Does anyone have the virus?

[Norm2953]

I keep thinking how this virus is going to impact the sports world if teams can only sell to perhaps a
third of capacity if social distancing is mandatory. Fans will have to wear masks and possibly heat
scans for fans entering the arenas would be necessary after the games with fans begin and the
economics of the sports world will have to change for who can afford to pay the CJ's of the world
if they can only sell to a third of capacity for the foreseeable future?

Needless to say, the Dame's of the world will continue to be paid..

[PDXKnight]

If these numbers are accurate our death rate is far far lower and the shutdowns need to end.

Just ignore the massive numbers of people who had serious enough complications that it overwhelmed the health care systems or that they are still finding out new things about it, such as it causing blood clotting and strokes in young people.

I’m not ignoring the numbers but I feel you jumped the gun to assume I’m ignoring the implications of this virus. But no need to implement such strict restrictions if these numbers are accurate no?

All I’m saying is we need to do more research rather than instantly assume incurring 30 percent unemployment is necessary and essential to our survival. I’d contend social distancing alone is plenty to avoid the so called hospital overloads they were worried about. NYC took a very loose stance in the beginning that’s why it took off there

[DeBlazerRiddem]

If these numbers are accurate our death rate is far far lower and the shutdowns need to end.

Just ignore the massive numbers of people who had serious enough complications that it overwhelmed the health care systems or that they are still finding out new things about it, such as it causing blood clotting and strokes in young people.

I’m not ignoring the numbers but I feel you jumped the gun to assume I’m ignoring the implications of this virus. But no need to implement such strict restrictions if these numbers are accurate no?

All I’m saying is we need to do more research rather than instantly assume incurring 30 percent unemployment is necessary and essential to our survival. I’d contend social distancing alone is plenty to avoid the so called hospital overloads they were worried about. NYC took a very loose stance in the beginning that’s why it took off there

My point was death rate is not the relevant factor. How many people require critical care vs the amount of people that can receive critical care is the relevant relationship here and facts were that without self-quarantining places were getting overwhelmed.

But these people are not just instantly assuming. They are experts who have devoted their careers to understanding pandemics. I don't know when listening to the experts became controversial but somehow in 2020 we have anti-vax, flat earther, climate change deniers.

You say that you think social distancing alone is enough, but what is that based on? Do you actually think you have the expertise and knowledge to be making national public health policy? Maybe you are Anthony Fauci in disguise...

When you advocate things like revoking quarantine, how are you sure you haven't been suckered by the rhetoric of corporations that are willing to sacrifice your grandma to meet next quarters profit goals? There are lots of people who are losing money from this that will lie and spread propaganda to convince others that all this is unnecessary. So who do you believe, academics with nothing to gain by telling you to stay home or corporations with everything to gain?

Personally I think its self-evident which group has preserving the public health as their main motivation. This disease is more complicated than the flu, the evidence recently about it causing blood clotting is scary because scientists do not really understand why or how it is causing that, as it is not seen (as far as I understand) in other human coronaviruses.

Things like that should really cause us all to err on the side of caution!

[d-train]

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-cuomo-coronavirus-stats-20200506-eyqui4b5lfdn7g6cqswkf6otly-story.html

So, the majority of coronavirus patients are unemployed, retired, and stayed-at-home. The new advice (from Cuomo) is to stay safe by taking mass transportation to work.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-cuomo-coronavirus-stats-20200506-eyqui4b5lfdn7g6cqswkf6otly-story.html

So, the majority of coronavirus patients are unemployed, retired, and stayed-at-home. The new advice (from Cuomo) is to stay safe by taking mass transportation to work.

It makes me think of the quote: there's lies, damn lies and statistics. This is what I am talking about the corporate economic agenda urging us to go back to work. And I want to be clear before I don my tin-foil hat and cast doubt at these conclusions that eventually it will be safe to go back to work and reopen the economy so these numbers could very well be the front edge of that.

OK so everywhere is pushing this same headline today (which is a tad suspicious) and its based on one 1000 person study, but a relevant data point is how many people were staying at home versus going to work and I cannot find that number being presented.

If 80% of people were staying at home, and 60% of the coronavirus cases were people who were staying at home, then going to work is twice as likely to cause infection. And that is in one of the most densely packed cities in America where people who are staying home are still living shoulder to shoulder, so would the results change in other areas of America? Cuomo said the survey results were 'surprising' but showed people were not making the right personal choices even when at home.

