Calm down and think for yourself; One can make a case for practically anything, by playing around with evidence, numbers, analysis and language.

One of the offshoots of being on the debate team in college, taking graduate level statistics as part of my masters and working as a lawyer, is an awareness of how one can make a case for practically anything, by playing around with evidence, numbers, analysis and language.

Coronavirus is a world-wide pandemic and should be taken seriously. But the crisis should not be taken advantage of, nor should politicians manipulate definitions, data and diagnoses to achieve political aims.

Getting Down to Cases

There is no such thing as a “case" of COVID-19. According to Merriam-Webster a “case” in medical terms is an instance of a disease or injury. “Cases” are subdivided for public health surveillance by the CDC into the following categories: confirmed, laboratory-confirmed, clinically compatible, etc.

COVID-19 is not a disease; COVID-19 is a family of viruses that may or may not cause illnesses such as the common cold, severe acute respiratory syndrome, etc.

It is reported that of the 1,133,453 "cases" of COVID-19 worldwide 80.9% are mild and can recover at home.

Thus, 80% of the reported “cases” of COVID-19 aren't "confirmed cases" at all under the above definitions. They include people tested positive (laboratory-confirmed) or (to use New York's creativity) people with symptoms that match known cases (clinically comparable).

What's news?

When the "news" reports new "cases" of COVID-19, thinking people should be skeptical about exactly what they are being told. For example, the now famous headline about the aircraft carrier where the Captain was sacked for raising alarm about "cases" of COVID-19 on his ship. The truth: 100 crewmen tested positive - with zero "cases" hospitalized -- on a ship of 5000.

I think many people are smug in their positions...retired on fat govt pensions, in a govt job without any drop in pay or benefits, etc....for them, destroying our economy is just a little diversion, a little bit of arrogance..

..I can't think of any other reason for freepers to give up so much freedom that will greatly harm all other freepers and millions upon millions in America....

if you're in a risk group, stay home, wear a mask if you must go out.

why did govt instead force the whole country to isolate and shut down when the vulnerable should have been the ones isolated...that would include me.

When the "news" reports new "cases" of COVID-19, thinking people should be skeptical about exactly what they are being told. For example, the now famous headline about the aircraft carrier where the Captain was sacked for raising the alarm about "cases" of COVID-19 on his ship. The truth: 100 crewmen tested positive - with zero "cases" hospitalized -- on a ship of 5000.

Yo, bert.

Models, statistics, liars, lawyers and small shark humpers.

Just apologize for humping Rush's leg, admit you made a mistake, and it will all be over.

FYI.

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.

but the "it's exponential bro" types are just as annoying..and wrong.

I got called a liar for daring to suggest that looking at next Friday's (yesterday 4/3) to see if TigerClaws' predicted number of 1,000,000 for that day was correct.

It wasn't, we passed a million the day before.

Perhaps cp124 would be willing to explain why asking him/her/it to check the actual data on a future date makes me a liar, he/she/it wasn't willing to at the time.

Maybe even MNJohnnie can chip in again and poo-poo last week's estimate for 2,000,000 cases next Friday? Or who knows? Maybe even apologize to TigerClaws for daring to call the last week, or not, since she was a day optimistic...

if you're in a risk group, stay home, wear a mask if you must go out.

why did govt instead force the whole country to isolate and shut down when the vulnerable should have been the ones isolated...that would include me.

Agreed. Let those at minimal risk live their normal lives, EXCEPT avoiding contact for those at high risk.

I have a cousin who lets her daughter take the dog over to play with Grandma and Grandpa. She drops the dog off, doesn't go in, and picks it up on the doorstep when they'd had as much as they can tolerate. Having some oggie time really brightens their day!

As to the nully hacienda? We're high risk, we started hunkering down way back on Feb 3^rd. Smith's does curbside pick up, and that's about it for excursions. On the few occasions where that doesn't cover it, it's masks and hand sanitizer.

President Trump has either hired or caused to be hired literally thousands of people.

It is like hitting that baseball. No one bats 1000.

You hire many and you fire a lot. The real problem is that our government structure makes it too hard to fire.

Partly due to civil service laws and rules, partly due to the opposition from dims and partly due to the liberal news media.

President Trump is on more favorable ground to fire than he was only a few months ago.

Expect many more.

If I'm charitable, we are trying to find out what side is up. Intellectual challenge and the marketplace of ideas is what makes America great. This is a real-time opportunity to see if our theories hold up.

But just like we bash leftist snowflake academics who can't take the heat of classical liberal ideas, it is imperative that we dispense - and take - our own medicine. The demolition derby peer-review of FR isn't for the faint-hearted, but it WORKS.

I admit I underestimated the confirmed case numbers in the US. But in doing so publicly, and in reading FR research, I came to realize that bold action is needed to snuff out the virus AND THE FEAR. I'm still not convinced vaporizing the service sector is a great idea (i.e, exponential), but I also recognize that taxing the greatest healthcare system on the planet isn't a trivial cost to something that is "just the flu, bro."

If you're wrong, man up and refine your models/analysis/theories. The simpletons will laugh, but the thoughtful FReeper researchers will appreciate the honesty. The truth IS important, not pride, and a nation of service workers starving to return to work and not take govt assistance hang in the balance. As Ayn Rand would say, check your premise; as Alice in Chains would say, Check My Brain.

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