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Voss wrote:


For one thing, schools and infrastructure are funded individually at the state level, and if you think the 'flyover states' are missing large urban areas and infrastructure, your knowledge of American geography is just lacking.

You seem to have forgotten that the federal government provides ~$80 billion in primary and secondary education to the states annually through the DoE, and the Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services contribute like another $30 billion. It might only come out to 10% of the funding totals, but its there, and it makes a big difference. Likewise the federal government funds about 20% of total infrastructure investment in the US in a similar manner. Theres a reason why a number of states receive more federal funding than there are federal taxes collected in those states (and it might surprise you to find out that those states are generally rural and conservative ones).

Also I wouldn't really classify any of the "large urban areas" you listed as really being "large" (unless you are measuring them in turns of area covered, in which case you would be right, but in terms of population and population density they are mostly small).

Rural America starts about 30 miles (sometimes less) from major cities, and stops when it gets close to another one. You can be less than an hour away from Baltimore and DC and be knee deep in 'country.'

I live in one of these "country" areas - most of the local economy is propped up by a very large number of people who commute to the urban areas for work daily.

See the 2m thing?

Lets be real here, 2m is only really sufficient to stop transmission if the infected isn't coughing or sneezing. Past studies have shown that a cough or sneeze can propel germs (influenza included) up to 20-30 feet within seconds. The 2m criteria is tied to a % reduction in probability, iirc it was tied to something like a 50-80% reduction in transmission - specifically of tuberculosis, from what I understand there hasn't been a lot of further study on the biomechanics of transmission of other viral agents. And that doesn't account for transmission over time - theres an ever-widening cloud of aerosolized viral droplets within the vicinity of where someone coughs or sneezes, iirc the CDC puts it at 2-3 hours of airborne activity before it fully settles but this is subject to airflow and traffic considerations - in short just because theres no one within 2m of you or even 20 meters of you doesn't mean you aren't walking through a cloud of viral droplets. All of this is to say - yes you are absolutely at risk while outdoors contrary to queen anne revenge's beliefs.

and sorry that I'm able to think outside of what the media feed me

most of us have gone well beyond what the media is "feeding" us to inform ourselves about the reality of this, going as far as researching academic studies and sourcing information from subject matter experts. Thus far the only thing I've seen you post are the regurgitated talking points of right wing and conservative politicians that I've seen on twitter and the usual "alternative" media sources (read - you are far from being the paragon of independent thought that you seem to think you are, just because you are holding a minority viewpoint does not mean that you are thinking independently - plenty of sociological and psychological study actually indicates otherwise and suggests there is a high degree of gullibility involved with adopting minority opinions, especially when they are not tied to evidence-based analysis and counterfactual opinion). Upvotes, shares, and retweets might be a good barometer of peoples agreement and belief in a given thought or opinion, but its a really bad measure of factual accuracy. Theres plenty of "independent thinkers" and "functioning adults" out there suggesting that drinking bleach is an effective means of preventing illness (not just coronavirus, but all sorts of nasty things) despite the media (and "twitter cesspit dwellers") stating otherwise, I dont think I need to explain to you why this is a terrible idea, and likewise why thinking yourself a functioning adult or capable of independent thought is not a good measure of your ability to judge a situation.

The only thing you could do is compare with Sweden, which hasn't introduced such stringent measures.

Or you could look at Singapore, which was initially quite successful at combating the virus and stopping the spread through the imposition of social distancing measures, only to see a large spike in cases and deaths once they eased back the same policies. Now, of course its easy to say "correlation doesn't equal causation" but theres a high degree of correlation from nation to nation that is implying a high degree of causation.

