Her doctor prescribed it for her. I don't think it's as risky as they're making us think. Must be nice having such instant access to the best medical care. Guess I should have become a Congressman.
What this would indicate to me is that doctors (and apparently dentists) are writing bogus prescriptions for this for their rich friends to take PREEMPTIVELY. And we would know for an absolute certainty that a dentist would have absolutely NO way of knowing what a proper or safe dosage would be. And unless the doctors doing this have done extensive cardiovascular screenings of all the family members they are writing these for, they wouldn't either. It's malpractice. The should lose their licenses. There is clearly an effort being made by some to stash supplies of the drug before they even have the virus.
It's been used not only for treatment of active malaria, but as a preventive against the possible risk of malaria since at least WWII. Like millions of other people have done, I took it when travelling in 1992/93 in places like Africa - because it's relatively safe as drugs go. It's much less used now for malaria because of the spread of resistant strains of the disease, but that extensive history of use means that information about safe(ish) dosages is widely known.
How effective it is against Covid-19 is another question of course and I agree that Trump should not be touting it as a miracle cure against the advice of his scientific advisers ...
Dentists?? Come on.......
Anyone. It took me a few seconds to find good quality dosage information via Google.
Her doctor prescribed it for her. I don't think it's as risky as they're making us think. Must be nice having such instant access to the best medical care. Guess I should have become a Congressman.
What this would indicate to me is that doctors (and apparently dentists) are writing bogus prescriptions for this for their rich friends to take PREEMPTIVELY. And we would know for an absolute certainty that a dentist would have absolutely NO way of knowing what a proper or safe dosage would be. And unless the doctors doing this have done extensive cardiovascular screenings of all the family members they are writing these for, they wouldn't either. It's malpractice. The should lose their licenses. There is clearly an effort being made by some to stash supplies of the drug before they even have the virus.
It's been used not only for treatment of active malaria, but as a preventive against the possible risk of malaria since at least WWII. Like millions of other people have done, I took it when travelling in 1992/93 in places like Africa - because it's relatively safe as drugs go. It's much less used now for malaria because of the spread of resistant strains of the disease, but that extensive history of use means that information about safe(ish) dosages is widely known.
How effective it is against Covid-19 is another question of course and I agree that Trump should not be touting it as a miracle cure against the advice of his scientific advisers ...
Dentists?? Come on.......
Anyone. It took me a few seconds to find good quality dosage information via Google.
I'm not talking about the dosage, I talking about someone who cleans teeth and fills cavities for a living prescribing something to someone when they obviously have no idea what kind of underlying issues they could have that could cause the side-effects that have been mentioned in both this and the other thread ad nauseum. What business does a dentist have prescribing this to anyone??
If pharmacies are running out of stock for their lupus patients, SOMEONE is clearly prescribing this for people who don't even have COVID-19. And unless I missed something I don't think we've seen ANY evidence this can be used preemptively against it like it can against malaria. Trump CLAIMED lupus patients who are on it weren't getting the virus, but like 99.9% of what he says, that was complete bullshit:
In fact, the small info we DO have about lupus and arthritis patients who are on it is that it doesn't have any preventative effects at all. A full 25% of the people with these conditions who got the virus were on this drug.
Her doctor prescribed it for her. I don't think it's as risky as they're making us think. Must be nice having such instant access to the best medical care. Guess I should have become a Congressman.
What this would indicate to me is that doctors (and apparently dentists) are writing bogus prescriptions for this for their rich friends to take PREEMPTIVELY. And we would know for an absolute certainty that a dentist would have absolutely NO way of knowing what a proper or safe dosage would be. And unless the doctors doing this have done extensive cardiovascular screenings of all the family members they are writing these for, they wouldn't either. It's malpractice. The should lose their licenses. There is clearly an effort being made by some to stash supplies of the drug before they even have the virus.
It's been used not only for treatment of active malaria, but as a preventive against the possible risk of malaria since at least WWII. Like millions of other people have done, I took it when travelling in 1992/93 in places like Africa - because it's relatively safe as drugs go. It's much less used now for malaria because of the spread of resistant strains of the disease, but that extensive history of use means that information about safe(ish) dosages is widely known.
How effective it is against Covid-19 is another question of course and I agree that Trump should not be touting it as a miracle cure against the advice of his scientific advisers ...
Dentists?? Come on.......
Anyone. It took me a few seconds to find good quality dosage information via Google.
For Coronavirus? Your Google search is wrong. No such scientific data exists.
Her doctor prescribed it for her. I don't think it's as risky as they're making us think. Must be nice having such instant access to the best medical care. Guess I should have become a Congressman.
What this would indicate to me is that doctors (and apparently dentists) are writing bogus prescriptions for this for their rich friends to take PREEMPTIVELY. And we would know for an absolute certainty that a dentist would have absolutely NO way of knowing what a proper or safe dosage would be. And unless the doctors doing this have done extensive cardiovascular screenings of all the family members they are writing these for, they wouldn't either. It's malpractice. The should lose their licenses. There is clearly an effort being made by some to stash supplies of the drug before they even have the virus.
It's been used not only for treatment of active malaria, but as a preventive against the possible risk of malaria since at least WWII. Like millions of other people have done, I took it when travelling in 1992/93 in places like Africa - because it's relatively safe as drugs go. It's much less used now for malaria because of the spread of resistant strains of the disease, but that extensive history of use means that information about safe(ish) dosages is widely known.
How effective it is against Covid-19 is another question of course and I agree that Trump should not be touting it as a miracle cure against the advice of his scientific advisers ...
Dentists?? Come on.......
Anyone. It took me a few seconds to find good quality dosage information via Google.
For Coronavirus? Your Google search is wrong. No such scientific data exists.
For malaria and other conditions. The point I was making is that there's a difference between what is known to be reasonably safe and what is known to be effective. It's easy to find out what would be relatively safe levels of the drug. I agree though that whether such levels would be effective against Covid-19 is not known and that's why I said that Trump should not be advocating its use.
