I believe the supposedly highly vaunted University of Washington and Imperial College numbers told the Corona Virus task force to expect 2,000,000 deaths without mitigation and 200,000 with strong mitigation. I believe the University of Washington numbers now say around 50,000 deaths. These modelers scared the world out of their wits as well as the economy and everyone's mental state. The usual suspects are venting their anger at President Trump for trying to rescue us from a Great Depression and once again leaving the Communist Chinese perpetrators off the hook. Gordon Chang has been telling us about this problem when the World Health Organization was saying nothing to see here. https://twitter.com/GordonGChang?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7...

I have said it before and I will say it again, these types of numbers are what's driving the Alex Berenson phenomena. https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7...

I mean this guy is hardly a conservative hero, a former NY Times writer who makes no bones about it the fact that he is no conservative. I mean the political implications of this will be debated for years to come and so will the economic impact. One thing is for sure, you can't call wolf twice, people aren't going to believe it again. I hope the vaccine is one that can cover the entire panoply of Corona/Sars types viruses so we don't ever have to deal with anything like this again.

One more thing, I saw some clip from February of the media pundits rolling on the floor with laughter when Senator Cotton proposed that the virus might have escaped from the Wuhan Virology lab last fall, due to unsafe practices. Now that the Washington Post and others are picking up where Fox News left with regard to the reporting that this indeed is a possibility. The Wuhan Virology lab was working on this virus and the horseshoe bat is not sold in the Wuhan Wet Market, and doesn't live within 700 miles of the city. I am not holding my breath waiting to hear the MSNBC gang's apology to Senator Cotton. The Left is once again showing their true colors, harder on conservatives than they are Communist China.

Fascinating that as the country takes the needed measures for distancing and thus flattening the curve and reducing the cases and deaths that we were targeted to have - the cry from some is "50,000" deaths, we did all this for 50,000 deaths - that's flu numbers. About as absurd a view as Dr. Phil comparing it to pool deaths.

I have heard Dr. Fauci tell us more than once that the death rates are the last to go down. Hospitalizations in NYC are way down, and we already have a ventilator surplus. The hospital ship and the Javits Center in NYC are practically empty. Maybe the TV and internet signal to your bunker is being scrambled. Get out and breath some fresh air, it might be a little chilly, but it would do you well. Governor Cuomo hasn't ruled out opening up NYC's schools before the end of the school year. Sweden's numbers are on par for a normal flu year death rate and the bars and restaurants never did close.

It is natural for people to be scared, but one day people will be very angry over the true perpetrators of all of this. Yet instead of the Chinese Communist Party, the Left vents it's anger on it's one time friends; Michigan Democratic legislator Karen Whitsett, Dr. Oz and Dr Phil. It was the #1 topic on Twitter at one point yesterday. What was their crime? Appearing on Fox News trying to reassure people by saying we need to slowly open up, and singing the praises of certain experimental drugs that have proven to be effective.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/trump-meets-michigan-democr... /

Some real profiles in courage on the board the last few days. We have had everyone mocked from President Trump, Dr. Phil, waitresses, bartenders, hair stylists, small businessman, you name it except the people who started all of this, the Chinese Communist rulers. Why would that be? I mean think about it, what a place to live for a Leftist. You can become fairly wealthy, because it is a lot more capitalistic than many European countries, there's no conservative media, you don't have to deal with any public displays of religious faith. This is a Leftist's dream. They tolerate no dissent in their "wink wink" Socialist Paradise!

No. I support him. On this web site, his opinion has the same value as yours.

No, I don't pretend. You are offensive. Anyone honest would admit that. You are not.

Sorry you're offended. I honestly have no idea what you found so offensive about my last autoerotic asphyxiation joke. I thought it was a funny example, and very specifically told you in the very same post that it was a joke and didn't wish you any ill will. What was so offensive about it, exactly? It was literally being used as an example of something that wasn't true.

It was 24 hours ago. What did they say and who said it? Nothing on the internet's ever gone. You tell me who said it and roughly what they said, and I'll find the post.

And I see you're still avoiding my question. That's always the sign of a very strong, logical argument when you avoid the same direct question 6 times in favor of accusing others of loving Communist China more than they love America.

It got deleted. I don't know why.

Very genuinely, I didn't mean that to be offensive. It was intended to be a funny example. We were debating Trump's lies, particularly one around 2 million confirmed illegal votes in California. My point was that we could confirm whether that number was indeed true, and therefore make a determination. You replied to say something to the effect of "well, we don't know how many illegal votes there were."

The joke I was making was that by your logic I could make up anything about you -- even if it wasn't true -- and, by your logic, I could claim it's not a lie until we know for sure. It was very clear I was saying it wasn't true, and in the very same sentence I said "To be clear, this is just a joke and I hope you never die so we can continue having our fun little chats here." That was genuine.