You could also maybe dig past the headlines and popularized talking points on Sweden and learn that Sweden has imposed a number of measures, which while not necessarily strict, are definitely contributing to a reduction in spread, and likewise has the advantage of not having politicians pushing agendas or proselytizing on television and radio, but rather allowing SME's and professionals within their public health and healthcare sectors speak directly to the people via the media and encourage them to make intelligent decisions about how to conduct themselves based on factual data and information (i.e. not telling them "its just the cold" and "we think the mortality rate is really lower than its being reported", etc.). The Swedish population has responded accordingly by making reasonable adjustments to their way of life in response to the crisis, unlike Americans who have repeatedly engaged in counterproductive activity like packing onto beaches and into clubs, Swedes are managing themselves with a number of unwritten rules and customs that the majority of the population has seemingly adopted overnight, maintaining effective and reasonable levels of separation just about at all times (and often well beyond 2m). Lets not make any mistake, the measures that many of us are having forced on us by governments are a response (either directly or indirectly) to the stupidity of the lowest common denominator of our fellow citizens - theres a reason why for the most part the policies in western nations have become progressively more (seemingly) draconian over time - its because the early policies were ineffective, not because the guidance was bad, but because people just didn't follow them. In large part, this is because Sweden does not have an egotistical and anti-intellectual society that disregards expertise, and has a high degree of public trust in government, institutions, public agencies, and leadership - basically the exact opposite of societies like the US, UK, and Italy (and - on a personal level - you yourself) exhibit. Societally, the Swedes highly value interpersonal space already, even moreso than you would find in (pseudo-)libertarian leaning societies like the US, with 40% of Swedish households being single-person without children, and with very few househoulds being inter-generational (i.e. no grandparents or adult children living in them).You will not find comparable numbers in the US or UK. In large part - this is all something that has been enabled by the encouragement and implementation of socio-economic policies championed by the left and decried by the right in nations like the US and the UK. This doesn't even begin to account for differences in population density. If you compare the numbers between Sweden, and New Jersey - for example, you will find that New Jersey (84k cases, 4k deaths) has been hit much harder than Sweden (14k cases, 1.5k deaths) has, despite New Jersey having 1 million fewer residents, some of that is due to relative population densities (65 per sq km in sweden vs 1200 per sq km in NJ), and part of it has to do with cultural differences.

Even still, Sweden is not yet out of the woods. It has not yet seen any sort of flattening of the curve unlike its neighbors in Norway, Finland, and Denmark, and has a fatality rate roughly double that of those other nations, and its currently seeing a progressive growth in cases and hospitalizations that are indicative of the early stages of an exponential spike. Swedens chief state epedemiologist (who has become a household presence in Sweden, appearing almost nightly in the media to answer questions from viewers and the public at large) has been clear that as the numbers rise the likelihood of stricter measures being implemented increases, and has stated clearly that they currently view themselves being in the mitigation phase, but will need to eventually enter into a containment phase with stricter measures. Only time will tell if Sweden has made the right decision, I think the reality is that everyone currently saying "but Sweden" will soon find themselves quietly Homer Simpsoning themselves back into the bushes as Sweden either encounters massive numbers of deaths or institute the same tight policies that have been seen everywhere else.

I was taught how to think

Being taught how to think and learning how to think are two different things. You may have been taught, but I have not yet seen strong evidence that you actually learned. The stark disparity in the depth and breadth of arguments being presented against your viewpoint, as well as the sources and data being referenced and cited, and the arguments you are yourself presenting in defense of your viewpoint seems to be a pretty clear indicator as to how epistemologically sound your approach to thought actually is (or in this case, isn't). Just because you *are* thinking does not mean that your thoughts are valuable, nor do they mean that they are valid.

It sounds like a long term strategy.

That is they've got "no second spike" meaning that the strategy is designed to start taking effect and remain active until such time as a vaccine is released. This might mean that we go back and forward on stages for a while - it may also mean some stages get reviewed.

For example I still can't work out why schools are pushed forward so early. I get that it releases parents to resume work, but at the same time there's hardly more of a melting pot of disease and spread of disease in the modern developed world - than school - save for Universities. All those students meeting and mingling might well have a huge potential for a second spike.

Even if teachers and students practice safe distancing and more hand washing first and last thing in the day. There's still going to be the best part of the day spent indoors in rooms - even with the windows open - with a higher chance of infectious spread.




That said I agree, pretty much everyone expects multiple peaks until either we reach herd immunity and/or a vaccine is developed and ready for distribution. I think the key is aiming for smaller multiple peaks or at least those that fit within the health services ability to cope.

Keeping in mind that, provided resources don't run out; the health services cap on what it can cope with should, in theory, continue to increase.

We're just over 34,000 dead in the US from this, which means Covid has killed as many people in about 4 weeks as the last flu season did over 4 months.

So much for "just the seasonal flu".




Automatically Appended Next Post:
ChaosX, you've accidentally misattributed some quotes from QAR to Voss.

 Overread wrote:


For example I still can't work out why schools are pushed forward so early. I get that it releases parents to resume work, but at the same time there's hardly more of a melting pot of disease and spread of disease in the modern developed world - than school - save for Universities. All those students meeting and mingling might well have a huge potential for a second spike.