Another potential factor to discuss is this is hospitalizations, so severe cases, and we know that younger healthier people are both less likely to get severe symptoms and more likely to work in essential fields. If the most at risk population for developing severe symptoms overwhelmingly stayed home then that could misrepresent the data on severe infections as well.

But no one is analyzing the numbers like that, all the media outlets are pushing this 66% to advance the agenda that its safe to go back to work. Which, it totally might be and let me emphasize that possibility. But I find it suspicious that all the major media outlets are touting this same headline without analyzing the numbers I am interested in knowing. Because it looks to me like they took the most optimistic possible interpretation of this data and ran with it, which is frankly irresponsible.

But maybe I've just become too jaded and cynical about the nature of mass media in America.

OK as an example of how statistics can be liars, one site says:
"Most hospital admissions, 66%, are people coming from their homes, compared to 18% of people coming from nursing homes."

OK great, so working from home is way more dangerous than nursing homes!

Population of New Yorkers in nursing homes: ~100k. Population of New York: ~8.4 million. So what they are really saying is that 1.1% of the population represent 18% of covid cases, which is a VERY different interpretation than the original statistic presented. Both numbers are legit but how they are presented tells two very different stories. So I have to ask myself why that obviously relevant data was not discussed?

Knowing how easy is to manipulate statistics to give the answer you want, why are the number being sliced in this particular way? People see statistics and assume same or similar underlying populations but when you just report on percentages you hide the N population. If those N populations are very different then your statistical percentage may be useless.

To make basketball analogy about how percentage-only stats can be liars, its like someone seeing that Damian shoots his highest 3 point percentage from 35-39 feet and asking why he doesn't take all his shots from there. If you just present percentages like everything else is equal it hides that he only takes a few shots from there and they are generally more open than his other shots, in essence that they are not equal.

[PDXKnight]

Just ignore the massive numbers of people who had serious enough complications that it overwhelmed the health care systems or that they are still finding out new things about it, such as it causing blood clotting and strokes in young people.

I’m not ignoring the numbers but I feel you jumped the gun to assume I’m ignoring the implications of this virus. But no need to implement such strict restrictions if these numbers are accurate no?

All I’m saying is we need to do more research rather than instantly assume incurring 30 percent unemployment is necessary and essential to our survival. I’d contend social distancing alone is plenty to avoid the so called hospital overloads they were worried about. NYC took a very loose stance in the beginning that’s why it took off there

My point was death rate is not the relevant factor. How many people require critical care vs the amount of people that can receive critical care is the relevant relationship here and facts were that without self-quarantining places were getting overwhelmed.

But these people are not just instantly assuming. They are experts who have devoted their careers to understanding pandemics. I don't know when listening to the experts became controversial but somehow in 2020 we have anti-vax, flat earther, climate change deniers.

You say that you think social distancing alone is enough, but what is that based on? Do you actually think you have the expertise and knowledge to be making national public health policy? Maybe you are Anthony Fauci in disguise...

When you advocate things like revoking quarantine, how are you sure you haven't been suckered by the rhetoric of corporations that are willing to sacrifice your grandma to meet next quarters profit goals? There are lots of people who are losing money from this that will lie and spread propaganda to convince others that all this is unnecessary. So who do you believe, academics with nothing to gain by telling you to stay home or corporations with everything to gain?

Personally I think its self-evident which group has preserving the public health as their main motivation. This disease is more complicated than the flu, the evidence recently about it causing blood clotting is scary because scientists do not really understand why or how it is causing that, as it is not seen (as far as I understand) in other human coronaviruses.

Things like that should really cause us all to err on the side of caution!

I believe Kate brown instantly took the extreme measures on this thing. It has been an absolute failure and I have to believe somewhere in the middle is better than incurring another Great Depression potentially if the fed didn’t step in.

Look at states before social distancing and after. The fact is Oregon started social distancing before most states and our rate of infection never took off even before the state of emergency. Are we supposed to just choose the worry wort stance and err in the side of caution because of what might happen? Fact is we didn’t have to jump to extreme measures and every single instance of this thing taking off was a place where they didn’t do any social distancing or brushed that off early. State of emergencies were completely unnecessary here and entirely fear driven. There is zero evidence that extreme is what saved us from taking off like other states. Oregon is more sparsely populated, hell even Sweden who did nothing had less deaths than the us who shut down 6 Trillion dollars worth of economics. So I’d say much of this was needless economic damage and if Oregon has any sense they’ll put in a republican by the next gov

[JasonStern]

China screwed the world over by playing things like they had it under control, lying about infection rates, etc. early on.