But that's how it really is and how is always has been. Last time people in my country decided to change the natural order of things, they invited 70 years of slavery to authoritarian state upon themselves. I'd rather die as free man during epidemy, working for a dollar because I've got nothing left to eat, than trade my freedom to the state for a safe cage with guaranteed light, bread and water in it.
You're certainly entitled to think that.
It's a pity you've forgotten or never knew that a) the state before then was also authoritarian, b) it is not freedom when the government actively works to enrich the wealthy and shield them from consequences, it is merely another form of slavery, and c) a significant problem with the government you refer to is that the cage wasn't safe and those things were not guaranteed.
Also, however you would like to die does not give you any right to take others with you.
Her doctor prescribed it for her. I don't think it's as risky as they're making us think. Must be nice having such instant access to the best medical care. Guess I should have become a Congressman.
Go find that ChubbyEmu video I linked. The man is a medical doctor, and he pointed out that the difference between a relatively safe and very dangerous dose is actually really small.
Like the guy who died after taking it? And his wife suffered bad side effects? The drug they took was for treating parasites in koi, and is literally the same chemical prescribed to lupus patients. Some of the fillers are different, and the intended purpose is quite different, but otherwise.
Also, Trump politicized hydroxychloroquine by falsely announcing it was a working cure, and his announcements plus his administration's pushing the use of it as a prophylactic (no evidence for this) or a cure (evidence contradicts this) is tremendously misleading. If the president makes a statement like this, there is no way for it to be apolitical.
It's also really weird to gloat that the Democrats are doing everything wrong every time they do something. Is there any particular reason they shouldn't try to ensure that the actual facts about hydroxychloroquine are out there instead of the sensationalist statements Trump made? Is there some reason Democrats must worship at Republican feet and never voice any dissidence while Republicans have free reign to exacerbate the current crisis? That's not democracy - it's authoritarianism, and having Republicans in office doesn't entitle them to uniform agreement from everyone else.
As far as Trump's popularity goes, it's pretty typical for presidential approval to go up during crises, but Trump's has been hovering between 45 and 46% since the end of March, which is kinda weird actually.
Democrats are still not the left. They're a right of center neoliberal party. Actual leftist tendencies are mostly anti-state and almost exclusively anti-capitalist. Calling the Democrats "the left" is simply disinformation, and to some extent a tribal appeal to emotion.
Trump has said “what do you have to lose” while claiming that hydroxychloroquine is completely safe, but this is not true. About 10% of the population is susceptible to serious and potentially lethal side effects: Poison.org warns that the anti-malaria drug can cause a dangerous heart rhythm. When seriously ill COVID-19 patients are given hydroxychloroquine, they are “connected to continuous heart monitors and also get serial electrocardiograms (electrical monitoring of the heart) to look for abnormal heart rhythms before they become life-threatening.”
Poison.org also warns that “chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have major drug interactions with other medicines that can put a person at an even greater risk of an abnormal heart rhythm.” One of these drugs is actually azithromycin, which the French study routed by Trump used in combination with hydroxychloroquine.
It could be the "crazy increase in cardiac deaths" described by first responders in NYC is linked to people following the President's advice.
I love how the left calls Republicans dumb and their voters hicks, and yet somehow the Republicans are able to play this game of 3-Dimensional chess when it comes to the voting system. I sincerely doubt there's anything sinister here other than less risk aversion on the conservative side when it comes to this virus. I'm pretty much in the center I think, and I'll admit, I'm really not that scared of this virus. I'm taking all the precautions, but mostly to protect others from me (just in case). Maybe it's my scientific background along with poker playing that allows me to stay (mostly) calm during this. The odds aren't really that bad for otherwise healthy people.
There is no difference in the number of independents and republicans taking social distancing seriously by last week's polling. The amount of conservatives and independents taking social distancing seriously was 91%. Democrats 94%
Geography seems an obvious answer to the discrepancy. Of course if you live in Wyoming or rural Kansas or elsewhere you will be less concerned about the virus than if you live in New York City. These are completely opposite environments. A rural person can reasonably believe there isn't enough international or even interstate travel to make it a large threat to them, and so see it as unnecessary, whereas anyone in the city knows it's a distinct possibility.
But the real reason is because they are dumb hicks who are anti science, as we all know.
Democrats are still not the left. They're a right of center neoliberal party. Actual leftist tendencies are mostly anti-state and almost exclusively anti-capitalist. Calling the Democrats "the left" is simply disinformation, and to some extent a tribal appeal to emotion.
I dont think that the left is some monolith that is explicitly anti capitalist and anti state. I think there's some large shades of that, and they can be varying degrees of skeptical of capitalism and skeptical of the state, but dont necessarily have be full-throated in either regard.
Sanders has bit the bullet and suspended his campaign. How whole-heartedly he gets behind Biden will now be closely watched ...
Yeah. I'm not happy that Sanders is gone and Biden is the nominee, but I'm glad it's over given that Sanders had no credible shot at being the nominee from Super Tuesday on.
I identify with the left. I dont consider Republican voters dumb or "hicks". I do think the GOP (as an organization) is meaningfully more anti-science than than the Democrats are, but there are plenty of lefties that are anti science (Anti Vaxxers, the left's disdain for Nuclear Power and GMO skepticism as examples).
I love how the left calls Republicans dumb and their voters hicks, and yet somehow the Republicans are able to play this game of 3-Dimensional chess when it comes to the voting system. I sincerely doubt there's anything sinister here other than less risk aversion on the conservative side when it comes to this virus. I'm pretty much in the center I think, and I'll admit, I'm really not that scared of this virus. I'm taking all the precautions, but mostly to protect others from me (just in case). Maybe it's my scientific background along with poker playing that allows me to stay (mostly) calm during this. The odds aren't really that bad for otherwise healthy people.
