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South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

thehill.com

261–270 of 521 posts

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#261
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country dealing better than any other with Covid has been Taiwan. No lockdown and > 200 days without new Covid case [1] see e.g. [2] for how they did it. It probably helped having had an epidemiologist as vice-president [3]. Russia is winning. Why did you have to end an otherwise insightful post with a many-times debunked conspiracy theory? May I recommend removing the last paragraph? [1] https://www.theguardian.…

It's not just Taiwan, it's all of East Asia. At this point it's beyond irresponsible for people to keep comparing the US's handling to other Western nations – EA showed how it's done (in both democratic and autocratic societies), but we have some weird cultural blind spot that makes us not want to see.

The problem is, there is no “how it’s done” to point to. All of the east asian countries did radically different things.

Taiwan slammed it’s borders shut before cases got into the country, and hasn’t done much else. Korea adopted large-scale contact tracing and isolation interventions. China uses authoritarian rule to lock people up when they have it. Japan hasn’t tested much at all, kept offices and restaurants open, and never even came close to “stopping“ the virus. And yet, even there, the fatality level isn’t nearly what we’re seeing in the west.

It isn’t unreasonable to hypothesize that something else is going on.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain did do real lockdowns and it worked. And then they stopped doing real lockdowns. So it is in fact supported by the evidence.

It didn’t solve the problem, meaning, unless you are willing to lock down indefinitely, the virus will come back. So in the pedantic sense you are right, lockdowns work, but clearly are not a solution.

The lockdown brings the numbers down. Contact tracing, quarantines and testing keeps it down. If you do not follow up the lockdown with these measures, you are bound to fail.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#263
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the move working out for you, btw?

I have lived in Philadelphia for almost 8 years now and it’s making less and less sense to live here. City taxes are high, housing prices are steadily increasing, making changes to property is an expensive, bureaucratic nightmare, parking is a nightmare, etc. There aren’t (m)any good places to work that pay well enough to justify the taxes and cost of living. The winter is cold and dreary, the summer is humid. If not…

If you want to live in SC or FL, Philly was never the right place for you. The city exemplifies all classic east coast metropolii; it's vertical, industrial, impatient, no-nonsense and in-your-face. Having lived here for 15 years I've seen Philly offer a little bit of everything, from cultured worldliness to provincial naval gazing. And all of it happens at an urban breakneck speed the east coast is rightly famous for.

Philly, Boston, and NYC are kith and kin (esp. politically), and have much more in common with SF than do SC or non-urban FL. There the tempo of life is slower and more formal, like their danse de rigueur, the gavotte.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually the state governments that's at fault here. Not the specifically the people. Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Anyway, the Oregon state government is very much democratic (cause you know Portland). But because of that, even the republican counties are under a mask order. And the extremely red counti…

> the state has the power and push to get people to do it > this is why we need Biden in office You know Biden is running for national office, right? Not state government?

"The state" refers to the governing apparatus, not a particular state within the union. I understand there may be some confusion if you are not familiar with the US government and typical ways of talking about it.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#265
Can someone help me understand something?

Back in March, we had ~40k new cases per day, and were seeing ~3k deaths per day.

Today, we have ~140k new cases per day, but our deaths seem to be ~1k per day, and haven't risen much with rise in cases since September.

What explains this? Were we not testing as much in March, and really our cases were ~200k per day? Or were the populations that got sick in March somehow different than today?

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a harsh thing to say, but I understand where you're coming from. We....all of us, all human beings...need to be very patient and merciful with each other. My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. All humans...even the best of us...are at our core deeply irrational most of the time. Differe…

> My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. If they have a Ph.D in theoretical physics but think COVID is a hoax they're still dumb, sorry.

PhD involves years of thinking very specifically about an extremely narrow set of problems, not building a robust set of reliable heuristics about how the world outside of that field works.

I know plenty of brilliant PhDs and Physicians who couldn't real-world their way out of a paper bag. They're dumb as a rock when it comes to anything outside of their field, because their field has vacuumed up all of their mental energy over the decades.

By comparison, I'm pretty mediocre at what I do because I read widely, follow the news, and have elaborate political discussions for fun. By their standard, I'm dumb as a rock because I'm up late reading about the Soviets in Afghanistan, instead of yet another journal article.

Time is finite, and it's all a big compromise.

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#267
post #250
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oregon’s cases are skyrocketing: https://covid-19.direct/state/OR Much of this is in Portland: https://covid-19.direct/county/OR/Multnomah

Much of it is due to private gatherings without masks, gyms, and maybe bars and restaurants. From what I can tell (I'm just staying home), people maybe did backyard gatherings when it was nice enough out, but moved indoors and that's gotten a lot of people sick.

[deleted]

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#268
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if 10 years from now we discover that wearing a mask was a completely pointless endeavor .... the cost of wearing a mask is SO LOW that it is worth doing it. But it is scientifically proven to limit the rate of the spread, which is the least I can do to protect myself and those around me. I don't care if I get covid ... I don't think it will kill me based on my vitals. However, we don't fully understand the long…

A counter point to consider - and one that I consider to be a little more rational - is that - what if in the messaging to get people to wear masks - we have inadvertantly encouraged riskier behavior? As an analogy, I'd explain it like this. What if in the process to encourage people to wear seatbelts, drivers who did that then felt entitled to drive even faster thus resulting in even worse accidents and more frequen…

> Of course, no driver would actually think like that.

There’s your answer then

fwiw, I wear a mask when I HAVE to go out for groceries, and avoid going out on unnecessary errands (shopping, dining out)

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually the state governments that's at fault here. Not the specifically the people. Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Anyway, the Oregon state government is very much democratic (cause you know Portland). But because of that, even the republican counties are under a mask order. And the extremely red counti…

> Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Not sure the name drop matters given the other information you shared ;) I won't name drop it either but for future curious readers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Oregon

Are we talking about Malheur county?

Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'

#270
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the state has the power and push to get people to do it > this is why we need Biden in office You know Biden is running for national office, right? Not state government?

"The state" refers to the governing apparatus, not a particular state within the union. I understand there may be some confusion if you are not familiar with the US government and typical ways of talking about it.

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/

Please cite me where the power to enact a requirement to wear masks is explicitly granted to the federal government. I'll wait.

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