Why Trump Is Right to Re-Open the Economy

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

4 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

You calling me fat James?🤣

 

No Rob, he only implied that you were simply short for your weight....

[REAL Green + 65]

2 hours ago, Alexia Carrera said:

You are delusional at this point. This whole Coronavirus politization is gonna cause THE CONTRARY of that... people are going insane because of this long term reclusion and segreggation of social distancing. Others are going crazy because they just got on the rails to success and this happened. Many people are going down to the most criminal places of society to dominate the streets just because if they don't they won't become a millionaire like they were going to just because of this Coronavirus PANIC (the black market was also affected and the change of power there isn't very diplomatic if you know...). This is causing more chaos than anything else... people are gonna be worse after this... NOT BETTER!! You can be SURE that more people are buying guns either to protect themselves or to commit various types of crimes... organized or not.
A lot more robbbery is happening now than it should!!! The commerce is not liking this a bit!!

Alexia can't see the forest for the trees so she goes on about the now instead of what is ahead.  This virus will be gone in a relatively short time as the only news item and a new world will await us of economic and social decline.  This was there before the virus just not exposed.  Post corona these issues will be naked for everyone’s viewing. 

 

In the old world pre-corona, we saw excessive debt with a global Ponzi economic system of unsustainable global value chains absurd digital wealth, and moral hazard corruption.  This global value chain thing was already a house of cards.  The cards were already coming down from trade tensions and unstable global financial arrangements.  The virus hit and what did we see?  We see a nation at the center of global trade and exporting its excess capacity to the rest of the world in a colossal malinvestment called the BRI, cover up the pandemic in criminal lies.  This should be one hint globalism is dangerous and should be leashed.  We now see how dangerous our global travel is.  We should see how dangerous our supply chains are for drugs and food. 

 

Instead people like Alexia talk about how bad this virus situation is now.  Of course, it’s bad now.  When you lock down a nation you cause mental stress but it is a crisis like this that makes it possible to talk to the general public about real dangers.  Once the general public are on board real change can be done.  We are a people poorer now this is plain to see with pre-corona economic activity many times more than now.  This activity is not coming back.  It is lost because time and effort are gone.  We are now behind he eight ball.

 

This activity was not resilient to shocks nor sustainable.  We see this by how fast the virus spread both health wise and economically indicating resilience is not there.  The sustainability of our system will now come under the microscope as people see their grocery stores and pharmacies with bare shelves.  Don’t think normality will return because it won’t.  Shelves will not be stock as they were pre-corona.  People will see their pensions with a new haircut.  Retirement will be gone as we knew it.  Massive job loss is ahead for industries that a nation and world could barely afford pre-corona but now the money will not be there. 

 

Instead people are going to look locally for some sanity.  Many people will realize how crazy it is to live in mega cities.  They will want to grow things knowing how important food is.  They will see how vulnerable safety nets become in a real crisis and they will turn to their local and build a better community.  Those areas that have no future in a poorer world will depopulate.  This is all a longer-term trend but it begun with the virus.  So, Alexia is talking about now but I am talking about the next 5-10 years.  Big difference in the view of the forest. Who is delusional?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

It will be what it will be. Really it is not worth any speculation until this pandemic is handled

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

[timamtti + 17]

On 3/31/2020 at 9:23 PM, 0R0 said:

I was responding to the particular points you raised.

The spread is not 0.05%. People coming in for testing with what would normally be flu symptoms are testing 35% in NY state, positive for CV 19 thus in NYC metro is now testing >45% infected. It means that with the Diamond Princess symptomatics ratio that would be about 55% of the people carrying the virus, so 45/55=81% of NY would be carrying the virus. 

 

https://healthweather.us/

 

If I could following your reasoning correctly, then you're saying that social distancing has pretty much no effect. Almost everyone will get the virus in the first wave no matter what we do (and in New York that's already the case). Am I correctly interpreting you? 

So, now the question is, why did it work in China? Why there shutting down everything was able to stop the virus from spreading? It wasn't that it was fully contained in Hubei, but did spread a bit to other provinces as well. If it spread in the US far far quicker than any models suggest (you're talking about 80% of New York having had it, while official numbers say less than 1%) then why didn't it do that in China? 

The other thing that I wonder is that if the social distancing doesn't stop it, then why does it look like it's working in California for instance (https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200326/social-distancing-may-be-working-new-study-hints). According to that, the infections dropped immediately when the order to stay at home was issued. That's possible only if the spread of the disease is still in the early exponential growth part. If it were in the late part, the stay at home would have no effect. 

