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L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

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Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#351

The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't h…

And if you think about it, there is a lot more money to go around.

Purdue was only responsible for roughly 8% of the market. That means whatever money we get from the Sacklers, in an ideal world, should only be 8% of what we ultimately collect!

That could fund a lot.

Now all that assumes an ideal and non-corrupt US where everyone is equal under the law and all politicians are not corrupt and judges and lawyers are not bent etc etc. So, it would not surprise me at all if even among the billionaires, the pattern of only the smaller drug dealers getting prosecuted continues to hold true. I'm hoping at least for some media pressure to help take down some of these larger dealers. Probably won't actually take the big boys down by itself, but it can't hurt to try. 92% is a lot of money to leave on the table. (Not to mention a lot of crime to let go unpunished.)

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#352
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move. But isn't that what you just did here? > Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? So let's do some math instead. The last stats I had were that 5% of people wh…

> But isn't that what you just did here? No, because I'm not drowning out the discussion, simply pushing back on the usage of hyperbole for pushing an opinion. > The last stats I had were that 5% of people who catch it will die without a ventilator, Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research. They also don't factor in the idea that the virus is far more widespread than initially thought, and that thes…

> Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research.

I've been reading [1] daily more or less since early February, as well as lots of things posted here. I'm certainly no professional, but I think I'm reasonably well-informed for a layperson. If you think there's something I've missed, I think you'd do much better to actually point me to a resource you think is better.

I realize that "number reported" is an issue, and varies a lot from country to country. But consider Germany, who have [EDIT: ramped up to 400k+ tests per week] now. The most recent numbers from the situation report says that Germany has 125k reported cases, with 3k reported deaths -- a death rate of 2.3%. EDIT: Also consider Korea, which is alleged to have instituted a massive testing infrastructure as well. Their numbers are currently 10,564 cases, 222 deaths -- again, 2.1% death rate.

It's possible that both the German and Korean numbers of cases are massively underreported, but it can't be by much. That puts the death rate with non-overwhelmed hospitals at significantly higher than 0.5%.

If you want to convince me that the death rate for overwhelmed hospitals is less than 5%, you're going to have to do better than waving your your hands and saying "but what about people not sick enough get tested".

EDIT2: Been challenged on the "500k tests per day", acknowledging that while I look for support for that claim.

EDIT3: I slightly mangled my numbers from [2]. The numbers from that are that Germany has been doing 160K tests per week since 20 March; and that the government's goal is 200k per day. [2] According to [3], on the week ending April 5, Germany did 393k tests.

[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

[2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-germany-has-managed-...

[3] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#germany

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that as the lock downs work, it's easy to lose sight of what could have been, they stop it getting out of control and it still looks bad as there was the initial clump of infections, but the abstract hundreds per day that are dying are still fairly remote for most of us as only 1%-2% of many of our populations got infected. One can still throw around figures of "it's less death than this" or "the lock…

This isn't what the death statistics are showing, whatsoever. Unless your barista's sister, football team's goalie, etc. are all over 70 years old, it's extremely unlikely that they'd be dead. Your scenario is fear-mongering, plain and simple.

The Barista's sister would fall into the thousands (or even 10,000s) of 2nd connections you have, in which there will almost certainly be young deaths. The goalie might have had health complications. I personally know at least 2 people with diabetes, 2 with asthma, plus one post-cancer. Maybe I'm a little older than you, but many of us would know a young-ish person that would die (a quarter maybe if the 0.2% chance of 20-39 year old death is in the right order of magnitude).

Also, don't forget death rates would go up if a healthcare system collapses, which we haven't seen.

I think you're the delusional one, while your personal chance of dying is fairly low, you know hundreds of people, and those people know thousands more.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? If a pharma warehouse is burgled then it's on the burglars. Am I missing something regarding this case? Did they mislead doctors? Edit: Downvotes to -4 with no engagement for asking a question. This place has gone downhill rapidly

> At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? Even if you assume that's the case, there's no reason a doctor being at fault would mean nobody else can be at fault.

If you are not for publicly executing several thousand doctors and pharma executives, you are equally guilty in the opioid crisis.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that as the lock downs work, it's easy to lose sight of what could have been, they stop it getting out of control and it still looks bad as there was the initial clump of infections, but the abstract hundreds per day that are dying are still fairly remote for most of us as only 1%-2% of many of our populations got infected. One can still throw around figures of "it's less death than this" or "the lock…

This isn't what the death statistics are showing, whatsoever. Unless your barista's sister, football team's goalie, etc. are all over 70 years old, it's extremely unlikely that they'd be dead. Your scenario is fear-mongering, plain and simple.

