bigjoey

@stevenkesslar: If you had bothered to actually read and comprehend what I have posted and articles that I have linked, your questions have been answered. I have quoted statistics. You only see things through the lens of your bias and distortions of reality. No matter what the subject, you only see your side of the argument and the virtue signaling of your self-righteousness has grown tiresome. Your distortions of facts, strawman arguments, cherry-picked statistics, bullying, repetitive postings, lies, etc. do not lend themselves to an honest discussion. You ignore what does not fit your world view. When you are challenged, you simply ignore the challenge when you can not justify your stance. Sorry, I will not engage with you until you change your behavior. My posts are clear. They are fact supported.

Great article on “lockdowns” and “herd immunity”: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/plague-journal-herd-immunity-doidge It explains why we will get a second and third wave of infection. It exposes the dangers of “group think” which seems to be where we are as a society.

Focusing on the macro numbers for the United States or a city like NYC obscure what is happening on a micro level. For example, in a post above, one senior living home out of about 150 in my county accounts for half the fatalities from Covid19; the others managed to have no or minimal deaths because of better management and use of best practices. The Wall Street Journal had a story on one university that did not send its students home after Spring break: The Education of Jerry Falwell Jr. The story is behind a firewall but for non-subscribers a summary: 1-when Jerry Falwell announced that students could return to campus after Spring break or continue the semester on line, 1,200 students returned to campus. 2-media response was hysterical. Daily Beast quoting a doctor “If Liberty University reopens, people will die.” The NY Times headlined “Liberty University Brings Back Its Students, and Coronavirus, too.” Paul Krugman wrote that Mr Falwell “seems to have created his own personal viral hot spot.” Washington Post headlined “An authoritarianism power structure brought coronavirus to Liberty University.” 3-false facts of reports of infections were in the media such as The NY Times and Financial Times which had to be retracted. 4-results at the end of the school year: no infections of students or employees on campus. For students who were online and employees working remotely off campus none had their infections traced back to campus. 5-critics of Falwell’s political and religious convictions allowed bias that to distract them from the question whether Liberty University behaved responsibly. 6-the story tells of what the University did to protect students and that two surprise visits from state health inspectors found no violations. The story details those best practices. As other universities decide what to do, they should look at what was successful, understand why and copy the things that worked. This is not about Falwell’s beliefs on evolution, politics or religion but about what was successful in protecting students and employees. Last I read, the California University system was not going to allow students to resume campus classes in the Fall. This will only add to the collateral damage of the pandemic by harming the education of tens of thousands of young people. This is the result of the pandemic of fear the media is spreading. People can have a “normal” life but like Falwell’s campus, it needs to be done smartly. Like the well managed senior facilities, there do not have to be fatalities. Unfortunately, people do stupid things and some will not follow best practices; their lives will be shorter and tragically they will kill others; think: drunk drivers who kill thousands of people besides themselves. Society often cleans up the messes made by people making bad choices. By the way, the Falwell story’s happy ending has so far not produced any mea culpas from The NY Times, Paul Krugman and the other wrong prophets of death and doom. There were retractions of wrong facts like reports of infected students but no stories from those sources of being wrong in their predictions. The story about how Liberty University was treated in the media is an illustration of media hysteria generating a pandemic of fear rather than focusing on best practices that need to be adopted. The Wall Street Journal story ends: “In a part of his early statements on Liberty’s reopening that received almost no attention, Mr. Falwell said in its handling of coronavirus Liberty would prove a ‘model’ for others. Would it kill the critics so quick to paint Mr. Falwell as the Grim Reaper to acknowledge, if only in the name of science, Liberty’s experience might have something to teach them?”

