US Politics Thread

[Federberg]

Lol.....you are accusing me of making false predictions when I never made one, but then you refuse to discuss the model that is the basis for the economic shutdown policies you support? Okay then.....

The IMHE model was off as much as by a factor of 4 in terms of hospitalizations. And that is what the U.S. social distancing policies are based on. You clearly support those policies and yet you are saying nothing about the inaccuracy of the model.

If I was to make a prediction that was off by a factor of 4, you would never stop pointing it out. But when the policies you support are based on such an erroneous model you shrug your shoulders like it's no big deal.

policies I support based on an erroneous model? We keep telling you, but you still don't get it. The United States of America is NOT the world. Utterly irrelevant to me what models are being used in the US. Other models are being used elsewhere. The science is clear wherever it's conducted, the health policy of lockdown is optimal for spread mitigation. It is NOT an economic policy, it is a health policy. Get it right. Just shows where your priorities are...

 

[calitennis127]

Here you go, Federberg. Here is Dan Crenshaw answering to some of the claims made in the Biden campaign ad that moved your heart so much. Crenshaw is civil and polite, and this interview is succinct and to the point. It should be palatable to your senses:

 

[Federberg]

Here you go, Federberg. Here is Dan Crenshaw answering to some of the claims made in the Biden campaign ad that moved your heart so much. Crenshaw is civil and polite, and this interview is succinct and to the point. It should be palatable to your senses:

already watched this week's Bill Maher mate. Bill was woefully underprepared to debate with Dan Crenshaw. I quite admire the Congressman by the way... on a relative scale at least. The fact Maher spread his legs for him is supposed to impress me somehow? Nah... brah!

 

[calitennis127]

already watched this week's Bill Maher mate. Bill was woefully underprepared to debate with Dan Crenshaw. I quite admire the Congressman by the way... on a relative scale at least. The fact Maher spread his legs for him is supposed to impress me somehow? Nah... brah!

I don't care if Crenshaw "impresses" you. I care about the substance of his arguments. He directly refuted the claims of the ad video for the Biden campaign that you posted. Do you not care when you see your preferred arguments refuted? Or do you just shrug your shoulders and move on?

 

[calitennis127]

policies I support based on an erroneous model? We keep telling you, but you still don't get it. The United States of America is NOT the world.

Well this is called the "US Politics" thread and 90% of what is discussed here is primarily about the United States. So my apologies for bringing up the model that has formed the basis for U.S. government policy in recent weeks. I guess it's not relevant now.

Also, if you want to condemn others about failing to look at the big picture, why don't you scold everyone else on this board for talking like New York City is the entire United States?

Utterly irrelevant to me what models are being used in the US.

Lol.....but bashing Trump for supposedly not handling the crisis appropriately is not "utterly irrelevant" to you. Why is that?

It's funny.....you talk about Trump constantly without considering any other factors at play - not the advice he is getting, not what the "experts" are telling him, not what the U.S. models are.

So basically what you are saying (on the US Politics thread no less) is that you don't care about anything that goes on in the U.S., except you do like to bash Trump. Okay then. I see now.

Other models are being used elsewhere.

One of them was the Imperial College study in the UK, and like the IMHE model it was wildly off the mark.

The science is clear wherever it's conducted, the health policy of lockdown is optimal for spread mitigation.

Lol.....there are plenty of scientists who dissent from the view that it is the optimal approach to be taking. Unfortunately it appears you don't care what they have to say.

It is NOT an economic policy, it is a health policy. Get it right. Just shows where your priorities are...

Right, but laying off millions of workers has no impact on human health. There is just a clean line between the two. Exactly.

Maybe you should for a second contemplate the possibility that what the government officials and major media are telling you to believe isn't 100% accurate. Maybe the current mitigation approaches aren't the best way to go about this. Maybe a more balanced approach would be sensible.

If you wish to talk about other examples around the world, you could perhaps consult Sweden, which is doing quite well with the strategy that I have advocated.

 

[Federberg]

Preach!

 

[Jelenafan]

Right, but laying off millions of workers has no impact on human health. There is just a clean line between the two. Exactly.

Maybe you should for a second contemplate the possibility that what the government officials and major media are telling you to believe isn't 100% accurate. Maybe the current mitigation approaches aren't the best way to go about this. Maybe a more balanced approach would be sensible.