Federal government messed up "bigly" by not shutting down all travel between China.

State governments did the right thing by shutting things down early. Check the population adjusted infection rates and death tolls of those that did versus those that didn't. Limited data available makes these types of decisions incredibly difficult. In hindsight, you never know how over cautious you were, but you can definitely pinpoint how careless you were. Everyone on here can hate Kate Brown, just remember everyone here is alive to do so.

Problem now is that we're not still in the early stages. We have increased, albeit insufficient testing. We know what groups are more vulnerable than others. Testing times have drastically decreased. Economy has tanked. Unemployment is at record highs. People are restless.

Flipping a switch and reopening everything would be incredibly foolish. But there's sufficient data to start opening up lower risk businesses now with safety requirements like increased hygiene/sanitation/cleaning efforts, surgical or better masks required, etc. Hell, it's insane to think that "essential workers" haven't been operating under this the entire time.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

I’m not ignoring the numbers but I feel you jumped the gun to assume I’m ignoring the implications of this virus. But no need to implement such strict restrictions if these numbers are accurate no?

All I’m saying is we need to do more research rather than instantly assume incurring 30 percent unemployment is necessary and essential to our survival. I’d contend social distancing alone is plenty to avoid the so called hospital overloads they were worried about. NYC took a very loose stance in the beginning that’s why it took off there

My point was death rate is not the relevant factor. How many people require critical care vs the amount of people that can receive critical care is the relevant relationship here and facts were that without self-quarantining places were getting overwhelmed.

But these people are not just instantly assuming. They are experts who have devoted their careers to understanding pandemics. I don't know when listening to the experts became controversial but somehow in 2020 we have anti-vax, flat earther, climate change deniers.

You say that you think social distancing alone is enough, but what is that based on? Do you actually think you have the expertise and knowledge to be making national public health policy? Maybe you are Anthony Fauci in disguise...

When you advocate things like revoking quarantine, how are you sure you haven't been suckered by the rhetoric of corporations that are willing to sacrifice your grandma to meet next quarters profit goals? There are lots of people who are losing money from this that will lie and spread propaganda to convince others that all this is unnecessary. So who do you believe, academics with nothing to gain by telling you to stay home or corporations with everything to gain?

Personally I think its self-evident which group has preserving the public health as their main motivation. This disease is more complicated than the flu, the evidence recently about it causing blood clotting is scary because scientists do not really understand why or how it is causing that, as it is not seen (as far as I understand) in other human coronaviruses.

Things like that should really cause us all to err on the side of caution!

I believe Kate brown instantly took the extreme measures on this thing. It has been an absolute failure and I have to believe somewhere in the middle is better than incurring another Great Depression potentially if the fed didn’t step in.

Look at states before social distancing and after. The fact is Oregon started social distancing before most states and our rate of infection never took off even before the state of emergency. Are we supposed to just choose the worry wort stance and err in the side of caution because of what might happen? Fact is we didn’t have to jump to extreme measures and every single instance of this thing taking off was a place where they didn’t do any social distancing or brushed that off early. State of emergencies were completely unnecessary here and entirely fear driven. There is zero evidence that extreme is what saved us from taking off like other states. Oregon is more sparsely populated, hell even Sweden who did nothing had less deaths than the us who shut down 6 Trillion dollars worth of economics. So I’d say much of this was needless economic damage and if Oregon has any sense they’ll put in a republican by the next gov

Oh I wish I could go back to the simple mind set of "republican good, democrat bad!" Or in my case it used to be "democrat good, republican bad!"

Both are sucker mentalities, the circus they use to keep you distracted from the fact that it has never been right vs left but that from the beginning of human civilization its always been rich vs poor.

[PDXKnight]

My point was death rate is not the relevant factor. How many people require critical care vs the amount of people that can receive critical care is the relevant relationship here and facts were that without self-quarantining places were getting overwhelmed.

But these people are not just instantly assuming. They are experts who have devoted their careers to understanding pandemics. I don't know when listening to the experts became controversial but somehow in 2020 we have anti-vax, flat earther, climate change deniers.

You say that you think social distancing alone is enough, but what is that based on? Do you actually think you have the expertise and knowledge to be making national public health policy? Maybe you are Anthony Fauci in disguise...