There was something on the radio a week or so ago that postulated that closing the schools and nurseries actually had very little effect and was basically pointless. I didnt read into it and don't have a link, but I'm sure it could be found.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
We're just over 34,000 dead in the US from this, which means Covid has killed as many people in about 4 weeks as the last flu season did over 4 months.

So much for "just the seasonal flu".




Automatically Appended Next Post:
ChaosX, you've accidentally misattributed some quotes from QAR to Voss.

Im not sure how the reporting works over there, but I know there are some discrepancies as to how the numbers have been reported here. We get told a number on the news, and it sounds bad, but there is no context, eg with or of, or a comparison showing over and above normal daily death rate for example.

In other news some models are predicting that the actual UK infection total is close to 3 million, which could be a good thing? If people are getting it but not being affected I guess?

We have yet to learn of lasting issues and follow up illnesses though.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Overread wrote:


For example I still can't work out why schools are pushed forward so early. I get that it releases parents to resume work, but at the same time there's hardly more of a melting pot of disease and spread of disease in the modern developed world - than school - save for Universities. All those students meeting and mingling might well have a huge potential for a second spike.

There was something on the radio a week or so ago that postulated that closing the schools and nurseries actually had very little effect and was basically pointless. I didnt read into it and don't have a link, but I'm sure it could be found.

It's hard for me to work out how. Schools are well known for spreading coughs and colds and almost anything else students catch. It passes around the other students and staff like wildfire. Universities are even worse since they have students from an international catchment and thus can have a huge host of potential sources for a disease.

If one person has Corona in a school you can bet the next week the rest of the students will have caught it and taken it home.

At work you've a much reduced population spread in many work areas and greater maturity thus potential to spread people out and reduce potential infection and increase things like handwashing. At least in theory a more mature workplace could stave off the virus spreading through it more effectivly than most schools.


That said I suspect any reactivation will result in a second wave. The only way it couldn't would be if there were no more infected or carriers within the population.

 Overread wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Overread wrote:


For example I still can't work out why schools are pushed forward so early. I get that it releases parents to resume work, but at the same time there's hardly more of a melting pot of disease and spread of disease in the modern developed world - than school - save for Universities. All those students meeting and mingling might well have a huge potential for a second spike.

There was something on the radio a week or so ago that postulated that closing the schools and nurseries actually had very little effect and was basically pointless. I didnt read into it and don't have a link, but I'm sure it could be found.

It's hard for me to work out how. Schools are well known for spreading coughs and colds and almost anything else students catch. It passes around the other students and staff like wildfire. Universities are even worse since they have students from an international catchment and thus can have a huge host of potential sources for a disease.

If one person has Corona in a school you can bet the next week the rest of the students will have caught it and taken it home.

At work you've a much reduced population spread in many work areas and greater maturity thus potential to spread people out and reduce potential infection and increase things like handwashing. At least in theory a more mature workplace could stave off the virus spreading through it more effectivly than most schools.


That said I suspect any reactivation will result in a second wave. The only way it couldn't would be if there were no more infected or carriers within the population.

Anybody with kids knows this to be true. I've never had so many colds, coughs and sniffles since the kids went to nursery and primary school. Seems to ease off when they get to secondary school and college though.
I believe that Opening up the junior schools again will spread the virus faster than pretty much any other activity.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
That's also part of why our COVID response has been so... lackluster. Big business feels those profits falling by the day, and is screaming at their political representatives to get things moving again NOW!

And yet many dastardly CEOs willingly shut down their evil, thieving businesses before the federal and state governments had taken action.

The real world isn't a Power Rangers episode, fer crissakes.

Except all the companies that refused to close when orders came down, like Hobby Lobby, Barnes and Noble, Game Stop... I could keep going but you get the point.

And I can list the companies that did but you get the point.

People on both sides of the political spectrum need to stop politicizing every aspect of this thing.

Oh, and regarding the protests...it's very easy to detect the presence of 'astroturf' there.

 gorgon wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
That's also part of why our COVID response has been so... lackluster. Big business feels those profits falling by the day, and is screaming at their political representatives to get things moving again NOW!

And yet many dastardly CEOs willingly shut down their evil, thieving businesses before the federal and state governments had taken action.

The real world isn't a Power Rangers episode, fer crissakes.