There is no difference in the number of independents and republicans taking social distancing seriously by last week's polling. The amount of conservatives and independents taking social distancing seriously was 91%. Democrats 94%
Geography seems an obvious answer to the discrepancy. Of course if you live in Wyoming or rural Kansas or elsewhere you will be less concerned about the virus than if you live in New York City. These are completely opposite environments. A rural person can reasonably believe there isn't enough international or even interstate travel to make it a large threat to them, and so see it as unnecessary, whereas anyone in the city knows it's a distinct possibility.
But the real reason is because they are dumb hicks who are anti science, as we all know.
Nice, now show me the numbers from 2 or 3 weeks ago when all the current cases were being spread, and after Trump had spent a full month downplaying it to the absolute hilt. But, no, that wouldn't work with your gaslighting narrative. So I'll do it for you. Nothing less than 30-40 point discrepancies:
Don't pull the "no one could have know" bullshit either. SCORES of people knew. I knew, others here knew. Well over a month ago. Go read the old posts. We didn't have a crystal ball. Everything one needed to see it coming was there. Pretty sure we were dismissed as alarmist fruitcakes, as per usual. What else is new. People didn't know because they made a choice not to know. That's on them, and it's on the President lying to them for all of February and half of March. And now this:
Keep in mind that many of those rural areas have exactly one or two ICU beds for 3 or 4 entire counties. Rural hospitals don't even exist in many places. Some of them are 50-100 miles away from where alot of these communities are.
Right now we are seeing a slight flattening due to New York, the current epicenter, having been on a total lockdown for weeks. Washington and NY were ahead of where the rest of the country is. There are going to be multiple outbreak epicenters in different parts of the country at different times. We are more akin to individual European countries at this point.
This idea that somehow we'd make the virus go extinct by shutting everything down for two weeks (or any other length of time you want to choose) is patently absurd. The idea of the social distancing is to slow the spread of the disease so the healthcare system doesn't get overloaded. People will continue to get infected no matter what we do until we get herd immunity or a vaccine that works so well it eradicates it like smallpox.
Also, South Korea is not some magically immune country because they did everything right. They'll be in the same boat as everybody else unless they remain vigilant. Not only that, they may be setting themselves up for future problems once all the other countries' populations develop resistance and they haven't. I'd pray for a vaccine if I lived there...
This idea that somehow we'd make the virus go extinct by shutting everything down for two weeks (or any other length of time you want to choose) is patently absurd. The idea of the social distancing is to slow the spread of the disease so the healthcare system doesn't get overloaded. People will continue to get infected no matter what we do until we get herd immunity or a vaccine that works so well it eradicates it like smallpox.
Also, South Korea is not some magically immune country because they did everything right. They'll be in the same boat as everybody else unless they remain vigilant. Not only that, they may be setting themselves up for future problems once all the other countries' populations develop resistance and they haven't. I'd pray for a vaccine if I lived there...
They will remain vigilant, because they aren't a full-blown idiocracy. I don't see any evidence we are "being vigilant" to the level South Korea is to this very minute. Look at the debacle in Wisconsin yesterday. Look at the people in unemployment lines today in Florida. People keep ignoring that our testing is 1.) woefully lacking even now and 2.) has reached a plateau of sorts. Part of the reason we are seeing new cases remain steady day to day for the last 3 or so days is because every available test is being used and thousands more are pending. It was, what, 3 weeks ago that Trump said, flat-out, that anyone who wants a test can get a test?? This is 110% false. They had warning this was coming as early as November. They did NOTHING (but shut down some travel from China, but not all, which entirely negates the entire point). No stockpiling of PPE. No effort to obtain the number of tests needed. Just magical thinking.
It's bullshit to claim this was always going to be this bad. We had MORE warning and time than literally EVERY other country. We were basically last in line. It's absurd that we would handle it the WORST after being able to look at dozens of other examples in real-time. We will pass Spain within hours as the 2nd most deaths in the world. By early Friday at the latest, we will pass Italy for the most. Even the per capita numbers, which are somewhat better, are skyrocketing each day. Even if we assume China's numbers are (let's be generous in a hypothetical) 5x more than they are reporting, we still have more.
This idea that somehow we'd make the virus go extinct by shutting everything down for two weeks (or any other length of time you want to choose) is patently absurd. The idea of the social distancing is to slow the spread of the disease so the healthcare system doesn't get overloaded. People will continue to get infected no matter what we do until we get herd immunity or a vaccine that works so well it eradicates it like smallpox.
Also, South Korea is not some magically immune country because they did everything right. They'll be in the same boat as everybody else unless they remain vigilant. Not only that, they may be setting themselves up for future problems once all the other countries' populations develop resistance and they haven't. I'd pray for a vaccine if I lived there...
They will remain vigilant, because they aren't a full-blown idiocracy. I don't see any evidence we are "being vigilant" to the level South Korea is to this very minute. Look at the debacle in Wisconsin yesterday. Look at the people in unemployment lines today in Florida. People keep ignoring that our testing is 1.) woefully lacking even now and 2.) has reached a plateau of sorts. Part of the reason we are seeing new cases remain steady day to day for the last 3 or so days is because every available test is being used and thousands more are pending. It was, what, 3 weeks ago that Trump said, flat-out, that anyone who wants a test can get a test?? This is 110% false. They had warning this was coming as early as November. They did NOTHING (but shut down some travel from China, but not all, which entirely negates the entire point). No stockpiling of PPE. No effort to obtain the number of tests needed. Just magical thinking.
It's bullshit to claim this was always going to be this bad. We had MORE warning and time than literally EVERY other country. We were basically last in line. It's absurd that we would handle it the WORST after being able to look at dozens of other examples in real-time. We will pass Spain within hours as the 2nd most deaths in the world. By early Friday at the latest, we will pass Italy for the most.