When you advocate things like revoking quarantine, how are you sure you haven't been suckered by the rhetoric of corporations that are willing to sacrifice your grandma to meet next quarters profit goals? There are lots of people who are losing money from this that will lie and spread propaganda to convince others that all this is unnecessary. So who do you believe, academics with nothing to gain by telling you to stay home or corporations with everything to gain?

Personally I think its self-evident which group has preserving the public health as their main motivation. This disease is more complicated than the flu, the evidence recently about it causing blood clotting is scary because scientists do not really understand why or how it is causing that, as it is not seen (as far as I understand) in other human coronaviruses.

Things like that should really cause us all to err on the side of caution!

I believe Kate brown instantly took the extreme measures on this thing. It has been an absolute failure and I have to believe somewhere in the middle is better than incurring another Great Depression potentially if the fed didn’t step in.

Look at states before social distancing and after. The fact is Oregon started social distancing before most states and our rate of infection never took off even before the state of emergency. Are we supposed to just choose the worry wort stance and err in the side of caution because of what might happen? Fact is we didn’t have to jump to extreme measures and every single instance of this thing taking off was a place where they didn’t do any social distancing or brushed that off early. State of emergencies were completely unnecessary here and entirely fear driven. There is zero evidence that extreme is what saved us from taking off like other states. Oregon is more sparsely populated, hell even Sweden who did nothing had less deaths than the us who shut down 6 Trillion dollars worth of economics. So I’d say much of this was needless economic damage and if Oregon has any sense they’ll put in a republican by the next gov

Oh I wish I could go back to the simple mind set of "republican good, democrat bad!" Or in my case it used to be "democrat good, republican bad!"

Both are sucker mentalities, the circus they use to keep you distracted from the fact that it has never been right vs left but that from the beginning of human civilization its always been rich vs poor.

You’re accurate both sides suck

Yes wealth divide has always been a problem no matter the economic system..

My apologies if things got out of hand at all didn’t mean for it to I just love a good Cordial debate sometimes, but I also know when to stop myself as I will now

[Matt800]

Look at states before social distancing and after. The fact is Oregon started social distancing before most states and our rate of infection never took off even before the state of emergency. Are we supposed to just choose the worry wort stance and err in the side of caution because of what might happen? Fact is we didn’t have to jump to extreme measures and every single instance of this thing taking off was a place where they didn’t do any social distancing or brushed that off early. State of emergencies were completely unnecessary here and entirely fear driven. There is zero evidence that extreme is what saved us from taking off like other states. Oregon is more sparsely populated, hell even Sweden who did nothing had less deaths than the us who shut down 6 Trillion dollars worth of economics. So I’d say much of this was needless economic damage and if Oregon has any sense they’ll put in a republican by the next gov

People talk about the economy like it is as simple as people working or not working. It isn't that simple. The main difference to stopping the lockdown is that the businesses that employ the people have to shoulder the burden rather than the government. If people work then they need to be paid by their business, and if they get sick that is also covered by the business. When there is a lockdown the government gives unemployment--although not perfectly by any means. When there is a pandemic people are not buying or shopping as much which means that the business cost is high but profit is low. This is not good. A lockdown has their profit low but their cost is generally lower as well. The lockdown also bought time for advancements in treatment options, readiness of hospitals, improvement of public awareness etc. This all helps to lower the death and hospitalization rates. If it is seasonal, then the lockdowns also helped buy more time by getting us farther out of the flu season.

If there is no lockdown and the virus accelerates its spread what happens is businesses are paying their employees who are sick and can't work, people are seeing the fallout and are afraid meaning not buying things and not wanting to work, hospitals getting progressively more overwhelmed, and hospital staff scared, sick, dying, or quitting leaving available healthcare depleted.

What we need are ways to lower the hospitalization and death rates. Hygiene, physical distancing, masks, and effective treatments are the most realistic options. Extreme testing and aggressive quarantining of infected people would also help, but isn't realistic. A safe and effective vaccine would help too, but it would be unprecedented to have that before 4 years-- the fastest a vaccine has ever been made. Anything quicker and I'd want to see a lot of evidence for how safe it is.

But however it happens, if the hospitalization rate is manageable and death rate isn't as concerning, people will have confidence to live more freely and that will help economically.

