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What about people with mentally ill family, who are driven to desperation? Or people with family who kicked a drug habit, and now are driven back by despair? What about family members who inherited a 60-year-old family business, and have watched it evaporate due to forced isolation, are now on suicide watch? Or what about later, as 30% of the population is out of work, impoverished, and whose health suffers as a result? What about the additional crime that will result, with botched armed burglaries and deaths there? Lots of dying on the other side of the equation, too.
Letting the disease run rampant would also have strongly negative consequences to society, and would result in a much higher death rate. Either way, people would respond by withdrawing from contact with others, and the economy would contract. It's a lose-lose scenario.
What I wonder is why we are going from reporting "confirmed cases" to "probable cases" (as explained in Friday's press conference by Dr. Birz). In doing that, it will appear that numbers are on the rise, or at least not on as steep a downward trajectory. When you're trying to measure improvements, you can't change the metrics mid-stream!
Yeah, I think it's sort of a thing where the numbers are being pushed to go higher and it is confusing and odd, the way they are tabulating.
The push to make this thing much much bigger I think is sort of a "save face" tactic in a way, by those that rushed to shut everything down. Not saying we shouldn't have, but I think that was a bit of a panicked move in the face of ignorance about the virus.
In hindsight, we could've kept things partially open and protected the elderly and vulnerable. Anyway, yeah, the metrics are being played with...conveniently so.
Car crashes are not contagious. 45,000 people do not die in car crashes over a span of three months and thus overwhelm the medical system. Stupid analogy.
Older Americans are expendable because they are no longer productive members of society. They worked all of their lives so they could enjoy some kind of rest and reward at the end of it, but they are not producing so we don't need them any more. We as a society should sacrifice them for economic reasons. Got it.
Good points. Like Dr. Phil (incorrectly) talking about swimming pool deaths; those deaths, as well as auto accidents, are not contagious.
I am continually shocked by those who think that the coronavirus (or the response to it) is some kind of agenda or political conspiracy. It is simply unbelievable that someone would think that.
Do you really think that a group of people actually got together and decided to introduce a pathogen into US society in order to gain political control? If so, I think you have been watching too many movies. I mean, "V for Vendetta" is a really good movie, but it is fiction, not reality.
Conspiracies are not real- people cannot keep secrets.
1) First, you've got to account for the fact that even if we maintain house arrest for the next two months, we will continue to see people die. Since we're beginning the downward part of the curve (nationwide), let's say 20,000. That is the FLOOR.
2) Then, we as a society have ALREADY decided that 45,000 deaths a year in car crashes is a price we are willing to pay to allow people to drive cars, given how they have become so embedded in ability to function - getting to work, to stores, just living one's life, etc. So, that's another 45,000. (If we had determined that 45,000 lives was a price too high to pay, then car ownership and use would be felonies, punishable by prison. We don't do that.)
3) Finally, we get to the TRUE costs in additional deaths (beyond what we have as a society already determined is acceptable), and I'd say 10,000 - the majority of whom are elderly and have already completed 95% of their lives. That is what we truly would be paying in "additional lives lost" in order to keep from falling into a Great Depression with 30% unemployed, and the increase in disease, crime, and suicide that comes from desperation of poverty and isolation.
Good points. Like Dr. Phil (incorrectly) talking about swimming pool deaths; those deaths, as well as auto accidents, are not contagious.
I am continually shocked by those who think that the coronavirus (or the response to it) is some kind of agenda or political conspiracy. It is simply unbelievable that someone would think that.
Do you really think that a group of people actually got together and decided to introduce a pathogen into US society in order to gain political control? If so, I think you have been watching too many movies. I mean, "V for Vendetta" is a really good movie, but it is fiction, not reality.
Conspiracies are not real- people cannot keep secrets.
Then why:
a) are number of deaths being inflated (anytime someone dies with a terminal condition who ALSO has COVID, the death is attributed to COVID), and
b) why are we now counting "probable cases" instead of "confirmed cases"? (People with symptoms get tested, and only about 10 - 15% are them actually have COVID. Are we now including the 85% who don't as "probably cases" until they get tested? That REALLY skews the numbers.)
Another poster brought up a good point. It was just a couple of weeks ago that we were told we could have as many as 240,000 deaths IF we did everything perfectly (stay at home orders), with the best expected to be 100,000. Now it looks like it will be 60,000 (still awful, but significantly better, and just about in line with the regular flu, bad season). Are people inflating things to "save face"?
You wish more leaders were willing to sacrifice older Americans, the people who toiled their entire lives for the reward of retirement in their old age, for the sake of the economy? I bet if you were one of them you wouldn't be feeling so callous about sacrificing yours.
A) It's a valid analogy. Behavior that entails some minimal degree or risk doesn't mean it has to be contagious. It's risky all the same: I risk my life every time I drive in my car, and 45,000 Americans lose their bet every year. Yet, they still drive....and we haven't outlawed it. Why aren't you clamoring to outlaw driving? Why are 45,000 lives expendable to you? (And as far as overwhelming the medical system, THAT was the purpose of the lockdown - to flatten the curve. We've done that.)
B) Stop with the older Americans being expendable. You are focusing on just one segment. What about the younger people, driven to despair and depression, who will die as a result of a lockdown? Why are their lives expendable?
B) You are saying that my 81 yo self is more expendable than a young person driven to despair and depression as a result of the lock down.
Which of us is a more productive taxpaying individual? What about our contribution to the country as a whole?
Age is all that counts? The young person has more potential, so they get to live? Who gets to judge?
IMO, from what I see, few of us had a years worth of savings so we could withstand what came our way. A pox on them. Whining so the county has to bail them out.
What about businesses having a years worth of overhead so they could ride out misfortune? They are having to be bailed out after 3 weeks.
This whole country was on shaky ground before the pandemic. So much for the booming economy.
Looks like all that rescue the businesses money is going to those who don't need it.
You wish more leaders were willing to sacrifice older Americans, the people who toiled their entire lives for the reward of retirement in their old age, for the sake of the economy? I bet if you were one of them you wouldn't be feeling so callous about sacrificing yours.
You replied to the wrong thread friend, the OP didn't say any such thing. Coincidentally, I am old.
With a death rate of less than .001%, and people educated(promoting the general welfare), there is no reason not to Open back up for business. Treated like you are some stupid kid, is now vogue.
They think you are stupid and cannot think for yourself.
If you have not noticed, anyone in a position of power and authority, is all about directives. Like you are too stupid to figure it out, with common sense. (because common sense, goes completely against those on a power trip's thinking)
You've made up your own theories to come to a death rate.
The reason we need a number is to be ready to push back against the leftist response, and you know it's coming. We WILL have additional deaths as we reopen the economy, and the governors of the Democrat states (I'm in one where we are on lockdown until June 10th) will slam the doors shut again.
If we don't, we will see a repeat of this in the fall, if indeed this turns out to be seasonal and there is not yet a vaccine (which there won't be). Are we to put everyone under house arrest for three months during the fall?
This simply can't continue.
Agree this can NOT continue. However, any number will not fly due to perceptions the Media and Democrats will create. We accept 35,000 - 40,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S. alone as you've stated. More expensive, safer cars and more restrictive regulations would reduce that, but we have made the decision not to spend the extra money to save those lives. However, you don't see the Government or car manufacturers saying that.
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