The deaths in NY,LA,CA, and MI include many,many people under 70.

Also, you’ve responded several times without answering my question:

How many of your family, friends, and acquaintances are you willing to put up for the experiment?

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#356
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anders Tegnell - author of Swedish strategy says that the measures are working and deaths are concentrated in Somali, Iraqi and Syria - born population. https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/folkhalsomynd... https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/2Gx0Ev/fodda-i-somalia-... Country of birth Number of cases Over-representation Somalia 283 7 Turkiet 150 5,1 Irak 242 2,9 Finland 188 2,3 Eritrea 55 2,1 Syrien 197 1…

But it's not stopping the spread. A friend's office in Västerås just had a case and only now went wfh, while that friend already wfh but still drops off and picks his kids up from school and is getting symptoms now. The comment about the deaths being primarily in particular communities sounds like the opposite of working, though. Can you provide context regarding why it's working if people in some communities are dyi…

Well the real reason there is no lockdown in Sweden is that the owners of the country said No to lockdown. The rest is just unique Swedish doublespeak.

https://www.ft.com/content/3b8ec9fe-6eb8-11ea-89df-41bea0557...

> An estimate from The Economist finds that the value of Swedish billionaires’ fortunes is equivalent to a quarter of the country’s annual gdp. Only in tax havens such as Cyprus or Monaco, or captured economies such as Russia or Georgia, are plutocrats more dominant

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/in-sweden-bill...

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#357

The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't h…

We exactly need to reward original investigative journalism like this with subscriptions.

So few "journalists" do anything more than repeat twitter trends these days.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#358

The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't h…

At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? If a pharma warehouse is burgled then it's on the burglars. Am I missing something regarding this case? Did they mislead doctors? Edit: Downvotes to -4 with no engagement for asking a question. This place has gone downhill rapidly

Purdue mislead doctors, and the public, in several different ways.

They said that their medication was unlikely to lead to addiction if used to treat pain. They said their medication was less likely to lead to addiction than other opioids. They knew some doctors were prescribing vast quantities of opioids - far more than even Purdue recommended as treatment for pain. They used a variety of marketing to doctors and to members of the public, and some of that was designed to evade regulation of marketing. They used stealth marketing methods such as employing physicians to speak at conferences without disclosure. They interfered with the creation of treatment guidance. They used front groups. They targeted vulnerable and wealthy populations. They concealed what they knew about the addictiveness of their product. They concealed what they knew about the efficacy of their product (people may tolerate an addictive medication if it increases function. Purdue knew their meds didn't increase function for many patients.)

There's a huge list of absolutely scumbag behaviour from that company, and we need to recognise their part in driving death and misery to millions of Americans.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#359
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move. But isn't that what you just did here? > Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? So let's do some math instead. The last stats I had were that 5% of people wh…

> But isn't that what you just did here? No, because I'm not drowning out the discussion, simply pushing back on the usage of hyperbole for pushing an opinion. > The last stats I had were that 5% of people who catch it will die without a ventilator, Your stats are way off and I suggest doing better research. They also don't factor in the idea that the virus is far more widespread than initially thought, and that thes…

All models are wrong, but 1) some models are useful, and 2) you can't not have a model. If you don't have an explicit model, you have an implicit model.

I presented you a model; yes it's oversimplified, but it results in at least some sort of concrete answer; and you can actually examine where it came from and reason about how valid it is. You can make arguments for some other death rate or herd immunity rate. (I took 80% from the most recent article I heard on the subject, but previously I heard 60%.)

You also actually have a model in your head for how many people are going to die (or not die). But I don't know where it came from. I can't examine it or reason about it. If you were an old-timer who'd seen hundreds of pandemics, or a historical epidemiologist who had studied hundreds of epidemics, maybe your "gut feel" would carry some weight.

But since (AFAICT) you're a layperson like me, I'm not inclined to think your implicit model is going to be very accurate.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#360
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that exactly what Sweden is currently doing?

And currently backtracking on.

A couple links to support the parent comment.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268263/sweden-coronavi...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8212365/Swedish-PM-...

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