I think there is much to that: the Boomer’s fear of death is driving their responses. After thinking about that, another factor may be that Boomers (and younger people) are more secular than previous generations. Just my general observation (but I welcome someone posting research) is that deeply religious people are more accepting of death and human mortality than non-believers.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a story focused on nursing homes and how to prepare them for the second and third Covid19 waves that are expected: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/prepare-nursing-homes-for-the-next-coronavirus-wave-11589927449 This is behind a firewall and for those who do not have access some key points: 1-while nursing home residents make up less than 1% of the US population, they count for about half the Covid19 deaths (some states are more like Minnesota 81%, Pennsylvania 77%). 2-shutting down the economy did not prevent these deaths as nursing home residents were already pretty much staying “home”. 3-while the focus on the pandemic was hospital/ICU centered, states and the federal governments (like they did in Sweden),pretty much ignored nursing homes (the article gives examples) until it was too late. 4-even in normal times, the CDC says 380,000 residents of long term care facilities die each year from infections. Lax standards are all too normal (the article gives examples). That 1% of the population has 380,000 deaths from preventable infections puts the Covid19 pandemic in perspective when shutting down the entire economy. 5-in total, it seems that about 51-53% of Covid19 deaths are nursing home residents. It becomes clear that the complete shutdown which has physical, emotional, educational and economic collateral damage was not necessary. A common sense approach closing crowded venues, emphasizing hand washing, physical distancing, etc while more rigorous infection control at long term care facilities would have cut the death toll substantially. Think about it a moment: the CDC gives the statistic that infections in long term care facilities due to lax standards kill 380,000 residents each year. Where is the outcry and hysteria over this yearly total? This is a huge scandal but the media which is creating a pandemic of fear ignores these 380,000 preventable deaths.

Yes, vets have problems that differ from the population at large and solutions to help require unique responses. While we talk in universal terms and the statistics give are macro ones covering the entire population, solutions are often at the micro level.

Not sure where you get the idea that today’s Sweden is held up as a “socialist dystopia.” Sweden long ago dumped much of its socialist dystopian ideas: they ended their wealth tax, the ended their estate tax, they lowered their corporate tax rate (to about where Trump lowered ours), they privatized some nationalized businesses and they even moved away from a total government run healthcare system and now have some private healthcare. Sweden was pragmatic and when the socialist ideas didn’t work, they moved back towards a more balanced tax structure and economy.

If done properly, seniors living in senior living facilities can be protected. As Anders Tegnall in Sweden admitted, it is in the execution of actions that Sweden made its mistake concerning senior facilities. Actions taken tells much of the tale in the difference in the statistics. For example, part of the huge difference in deaths in nursing facilities between NY and Florida can be attributed to NY mandating that nursing homes take residents with Covid19 while Florida did not. I live in Johnson County, Kansas. In 2019, the population was 602,401. There are about 150 senior living facilities housing about 20,000 residents. Here is how they are doing with deaths in this pandemic: https://public.tableau.com/profile/mapper.of.the.day.mod.#!/vizhome/shared/558GFDZKM There are 28 deaths in 7 facilities; a closer look shows 14 deaths at one facility! Half of the Covid19 deaths from one facility tells the tale: bad management and bad practices can kill. This means that the other facilities are doing things right so that deaths are none or minimal. If best practices are followed, there does not need to be mass deaths of seniors. We know what to do, it is just a matter of following through. Like everything else, there are badly run places and well run places be it restaurants or senior facilities; strict government licensing and inspections need to weed out the bad providers (most places publish the restaurant inspection reports and which ones get closed down). Over the years, local senior facilities have been closed down for poor inspections. FULL DISCLOSURE: the Brighton Gardens facility with the 14 deaths is 8 blocks down the street from my home! When my next door neighbor broke her hip and needed a temporary nursing facility during rehab, her husband and son looked at Brighton Gardens because it was so close. When they saw poorly trained staff, they chose the facility where I volunteer and loved the place because of the caring staff. Bottom line: at Brighton Gardens, the staff and management was poor years ago and from the deaths there, it is still poor. Just because excellence in providing quality care for seniors is hard work, that does not mean it can’t be done. There are wonderful, caring staff in nursing homes that can and do provide great care. Staff can provide protection during this pandemic.

Typical Steven post that is verbose, repetitive and misleading. For example, Sweden’s Anders Tegnall did not say that his policy was wrong as Steven implies in his cleverly worded post to give that impression He has admitted errors in execution: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8273237/amp/Swedens-virologist-admits-little-protect-elderly.html Steven fails to point out why Sweden’s economy is being hard hit like other European countries: the global economy is affecting its exports as well as its manufacturing supply chain. The global economy is affecting tourism. However, the small local businesses like stores, restaurants, bars, etc are not taking the wipe-out hit that other places with a total lock down have seen. Economic, physical and emotional health as well as education are important and that is what Sweden is recognizing. If Tegnall is correct, in the long term if Sweden avoids the second and third waves of the virus due to herd immunity, the way Sweden is handling this will be successful. That assessment will need to wait until history is written looking backwards.