If you wish to talk about other examples around the world, you could perhaps consult Sweden, which is doing quite well with the strategy that I have advocated.

But there's the rub. What is the official Government policy in the United States? It's a laissez faire with a Federal advisory but letting the states dictate how they want to handle things, so there is no coherent planned out strategy on the national level like Sweden has implemented. Here in the US it seems the Federal approach is to put everything on the states, (testing, medical ventilator procurement, etc) and then criticize them and even contradict your own advisory per political gain and partisan lines. BOTH sides do it, but let's not mince words, there is no implemented NATIONAL POLICY.

There's more to Sweden's approach than meets the eye.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

Excerpt:
"Pomeroy pointed to some Swedish characteristics that may be helping the country deal with the current crisis. More than half of Swedish households are single-person, making social distancing easier to carry out. More people work from home than anywhere else in Europe, and everyone has access to fast Internet, which helps large chunks of the workforce stay productive away from the office.

And while many other countries have introduced strict laws, including hefty fines if people are caught breaching newly minted social-distancing laws, Swedes appear to be following such guidelines without the need for legislation. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend, according to data from the country’s largest mobile operator, Telia Company. And online service Citymapper’s statistics indicate an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital."

That's more than most enforced shelter in place countries have had success with. So the myth is that Sweden hasn't implemented large scale social distancing, but they have. They also follow Government advisories voluntarily on a large scale it appears.

I concede that no one has perfected things, however South Korea, Singapore and Germany and a few others stand out , now not just in sheer numbers of tests per capita, but how quickly they did early testing and preparation. Germany with 84 million people in a much more urban country was more draconian than Sweden In their case, but again timing was everything. Here in the states , that crucial early testing was definitely not in place so it made it much harder to implement a measured and "balanced" approach that didn't cripple the economy. The Federal Government did not take the lead, rightly or wrongly, with ANY coherent plan or strategy.

 

[Moxie]

Preach!

People tend to love or hate NYers for not mincing words. This guy is brill.

 

[britbox]

People tend to love or hate NYers for not mincing words. This guy is brill.

Some good points in there... and the delivery was gold.

 

[Moxie]

I have tried to figure out what his issue was on the IMHE, and why Cali was pushing it so hard. Google it, and you get a fairly straightforward view of what is going on in the pandemic. However, google "IMHE failures," and you get Breitbart, The American Spectator, and otherwise the echo chamber of the far right. The "failure" of the IMHE model is a far-right talking point. We can, and we have talked about how we measure the actual impact of the pandemic. It's a very important conversation to have, and it will take years to sort out. But it seems pretty clear to me that downplaying the IMHE model is a political choice, not a scientific one.

 

[calitennis127]

I have tried to figure out what his issue was on the IMHE, and why Cali was pushing it so hard. Google it, and you get a fairly straightforward view of what is going on in the pandemic. However, google "IMHE failures," and you get Breitbart, The American Spectator, and otherwise the echo chamber of the far right.

Lol.....how in the hell is this a substantive argument against the claims of that so-called "echo chamber" (as if left-wing media in the U.S. is not an echo chamber)? Why don't you analyze the specifics of what the right-wing sources are saying and assess whether they are valid?

The "failure" of the IMHE model is a far-right talking point.

Oh okay.....then allow me to take a moment with some actual numbers to show you how that "far-right talking point" got started. It got started by simply following what the model was predicting and remembering it.

Let's start with New York: the IHME model predicted that on April 4th the state of New York would have 65,000 hospitalizations. But in reality New York had fewer than 16,000 hospitalizations. That means the IHME model was off by a factor of 4.

During the weekend of April 4th and 5th, the IHME revised its predictions downward, but was still wrong in state after state the following week. For example, it predicted after these revisions that on Tuesday April 7th New York would have 25,000 hospitalizations, but in reality it had a little under 17,500. It also said that in Florida there would be 4,000 people hospitalized on April 7th but in reality there were a little under 2,000.

In other words, the IHME model was off by a lot - even after being revised downward - and it has been the basis of policy nationwide.

But it seems pretty clear to me that downplaying the IMHE model is a political choice, not a scientific one.

Actually it's a mathematical and mnemonic choice, but nice job projecting. You are dismissing the IHME model's failures out of ignorance and, yes, political motivation. In your case, you are giving the IHME model credit precisely for political reasons.