I don't necessarily disagree with some of your points. It was never going to go the way you wanted in this country though. There is a distinct difference in the way people think in the West vs. the East. Regardless of how you think the West handles itself, keep in mind that the East is where a lot of these viruses are coming from. As horrible as you think we are, we're not slaughtering and eating bats and civets in wet markets. Nor are we buying ground rhinoceros horns or pangolin innards to brew up potions for relieving something we take a blue pill for...
What I find most interesting is all the FOX News and AM radio personalities who were ready to carpet bomb the Middle East after 3000 people died on 9/11 are basically saying 100,000 people need to be sacrificed at the altar of the market. What a difference 20 years makes.
Also, South Korea is not some magically immune country because they did everything right. They'll be in the same boat as everybody else unless they remain vigilant. Not only that, they may be setting themselves up for future problems once all the other countries' populations develop resistance and they haven't. I'd pray for a vaccine if I lived there...
Pray for a vaccine if you live anywhere.
South Korea vigorously tracked those with infections and through extensive testing and ensured they did not not go out and infect others through intrusive 24/7 surveillance.
Unfortunately, the US government doesn't usually have our best interests in mind like S.K. does because we're way more corrupt. So not really an option people take seriously here.
What I find most interesting is all the FOX News and AM radio personalities who were ready to carpet bomb the Middle East after 3000 people died on 9/11 are basically saying 100,000 people need to be sacrificed at the altar of the market. What a difference 20 years makes.
Locus of control issue. Purely psychological. Hard to blame the 'other' if you need an electron microscope to see it...
I love how the left calls Republicans dumb and their voters hicks, and yet somehow the Republicans are able to play this game of 3-Dimensional chess when it comes to the voting system. I sincerely doubt there's anything sinister here other than less risk aversion on the conservative side when it comes to this virus. I'm pretty much in the center I think, and I'll admit, I'm really not that scared of this virus. I'm taking all the precautions, but mostly to protect others from me (just in case). Maybe it's my scientific background along with poker playing that allows me to stay (mostly) calm during this. The odds aren't really that bad for otherwise healthy people.
There is no difference in the number of independents and republicans taking social distancing seriously by last week's polling. The amount of conservatives and independents taking social distancing seriously was 91%. Democrats 94%
Geography seems an obvious answer to the discrepancy. Of course if you live in Wyoming or rural Kansas or elsewhere you will be less concerned about the virus than if you live in New York City. These are completely opposite environments. A rural person can reasonably believe there isn't enough international or even interstate travel to make it a large threat to them, and so see it as unnecessary, whereas anyone in the city knows it's a distinct possibility.
But the real reason is because they are dumb hicks who are anti science, as we all know.
Nice, now show me the numbers from 2 or 3 weeks ago when all the current cases were being spread, and after Trump had spent a full month downplaying it to the absolute hilt. But, no, that wouldn't work with your gaslighting narrative. So I'll do it for you. Nothing less than 30-40 point discrepancies:
Don't pull the "no one could have know" bullshit either. SCORES of people knew. I knew, others here knew. Well over a month ago. Go read the old posts. We didn't have a crystal ball. Everything one needed to see it coming was there. Pretty sure we were dismissed as alarmist fruitcakes, as per usual. What else is new. People didn't know because they made a choice not to know. That's on them, and it's on the President lying to them for all of February and half of March. And now this:
Keep in mind that many of those rural areas have exactly one or two ICU beds for 3 or 4 entire counties. Rural hospitals don't even exist in many places. Some of them are 50-100 miles away from where alot of these communities are.
Right now we are seeing a slight flattening due to New York, the current epicenter, having been on a total lockdown for weeks. Washington and NY were ahead of where the rest of the country is. There are going to be multiple outbreak epicenters in different parts of the country at different times. We are more akin to individual European countries at this point.
My "gaslighting narrative"? I guess context and nuance aren't exactly welcome here.
What could rural republicans known, or not have known, about what? I'm just honestly confused about what you mean here. Nobody pleaded ignorance, I was saying they were making an informed choice from their own point of view and social context.
Kansas has 900 cases of coronavirus. My state of PA, which took early measures to close non-essential buisnesses and implement social distancing under a democratic admin, still has 16,000 cases and over 300 dead. Even after accounting for population differences it's a huge discrepancy. Geography matters and it is rational for more isolated, rural people to fear it less, was my point. Do I think it's the right choice? Not at all, but it makes far more sense than millions of people being radicalized against safety measures due to right wing propaganda, as you seem to suggest.
What I find most interesting is all the FOX News and AM radio personalities who were ready to carpet bomb the Middle East after 3000 people died on 9/11 are basically saying 100,000 people need to be sacrificed at the altar of the market. What a difference 20 years makes.
I don't mind much re: 9/11.
Now, all the harping over FOUR American deaths in Benghazi while being chill with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying...
I love how the left calls Republicans dumb and their voters hicks, and yet somehow the Republicans are able to play this game of 3-Dimensional chess when it comes to the voting system. I sincerely doubt there's anything sinister here other than less risk aversion on the conservative side when it comes to this virus. I'm pretty much in the center I think, and I'll admit, I'm really not that scared of this virus. I'm taking all the precautions, but mostly to protect others from me (just in case). Maybe it's my scientific background along with poker playing that allows me to stay (mostly) calm during this. The odds aren't really that bad for otherwise healthy people.
There is no difference in the number of independents and republicans taking social distancing seriously by last week's polling. The amount of conservatives and independents taking social distancing seriously was 91%. Democrats 94%
Geography seems an obvious answer to the discrepancy. Of course if you live in Wyoming or rural Kansas or elsewhere you will be less concerned about the virus than if you live in New York City. These are completely opposite environments. A rural person can reasonably believe there isn't enough international or even interstate travel to make it a large threat to them, and so see it as unnecessary, whereas anyone in the city knows it's a distinct possibility.
