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America is giving up on the pandemic?

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Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#971

Post by ghthor »

bittercynic wrote: post #708
giantDinosaur wrote: post #587

The weirdest thing to me is that we have people protesting for fairly deontological reasons - i.e. a reasonable 'killing is wrong', while being ruthlessly utilitarian - 'covid deaths are a price we must be willing to pay for reform'. Interesting!

Having your community brutalized by the very organization that is supposed to provide protection is very different from having members of the community dying of disease. Both are extremely awful, but at least the disease doesn't seem to be trying to undermine civil society.

Claiming that the police are trying to "undermine civil society" is disingenuous.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#972

Post by illumin8 »

bb2018 wrote: post #372
rpiguy wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, items 1, 3, 4, and 5 are all extremely dangerous. The Not Police would be in grave danger. There is a reason that the Police Police are armed. That guy on drugs could stab you, you could pull a car over and that person could have a gun, you could go to stop domestic violence and get attacked. Police brutality goes up proportionately with violent crime in their area. In other words, the more police deal…

I'm sure there is great data on police calls but from my experience with calling 911 social workers wouldn't really help. Earlier this year there was a homeless man waving a knife at pedestrians a few blocks from my house. I know this is a mental health issue and we need do do more for our homelesss - but I couldn't ask officers to deal with stuff like that on the regular with little or no protection. I've also calle…

> Earlier this year there was a homeless man waving a knife at pedestrians a few blocks from my house. I know this is a mental health issue and we need do do more for our homelesss - but I couldn't ask officers to deal with stuff like that on the regular with little or no protection.

This is actually a symptom of a much larger problem: the US defunded public mental health institutions years ago, and many people that are a danger to themselves and others became homeless. When you defund the very institutions designed to help these people, and militarize the police, you get the expected outcome: mentally ill people getting shot for "resisting arrest."

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#973

Post by wpietri »

mythrwy wrote: post #526
01100011 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper incident from a few weeks ago was the most important 'teachable moment' that we've had in years. I am somewhat disappointed that it was overshadowed by protests against police brutality, because I thought it was a very 'teachable moment' that illustrated the type of racism that still exists behind a facade of tolerance. Police abuse is sort of a separate issue relating to train…

Maybe I'm not understanding the term "structural". To me the word indicates institutions officially set up to behave in a racial manner, i.e segregation. Obviously we don't have much or any of that anymore. But I agree racism and profiling (which I think of as a separate issue... note, I do think it's an "issue") exist. I just balk at the use of the term "structural". Structural is rounding up Muslims in Western Chin…

I don't think "structural" can usefully include only things that explicitly say, "Hey, we're racists, and here's the racist thing we're doing." That became taboo during the 1960s, so all but a white fringe stopped. But the attitudes and policy choices didn't magical end when people stopped being honest about their goals. They just became hidden. See the Southern Strategy, and especially Lee Atwater's quote here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Evolution_(1...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#974

Post by manigandham »

grey-area wrote: post #802
NateEag wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether it's a good idea, it cannot be done. I believe the last number I saw said there were about 300 million guns in the US - one for each person. There's no way to just make those disappear into government hands.

Of course there is. There are legitimate reasons for owning a rifle in rural America (hunting), there are no legitimate reasons for owning an assault weapon, and guns can easily be made gradually less attractive. If you don't accept this even as a possibility you are part of the problem.

The other major news story is about police brutality and defunding/reducing the police force.

Exactly how do you expect people to defend themselves from violent threats when the number 1 counterpoint of "call the police" is taken away or severely limited?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#975

Post by dragonwriter »

manigandham wrote: post #974
grey-area wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is. There are legitimate reasons for owning a rifle in rural America (hunting), there are no legitimate reasons for owning an assault weapon, and guns can easily be made gradually less attractive. If you don't accept this even as a possibility you are part of the problem.

The other major news story is about police brutality and defunding/reducing the police force. Exactly how do you expect people to defend themselves from violent threats when the number 1 counterpoint of "call the police" is taken away or severely limited?

