Lt. Gov Dan Patrick wants Grandparents to Sacrifice Lives for the Economy (West: dangerous, residential)

[tcualum]

Too many people keep talking about ventilators, vaccines, indefinite shelter in place, or weather improvement as the only options. There are currently efforts to find already existing medicines, better diagnostic procedures, and better treatment protocols. Those are possible outcomes as well. From a practical standpoint, I've told the kids that we just have to take it week by week and I'm assuming that we will be sheltering in place at the bare minimum until the end of April.

[DPatel304]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Again, that's semantic equivocation by leaving out the most critical aspects of the risk assessment. You don't acknowledge the difference in avoidability.

That's a false assumption on your part. I said over and over that I understand the difference between the flu and COVID19. My point is (and always has been) that people are okay sacrificing lives for the economy (to some degree).

Originally Posted by Westerner92

You don't even know what you mean by "some degree".

How would I not know what I mean? When I say 'some degree', it means there is a certain number of lives people are willing to risk for the sake of the economy. That is the same number that you described as being 'basically 0' and 'not a sacrifice' (which, I still think is a very heartless thing to say about the ~10K Americans who die every year from the flu).

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by DPatel304

That's a false assumption on your part. I said over and over that I understand the difference between the flu and COVID19. My point is (and always has been) that people are okay sacrificing lives for the economy (to some degree).



How would I not know what I mean? When I say 'some degree', it means there is a certain number of lives people are willing to risk for the sake of the economy. That is the same number that you described as being 'basically 0' and 'not a sacrifice' (which, I still think is a very heartless thing to say about the ~10K Americans who die every year from the flu).

So please enlighten us. Just how many people dying from having no ventilator for their COVID-19 is acceptable? Give us a number, champ. Give us a description that doesn’t use vague words. Give us anything at all other than equivocation between it and the flu. Otherwise, your words ring totally empty.

[DPatel304]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

So please enlighten us. Just how many people dying from having no ventilator for their COVID-19 is acceptable? Give us a number, champ. Otherwise, your words ring totally empty.

0 is acceptable to me.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by DPatel304

0 is acceptable to me.

So why are you so hell-bent on saying you and everyone around you are willing to sacrifice lives for an economy? This is exactly what I mean by “talking out both sides of your mouth”.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

So please enlighten us. Just how many people dying from having no ventilator for their COVID-19 is acceptable? Give us a number, champ. Give us a description that doesn’t use vague words. Give us anything at all other than equivocation between it and the flu. Otherwise, your words ring totally empty.

Once there are enough ventilators available, and other aspects of the health care system capacity have become sufficient, the country will definitely ask itself how much death it will be willing to tolerate in order to restart the economy. And quite possible before widespread availability of effective treatment. You're asserting that effective treatment is the prerequisite. It is not. It is health care system capacity.

The key variable to getting to that question is health care system capacity. If the country had prepared better (meaning among other things, having enough ventilators on hand), we might already be asking it. If enough tests had been prepared in advance (which we could and should have done), we might not even have had to close down as much of the economy.

[DPatel304]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

So why are you so hell-bent on saying you and everyone around you are willing to sacrifice lives for an economy? This is exactly what I mean by “talking out both sides of your mouth”.

Because we don't shut down the economy during flu season. We could shut it down and save lives, but we choose to sacrifice lives for the economy.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Once there are enough ventilators available, and other aspects of the health care system capacity have become sufficient, the country will definitely ask itself how much death it will be willing to tolerate in order to restart the economy. And quite possible before widespread availability of effective treatment. You're asserting that effective treatment is the prerequisite. It is not. It is health care system capacity.

The key variable to getting to that question is health care system capacity. If the country had prepared better (meaning among other things, having enough ventilators on hand), we might already be asking it. If enough tests had been prepared in advance (which we could and should have done), we might not even have had to close down as much of the economy.

Considering ventilators and monitoring are basically the only treatments available currently, the number of ventilators is effectively the capacity. It’s the limiting factor.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by DPatel304

Because we don't shut down the economy during flu season. We could shut it down and save lives, but we choose to sacrifice lives for the economy.

e-qui-vo-ca-tion: deliberate evasiveness in wording - the use of ambiguous or equivocal language

The scale and avoidability of deaths is so different that they aren’t the same risk assessment. It’s a completely invalid comparison. It’s like saying we should treat tornado season like a Category 5 hurricane is about to hit. Anyone who tries to compare the two is either woefully ignorant or just plain stupid.

[Wardendresden]

Maybe a New York right wing extremist can show some on the Texas thread how to think about coronavirus.

Mike Francesa, a New York sport head, has been a solid Trump supporter since early 2016. Here is what he had to say to Trump yesterday:

In that appearance before reporters, the president repeated his baseless claim from over the weekend that masks at New York hospitals could be “going out the back door,” apparently suggesting that nurses, doctors or other employees were stealing the personal protective equipment.

Trump then called on members of the media to investigate the supposed suspicious activity, a demand met with outrage from Francesa.

“You go investigate that! You have your military, your FEMA investigate that! That’s your job! You’re in charge of this!” he said. “If this is a war, they’re stealing your supplies, what do you do? You tell the media to go investigate it? What, and get back to you in six weeks or two months, as more people die on a daily basis? That’s what’s wrong here. There’s a disconnect.”

Francesa also took aim at the president’s comments on Sunday regarding the projected death toll from Covid-19 infections in the U.S., which the administration expects could result in 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities among Americans.

Trump had said that “if we can hold that down, as we’re saying to 100,000 [deaths], it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100,000 and 200,000, we all together have done a very good job.”

“How can you have a scoreboard that says 2,000 people have died and tell us, ‘It’s OK if another 198,000 die, that’s a good job,’” Francesa said. “How is that a good job in our country? It’s a good job if nobody else dies! Not if another 198,000 people die! So now 200,000 people are disposable?”

Francesa, who first emerged as a supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign in spring 2016, has become increasingly disparaging of the administration’s handling of the pandemic in recent days ----

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...esponse-157124

Your Lt. Governor seems to regard people as disposable as well. Let's see how that plays out in the next election---if Trump, or Texas, even allows one. My own suspicion is that we will soon have a Republican dictatorship in place.

Just saying----