But the real reason is because they are dumb hicks who are anti science, as we all know.
Nice, now show me the numbers from 2 or 3 weeks ago when all the current cases were being spread, and after Trump had spent a full month downplaying it to the absolute hilt. But, no, that wouldn't work with your gaslighting narrative. So I'll do it for you. Nothing less than 30-40 point discrepancies:
Don't pull the "no one could have know" bullshit either. SCORES of people knew. I knew, others here knew. Well over a month ago. Go read the old posts. We didn't have a crystal ball. Everything one needed to see it coming was there. Pretty sure we were dismissed as alarmist fruitcakes, as per usual. What else is new. People didn't know because they made a choice not to know. That's on them, and it's on the President lying to them for all of February and half of March. And now this:
Keep in mind that many of those rural areas have exactly one or two ICU beds for 3 or 4 entire counties. Rural hospitals don't even exist in many places. Some of them are 50-100 miles away from where alot of these communities are.
Right now we are seeing a slight flattening due to New York, the current epicenter, having been on a total lockdown for weeks. Washington and NY were ahead of where the rest of the country is. There are going to be multiple outbreak epicenters in different parts of the country at different times. We are more akin to individual European countries at this point.
My "gaslighting narrative"? I guess context and nuance aren't exactly welcome here.
What could rural republicans known, or not have known, about what? I'm just honestly confused about what you mean here. Nobody pleaded ignorance, I was saying they were making an informed choice from their own point of view and social context.
Kansas has 900 cases of coronavirus. My state of PA, which took early measures to close non-essential buisnesses and implement social distancing under a democratic admin, still has 16,000 cases and over 300 dead. Even after accounting for population differences it's a huge discrepancy. Geography matters and it is rational for more isolated, rural people to fear it less, was my point. Do I think it's the right choice? Not at all, but it makes far more sense than millions of people being radicalized against safety measures due to right wing propaganda, as you seem to suggest.
I agree that the spread will naturally be somewhat slower in rural areas - and that will affect people's perception about the danger of the disease. However, unless the number of close contacts with other people is radically less (given the average spread of infection to 2.5 other people, contacts would need to be reduced to something like 30% of that in urban areas to halt spread), the disease will still spread over time.
If you don't consider Trump's record of lies, it's arguable that some people were behaving rationally by ignoring the danger of the disease based on Trump's statements up to mid-March. I don't think there's the slightest argument of course that Trump was behaving rationally by making those statements - but I suspect that everyone on this thread now agrees with that, so it's something of a moot point.
It's likely that many people are dying in these rural areas due to covid due to lack of testing and other factors such as non-standardized way to count Covid deaths if the remains are not tested.
Covid tests are rare and are being prioritized for the living. So when Joe drops dead in West Virginia he might not get tested and counted. The CDC's guidance is to count all covid and "presumed covid" deaths as covid deaths. With that being said, it's up to the states whether they feel like saying a death is "presumed due to covid-19." Some states are lenient here, others will not report unless they can definitely test and prove the death was COVID-19 related.
The death toll has become a heavily politicized benchmark because of the President. Trump’s defenders say the official number is inflated because it includes all deceased people who tested positive for covid-19, even if there was another cause of death, such as a heart attack or an accident. He has made it a political issue to have a lower count to cover for his failure to take the pandemic seriously. Despite knowing about the pandemic since December, he didn't even order supplies until like March 20th (if I recall correctly).
"A coroner in Wyoming, the only state that still hasn't reported any deaths due to the virus, said he seriously doubts its official death count, and told CNN he hasn't been able to test a number of suspected cases. And an Ohio coroner said she believes at least four deaths in her county have already been left uncounted."
"As the country battles a rapidly growing number of coronavirus infections, 13 coroners and medical examiners in nine states told CNN that they are struggling to acquire the supplies needed to test bodies arriving at their facilities for the disease."
What could rural republicans known, or not have known, about what? I'm just honestly confused about what you mean here. Nobody pleaded ignorance, I was saying they were making an informed choice from their own point of view and social context.
When an "informed choice" is based on political misinformation, confusion due to lack of standards, lack of testing, and "point of view and social context" it becomes an uninformed choice or a dangerous guess.
The new line in right-wing media is that the death count is being artificially inflated. Like everything else they have said the last two months, the truth will be revealed to be the total opposite, and that cases and deaths are being vastly UNDERREPORTED. See Puerto Rico and New Orleans after their respective hurricanes.
I think there are too many variables at work to claim that any death count in any country at any particular time is anywhere near 100% accurate:
Firstly the death has to be registered, which could happen quite quickly in an urban hospital but less quickly in an isolated rural area.
Then the coroner has to register the cause of death - different countries are applying different criteria for the definition of covid-19 death, often depending on whether or not there are underlying medical conditions.
And, in order to definitively state that someone died as a result of covid-19 infection that patient has to have been tested first (and at the moment in the UK patients are only being tested when they are admitted into hospital - so deaths in nursing homes etc. "don't count").
I think there are too many variables at work to claim that any death count in any country at any particular time is anywhere near 100% accurate:
Firstly the death has to be registered, which could happen quite quickly in an urban hospital but less quickly in an isolated rural area.
Then the coroner has to register the cause of death - different countries are applying different criteria for the definition of covid-19 death, often depending on whether or not there are underlying medical conditions.
And, in order to definitively state that someone died as a result of covid-19 infection that patient has to have been tested first (and at the moment in the UK patients are only being tested when they are admitted into hospital - so deaths in nursing homes etc. "don't count").
The Office of National Statistics does publish retrospectively deaths outside hospital where Covid-19 is noted on the death certificate (which can be done without testing). See explanation of how figures are compiled here. However, I agree this will be a considerable underestimate of those who've died while infected with the disease - and that will be a similar situation in most countries.
the truth will be revealed to be the total opposite, and that cases and deaths are being vastly UNDERREPORTED. See Puerto Rico and New Orleans after their respective hurricanes.
