Coronavirus

[Pike2350]

So this year 0.009% of the population dies instead of 0.008% and to help the sheep think we've done a good job "combating" the virus we've destroyed at least 10x's as many people lives

Makes sense

I'm not agreeing with the measures that have been taken in full. I think they have gone overboard as well.....i am simply pointing out that we DO have more death this year. The question, as i"ve heard Milton Friedman put it is "what is the value of a human life?" I can't answer that....but I do realize this is a very contagious virus and is far deadlier than the normal flu and since we still don't know a lot about it..some precautions and some measures should be put in place until we can get a better understanding of it.....not to complete shutdowns like many have places have done...however I see nothing wrong with mask mandates and limiting capacity of public places for a reasonable defined time period.

I also wish people would stop acting like it's some hoax and not something to be concerned about. It isn't really about keeping you from getting it, nut keeping you from spreading it when you don't even know you have it.

As we get a better understanding they will change and be reduced. Once we have a better understanding of how/why/where this spreads and how/why it affects people so differently things will go back to "normal"...that is my thought.....of course I'm not a conspiracy theorist that thinks the .gov is just trying to slowly boil us in tyranny and authoritarianism.

Although the argument could be made, how many more may have died IF the measures hadn't been implemented? No way to tell.

 

[TRD270]

I also wish people would stop acting like it's some hoax and not something to be concerned about. It isn't really about keeping you from getting it, nut keeping you from spreading it when you don't even know you have it.

Although the argument could be made, how many more may have died IF the measures hadn't been implemented? No way to tell.

I don't deny that the rona is real, I deny that it is as deadly as presented. I don't really care about wearing a stupid mask in public i'm forced to so I can continue to work. So if I don't wear I mask I become something I despise, someone that would rather stay home and collect a ".gov" check to do nothing.

As far as the measures hadn't been implemented, sure i'll agree more people would have likely died but that number would be a fraction of a percent. Simple fact is if you're not in the "at risk" category 99.6% probability you're going to be fine. I'm willing to take that risk, i'm more likely to get killed by some ass hat on his/her phone while driving in Utah than I am to die from the rona and I choose to take that risk everyday.

If you're at risk by all means protect yourself thats your choice. I for one won't stand for my power and water being shutoff because I want to see my family that also chooses to "risk it" by visiting during the holiday.

 

[Cody]

So this year 0.009% of the population dies instead of 0.008% and to help the sheep think we've done a good job "combating" the virus we've destroyed at least 10x's as many people lives

Makes sense

Or you could math it by saying a 12.5% increase. Guess it depends on how you want that number to look.

 

[zgfiredude]

I had a thought this week. I wonder about mask effectiveness....one could say that more people than ever are wearing masks and yet more people than ever are getting sick. I realize that it's a super simplistic statement and not a scientific approach, but I haven't really heard anything since early on about mask effectiveness. You would think that somewhere out there there is someone counting positivity vs. mask use.

I learned as a child that the government and the media does not represent the truth. My mother was from Chile and during the Salvadore Allende years (elected Communist President) I saw how things were reported here vs. what we knew was fact from her family that was there at the time. I also spent 12 years as a police officer.......lesson 1, the truth lay somewhere in between the two stories that are being told.

Just my curious thoughts, stay well, be happy and as safe as you can.

 

[Cody]

I think the efficacy of masks is pretty small personally. But, that's just an opinion and I'm not qualified in any medical field. Conservative states that tend to shun masks do have slightly higher per capita rates it looks like, but locally if you look at per capita numbers of say Orem where less are wearing masks and slc, they aren't that far off. People will spin the data to support their preferred narrative in either direction, but even if masks cut transmission by 1-2%, that's at least something and I'm willing to wear the annoying little thing if it might potentially prevent the spread to a few more people that might die from it.

 

[anderson750]

The thing that always gets lost in the discussion is the fact that there is a very defined population that has a very high morbidity and mortality for the Corona virus. It is the 75+ population. If you are under 60 years of age, your risk is not much higher than than any other virus you may encounter this year. If you are under 75 and worry about it, then do what you think is appropriate to protect yourself.