Finally, CDC doesn't seem to agree with you on the analysis of how widespread the virus is (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/824155179/cdc-director-on-models-for-the-months-to-come-this-virus-is-going-to-be-with-us). In that link it is mentioned that 95% of Americans will still be not having had the virus once the numbers go down sometime in may. Shouldn't you be contacting CDC or more appropriately publish your data in a peer-reviewed medical journal if you can prove that that's completely opposite of what's happening? I'd imagine that if your data is bulletproof, it be one of the highest cited articles of at this decade as it is so much opposite to what medical experts are saying. If you publish it now and then in a couple of months when we can test for antibodies in our blood, we'll see that you were right all along, you would get massive publicity. 

Furthermore, you could probably make a massive amount of money by betting on your model to be right. All economic models that the stock analysts are using assume that the disruption to the economy will last much longer than what would be the case if everyone will have already got over it by May. So, buying now would make you very rich in June, when your model is proven right. Are you doing that? 

[D Coyne + 305]

On 4/3/2020 at 1:20 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

This response makes absolutely no sense at all!

How does Tom’s post encourage any attack on Koreans?

Doug,

Can you tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese if they are not speaking in Korean or Chinese?  Most people cannot.

Tom's repost of the Chinese woman who bought up masks incites anger especially among racists.

See

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-china-virus-coronavirus-asian-americans-attack-activism-a9422721.html

Posts like Tom's reinforce this problem.

[D Coyne + 305]

On 4/3/2020 at 6:15 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

 

 

Please explain how my post can "encourage the haters".

Tom,

The post I was referring to was the one with the Chinese person hoarding ppe. Such a post incites racists to attack Asians.  No explanation needed, imagine your wife was in the US, perhaps you would not post that crap in that case.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-china-virus-coronavirus-asian-americans-attack-activism-a9422721.html

Edited April 7, 2020 by D Coyne

[D Coyne + 305]

On 4/3/2020 at 10:36 AM, Bob D said:

Do you have an ounce of integrity in you.  He did not say the virus was a Liberal Hoax.  He said the Democrat attack response was the new hoax.  And you and your buddies here are part of that attack precisely because you are a 'useful idiot'.  You parrot CNN and MSNBC as if it's news.  It's not news.  It's their opinion, and it's not true.  I feel sad for you.  You could at least try to be honest.

Who lied to you about Trump calling the virus a hoax??  If you read it in the four anti-Trump publications below, which were written as an immediate response to the SC rally, you would have an understanding that the hoax was the Democrat criticism.  I would never expect you or your ilk to admit you're wrong ... but you are!  

https://checkyourfact.com/2020/02/29/fact-check-donald-trump-coronavirus-hoax-south-carolina-rally/

When looking at the entirety of Trump’s remarks, it appears the “new hoax” comment refers to the alleged Democratic “politicizing” of his response to the coronavirus threat – not the coronavirus itself. The Hill, the Daily Beast and Slate, among other outlets, reported that the “hoax” comment was talking about Democratic criticism.

 

Slate said, “Trump Slams Democrats Over Coronavirus Criticism: ‘This Is Their New Hoax,'” while the Daily Beast posted, “Trump: Democrats’ Coronavirus Criticism A ‘New Hoax.'”

At no point in the rally does Trump directly call the novel coronavirus outbreak a “hoax” or “conspiracy.” In fact, he refers to the respiratory virus as a “public health threat” and reiterates “we have to take it very, very seriously. That’s what we’re doing. We are preparing for the worst.”

Trump denied that he called the coronavirus a “hoax” in a Feb. 29 press conference. He said he was “referring to the action that they take to try and pin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job. The hoax is on them. I’m not talking about what’s happening here. I’m talking what they’re doing. That’s the hoax,” according to NBC News.

 

 

I stand corrected, he was calling the idea that he was not doing a fantastic job a "hoax", 

in fact any criticism of Trump obviously must be a hoax. 

He is doing a great job, just ask him, he will tell you at  around 5 pm almost every night.

When someone misstates facts (aka lies) as often as Trump, it is difficult to keep track.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-checking-president-donald-trump-s-claims-about-coronavirus-n1174356

I am not in the habit of watching Trump rallies, so I missed the distinction about what he was calling a hoax.

Anything Trump disagrees with is generally termed "a hoax" by the liberal media.

 

 

 

 

[Bob D + 562]

2 hours ago, D Coyne said:

I stand corrected, he was calling the idea that he was not doing a fantastic job a "hoax", 

in fact any criticism of Trump obviously must be a hoax. 

He is doing a great job, just ask him, he will tell you at  around 5 pm almost every night.

When someone misstates facts (aka lies) as often as Trump, it is difficult to keep track.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-checking-president-donald-trump-s-claims-about-coronavirus-n1174356

I am not in the habit of watching Trump rallies, so I missed the distinction about what he was calling a hoax.