I think there are too many variables at work to claim that any death count in any country at any particular time is anywhere near 100% accurate:
Firstly the death has to be registered, which could happen quite quickly in an urban hospital but less quickly in an isolated rural area.
Then the coroner has to register the cause of death - different countries are applying different criteria for the definition of covid-19 death, often depending on whether or not there are underlying medical conditions.
And, in order to definitively state that someone died as a result of covid-19 infection that patient has to have been tested first (and at the moment in the UK patients are only being tested when they are admitted into hospital - so deaths in nursing homes etc. "don't count").
The Office of National Statistics does publish retrospectively deaths outside hospital where Covid-19 is noted on the death certificate (which can be done without testing). See explanation of how figures are compiled here. However, I agree this will be a considerable underestimate of those who've died while infected with the disease - and that will be a similar situation in most countries.
We'll know how many people died in 2020 eventually. A simple comparison to 2019 will be highly revealing.
the truth will be revealed to be the total opposite, and that cases and deaths are being vastly UNDERREPORTED. See Puerto Rico and New Orleans after their respective hurricanes.
Not to mention China.
I'm willing to easily entertain the idea that China's numbers are 5-10x higher. Even if that's true, we'll still have ones that are worse.
Japan is living in Neverneverland too. I hope I'm wrong, but they might be the next ground 0. India and Africa are powderkegs too. A vaccine can't come fast enough...
I don't necessarily disagree with some of your points. It was never going to go the way you wanted in this country though. There is a distinct difference in the way people think in the West vs. the East. Regardless of how you think the West handles itself, keep in mind that the East is where a lot of these viruses are coming from. As horrible as you think we are, we're not slaughtering and eating bats and civets in wet markets. Nor are we buying ground rhinoceros horns or pangolin innards to brew up potions for relieving something we take a blue pill for...
Neither are most Chinese. Lots of Americans still eat wild game, too, and take nonscientific remedies like homeopathic placebos and supplements that consistently turn out to not contain what they say they do. Dividing the world into "us and them" isn't just racist, it's wrong.
The avian flu came from birds, hence the name. Recent genetic research indicates the "spanish" flu that killed more people than the Great War was an avian flu. It turns out America has a lot of birds, including overcrowded poultry farms that are cesspools of disease. If you want to believe that several pandemics coming from China means much more than "China has over a billion people and many of them are still living in poverty", then your predictions aren't going to age much more gracefully than Trump's did.
I don't necessarily disagree with some of your points. It was never going to go the way you wanted in this country though. There is a distinct difference in the way people think in the West vs. the East. Regardless of how you think the West handles itself, keep in mind that the East is where a lot of these viruses are coming from. As horrible as you think we are, we're not slaughtering and eating bats and civets in wet markets. Nor are we buying ground rhinoceros horns or pangolin innards to brew up potions for relieving something we take a blue pill for...
Neither are most Chinese. Lots of Americans still eat wild game, too, and take nonscientific remedies like homeopathic placebos and supplements that consistently turn out to not contain what they say they do. Dividing the world into "us and them" isn't just racist, it's wrong.
The avian flu came from birds, hence the name. Recent genetic research indicates the "spanish" flu that killed more people than the Great War was an avian flu. It turns out America has a lot of birds, including overcrowded poultry farms that are cesspools of disease. If you want to believe that several pandemics coming from China means much more than "China has over a billion people and many of them are still living in poverty", then your predictions aren't going to age much more gracefully than Trump's did.
Noticing differences doesn't equate to racism. I don't care what you say.
I didn't say Western values were better, just that they are different. Anything else is you putting words in my mouth. Give me examples of people in Europe buying rhinoceros horns and I'll take back my point. Even National Geographic talks about China and India contributing to the extinction of rhinos, pangolins and many other endangered species. Not to mention their pillaging of the South China Sea. Calling me a racist is just dismissive and frankly, I think you have an anti-West bias. The West has their own sins, to be sure, but the East is just as culpable in the rape of our planet.
Comments
Anyone. It took me a few seconds to find good quality dosage information via Google.
I'm not talking about the dosage, I talking about someone who cleans teeth and fills cavities for a living prescribing something to someone when they obviously have no idea what kind of underlying issues they could have that could cause the side-effects that have been mentioned in both this and the other thread ad nauseum. What business does a dentist have prescribing this to anyone??
If pharmacies are running out of stock for their lupus patients, SOMEONE is clearly prescribing this for people who don't even have COVID-19. And unless I missed something I don't think we've seen ANY evidence this can be used preemptively against it like it can against malaria. Trump CLAIMED lupus patients who are on it weren't getting the virus, but like 99.9% of what he says, that was complete bullshit:
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-false-coronavirus-claim-about-lupus-patients/
In fact, the small info we DO have about lupus and arthritis patients who are on it is that it doesn't have any preventative effects at all. A full 25% of the people with these conditions who got the virus were on this drug.
For Coronavirus? Your Google search is wrong. No such scientific data exists.
For malaria and other conditions. The point I was making is that there's a difference between what is known to be reasonably safe and what is known to be effective. It's easy to find out what would be relatively safe levels of the drug. I agree though that whether such levels would be effective against Covid-19 is not known and that's why I said that Trump should not be advocating its use.
You're certainly entitled to think that.
It's a pity you've forgotten or never knew that a) the state before then was also authoritarian, b) it is not freedom when the government actively works to enrich the wealthy and shield them from consequences, it is merely another form of slavery, and c) a significant problem with the government you refer to is that the cage wasn't safe and those things were not guaranteed.
Also, however you would like to die does not give you any right to take others with you.
Go find that ChubbyEmu video I linked. The man is a medical doctor, and he pointed out that the difference between a relatively safe and very dangerous dose is actually really small.