Yes, SOME businesses did, indeed, shut down voluntarily.

Many others have not, because PROFIT UBER ALLES!!! and had to be shut down by state governments.

 Vulcan wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
That's also part of why our COVID response has been so... lackluster. Big business feels those profits falling by the day, and is screaming at their political representatives to get things moving again NOW!

And yet many dastardly CEOs willingly shut down their evil, thieving businesses before the federal and state governments had taken action.

The real world isn't a Power Rangers episode, fer crissakes.

Yes, SOME businesses did, indeed, shut down voluntarily.

Many others have not, because PROFIT UBER ALLES!!! and had to be shut down by state governments.

And others chug along. The factory I work at hasn't shut down, despite confirmed cases.

 Vulcan wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
That's also part of why our COVID response has been so... lackluster. Big business feels those profits falling by the day, and is screaming at their political representatives to get things moving again NOW!

And yet many dastardly CEOs willingly shut down their evil, thieving businesses before the federal and state governments had taken action.

The real world isn't a Power Rangers episode, fer crissakes.

Yes, SOME businesses did, indeed, shut down voluntarily.

Many others have not, because PROFIT UBER ALLES!!! and had to be shut down by state governments.

And then there are companies who have lobbied to be defined as essential when they are obviously not. Such as the WWE which is classed as essential in Florida. A ruling which just so happened to come about the same day that a super PAC chaired by Linda McMahon, wife of WWE owner Vince McMahon, donated $18.5m to the Florida GOP.

The factories for the company I work for sure as hell are still running. One of them has switched production over to face shields for healthcare workers.

What the produce really is federally essential though.

As opposed to, say, the WWE.

Well this is interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/i_simply_cannot_believe_that_people_are/fnstpyl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

I mean surprise surprise, a secret cabal of people in power are working hard to put people back to work in the machine
Here is the thing, people wouldnt be begging to go back to work if THE GOVT WOULD JUST PAY US MONEY IN THIS TIME AND LOANS WHERE DEFFERED OR EXTENDED

I'm not down with the latest hip and cool slang, so astroturfing?

GoatboyBeta wrote:
I'm not down with the latest hip and cool slang, so astroturfing?

Making the appearance of a grassroots movement artificially - just like astroturf is fake grass ground cover.

GoatboyBeta wrote:
I'm not down with the latest hip and cool slang, so astroturfing?

Grass roots politics is organic with the people coming together to create a political movement.

Astroturfing gives the fake impression of being grass roots, but has actually been laid down by powerful bodies.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Overread wrote:


For example I still can't work out why schools are pushed forward so early. I get that it releases parents to resume work, but at the same time there's hardly more of a melting pot of disease and spread of disease in the modern developed world - than school - save for Universities. All those students meeting and mingling might well have a huge potential for a second spike.

There was something on the radio a week or so ago that postulated that closing the schools and nurseries actually had very little effect and was basically pointless. I didnt read into it and don't have a link, but I'm sure it could be found.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
We're just over 34,000 dead in the US from this, which means Covid has killed as many people in about 4 weeks as the last flu season did over 4 months.

So much for "just the seasonal flu".




Automatically Appended Next Post:
ChaosX, you've accidentally misattributed some quotes from QAR to Voss.

Im not sure how the reporting works over there, but I know there are some discrepancies as to how the numbers have been reported here. We get told a number on the news, and it sounds bad, but there is no context, eg with or of, or a comparison showing over and above normal daily death rate for example.

I posted a few pages back that ONS figures put England and Wales at 60% above the same period 5-year average death rate in the UK. Obviously these numbers have seen little acknowledgement in the daily briefings, but they've been widely reported the last few days in the mainstream UK press.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-school-closures-have-little-effect-on-slowing-spread-of-covid-19-11969671

Heres an article on the school closures. Aparantly covid is different to colds and flu and children aren't spreaders in the same way.


https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-X/fulltext

Long read. I haven't read it fully yet.

I don't have the expertise to really scrutinize an epidemiological paper (and I'm in the humanities and our expectations may vary wildly - though I'd have thought my methodological assumptions should be lower), but that they don't explain the screening procedure that led to their including in their review only 16 of over 600 (which they don't include in an appendix so how they break down isn't available) publications beyond

'All articles were triple screened (by SJR, HC, and JP) on title and abstract. We excluded opinion pieces, systematic reviews, studies addressing other viruses, university-specific settings, epidemiological studies not examining intervention effects (eg, of prevalence of infection in schools), and studies in other languages with no English translation'

seems problematic. Given the overwhelming majority of datasets they are examining the effects of derive from the Middle East and East Asia, the last clause seems astonishing.

