psuhoffman

Lastly...I am not in favor of simply "lock us down forever" policies. We need to come up with a solvent plan for society to function and survive. It very well might be time to start some new strategies soon. But I am VERY concerned with using shoddy logic and bad science to inform those strategies. I also have some concerns based on what I know about our society, with implementing some of these best practices in a way fair and equitable to everyone. I brought up my concern regarding "what to do with the at risk population" if we go to a phased opening scenario. And sure enough...we are now seeing this play out where the answer is..."well you can choose to stay home if you are at high risk but don't expect any help, good luck". I guess I would be more open to entertaining some of the arguments for a quicker relaxation of mitigation measures if I had more faith that they would actually implement equitable measures to assist the vulnerable populations that strategy will create. But we are already seeing that isn't likely to happen in many areas. I can't help but feel some of these arguments lack integrity. Its a "throw any point I can think of at the wall to meet my agenda" type thing...because when it comes time to implement a preferred policy it doesn't happen with the care and compassion that it is sold in these types of debates.

We are starting to see a lot of "anecdotal" arguments flying around under the pretense of a qualified medical opinion simply by having a "dr" as the mouthpeace of said opinion. There were the 2 California Doctors who own the clinics the other day...but their "cited" study was a sham and the vast majority of the medical community invalidated their findings. There will always be dissent. Finding the 1% of "experts" who disagree with the vast majority and holding them up as expert proof is dodgy at best. Now that does not mean their contrarian challenges should be dismissed out of hand...but their challenges need to be examined carefully and put through scientific testing not just accepted with equal weight to the vast majority. The "two sided" aspect of our society wrt news and ideology tends to hurt us here...as we sometimes value giving "both sides" of a story more weight than simply finding the best most likely answer to something.

Couldn't agree more. Someone the other day in a covid policy discussion criticized me for "being too empathetic". As if empathy is a bad thing...

Ok I know this is teetering on the edge and could fly off into way over the line if we aren't careful...but I find it somewhat "disingenuous" that most of the people making this argument right now for why we need to get back to work don't seem to care a lick about the negative effects of poverty under normal circumstances. Many of the people using poverty as a reason for their policy advocacy now try to block any attempt at social programs to deal with poverty when they are proposed in every other situation. I am NOT saying that is you...I have no idea what your stance on this stuff is...but in general my twitter feed and fb wall is filled with people ive argued with for years and who never gave a single F about doing a thing about poverty suddenly all upset about it now.

This situation is exposing some things about our society that have been a problem for a really long time...but now are even more glaringly obvious. There are a LOT of people who frankly are stuck in a bad place in general in life without must compassion, empathy and assistance at the societal level for their situation. Even under the best of times they are struggle to just get bye and survive. Add in any crisis, economic or health and they are always on the edge of big trouble. We have a very top down labor policy. Without getting into the weeds we would solve a lot of these chronic issues by having a more bottom up labor policy that valued individuals and their very common needs more.

They are making contingency plans just in case. Right now I’m waiting to hear if they will purchase e text rights or else I will have to redesign the US/World Hist and Gov curriculums by summer.

@mappy I’m the social studies content lead for Balt City summer school and as of right now we are tentatively developing a plan to deliver summer credit recovery online. I don’t know what the counties are thinking but any return to physical school seems unlikely before the fall at the earliest in the city.

Are thousands of people living in a high rise apartment “nature taking its course”. What about people congregating in shopping centers or movie theatres? Or people quickly traveling thousands of miles in planes and cars? What else about our society strikes you as nature taking its course? Do you use electricity? Drive a car? That’s nature? But with this one thing we should let nature take its course? Next time you get strep throat should we let nature take its course?

I don’t disagree with you at all. I think some regions that have not been effected much should start cautious phases openings. Even here I think if the metrics continue to improve the next few days we are close to a start to phased openings keeping some degree of social distancing in place. I’ve neger once made an argument for a lengthy lockdown. I’ve simply argued for a logical science based methodology to the openings and I’ve railed against some silly or manipulative posts. But since a few of those were in favor of a quick opening (or against any collective action at all) I think I was lumped into some extreme long term lockdown club. In some cases I didn’t necessarily disagree with the plan so much as the illogical methodology they were using to justify it.

Dude... 1. one thing being worse doesn’t make another problem not a problem. Even if you win the argument alcohol is a problem it doesn’t mean covid isn’t. 2. Criticism of one bad policy doesn’t justify another bad policy. 3. We can do more than one thing at a time. I hate this type of argument “but what about that other problem over there”. It’s a diversion. 4. We do do things about alcohol. We have drunk driving laws. We have public intoxication laws. Open bev laws. Age restrictions. Serving restrictions (at least we did when I was a bartender in VA many moons ago). Substance abuse programs. Don’t act like we don’t care or think it’s a problem. 5. No I’m done...just can’t anymore...

