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In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

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Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yo people, I don't understand why my statements are correct - please someone with a math background or an epidemiologist comment here, I suck at math and I don't understand how these growth rates compare. My comment is being upvoted but it may not be true.

The math is a simplification of a biological process that is highly variable and poorly documented. Your original idea is a fine hypothesis, though the suitability of the params behind exponential growth is mostly irrelevant.

We’re learning a lot about virology during this time. Infection and immunity are not binary, and now we have enough data to recognize that. We will also learn a lot about mutation, things like carrier recombination. I think this will change everything about how we attempt to control things through vaccination.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused about this version of events that some are supporting. In your view, why does the media have a motive to engage in a secret conspiracy to not present any solutions other than an endless shutdown? How would that benefit ‘The media’?

It's not a secret! Many media outlets and government officials have been very explicit about it: shutdowns are the only option for us, it's irresponsible to demand a date when they'll end, and it's very offensive to ask whether they're worth the cost. I do share your confusion about why the media would say such things, but they are.

I'm not at all confused about why journalists relay information such as that, because generally it is combined with a very reasonable logic about why we're doing that.

Like Dr Fauci said, the virus decides the timetable, not us. Nobody knows when it will be safe to reopen.

Many businesses are simply not safe for people to mingle in. Many people don't want to understand or take the distancing guidelines seriously, if they're even adequate.

As far as whether they're worth the cost, there's plenty of room for speculation about that. I do think that reducing a potential overload on hospitals is a wise plan.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused about this version of events that some are supporting. In your view, why does the media have a motive to engage in a secret conspiracy to not present any solutions other than an endless shutdown? How would that benefit ‘The media’?

The media is not monolithic, but a large subset of it is fervently against Trump, against Trump supporters, and against Republicans in general. The worse the pandemic and shutdown get, the more this subset of the media can use it to bash Trump, Trump supporters, and Republicans. Generally speaking, the worse the economy gets, the less likely that the incumbent president will be re-elected. I don't think that this med…

How do you feel about the right-wing media that was obsessively critical about Obama for strangely irrelevant things such as his choice of mustard or color of suits?

It seems to me that almost all of the criticism of Trump is well justified by his incoherence, rudeness, anti-intellectualism, blatant nepotism, lack of structure, refusal to divest, repeated untruthful statements, lack of logical consistency, questionable policies, and apparent tendency towards cronyism.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#614
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The difference being a high false negative rate may be more dangerous because it may mean asymptomatic false negative carriers are still spreading the virus. The downside of a false positive is that people are self quarantining needlessly. For a patient, a high false negative rate is usually worse. For an insurer, a high false positive rate is usually worse. The perspective matters.

What appears to be the potential danger of a high false positive is the narrative that it's safe to end stay-at-home because everyone already has/had it. Which seems to be the story being pushed with any talk of a lot of positives.

Good point

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#615
post #386

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We could have done dedicated housing for them for cheaper than what we have currently done. So, maybe?

I'm in the UK, I can't see this being accepted: it would be pretty hard for every care home to have space found near it to create temporary housing for all the workers. And basically imprisoning workers just because of their current job wouldn't be popular with the population -- if they quit, how do you replace them? Who would sign up? Confining people to their own home, and locking them in their workspace are marked…

Apologies, my thought was it would not have to have been Draconian. We could have basically done a tight job on funneling access to them. Would have been expensive, but so is everything we have been doing.

Which is a large part of my point/question. Would it have been more effective than what we have been doing?

This is frustrating with a lot of news coming out that it had been spreading longer and faster than thought. Conceivable that much of the peak in deaths is the highest risk crowd having hit a saturation.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#616
post #501

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It's interesting to see the effect of a strong confirmation bias at play. I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and would challenge you to think through your perceptions if you started from a different assumption. Narratives drive how we see the world. In concrete, objective, measurable terms -- what do you mean by a "left-authoritarian consolidation of power"? From my perspective, the right is the one really…

[flagged]

>USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia. These are all successful left-authoritarian power consolidations from the 20th century. > Other than the WW2 Axis powers, there aren't many major successful right-authoritarian consolidations from last century.

Can you see how you hand-waved the other side away here?

>Many parts of the right are fundamentally opposed to government power, which makes creating a united right-wing front to consolidate totalitarian power really difficult.

Is Trump not considered right-wing? Didn't he recently state that he has ultimate power? Isn't he the one joking about removing term limits, and isn't it the people on the right meming about a Trump dynasty?

> Unlike the American left, which works practically in lock-step, the right is a fractured, fractious mess that can hardly agree on anything, except maybe that the other side is bad sometimes.

I have a 180 degree opposite viewpoint. The left seems to champion smaller clustered causes. The right is unified under a delusion of freedom, controlling women's bodies, and... guns maybe? Saying things to piss off the other side? It used to pay lip service to being a moral bastion, but lost that argument.

> Even when the Republicans controlled all branches of government from 2016-2018, they couldn't accomplish anything, because unlike in the Democratic party, there's just no unity.

What they accomplished was a restructuring of tax systems to increase the wealth concentration of the richest Americans, at the expense of the entire country.

From there, your comment devolves into repeating talking points without any supporting evidence. They are so removed from my perception of reality, that I'm too tired to even respond to your vague and unsupported thoughts.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#617
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like with the death rate, I expect we'll seamlessly transition from "this isn't proof, in 2 weeks you'll see" to "this isn't news, everyone always believed that so it doesn't imply any changes in strategy".

Well, it isn't proof. It is evidence, though. And in two weeks, we will have a lot more evidence. A lot of this is like Russian Roulette -- there's a huge amount about this virus which we don't know, and it could be super-bad or not-that-bad. It could also be there are bad and not-so-bad strains. Or it could be bad down-the-line. Until we do have proof, I'm advocating being conservative. In 2 weeks, we'll know if peo…

You're completely discounting the risks associated with the economic lockdown. Maybe we should be more conservative with our economic livelihood.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#618
post #180

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I don't really have enough karma to be able to waste responding, but I'll make an exception for you, since you asked more politely than most. First, there's not much secrecy involved. It isn't a secret at all that, Hollywood, the American mainstream media, and the political left are all on the same side. It's been obvious for 30 years now. What we are currently living through is a left-authoritarian consolidation of…

It's amazing how much the political left is able to get done with the political right controlling the senate and the presidency :)

That's why it is so critical to keep them from it.

In 10 seconds, it would be a crime to disagree with the left -- just like they've succeeded in doing online and in places like Europe.

These days, each election is potentially the last one.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're referring to this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/french-study-s... The idea is that nicotine may lower your chances of infection, but once established I imagine that smoking will definitely reduce your chances of survival.

Well, it lowers your chance of being listed as an infected person. Presuming this is true (lots of evidence but still much too early to be sure), there's two possibilities: nicotine makes a person less likely to be infected, or nicotine makes it less likely that the infected will develop any symptoms. No symptoms, no test, that's been the rule until quite recently. If it's the latter, it could explain what's going on…

A couple more possibilities could be that smokers are less likely to notice any symptoms they might have, or are less likely to report those symptoms and get a test. Smokers are probably less conscientious on average - it's almost the definition of lack of conscientiousness.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#620
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia. These are all successful left-authoritarian power consolidations from the 20th century. > Other than the WW2 Axis powers, there aren't many major successful right-authoritarian consolidations from last century. Can you see how you hand-waved the other side away here? >Many parts of the right are fundamentally opposed to government power, which makes creating a united right-wing…

I thought we were having a discussion in good faith

I see instead that you are just interested in furthering you partisan asshattery.

It's been fun, but I'm out.

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