. This has been badly manipulated by the news to scare everyone.
My goal would be to achieve herd immunity as fast as possible while still trying to keep the hospitals from being too badly over loaded, medical supply inventories should be closely monitored so they can be moved from place to place as needed.
I am quite sure this could be refined considerably as my job has always been fixing trucks. But something to this effect.
Herd immunity, whether by exposure or by vaccine, is the ultimate consequence of the virus going from epidemic to endemic status. Trying to ensure that we get to herd immunity as fast as possible by exposing as many people to the virus maximizes the number of avoidable deaths, not only by overwhelming medical services for people who present critical symptoms of COVID-19 but also all of the other people for whom medical services are not available because of the epidemic. Managing the contagion by physical distancing and other isolation measures until an effective antibody test (which will allow authorities to identify who is susceptible and who presumably has developed immunity) will at least reduce if not prevent catastrophic outbreaks, which is what New Zealand and Taiwan are doing right now with apparent success.
As Dr. Anthony Fauci has stated many times in public briefings and press conferences, we do not control the timeline of the virus. We can’t dictate that the risk of mass outbreak and overwhelming medical care services will be over by Easter, or by May, or any arbitrary date. What we can do is take the only effective measures to prevent the spread of contagion, which are physical distancing whenever possible and following hygiene guidelines such as cleaning surfaces and wearing masks (even if their efficacy is low, they hopefully encourage awareness in other people about the need for maintaining distance) until such a time as we can determine via widely available immunoglobulin testing who has developed immunity.
As for the notion that we can just isolate a hypothetical ‘high risk’ population and everyone else is free to move and mingle, this simply isn’t true. Even though the statistics originally coming from the WHO based upon reported morbidity and mortality from the Wuhan outbreak appeared to indicate that this disease only seriously affected people over 65, what we are seeing now is significant morbidity even in people in their twenties and thirties, and non-negligible levels or mortality down to those ages as well. There is no well-defined ‘low risk’ population over the age of 18, and somehow I don’t think we’re going to enlist children and teenagers to run our economy on their own.
You seem to want reality to bend in such a way as to conform to the outcome you desire, but I guarantee that the virus doesn’t give a good whore’s fuck about your worldview. The mass graves in Iran so large they are visible from space, and the numbers of deaths coming fro Italy, Spain, and now New York City and emerging in other cities in the US are my cite. Iran, by the way, has your presumably ‘low risk’ population with a population median in the mid-twenties and less than 10% of the population older than 65, and they are comparatively dropping like flies, because this isn’t a disease that only affects old people.
Stranger
Your views are a product of the media, you talk of mass graves instead of how many are buried in those graves. You talk of countries showing early success when the virus is still in full swing. You talk of aggressive avoidance measures when no vaccine is in site. I don’t agree with your philosophy on this. I think it is extremely dangerous in so many ways yet it does seem to be the prevailing train of thought.
Can you identify the media you say are driving US or foreign government actions? Other than the Fox pocket cabinet, that is.
And there we go. It is all a conspiracy by “the news” to stoke fear and panic. Never mind that “the news” media has pretty consistently been a few days behind in emphasizing the more dire warnings of actual public health authorities, and we can already see from the examples of Italy and Spain that the disease does not just impact the elderly or immunocompromised.
You’ve elected to listen to only “the people I agree with” and have paid scant regard to their credentials or the data upon which their claims are based, so of course, you believe the facile solutions they propose which fit to your own preconceptions seem correct. But every credible public health expert and epidemiologist who isn’t pushing some alt-medicine or political agenda is in agreement that physical distancing and isolation measures are the only way to prevent the health system from being overtasked, and that is the only means to give us enough time to develop and validate antibody tests and look for effective treatments to have some hope of protecting or saving people who present critical incidence of the COVID-19 disease, which again, fall into all adult age groups.
Stranger
Haven’t watched fox in my entire life unless I happen to be sitting in a room where it is playing. I listen to primarily the more liberal news stations and I am capable of forming my own opinions. The media should be held accountable for what they are doing with this and yes I agree it is a major catastrophe but it is still something we have to get through and keep on living.
Well, if that doesn’t make your opinion on how we go forward dealing with the pandemic something we need to take seriously I don’t know what does.
CMC fnord!
I’m just trying to understand this one claim. You are saying that you admit that mass graves exist, right? But, your claim goes on, The Media is lying to us about the numbers being put into the mass graves–is that it? As in, here’s a football-field-sized grave in Iran, and the reality (according to you) is that the mass grave is for only two (or some other small number of) bodies. But (your claim goes on) The Media is telling us that more than two are buried there–is that it?
Is that your claim?
Can you link to an instance of The Media lying about the number of bodies being put into a mass grave?
My ‘philosophy on this’ is to reference actual scientists like those at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and the fundamentals of epidemiology and public health in the empirical experience in dealing with epidemics of highly infectious diseases rather than the nameless “people who should know what they are talking about” and whatever alternative facts they are providing to justify action that is counter to every public health guidance on how to deal with epidemic disease.
Stranger