Covid-19: American Acceptionalism

Gov. Mike Parson, his wife both test positive for COVID-19; governor postpones travel, debate https://t.co/mGx9cPRPCv

— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) September 23, 2020

From July ...

Seems to me Governor Parson should get over it and stop letting this thing stop him in his tracks.

 

Things have been too cheery here lately, so here is some evidence for all of you from Wales. Wales is a developed country within the United Kingdom with 3.2 million people. It has single-payer health care, a robust welfare state (compared to the average country, although many Britons will squawk at this post and shout about austerity, so things could be better). The average lifespan for a Welsh woman is 82.3 years, and about 77-78 years for men (can't find the single figure). Nominal GDP per capita is ~£20k, which would place the country around 35th out of all countries. In short, Wales is doing well.

Wales has recorded 1,605 deaths from coronavirus.

From January to July 2020, Wales reported 2,648 more deaths than Jan-Jul 2019.


So Wales -- a country doing just about everything as well as it can -- has excess mortality of 165% of the official coronavirus count. I imagine that Wales' undercount is about as good as we can expect from the rest of the world. So if we apply that rate to the 976,258 cases recorded here, then 1.61 million people worldwide have perished from the first eight months of the pandemic.

If we assume that Wales' developed-country status allows them to more accurately count the death toll, and our real undercount is 2.5x -- the excess mortality recorded in Guayaquil, Ecuador -- then 2.45 million people have already died.

If even the excess mortality rate is being artificially suppressed by authoritarian regimes, and the real rate is 4x, then 3.91 million have died.

At the same time, birth rates are declining rapidly, even in places like Wales -- in 2019 it was 1.54 birth rate, and this year that rate is likely to be below 1.5, which is a danger sign. If birth rates are falling that rapidly in places like Wales where the virus death toll is relatively mild, what carnage is it wreaking on places where the toll is much higher?


tl;dr version:
Wear a ********ing mask.

 

this sounds very encouraging ....
Four Covid-19 sniffer dogs have begun work at Helsinki airport in a state-funded pilot scheme that Finnish researchers hope will provide a cheap, fast and effective alternative method of testing people for the virus.

A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds and the entire process takes less than a minute to complete, according to Anna Hielm-Björkman of the University of Helsinki, who is overseeing the trial.

“It’s very promising,” said Hielm-Björkman. “If it works, it could prove a good screening method in other places” such as hospitals, care homes and at sporting and cultural events.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ort-enlists-sniffer-dogs-to-test-for-covid-19

 

oh dear.

I heard that Trump rapes children in the Oval Office.

But I don’t really know.

 

We hit a nerve here....


Fox is the worst, but Brogan and his shinny Spotify deal are absolutely horrible too. We can criticize both, there's a Faux News thread and a Libertarian Failure thread..

And isn't Trump a Russian Operative, even an unwilling/unaware one?

 

What drives me absolutely insane about people in the United States these days is the sense of entitlement that everyone has to their own opinions.

If someone in the United Kingdom, or France, or Germany, or South Korea, or Botswana, or Chile, or New Zealand, or any of a hundred other countries, went around demanding to be taken seriously for claiming the Moon was made out of cheese, they would get laughed out of the public square and relegated to the fringe.

In the United States, we are now dutifully obligated to listen to those lunatics and repeat the banal absurdities "those people say interesting things, whether you agree with them or not."

The Moon isn't made of cheese. Vaccines don't have adverse side effects for 99.9% of the population. COVID-19 wasn't made in a laboratory. The theory of evolution is real.

I do not have to treat with seriousness, or give respect to, people who spout bullshit. If a radio host has interesting, thoughtful guests on 80% of the time, and nutjobs the other 20% of the time, then that radio host needs to be laughed out of the public square. As does anyone who agrees with them. The US didn't land people on the Moon by entertaining quacks, we didn't become the world's only superpower by giving equal space to bullshitters, and we're certainly not going to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in by continuing to give them a public voice.

No serious person on this forum defends MSNBC.

 

This is bullshit and you know it. There's even a guy or two on here who are on a first name basis with Maddow.

 

Probably more like an unwitting stooge for Russians. You can bet they have a psychological profile on the guy and 35 yrs ago said, “wouldn’t it be cool if he reached high iffice in US”. Encourage him with flattery, fund him with condo sales, hold some dirt over his head and let him slip confidences here and there as that is just his nature. Certainly don’t need him delivering state secret documents or anything super “spy” like. Sure, only inklings and no smoking gun, but this guy is a fantastic target for the Russians. Whatever is happening, the Russians have to be pleased.

 

I really can't win, can I. If I criticize liberals when they bullshit, most of this forum gets up in arms. If I criticize conservatives when they bullshit, the other part of the forum gets up in arms.

Meanwhile, the virus marches on, regardless of the sacred cows everyone here refuses to slay.

Like Sweden. Remember how you were looking to Sweden to see how they'd handle the coronavirus back in March? How'd that pan out?

We're never going to beat these oncoming crises -- global warming, more pandemics, massive migration -- if we're not able to look at ourselves and realize how screwed up our information sources are.

 

Poor you.

 

Pol Pot: Hey, Hitler and Stalin are the real monsters here. Lay off!

source/link? I mean, other than times they quote the Mueller Report.

 

It is true that MSNBC has made a lot of hay out of nothing. Remember when Maddow stalled on-air for 30 minutes while they tried to find dirt in Trump's tax returns? And found zilch? Or the entire sad saga of Keith Olbermann?

 

Yes, if you change the argument, it becomes true rather than false.

 

Listening to the clip on the website he gives a more measured explanation that I was expecting from the description. He also makes it plain he's quoting someone else rather than his own belief, as you say.

When someone chips in from the side he also says, 'Yeah, but that's Steve Bannon' and laughs, implying we can probably ignore that.

On the other hand...

Yeah, Rogan himself seems a bit too ready to have people on who are... 'problematic', (to use the current vernacular), including, arguably, someone like Weinstein. Although, again, he is at least a Professor of biology, tbf, which seems pertinent when we're discussing a virus and how it started.

Hmm... not sure that's true.

I wouldn't say people necessarily 'defend' them, (depending on what the word 'defend' means in this context), but I think many people think they give a more accurate reflection of reality than the faux news's of this world. TBH, they're probably right.

In that sense I'D probably 'defend' them.

 

Missed you, Snookie

 

Baby, it's not about winning - it's about inflicting pain and humiliation and making people laugh at the bullshitter