Like the guy who died after taking it? And his wife suffered bad side effects? The drug they took was for treating parasites in koi, and is literally the same chemical prescribed to lupus patients. Some of the fillers are different, and the intended purpose is quite different, but otherwise.
Also, Trump politicized hydroxychloroquine by falsely announcing it was a working cure, and his announcements plus his administration's pushing the use of it as a prophylactic (no evidence for this) or a cure (evidence contradicts this) is tremendously misleading. If the president makes a statement like this, there is no way for it to be apolitical.
It's also really weird to gloat that the Democrats are doing everything wrong every time they do something. Is there any particular reason they shouldn't try to ensure that the actual facts about hydroxychloroquine are out there instead of the sensationalist statements Trump made? Is there some reason Democrats must worship at Republican feet and never voice any dissidence while Republicans have free reign to exacerbate the current crisis? That's not democracy - it's authoritarianism, and having Republicans in office doesn't entitle them to uniform agreement from everyone else.
As far as Trump's popularity goes, it's pretty typical for presidential approval to go up during crises, but Trump's has been hovering between 45 and 46% since the end of March, which is kinda weird actually.
Democrats are still not the left. They're a right of center neoliberal party. Actual leftist tendencies are mostly anti-state and almost exclusively anti-capitalist. Calling the Democrats "the left" is simply disinformation, and to some extent a tribal appeal to emotion.
Poison.org also warns that “chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have major drug interactions with other medicines that can put a person at an even greater risk of an abnormal heart rhythm.” One of these drugs is actually azithromycin, which the French study routed by Trump used in combination with hydroxychloroquine.
It could be the "crazy increase in cardiac deaths" described by first responders in NYC is linked to people following the President's advice.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/07/first-responders-suspect-crazy-increase-in-cardiac-deaths-in-nyc-is-linked-to-covid-19/
There is no difference in the number of independents and republicans taking social distancing seriously by last week's polling. The amount of conservatives and independents taking social distancing seriously was 91%. Democrats 94%
Geography seems an obvious answer to the discrepancy. Of course if you live in Wyoming or rural Kansas or elsewhere you will be less concerned about the virus than if you live in New York City. These are completely opposite environments. A rural person can reasonably believe there isn't enough international or even interstate travel to make it a large threat to them, and so see it as unnecessary, whereas anyone in the city knows it's a distinct possibility.
But the real reason is because they are dumb hicks who are anti science, as we all know.
I dont think that the left is some monolith that is explicitly anti capitalist and anti state. I think there's some large shades of that, and they can be varying degrees of skeptical of capitalism and skeptical of the state, but dont necessarily have be full-throated in either regard.
Yeah. I'm not happy that Sanders is gone and Biden is the nominee, but I'm glad it's over given that Sanders had no credible shot at being the nominee from Super Tuesday on.
I identify with the left. I dont consider Republican voters dumb or "hicks". I do think the GOP (as an organization) is meaningfully more anti-science than than the Democrats are, but there are plenty of lefties that are anti science (Anti Vaxxers, the left's disdain for Nuclear Power and GMO skepticism as examples).
Nice, now show me the numbers from 2 or 3 weeks ago when all the current cases were being spread, and after Trump had spent a full month downplaying it to the absolute hilt. But, no, that wouldn't work with your gaslighting narrative. So I'll do it for you. Nothing less than 30-40 point discrepancies:
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/15/21180506/coronavirus-poll-democrats-republicans-trump
Don't pull the "no one could have know" bullshit either. SCORES of people knew. I knew, others here knew. Well over a month ago. Go read the old posts. We didn't have a crystal ball. Everything one needed to see it coming was there. Pretty sure we were dismissed as alarmist fruitcakes, as per usual. What else is new. People didn't know because they made a choice not to know. That's on them, and it's on the President lying to them for all of February and half of March. And now this:
Keep in mind that many of those rural areas have exactly one or two ICU beds for 3 or 4 entire counties. Rural hospitals don't even exist in many places. Some of them are 50-100 miles away from where alot of these communities are.
Right now we are seeing a slight flattening due to New York, the current epicenter, having been on a total lockdown for weeks. Washington and NY were ahead of where the rest of the country is. There are going to be multiple outbreak epicenters in different parts of the country at different times. We are more akin to individual European countries at this point.
Also, South Korea is not some magically immune country because they did everything right. They'll be in the same boat as everybody else unless they remain vigilant. Not only that, they may be setting themselves up for future problems once all the other countries' populations develop resistance and they haven't. I'd pray for a vaccine if I lived there...
They will remain vigilant, because they aren't a full-blown idiocracy. I don't see any evidence we are "being vigilant" to the level South Korea is to this very minute. Look at the debacle in Wisconsin yesterday. Look at the people in unemployment lines today in Florida. People keep ignoring that our testing is 1.) woefully lacking even now and 2.) has reached a plateau of sorts. Part of the reason we are seeing new cases remain steady day to day for the last 3 or so days is because every available test is being used and thousands more are pending. It was, what, 3 weeks ago that Trump said, flat-out, that anyone who wants a test can get a test?? This is 110% false. They had warning this was coming as early as November. They did NOTHING (but shut down some travel from China, but not all, which entirely negates the entire point). No stockpiling of PPE. No effort to obtain the number of tests needed. Just magical thinking.
It's bullshit to claim this was always going to be this bad. We had MORE warning and time than literally EVERY other country. We were basically last in line. It's absurd that we would handle it the WORST after being able to look at dozens of other examples in real-time. We will pass Spain within hours as the 2nd most deaths in the world. By early Friday at the latest, we will pass Italy for the most. Even the per capita numbers, which are somewhat better, are skyrocketing each day. Even if we assume China's numbers are (let's be generous in a hypothetical) 5x more than they are reporting, we still have more.