Protect the high risk and let the rest of us live our life. If you are high risk, stay home, wear a mask.......N95, not these pieces of cloth that can do nothing to stop a 3 micron particle from coming in or going out.

 

[Unimog]

The thing that always gets lost in the discussion is the fact that there is a very defined population that has a very high morbidity and mortality for the Corona virus. It is the 75+ population. If you are under 60 years of age, your risk is not much higher than than any other virus you may encounter this year. If you are under 75 and worry about it, then do what you think is appropriate to protect yourself.

I agree with your sentiment, but I believe the current research shows that age, by itself, is not a risk factor. It is the existence of other conditions, like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, asthma, etc. It is a fact that there is a higher incidence of all of these risk factors the older you get, but being 75 or 80 years old does not in itself make you high risk.

 

[Herzog]

People will spin the data to support their preferred narrative in either direction, but even if masks cut transmission by 1-2%, that's at least something and I'm willing to wear the annoying little thing if it might potentially prevent the spread to a few more people that might die from it.

With that logic, Better stop hocking beer in case someone drinks and drives...

Jk don’t do that, your beer is really good.

 

[anderson750]

I agree with your sentiment, but I believe the current research shows that age, by itself, is not a risk factor. It is the existence of other conditions, like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, asthma, etc. It is a fact that there is a higher incidence of all of these risk factors the older you get, but being 75 or 80 years old does not in itself make you high risk.

True....co morbidities play a big factor and they are much more prevelant in the older population. But those co morbidities have not shown as high of a death rate in younger populations. a 40 year old with asthma or diabetes has a higher survival rate than a 75 year old with asthma or diabetes.

 

[anderson750]

With that logic, Better stop hocking beer in case someone drinks and drives...

Jk don’t do that, you’re beer is really good.

and kills an innocent person

 

[TRD270]

Or you could math it by saying a 12.5% increase. Guess it depends on how you want that number to look.

Well with the numbers provided I come up with 8.7% increase but not my point. It's a meager portion of the population being affected for something they were probably going to catch regardless of any silly restrictions being put in place. It's going to run is course if i'm going to get it i'm going to get it. If I die from it so be it, it was my time.

 

[glockman]

I have been forced to wear a mask at work since March. I just stopped going many places where people were for a while after that. I'd say around the middle of October, I just started wearing a mask anytime I went anywhere. Not because I believed they are 100% effective but because I thought it might reduce the time we have to put up with this. My wife has been wearing a mask since pretty much the beginning. She works from home also. Well, she got the rona, then I did. I figured it had to have come into the house with my 10 year old son. Nope, he tested negative. So I can say with 100% certainty, the mask did not prevent me and my wife who are both healthy and have had cold/flu like symptoms from getting the rona. Anecdotal but hey, it's my anecdote.

 

[Spork]

True....co morbidities play a big factor and they are much more prevelant in the older population. But those co morbidities have not shown as high of a death rate in younger populations. a 40 year old with asthma or diabetes has a higher survival rate than a 75 year old with asthma or diabetes.

As a diabetic, 25 years of it vs 60 years of it is a huge difference. If I've made it 60 years without loosing a foot, a kidney or going blind I think the virus would just be one more thing trying to kill me after years of things trying to kill me. We all got to die sometime, some people aren't comfortable with the thought of death, but it comes for them also...

 

[Cody]

Well with the numbers provided I come up with 8.7% increase but not my point. It's a meager portion of the population being affected for something they were probably going to catch regardless of any silly restrictions being put in place. It's going to run is course if i'm going to get it i'm going to get it. If I die from it so be it, it was my time.

For sure. I think my point to you so the same as your point to me. You can round it off to. 008 and. 009 but there is rounding error and that kind of missrepresents the actual numbers.