I'm sorry that you have not been keeping track at all of the IHME's predictions versus the actual numbers. You may have wanted to look at them before dismissing critics who were paying attention to the IHME model when you were not. They simply tracked the model predictions versus the actual numbers and saw the difference.

 

[calitennis127]

This is a great video for Federberg, Moxie, and other people who say "Trump didn't act fast enough" or "Trump didn't listen to the experts." This video shows how dismissive NYC Democrats were of the coronavirus as a threat and it also shows how scattered and contradictory the advice from medical experts (including Dr. Fauci) has been:

What Exactly Did the Experts Say About the Coronavirus Outbreak? | Larry Elder

 

[brokenshoelace]

This is a great video for Federberg, Moxie, and other people who say "Trump didn't act fast enough" or "Trump didn't listen to the experts." This video shows how dismissive NYC Democrats were of the coronavirus as a threat and it also shows how scattered and contradictory the advice from medical experts (including Dr. Fauci) has been:

What Exactly Did the Experts Say About the Coronavirus Outbreak? | Larry Elder

Trump held rallies in March.

Please eat shit.

 

[brokenshoelace]

My favorite part is people being too dumb to understand a simple idea:

If you cry about an overreaction due to relatively low numbers (that are still the highest in the world and far more than you anticipated anyway), you might want to think that the numbers are this low in large part because you "overreacted."

That this needs to be explained is quite something, but then again, I'm talking to the same people protesting because they can't get a haircut and comparing lockdowns to concentration camps. Then again, racism and stupidity is pretty on brand so what can you do...

 

[brokenshoelace]

Lol.....what a clueless fucking moron. The Lebanese Elmer (aka Grabbag 45) doesn't even know that outside of major urban areas there is virtually no violent gun crime in the United States and its crime rates are either as low or lower than those of any other First World country.

It's 2020 and your meltdowns don't get old.

 

[calitennis127]

My favorite part is people being too dumb to understand a simple idea:

If you cry about an overreaction due to relatively low numbers (that are still the highest in the world and far more than you anticipated anyway), you might want to think that the numbers are this low in large part because you "overreacted."

It's always funny when someone thinks they are superior to others for defending the most cliché possible positions and repeating exactly what the authorities tell them to believe, especially if they pride themselves on being free-thinking atheists. Bwoken does not question authority but blindly follows it. Then again, no one will ever accuse him of sophistication in how he thinks.

Leaving aside the clear fraud going on with the CDC in inflating coronavirus death totals, the U.S. is 9th in per capita cases, even with the clearly inflated numbers. So no, the U.S. numbers are not the "highest in the world." And no, I never predicted a specific number of cases. The IMHE model from the University of Washington being used by the CDC, the NIH, and the Trump administration is what has had to adjust its predictions. And your conventional retort that "social distancing" worked is no excuse for why the model was off. The model originally stipulated that even with social distancing the number of deaths would be 200,000. It has since revised that number down 3 times, all the way to 60,000.

That this needs to be explained is quite something, but then again, I'm talking to the same people protesting because they can't get a haircut and comparing lockdowns to concentration camps. Then again, racism and stupidity is pretty on brand so what can you do...

Coming from a first-class moron who calls himself a "liberal." I am glad to see that you support the mayor of Michigan banning people from gardening, buying tomato seed, driving between two of their own properties, and boating on a lake. I am also happy to see that you support people being tracked with drones by a mayor in New Jersey and the mayor of New York City encouraging people to snitch on each other for being outside.

That's really "liberal." Super liberal. So tolerant. What freedom-loving, "liberal" people to support such policies.

It's funny to see all of the most hysterical projections not pan out with wide-open hospitals all over the United States, yet the people who made the hysterical projections somehow feel vindicated - and even independent-minded.

 

[Moxie]

Lol.....how in the hell is this a substantive argument against the claims of that so-called "echo chamber" (as if left-wing media in the U.S. is not an echo chamber)? Why don't you analyze the specifics of what the right-wing sources are saying and assess whether they are valid?



Oh okay.....then allow me to take a moment with some actual numbers to show you how that "far-right talking point" got started. It got started by simply following what the model was predicting and remembering it.

Let's start with New York: the IHME model predicted that on April 4th the state of New York would have 65,000 hospitalizations. But in reality New York had fewer than 16,000 hospitalizations. That means the IHME model was off by a factor of 4.