> defunding/reducing the police force.

The defund/dismantle/disband movement is, as I understand the movement, more about replacing the police-as-an-institution with a fundamentally different approach or set of approaches to law enforcement, not reducing the total resources or number of persons assigned to law enforcement functions.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#976

Post by robocat »

bjourne wrote: post #967
robocat wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction is that hand washing turns out to be unimportant. I believe the vast majority of cases are transmitted by respiration, and the recent news that super-spreaders dominate transmission will eventually find that they spread the disease by air, not by contact or fomites. I have yet to see any evidence that washing hands reduces transmission by any significant amount (say 5%).

If you are right then covid 19 doesn't work like any other virus that spread via droplet transmission or even like any other virus in the corona family. I.e I don't think you are right. :) There is ample evidence showing that hand washing reduces the spread for viruses that are similar to covid 19.

I agree there is a lot of evidence that washing hands reduces the spread of viruses. However I haven’t read anything that measures the percentage of transmission of corona viruses via contact or fomites.

We obviously should wash hands regularly and well. Even a 5% reduction for a simple action is really worthwhile (and hand washing is clearly critical in a healthcare setting).

My main beef is that in my country I think there has been too much attention paid to hand washing and fomites, and not enough information given on enclosed spaces or mask usage. The turnaround on mask usage is a classic example of seemingly obvious misinformation. Another classic is the news clips of government employees in Asian countries spraying roads and buildings - powerful images that misdirect.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#977

Post by 1bc29b36f623ba8 »

gizmo wrote: post #881
1bc29b36f623ba8 wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden failed to protect their own elderly, mainly because national authorities simply assumed that local authorities were ready to fight a pandemic, when they were in fact hopelessly underfunded and staffed by underpaid staff with no PPE and who were expected to do stay at home on their own initiative and without payment if they got sick. The same happened in a few places here in Finland, and I am quite certain that…

Sweden did screw up the retirement home situation somewhat, but in terms of excess deaths all Nordic countries look identical. Finland, notably, doesn't even count covid deaths outside hospitals according to the THL, so comparing Swedish and Finnish covid stats is a bit silly. The Swedish catastrophe is always another 2 weeks away, and secondary effects of a lockdown (like delaying non-critical medical procedures and…

> in terms of excess deaths all Nordic countries look identical Finland, notably, doesn't even count covid deaths outside hospitals according to the THL, so comparing Swedish and Finnish covid stats is a bit silly

Where did you get those numbers from? EUROMOMO doesn't include data from Iceland, but for the rest it's obvious that Sweden is an outlier in regards to the overall mortality rate: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country

Denmark, Finland and Norway are below the normal mortality rates for 65+ since the lockdowns began. Sweden is clearly above. I assume there's not another epidemic over there that we've missed?

Again, I'm not saying the Swedish strategy is wrong, I'm just saying that the failure to protect the elderly has invalidated Sweden as a data point.

There has definitely been a bunch of deaths related to COVID-19 in Finnish retirement homes, but in terms of overall mortality rates for people 65+ it's quite obvious that it's not a big problem. Actual COVID-19 diagnoses are still reported by THL, including everyone who gets diagnosed by the public health system in Finland. Finland has unrelated, considerable, issues with care for the elderly, but that's a completely different topic. :)

> Let's not forget that lockdowns were a knee-jerk reaction enacted by scared politicians, not a carefully considered and data-backed policy.

Definitely. Lock-downs are last-resort measures taken when you've already failed to do what you should have done in the first place; extensive testing of travellers and contact tracing/quarantine of people who are sick. The other Nordic countries failed miserably in that regard.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#978

Post by erezsh »

orange8 wrote: post #627
Animats wrote: post #304

Total deaths in US caused by police. (2019, full year): 1112 [1] Total deaths in US caused by coronavirus (last Friday, one day): 975 [2] [1] https://www.theroot.com/here-s-how-many-people-police-killed... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Comparing apples to apples: Average daily deaths in US caused by heart disease: 1800 Average daily deaths in US caused by cancer: 1600 Average daily deaths in US caused by corona virus: 1000 https://www.healthline.com/health/leading-causes-of-death Comparing oranges to oranges: Total deaths in US caused by homicide (2019): 19510 Total deaths in US caused by police (2019): 1112 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicid…

> Average daily deaths in US caused by corona virus: 1000

Just wait a couple of weeks...