Nobody knows the answer as to how much a mask really helps nor is there any way to quantify the damage of lives lost vs livelihoods lost. Someone that lost a loved one would likely give up their livelihood to have them back, so there is probably more weight to lives lost but enough to make-up for the greater economic cost? You have your answer/opinion and I have mine and they are both just as right. But I'm not going to beat my drum over the Civil liberty violation of a mask when there are plenty of other examples of civil liberties being restricted by our government. I wear a seat belt. I don't sell alcohol to an 18 year old adult that can take a bullet for a country that doesn't think he can responsibly drink. The freedoms we do have in this country do have a price, and most are willing to pay that price for the collective benefit of our country, including the parts of the country you don't agree with. Nobody is going to agree with everything, but that's the case in any country and sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

 

[anderson750]

My neighbor is at a high-risk age and he put it pretty well.

Every year he sees people he has known die. When you're in that age group, it's not a surprise anymore. Our neighborhood has changed so much over the last ten years because the older neighbors are dying. In our small section of the neighborhood, he knows them all.

He put it pretty succinctly a few weeks ago. "Most are just hanging on. They have old health issues. If there wasn't covid and they died, people would be sad, but nobody would've been surprised."

I've chatted with a couple of old car guys, too, seems like those are the only folks I visit with and I really find their perspective interesting. One of the guys said, "If I miss a day of medication, I'll probably have a stroke. I have a much worse chance of dying a vegetable than from covid." So, he lives his life.

In chatting with my old pals, I've really learned that I need to live my life better than I am. And I took those conversations and relationships for granted because covid or not, they're not going to be around much longer.

I do coffee every morning with a group of guys that range from 40 to 85. The 85 year old when we asked him if he was worried about catching it. His response summed it up well.........I've lived a good life.........I'm not going to quit living my life.

 

[Cody]

I do coffee every morning with a group of guys that range from 40 to 85. The 85 year old when we asked him if he was worried about catching it. His response summed it up well.........I've lived a good life.........I'm not going to quit living my life.

That's a bit inductive. My mom is nearing that age and is terrified of not being around to see her grandkids grow up.

I will say, the older folks that come into the brewery seem to be the ones that resist the masks the most.

 

[zgfiredude]

I have asthma, my wife has lung cancer (3 years in remission, probably got it from second hand smoke from her father, but who knows she never smoked one single time) otherwise we are both quite healthy and active and aren't on a crap ton of meds. We have been protective of her since the beginning, and I work from home, now so does she. I am not investing all the time and effort thus far to be cavalier now. We will take care of us, and hope for vaccines in the near future. We will get shots when we can. Even then, I think our behaviors have been permanently altered a bit.

 

[Herzog]

What a nice lady.

 

[Houndoc]

I have been forced to wear a mask at work since March. I just stopped going many places where people were for a while after that. I'd say around the middle of October, I just started wearing a mask anytime I went anywhere. Not because I believed they are 100% effective but because I thought it might reduce the time we have to put up with this. My wife has been wearing a mask since pretty much the beginning. She works from home also. Well, she got the rona, then I did. I figured it had to have come into the house with my 10 year old son. Nope, he tested negative. So I can say with 100% certainty, the mask did not prevent me and my wife who are both healthy and have had cold/flu like symptoms from getting the rona. Anecdotal but hey, it's my anecdote.

Good chance it still could have been from your son. False negative tests are a reality with any medical procedure, and timing of testing on a COVID case can be critical.
If he was asymptomatic (most children are) and was only tested when your wife was sick, he very likely had already cleared it out of his system and a negative test would not be a surprise.

 

[UNSTUCK]

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but my two youngest kids tested negative twice through our whole ordeal. They both showed some form of symptoms at some point the last month. I believe they were the most mild symptoms out of all 5 of us. They never isolated from us or anything the entire time the three of us were actually sick.
I believe false negatives happen. Twice to two people in one family surrounded by positive (and sick) family members? That's harder to swallow. And if they were actually negative what does that say? Makes sense that my wife and I got stick. The kid that got sick is normally furthest away from us, sleeping in the basement by herself, more school/ away time, etc. If these two kids were actually negative it just tells me the virus is NOT as spreadable as they want us to think it is.