During the weekend of April 4th and 5th, the IHME revised its predictions downward, but was still wrong in state after state the following week. For example, it predicted after these revisions that on Tuesday April 7th New York would have 25,000 hospitalizations, but in reality it had a little under 17,500. It also said that in Florida there would be 4,000 people hospitalized on April 7th but in reality there were a little under 2,000.

In other words, the IHME model was off by a lot - even after being revised downward - and it has been the basis of policy nationwide.

I went back several pages to find your original post on the IHME, and, if I did find the first one, all you said was that it was a failure. No link. Then the rest has just been shouting and people and asking them if they even know what it is. If you did provide an original link, forgive me, but could you please post it again? Because I finally found this:

Influential Covid-19 model uses flawed methods and shouldn't guide U.S. policies, critics say

A widely followed model for projecting #coronavirus deaths in the U.S. is producing results that have been bouncing up and down like an unpredictable fever.

www.statnews.com

Which does corroborate what you're saying about the IHME model being flawed and shouldn't be used to guide policy. I absolutely conceded that. But it does, however, dive a bit more into the subtleties. It suggests that in some ways the modeling has projected too low, as well as too high. I think you've been using it as more of a bludgeon to suggest that it's ONLY too high, and our lock-down choices are poorly made for that reason.


"The chief reason the IHME projections worry some experts, Etzioni said, is that “the fact that they overshot” — initially projecting up to 240,000 U.S. deaths, compared with fewer than 70,000 now — “will be used to suggest that the government response prevented an even greater catastrophe, when in fact the predictions were shaky in the first place.”

That could produce misplaced confidence in the effectiveness of the social distancing policies, which in turn could produce complacency about what might be needed to keep the epidemic from blowing up again.

Believing, for instance, that measures well short of what China imposed in and around Wuhan prevented a four-fold higher death toll could be disastrous."
The chief reason the IHME projections worry some experts, Etzioni said, is that “the fact that they overshot” — initially projecting up to 240,000 U.S. deaths, compared with fewer than 70,000 now — “will be used to suggest that the government response prevented an even greater catastrophe, when in fact the predictions were shaky in the first place.”

 

[Moxie]

Actually it's a mathematical and mnemonic choice, but nice job projecting. You are dismissing the IHME model's failures out of ignorance and, yes, political motivation. In your case, you are giving the IHME model credit precisely for political reasons.

I'm not clear why you say "mnemonic." What memory device is involved? I didn't give the IHME model any particular credit. I was trying to get to the bottom of why you were dis-crediting it in every third post. You weren't that helpful, for your own part.

Leaving aside the clear fraud going on with the CDC in inflating coronavirus death totals, the U.S. is 9th in per capita cases, even with the clearly inflated numbers. So no, the U.S. numbers are not the "highest in the world." And no, I never predicted a specific number of cases. The IMHE model from the University of Washington being used by the CDC, the NIH, and the Trump administration is what has had to adjust its predictions. And your conventional retort that "social distancing" worked is no excuse for why the model was off. The model originally stipulated that even with social distancing the number of deaths would be 200,000. It has since revised that number down 3 times, all the way to 60,000.




It's funny to see all of the most hysterical projections not pan out with wide-open hospitals all over the United States, yet the people who made the hysterical projections somehow feel vindicated - and even independent-minded.

Leaving aside that the chart above is from 9 April, which is rather like 2 centuries ago in terms of the way this thing is moving, in raw numbers, we actually are leading the world in total cases in new cases and deaths. This is as of one hour ago:

Coronavirus Update (Live): 111,245,517 Cases and 2,463,614 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...

www.worldometers.info

I feel you're pushing the numbers around for some combination of making yourself look less wrong, and for Trump to come out better in all of this, but it's cynical, pretty denialist and insensitive to people's actual suffering. Like, for example, saying that hospitals are "wide-open," and posting videos of hospital workers having enough time to make a choreographed youtube video or two. Sure, this is a big country. The impact of the epidemic is not uniform. But, in doing so, you also make a mockery of healthcare workers who ARE over-worked, over-stretched, right in harm's way, and inadequately prepared with PPEs. This is your country, too, and you're minimizing the impact.

 

[Moxie]

Where Have All the Heart Attacks Gone?
Except for treating Covid-19, many hospitals seem to be eerily quiet.