Normally, I have a woman come twice a month. I am paying her since March and told her to stay home She has worked for me many years and we have a good relationship. When I go to California for the Summer, I have always payed her those months when I am not here. Same when I travel.

Interesting statistic that 75% of deaths were in nursing homes and seniors with home care. That shows that if the vulnerable population had been properly protected, the death rate would have been substantially lower. With that lower death rate, the fear generated about the virus would have been less and most likely, we would not have seen the extreme government measures taken. Even factoring in the “elderly-elderly” deaths, Sweden is sort of in the middle of the pack of European death rates behind Spain and Italy. As the article notes, the final numbers will be determined in the future but one thing is currently clear: Sweden kept its death rate in the middle of Europe’s countries BUT they did so without the physical, emotional and economic damage that other European countries suffered. The key was “balance”.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. News should not be rejected out-of-hand just because of the source. I think it is possible that governments panicked when they saw what was happening in Italy and did not question the modeling of the pandemic. For the drastic measures taken, there should have been a harder look at the model. The story is not as crazy as it seems.

The lockdown frustrates Snoop Dog: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=569450890377556

While this was already posted in another thread, it is an important read: how do pandemics end. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/coronavirus-deaths-cases.amp.html It seems pandemics end when people decide they end. The opening up of the lockdowns is being forced on the various governments. People wanting to go to the beaches or out to bars or casinos. Watch for changes in a few different indexes such as the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (which has started rising) and different economic indexes. These changes will give numbers reflecting people deciding the pandemic is over. Ending lockdowns does not mean no longer protecting the vulnerable and elderly. It does not mean that you can not make personal decisions on your own behavior. This does not mean that people will stop dying. It means that people will decide to live with the risk of something that will be part of our lives like the annual flu which kills tens of thousands of people per year or high speeds on our interstate highways that kills tens of thousands of people. People acting jointly will balance the risk of dying with the collateral lockdown damage to physical health, emotional well being and the economy. Every life is important and every death is tragic but living involves risk balancing. For better or worse, people are voting with their feet for the risk balance they want and how they want to live.

Any spike in cases (factoring out increased testing which will find more cases) will only be seen at the end of the incubation period. For the states just opening today, we need to wait to see the results.

Interesting factoid: Stocking items on a retail shelf in cut-open boxes is called PDQ Master Packing. It was developed by WalMart to speed up stocking shelves. PDQ stands for “Pretty Dam Quick.”

I said “in some areas” more tests are available than people wanting tests. The article said that describes the situation in about a dozen states. The article says it is not universal and some areas are short of supplies.

Now everything seems fine?

New problem: in some areas, more tests available than people wanting to be tested: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/as-coronavirus-testing-expands-a-new-problem-arises-not-enough-people-to-test/2020/05/17/3f3297de-8bcd-11ea-8ac1-bfb250876b7a_story.html

Moves very slow with the upgrade. Not good.

Watch mostly “older people” who seem to lean on the heavy side go into recently opened casinos. The casinos have placed plastic partitions between the slot machines and plastic partitions on blackjack tables. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/lines-form-crowd-cheers-for-reopening-of-arizona-casino-friday-2028865/amp/ As the saying goes: no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public”??

It is a question what will happen with access.

The better senior living places like where I volunteer have a social worker on staff to help families with transitioning. In our case, she educates families about different options. Even without a social worker on staff, in many places government agencies serve that function. However, in times of extreme emergencies, you just have to learn on the fly what to do. You do not have a choice: “big boy pants” or risk the life of your loved one. For the people whose loved one is in a poorly run skilled nursing facility and they become aware of what is happening, the choice becomes to leave the loved one in a place where they may have a good chance of dying or to find other accommodations. Yes, there will be some people frozen with fear and just can not act; I have seen many people over the years who just can not make decisions on anything, yet alone moving someone out of a facility. It is never easy. It was most likely not easy to put the person in a nursing home in the first place. Moving into a nursing home is usually not a move of choice but necessity. Hopefully, what the family learned with the move of the loved one into the facility the first time, will be if use to them for the second move.

Not really. Many senior living centers and skilled nursing homes have protocols for new residents. Those protocols may call for testing and isolation until it is considered safe to place new residents in a permanent room.

Correct: there are no easy answers. I had a friend who had to put her mother in a skilled nursing facility over an hour away in the next county because she could not find a local bed here in Kansas City. Correct that home care may not be doable. My father was a wise man who said: “I would rather be young, rich and healthy than old, poor and sick.”???