P.S.

It might already be higher: https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#979

Post by blub »

hef19898 wrote: post #936
blub wrote: post #902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did say I trust the KCDC, didn't I? And also the CDC and RKI can obviously do some good work, but they completely failed to set the story straight on masks and aerosol transmission while over-emphasizing the fomite transmission and hand washing. So at least on those topics they've lost credibility. I don't know if China needed the masks, or if they needed to weld people in their apartments, but apparently they did…

One average Joe, no. Thousands of them? Yes, that's harding. And a problem. China got a lot donations, they also were the first to donate to Italy. The mask situation was a mess. The proble I have is, that now people accuse every institute or offical body of lying. Because they got, in people's minds, the mask thing wrong. Why can't we just accept that even experts can be wrong? Starting to accuse others of lying is…

If we take Australia's case of billions of masks (let's say 2 billion, conservatively), and assume that each average Joe bought let's say 20, the actions of the Chinese government are equal to *one hundred million average Joes", not thousands of them. For one country.

It's mighty noble to donate to Italy after they confiscated all the inland mask production and bought tons of masks from everywhere else. And then they also pressured European politicians to prasise the communist party when receiving said donations.

Not every institute, just the WHO and to some limited extent a few others. Stop setting up this straw man, because that's clearly not the case for me and I listed some organizations which I do trust - because they've proven that they're competent.

Experts can be wrong, sure they can. But if their literal job is to protect us from such pandemic situations and they fuck up, they deserve some criticism.

If they persist in not recommending masks when already most countries are recommending them, like the WHO did until 1-2 weeks ago, they are uselessly incompetent and should be ignored.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#980

Post by gridlockd »

danenania wrote: post #954
gridlockd wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may not be the answer to all our problems, but when tens of thousands of people on tons of mind-altering substances are able to keep the peace without police or guns present, it certainly means something. Anything that a bunch of yuppies do in their leisure time is not representative of anything else. It can not to be used to draw conclusions on what to do about, say, crime in the inner cities. > Perhaps there a…

"Cops generally don't draw their guns unless there is a perceived threat." Yeah and these "perceived threats" include kids with toy guns, unarmed people with their hands up, and people lying on the ground dying. Many cops have learned, whether through training or culture, to point their guns first and ask questions later, at a huge cost to society. It seems you don't have sympathy for the people affected by this, but…

> Yeah and these "perceived threats" include kids with toy guns, unarmed people with their hands up, and people lying on the ground dying.

Yes, unfortunately, those people were perceived as threats and the officers involved weren't taking any chances.

Those are, for the most part, accidents. How many children are run over because people are carelessly driving? Would you ban cars for everyone?

> Many cops have learned, whether through training or culture, to point their guns first and ask questions later, at a huge cost to society.

Yes, many people have had bad training or are just not made for the job. These are still people whose lives are at the frontline and they aren't even paid that well. I don't think the solution is to defund or disarm everyone involved.

> It seems you don't have sympathy for the people affected by this, but many of us do.

This is a disingenuous statement. You have to look beyond some exceptional and sensationalized cases, at the day-to-day reality of policing. If you disarm the police, they will stop policing those areas that are affected by crime the most. Criminals with guns will get free reign. More people will get shot, just not by cops.

More affluent people will not be affected by this, they could have it either way, it wouldn't make a difference. Their sympathy may be real, their intentions may be good, the outcome will still be bad.

> I have a lot of sympathy for police too. They have a dangerous and thankless job, and we all rely on them. But my sympathy ends at those who abuse their power, and those who protect the abusers in their midst.

I think we can all agree on this.

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