While you hate me and are offended by me, I actually have a lot of fun debating you here. That's why I'm always willing to do it. I've said it before, but this place is a rare place that brings together people of wildly different backgrounds and beliefs, and as such I find it a particularly interesting place to talk politics/social issues. Does it get heated? Of course -- we're talking politics and social issues. But do I hold any lingering ill will or bad feelings towards you? Of course not. You seem like a decent enough dude and more often than not we come to some sort of begrudging stalemate.

I would agree death rate is the last to go down because most aren't met with death the same day they are diagnosed although some unfortunately have. That's not exactly a hard concept to grasp. Cases aren't going down yet so we should not expect deaths to go down yet and in fact they may still be climbing. If the death toll per day is even flat for a week we're at 50k. The ramp down will be very gradual so that number is going to be much higher by the time we're out of the woods unless there is a major medical breakthrough. 100K is a very real possibility and I'm starting to think an eventuality.

Plenty of fresh air where I'm at so all good there, thanks for the tip. There's no fear in going out for a walk with the kids. We take the recommended precautions and still enjoy ourselves.

On your point about Sweden...they have a death per million value of 2.34 times Denmark, 4.53 Norway, and 9.06 times Finland, all their immediate neighbors. But oh boy can they go get a beer when they want! I'm sure the families that lost loved ones are comforted by that. A great quote from an article I read on the topic...."Others who may be tempted by the “Swedish model” should understand that a defining feature of it is a higher death toll."

I'd rather be personally inconvenienced than have unnecessary loss of life to any of my fellow countrymen. My understanding of your position is your personal freedom to do whatever you want is more important than someone's life. That's truly sad. If I have that wrong I apologize but your continued comments on the subject make it hard to conclude anything but that.

Even if the study cited there is correct, and I hope it is, it still shows only 3% of the people have been exposed. With SARS-COV2 as contagious as it is, herd immunity will only kick in once 60-80% of the people have been infected. That means we are only about 1/25 of the way there. With 31,631 dead so far, that would translate to 790,000 dead. That's a lot better than 2 million, but it's not just a "normal flu". The normal flu killed 24,000 this year, in a full year, while Covid19 is now killing 1/10 that in a single day. They are not remotely close.


Yes, Alan, I recognize that you may have higher absolute case numbers even with a lower percentage, but it's the percentage you have to focus on. If the percentage keeps going down, the absolute numbers will follow.


I can't comment on Arkansas, Iowa, or Oklahoma, but I am aware of what happened in Nebraska and South Dakota. In neither case was the spike in cases related to the governmental policy. In both cases the spike was caused by a huge number of cases in meat packing plants. Since food is considered essential, for some reason, even if there was a full stay at home order in place in both states, the meat packing plants would have been open.

The Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls employs 37,000 people, and as of when they closed, accounted for over 40% of the Covid cases in the entire state of South Dakota. It has been closed indefinitely, which will stop the spread, but it will most likely lead to food shortages if it continues. That single massive plant produces an incredible 130 million servings of food per week. In a year they produce 6.8 billion food servings, 20 servings of food for every person in the United States. You might want to buy some extra pork products to put in your freezer while it is still available. To put it differently, if it remains closed, you can plan on eating 20 less servings of food over the next year.

Grand Island, Nebraska had a similar spike, finding about 200 cases in a meat packing plant there. It seems that in the cold dry air inside a meat packing plant the virus spreads very, very easily. It would be crazy to make a stay at home order apply to food processors. I don't know, however, if the food processors in Grand Island have all been closed. Just as we continue to need medical facilities to stay open, we all continue to need food.

I would add that while I do know what caused the spike in South Dakota and Nebraska, I don't know what caused the spikes in the other states that had high case growth rate. Not all the states with high case growth rate were states without stay at home orders. What about Rhode Island, with 107% growth, or Delaware with 75%, or Virginia and Maryland, both with 66% increases?

Rather than thinking in the negative, how about looking at things from a positive perspective. Nebraska, with the exception of the meat packing plant, has steadily reduced case growth, from >20% a day to 6% a day, and less in the big cities. That should provide some hope that the economies in states that are fully closed can open up a little bit, and still not see a massive resurgence of cases.

Here's an article about some of the disruptions in food processing:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/04/16/coronavir... /

I have seen some bizarre numbers, but I have not dug into why. For example, in New Jersey, they have 50% positive results, indicating severe undertesting. In Nebraska, they only do about 500-700 tests a day, and I think they should do more, but they only get about 15% positives on most days. Thankfully, in my county we typically only run 2% positive. I've also looked at Washington state. On average they get about 1-2% positive, but on Wednesday this week they added the results for about 28,000 tests, jumping from 62,283 total tests to 89,993 in a single day. Then, on Thursday they were back down to 3200 tests, a more plausible number.

To me the more telling numbers are the percentage positive, and the number who die or are hospitalized. The higher they are, the more you suspect under-testing. If a state has a 1% positive percentage, and a low hospitalization and death ratio, you can be pretty sure they have it under control. If a state, such as New Jersey, is high in both, you can be pretty sure they aren't doing nearly enough tests.