Yeah, there are definitely variables in there that need examining.

But I think getting kids back to school is fairly high on the priority list either way really, more so than reopening restaurants etc.

I would agree, but I don't think we've a chance before the summer holidays so it's probably moot in the short term.

Well, my little girl is in nursery, and even getting another 6 weeks would be beneficial.. She only had 2 months there and was enjoying it a lot, now she's stuck at home she's climbing the walls. The nursery is on the base, and only used by service personnel who live in the married quarters (so they aren't travelling around the country at weekends like the singlys) so I think it's fairly low risk there anyway.

I wonder if its just a panic to push students back for a week or two to throw masses of exams at them (yay indoor confinement in even bigger groups for an hour or two). Certainly the final year Alevel students and final year GCSE are the most at risk of having this year mess them up considerably with their plans - though I could see Universities also introducing entrance tests if the exam period faulters. Then again we don't know what the University scene will be like come September.

Yeah I'd certainly be worried if I was a student. There was talk of using predicted grades, but that hardly seems fair. I was predicted a D in maths at GCSE, but had extra tutoring and got a B. I needed a C to study psychology at college.

Florida schools are shut down for the remainder of the school year. We're attempting to help the students without resources by continuing to provide meal pickup each week, loaning out school laptops if they need a computer to do e-learning, and a local company has offered free wifi for students. Queen_annes_revenge, unless I'm reading the study wrong, is talking about closing schools without other isolation measures being ineffective , "Yet the only study to examine school closures as a separate intervention warned that the impact was relatively marginal, given the reasonable assumptions that household and community contacts would rise as a consequence.". This I totally agree with, since a large number of students wouldn't have anyone to take care of them during the day, and would go hang out with friends, at malls, movie theaters, etc. Closing schools without any other social distancing measures would not stop the problem.

I would say that if you're trying to implement any sort of social distancing or quarantine though it absolutely should be the first step. I have 120 kids go through my classroom on a normal day, working within feet of each other, on desks that might be cleaned once a week. Each of those kids goes to 7 other classrooms each day under similar circumstances, and a cafeteria. The number of people exposed to a disease like this from an open school is huge. Our school's a 1,000 students large, with students from well over 2 miles distance. Each of those kids goes home to a family. Think it through logically yourself, as you've been advocating. With a disease that can spread for 2 weeks before symptoms, should we open schools and add 1,000 new vectors to each family with kids?

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Well, my little girl is in nursery, and even getting another 6 weeks would be beneficial.. She only had 2 months there and was enjoying it a lot, now she's stuck at home she's climbing the walls. The nursery is on the base, and only used by service personnel who live in the married quarters (so they aren't travelling around the country at weekends like the singlys) so I think it's fairly low risk there anyway.

That's a curious case. Are they run by the military or are they private units that just happen to be in the base? I guess there might be special legislation for these kind of anomalies.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Well, my little girl is in nursery, and even getting another 6 weeks would be beneficial.. She only had 2 months there and was enjoying it a lot, now she's stuck at home she's climbing the walls. The nursery is on the base, and only used by service personnel who live in the married quarters (so they aren't travelling around the country at weekends like the singlys) so I think it's fairly low risk there anyway.

The 'child development centers' (our nurseries) on the post I work on are only open to kids of 'mission essential' (ME) folks who are still going in to the office. Numbers of kids attending are WAY down (from 100s to 10s) since in most cases ME either don't have kids or have a spouse at home taking care of them. Any ankle biter over two years old is supposed to be wearing a mask. I bet that is fun to enforce. Glad it isn't my job.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/business-leaders-tell-trump-to-dramatically-increase-coronavirus-testing-11586974130

Funny, I heard this secret cabal was pressuring Trump to reopen immediately. It’s almost like these corporations are made up of actual people, and that no one wants to see employees and customers cut down like wheat.

That's what trump tried to set it up for. Backfired spectacularly for him. Can't even get group he sets up to take blame in case reopening backfires to actually agree for immediate reopening

Not that surprising though. CEO's are careful about their PR image. Being linked to mass deaths isn't good for their business. trump ain't getting others to take blame for that for his sake that easily.