Dude what’s your affinity for ad hominem arguments. Do you think dropping Stalin in every other paragraph adds legitimacy to anything? If your arguments can’t stand up on their own merits without some name calling transfer tactic they are weak sauce. Frankly even the couple of points you made that accidentally wandered into the same zip code of a logical argument aren’t worth responding to because some of that ridiculousness and the disingenuous way you present it make it obvious you’re trolling.

@ldub23

that @ldub23dude has more “final points” than Lord of the Rings has endings. Wow

One reason I’ve never fully understood the vehemence of some arguments (on both sides) is that whatever “open” is it’s unlikely to look significantly different from now. Most of the things currently closed won’t just be back to normal anytime soon regardless of what the official policy is called.

You do realize if it will take about 80%+ infections to reach herd immunity and the mortality is between .5-1% that’s 2+ million deaths in the United States using that route? The one piece of hard non data evidence against “let nature take its course” is what happened in most places that tried that. Look at what happened in places that got hit before mitigation measures were implemented. They ended up in lockdown anyways not because they wanted to prevent anything but because it got so bad fast they had no choice.

That is a GREAT way to describe being around you. I couldn't have said it better myself. Congrats

There is too much lumping of people into "sides" here IMO. Not everyone questioning the current plan or accepted assumptions about Covid is automatically saying "we should just open up with no measures and let whatever happen". And not everyone arguing against someone making a case for a quick opening is saying "we should stay closed for 3 years if we have too no matter what". There is a LOT of space in between those 2 extremes. Personally I have NEVER said we should stay in lockdown for any set period of time. My main points of contention have been when I saw arguments I didn't feel had logical consistency. But here is what I do think...whatever plan we have should be developed based on sound scientific evidence and logic. We should come up with metrics to determine when it is safe and and how to open. And then those metrics (not peoples feelings) should determine the timeline. Because those metrics will determine when it is safe...not someones feelings of cabin fever. The virus doesn't care how frustrated you are. If we open before it is time we risk doing more harm than good. But what those metrics should be is a valid debate. And once we meet the metrics, whatever they are, we should open. In some places maybe that is very soon. In some places maybe that is still a long ways away. I don't know...but I see way too many arguments that seem to be based upon wanting to formulate policy based on their feelings and what they want...not actual evidence that its a good idea medically.

I will accept that it was a mistake and not intentional. We all make mistakes. The number of infections likely is growing. Also keep in mind that because deaths lag infection by about 3 weeks typically there are some people who were infected at the time of the study as still alive...that will unfortunately pass away after the date of the study. So the mortality rate will end up higher than if you simply take the deaths and divide by the infections at the time of the study. That is one reason why there is a range not an exact number for the estimated mortality rate. One other thing...wrt to your comp to the flu. If you are going to compare the two you need to use the same metric. If you are going to use the lowest possible mortality estimate for covid then you need to compare it to the low end of the flue mortality estimates. When you made your flu/covid comparison you used the low end of the covid range with the high end of the flu. That is a skewed comparison.

My father was able to get a box of old government pandemic response kits from previous outbreaks in Asia. I think from one of his contacts in government from when he worked at the FED. Some of the stuff is slightly expired but its way better than having nothing. The kits include hand sanitizer, masks, and gloves.

This is a very fair point...but let me explain where my "animosity" comes from. It's not the "view". But I can see how it could be interpreted that way. For me...I get snippy and hostile when someone is trying to BS me, and its insulting to my intelligence. I don't mind an opposing point of view...I do mind when that person is trying to manipulate facts to support their argument and thinks I am stupid enough to not realize it. I will give you a specific example. The other day someone was citing a New York study. But I had already read the same study. So when they intentionally manipulated the results to skew the argument I was aware of that fact. First they used the State level numbers for infections with the city numbers for fatalities to skew the mortality rate. Then they made a patently false statement about what statistical significance is. Then they used the absolute lowest estimated possible mortality rate for Covid along with the absolute highest possible flu mortality in a comparison. When people do stuff like that I do get hostile because its insulting. I am not stupid, and obviously they think I am if they think that kind of data manipulation will work. But my hostility is not towards their point of view, its towards their dishonest presentation of their argument. There have been others who have made arguments on that side of the ledger who I have not said a single hostile comment towards. So long as people are making their arguments with sound logic and with intellectual integrity I am open and willing to amicably discuss and debate any point of view. But when people are trying to "get one over" on me...I do become hostile.

If you want productive discussion post something substantive to reply too. Cite some evidence to support a claim and we can discuss. You will be allowed to make your case. Others might refute it with contrary evidence. That’s how it works. But there wasn’t much to discuss in your original post.

Oppositional defiance

So you went with “I know you are but what am I”...

So if every study and all data is useless what are you using to form your opinion?