Where Have All the Heart Attacks Gone? (Published 2020)

Except for treating Covid-19, many hospitals seem to be eerily quiet.

www.nytimes.com

I was just listening to This American Life, and an interview with an EMT. She said she saw a huge number of coronary deaths last week. That she had to say "Sorry for your loss" 37 times last week, meaning that they didn't get them out of the driveway. She said normally she doesn't say it 37 times in a year. This is anecdotal, of course. But what if, as the article suggests, that cardiac patients are waiting too long, out of fear of going into hospital? Some might be COVID deaths, but some might just have died out of fear of getting treatment earlier. I'm trying to be fair to your argument, that fear and panic is going to cause some death, too. It is going to be very hard to quantify cause of death in some many cases, in the US and globally, but I hope we can get to some scientific understanding, eventually, and not just keep fighting numbers, politically.

 

[calitennis127]

Leaving aside that the chart above is from 9 April, which is rather like 2 centuries ago in terms of the way this thing is moving, in raw numbers, we actually are leading the world in total cases in new cases and deaths. This is as of one hour ago:

Coronavirus Update (Live): 111,245,517 Cases and 2,463,614 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...

www.worldometers.info

You are, as always, talking out of both sides of your mouth. Whenever I have brought up Taiwan, Japan, and Sweden, you have dismissed their approach, saying they are "closed-off" countries or "closed" societies. Presumably what you mean is that they don't take in immigrants and international travelers and exchange students at the same rate as the United States, and that their societies are less diverse, so in your mind their approaches and their standards don't measure up to those of the United States. Yet, when we talk about number of cases and deaths in absolute terms, you talk as though the United States is exactly on the same playing field as every other country and should be judged by the same standard.

Well which is it?

If we are going by per capita numbers and mortality rate, the U.S. measures up very well, as my chart from April 9th shows.

I feel you're pushing the numbers around for some combination of making yourself look less wrong, and for Trump to come out better in all of this, but it's cynical, pretty denialist and insensitive to people's actual suffering.

Lol.....I was not wrong about anything. I never made any specific predictions about what the numbers would be. The IHME model did that and its predictions have had to be revised downward 3 times. It stipulated that even with social distancing, the U.S. was going to experience upwards of 200,000 deaths. So this excuse that social distancing brought the numbers down is utter bullshit. The IHME model said that 200,000+ deaths was the best-case scenario for the U.S., even with social distancing precautions. And it was on that basis that government officials have flattened the economy with nationwide shutdowns.

The only concession that I made was that the outbreak was worse in New York City than I anticipated, but that makes me no different than Gov. Cuomo, Mayor De Blasio, or Oxiris Barbot and the numerous other NYC Democrats who said in February and March that New Yorkers had nothing to worry about. So why are you holding me accountable and not them? Oh right, I forgot. They're Democrats so they can always be forgiven and their motives are always pure.

The reality is that in most of the country there has been either no outbreak or numbers so minimal that they mean nothing (e.g. 4600 total cases in Wisconsin). Numbers like that for any other disease under normal circumstances would only be of interest to epidemiologists and medical students looking at the CDC website. In the big picture of the entire United States, my skepticism has been validated. And even in New York City, I am of the belief that the CDC has promoted fraud in its loose standards for reporting deaths as COVID-caused. I anticipate that in the coming months there will be reports on this and the actual death count will be revised downward in NYC and other places.

Like, for example, saying that hospitals are "wide-open," and posting videos of hospital workers having enough time to make a choreographed youtube video or two.

That isn't the only evidence that most hospitals are wide open. Congress is bailing out hospitals because they're going bankrupt for a lack of patients. Most hospitals in the United States look like the ones with healthcare workers standing around and dancing.

Sure, this is a big country. The impact of the epidemic is not uniform.

Right, and the NYC hospitals that are actually busy are in the small minority of such hospitals across the country. Most hospitals in the U.S. have situations closer to that of this medical center in Boston than the very few hospitals in NYC that are overcrowded:

Boston Medical Center furloughs 700 staffers, cites revenue loss of $5M per week

Boston Medical Center furloughs 700 staffers, cites revenue loss of $5M per week

Boston Medical Center is furloughing 700 staff members, or 10 percent of its workforce, due to financial losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Boston Globe.

www.beckershospitalreview.com