I don't necessarily disagree with some of your points. It was never going to go the way you wanted in this country though. There is a distinct difference in the way people think in the West vs. the East. Regardless of how you think the West handles itself, keep in mind that the East is where a lot of these viruses are coming from. As horrible as you think we are, we're not slaughtering and eating bats and civets in wet markets. Nor are we buying ground rhinoceros horns or pangolin innards to brew up potions for relieving something we take a blue pill for...
Pray for a vaccine if you live anywhere.
South Korea vigorously tracked those with infections and through extensive testing and ensured they did not not go out and infect others through intrusive 24/7 surveillance.
Unfortunately, the US government doesn't usually have our best interests in mind like S.K. does because we're way more corrupt. So not really an option people take seriously here.
Locus of control issue. Purely psychological. Hard to blame the 'other' if you need an electron microscope to see it...
My "gaslighting narrative"? I guess context and nuance aren't exactly welcome here.
What could rural republicans known, or not have known, about what? I'm just honestly confused about what you mean here. Nobody pleaded ignorance, I was saying they were making an informed choice from their own point of view and social context.
Kansas has 900 cases of coronavirus. My state of PA, which took early measures to close non-essential buisnesses and implement social distancing under a democratic admin, still has 16,000 cases and over 300 dead. Even after accounting for population differences it's a huge discrepancy. Geography matters and it is rational for more isolated, rural people to fear it less, was my point. Do I think it's the right choice? Not at all, but it makes far more sense than millions of people being radicalized against safety measures due to right wing propaganda, as you seem to suggest.
I don't mind much re: 9/11.
Now, all the harping over FOUR American deaths in Benghazi while being chill with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying...
I agree that the spread will naturally be somewhat slower in rural areas - and that will affect people's perception about the danger of the disease. However, unless the number of close contacts with other people is radically less (given the average spread of infection to 2.5 other people, contacts would need to be reduced to something like 30% of that in urban areas to halt spread), the disease will still spread over time.
If you don't consider Trump's record of lies, it's arguable that some people were behaving rationally by ignoring the danger of the disease based on Trump's statements up to mid-March. I don't think there's the slightest argument of course that Trump was behaving rationally by making those statements - but I suspect that everyone on this thread now agrees with that, so it's something of a moot point.
Covid tests are rare and are being prioritized for the living. So when Joe drops dead in West Virginia he might not get tested and counted. The CDC's guidance is to count all covid and "presumed covid" deaths as covid deaths. With that being said, it's up to the states whether they feel like saying a death is "presumed due to covid-19." Some states are lenient here, others will not report unless they can definitely test and prove the death was COVID-19 related.
The death toll has become a heavily politicized benchmark because of the President. Trump’s defenders say the official number is inflated because it includes all deceased people who tested positive for covid-19, even if there was another cause of death, such as a heart attack or an accident. He has made it a political issue to have a lower count to cover for his failure to take the pandemic seriously. Despite knowing about the pandemic since December, he didn't even order supplies until like March 20th (if I recall correctly).
"A coroner in Wyoming, the only state that still hasn't reported any deaths due to the virus, said he seriously doubts its official death count, and told CNN he hasn't been able to test a number of suspected cases. And an Ohio coroner said she believes at least four deaths in her county have already been left uncounted."
"As the country battles a rapidly growing number of coronavirus infections, 13 coroners and medical examiners in nine states told CNN that they are struggling to acquire the supplies needed to test bodies arriving at their facilities for the disease."
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/06/health/coronavirus-coroners-uncounted-deaths-invs/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/us/coronavirus-deaths-undercount.html
There's a paywalled article here that describes some of the challenges:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/coronavirus-death-toll-americans-are-almost-certainly-dying-of-covid-19-but-being-left-out-of-the-official-count/2020/04/05/71d67982-747e-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html
When an "informed choice" is based on political misinformation, confusion due to lack of standards, lack of testing, and "point of view and social context" it becomes an uninformed choice or a dangerous guess.
Firstly the death has to be registered, which could happen quite quickly in an urban hospital but less quickly in an isolated rural area.
Then the coroner has to register the cause of death - different countries are applying different criteria for the definition of covid-19 death, often depending on whether or not there are underlying medical conditions.
And, in order to definitively state that someone died as a result of covid-19 infection that patient has to have been tested first (and at the moment in the UK patients are only being tested when they are admitted into hospital - so deaths in nursing homes etc. "don't count").
The Office of National Statistics does publish retrospectively deaths outside hospital where Covid-19 is noted on the death certificate (which can be done without testing). See explanation of how figures are compiled here. However, I agree this will be a considerable underestimate of those who've died while infected with the disease - and that will be a similar situation in most countries.
Not to mention China.
We'll know how many people died in 2020 eventually. A simple comparison to 2019 will be highly revealing.
I'm willing to easily entertain the idea that China's numbers are 5-10x higher. Even if that's true, we'll still have ones that are worse.
Neither are most Chinese. Lots of Americans still eat wild game, too, and take nonscientific remedies like homeopathic placebos and supplements that consistently turn out to not contain what they say they do. Dividing the world into "us and them" isn't just racist, it's wrong.
The avian flu came from birds, hence the name. Recent genetic research indicates the "spanish" flu that killed more people than the Great War was an avian flu. It turns out America has a lot of birds, including overcrowded poultry farms that are cesspools of disease. If you want to believe that several pandemics coming from China means much more than "China has over a billion people and many of them are still living in poverty", then your predictions aren't going to age much more gracefully than Trump's did.
Noticing differences doesn't equate to racism. I don't care what you say.
I didn't say Western values were better, just that they are different. Anything else is you putting words in my mouth. Give me examples of people in Europe buying rhinoceros horns and I'll take back my point. Even National Geographic talks about China and India contributing to the extinction of rhinos, pangolins and many other endangered species. Not to mention their pillaging of the South China Sea. Calling me a racist is just dismissive and frankly, I think you have an anti-West bias. The West has their own sins, to be sure, but the East is just as culpable in the rape of our planet.