Also a lot of people like to talk about Sweden and I think that is generally misleading because each country has very different factors for how they are affected. But they absolutely did lockdown, the main difference was they used recommendations rather than requirements. They didn't do a shelter in place, but they haven't had enough of an outbreak in population dense areas to warrant that. The US happens to be one country so while some states weren't as affected, our country had some very serious areas and so a countrywide shelter in place was reasonable. Maybe there was a middle ground that would have been better. But it doesn't take a lot for an area to go from okay to bad. You said it as well "every single instance of this thing taking off was a place where they didn’t do any social distancing or brushed that off early."

[d-train]

Some businesses that are closed down have less risk of spreading China virus than staying home. I have a 20 year old that can't be put in a box. I have a 79 year old who is obviously at risk. And, a 50+ that is still working every day and has interaction with 100's of people at work. Home is not free of risk. The businesses that aren't closed in this shutdown are businesses that are the highest risk of transmitting the virus. There is no sense to it. The harm that the shutdown has caused is real and significant. I'm not sure the benefits represent a great payoff.

[zzaj]

Some businesses that are closed down have less risk of spreading China virus than staying home. I have a 20 year old that can't be put in a box. I have a 79 year old who is obviously at risk. And, a 50+ that is still working every day and has interaction with 100's of people at work. Home is not free of risk. The businesses that aren't closed in this shutdown are businesses that are the highest risk of transmitting the virus. There is no sense to it. The harm that the shutdown has caused is real and significant. I'm not sure the benefits represent a great payoff.

That's simply not true. Take restaurants for example...usually forced air, hours of viral load in one (often small) space, high turnover of customers, lots of tourists from around the globe, germs galore in all of those napkins...

I own and manage a restaurant and leaving the financial impact of reduced capacity aside, I have a REAL philosophical dilemma about potentially re-opening once Kate Brown allows Multnomah county to do so.

[Norm2953]

There has been extensive polling done and only 42% of the public is comfortable going to restaurants, bars
gyms, etc and while none of my family members has come down with this virus, a number of people that
I personally know have come down with virus for in the basketball world, KAT's mom died and Patrick
Ewing just got diagnosed with the virus.

It makes one wonder how the Blazers will be operating next season for Ohio State and the Miami Dolphins
are talking of playing games in front of 20,000 fans and I could easily see Blazers games played in front of
4000 fans. Fortunately we are on the west coast with the virus that came from China as opposed to the more
lethal mutated version, that came from Europe that seems to be prevalent on the east coast.

[d-train]

Some businesses that are closed down have less risk of spreading China virus than staying home. I have a 20 year old that can't be put in a box. I have a 79 year old who is obviously at risk. And, a 50+ that is still working every day and has interaction with 100's of people at work. Home is not free of risk. The businesses that aren't closed in this shutdown are businesses that are the highest risk of transmitting the virus. There is no sense to it. The harm that the shutdown has caused is real and significant. I'm not sure the benefits represent a great payoff.

That's simply not true. Take restaurants for example...usually forced air, hours of viral load in one (often small) space, high turnover of customers, lots of tourists from around the globe, germs galore in all of those napkins...

I own and manage a restaurant and leaving the financial impact of reduced capacity aside, I have a REAL philosophical dilemma about potentially re-opening once Kate Brown allows Multnomah county to do so.

Restaurant business is the toughest business IMO. Would you rather sit at a table spaced at a safe distance or eat food prepared by someone potentially infected by the virus? And then, there is the food server, you can't social distance the food server from the food.
The upcoming problem I see for many restaurants is they are going to lose more money open than they did closed. Business is going to be down 20-40% for a long time. Most businesses lose 200% of profit with a 20% loss of sales.

The problem I have with the lockdown is the lack of common sense approach. It doesn't make sense to take extreme measures to protect everyone. Extreme measures should be reserved for people over 60. We should not be concerned about protecting people 40 and younger. I'm afraid when this is all over and the data is in. The only thing the lockdown accomplished is a ruined economy and the same number of people infected over a longer period of time. It would have made a lot more sense to leave the economy open, and close down mass transportation, close down mass gatherings, and take extraordinary measures to secure assisted living homes. Additionally, CDC should have published guidelines for people over 60 to protect themselves, ages 0-60 to protect people over 40, and all ages to make home and public areas safer. Nothing other than mass transportation and mass gatherings should have been shut down. Interesting, that mass transportation was never shut down.

This whole thing has been another fine example of government can't do anything right.