Anything Trump disagrees with is generally termed "a hoax" by the liberal media.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for admitting you were wrong.   You may have missed the rally but sure sure as hell can read.  This is where FAKE NEWS comes from ... guys like you!   It must exhausting being a Liberal. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 4/6/2020 at 1:19 PM, timamtti said:

If I could following your reasoning correctly, then you're saying that social distancing has pretty much no effect. Almost everyone will get the virus in the first wave no matter what we do (and in New York that's already the case). Am I correctly interpreting you? 

So, now the question is, why did it work in China? Why there shutting down everything was able to stop the virus from spreading? It wasn't that it was fully contained in Hubei, but did spread a bit to other provinces as well. If it spread in the US far far quicker than any models suggest (you're talking about 80% of New York having had it, while official numbers say less than 1%) then why didn't it do that in China? 

The other thing that I wonder is that if the social distancing doesn't stop it, then why does it look like it's working in California for instance (https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200326/social-distancing-may-be-working-new-study-hints). According to that, the infections dropped immediately when the order to stay at home was issued. That's possible only if the spread of the disease is still in the early exponential growth part. If it were in the late part, the stay at home would have no effect. 

Finally, CDC doesn't seem to agree with you on the analysis of how widespread the virus is (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/824155179/cdc-director-on-models-for-the-months-to-come-this-virus-is-going-to-be-with-us). In that link it is mentioned that 95% of Americans will still be not having had the virus once the numbers go down sometime in may. Shouldn't you be contacting CDC or more appropriately publish your data in a peer-reviewed medical journal if you can prove that that's completely opposite of what's happening? I'd imagine that if your data is bulletproof, it be one of the highest cited articles of at this decade as it is so much opposite to what medical experts are saying. If you publish it now and then in a couple of months when we can test for antibodies in our blood, we'll see that you were right all along, you would get massive publicity. 

Furthermore, you could probably make a massive amount of money by betting on your model to be right. All economic models that the stock analysts are using assume that the disruption to the economy will last much longer than what would be the case if everyone will have already got over it by May. So, buying now would make you very rich in June, when your model is proven right. Are you doing that? 

I am not saying that social distancing doesn't work.

I am saying that what it works for, i,e. stopping the virus in general, is not a useful goal. That since there will always remain pockets of it. So complete stop does not mean that you solved the problem of recurrence. You want curtailed steady spread among the active population (children young adults and parents) which do most of the activity, are low risk, and once they are immune you have a good buffer for the high risk population. 

I am saying that social distancing only works before the big swing up. After it, you are just inflicting damage on a population that is already at least half immune. NYC had a very rapid ramp up because of population density. Crowded everything. Worst is public transport. Then schools, but take out teens and uni students and you solve the problem for suburbia and rural areas, but hardly make a dent in NYC metro. 

The less dense areas, even first line destination cities like LA SF Seattle, Chicago, didn't do that badly. Detroit, NYC Philly Boston had big rapid expansions. All are in the 40s % and up positive tests. 

In CA and WA, early quarantine stopped the propagation so early that the number of cases per 100k is 1/10th that of NYC metro (incl. NJ and Connecticut). Spread out low density regions like Ohio or other industrial Midewest areas didn't even see significant surges and cases per 100k are in the 400 range like CA that shutdown hard two weeks earlier.  Positive rates (new cases) have already peaked in the Midwest and new cases are down in the central city counties into the single digits. They have fallen to 1/3 of peak and even less. Very light physical distancing is sufficient in the vast bulk of the country. Gloves and fabric masks are enough to protect you at work and shopping, no public transport. No school for teens and up and limit gathering numbers to whatever fits the virus penetration in your area. (Swedish model) No need to stop the economy. The national policy is properly to let the governors decide. I think the general quarantine was the wrong thing to do, even within states. That SLOWING the propagation is a good idea, protecting the people at high risk is a good idea, but STOPPING the virus is a terrible idea, because that simply ASSURES that it will BE BACK. 

I think we distinctly don't want to stop the virus spreading. We want to promote herd immunity, just get there without overwhelming the healthcare system while protecting the high risk population tightly. We don't want to be in China's situation where Wuhan is all immune, Hubei and Guangdong are half immune, and everywhere else, nobody is immune and a new outbreak can spread like wildfire. China had to close itself to foreign travel. 

It did happen in China. Pretty much all of Wuhan will turn up testing positive on antibody tests (the Chinese antibody tests are garbage so far so no real data) . 

The CDC said - your interview is from a week ago. That US penetration is estimated at 5%. That is probably true but a low ball value, but it reflects rural and exurban America at 1-2% suburbia 2-5%, metro areas 20% to 50%, and dense metro commuters at 70-80% the way I see it. The dense metro population is a small fraction in the US. Huge in developing economies and in Japan, Korea, Western Europe. Greater Paris is essentially the French population. Paris suburbs are DENSER than the city proper. Some Paris suburbs are as dense as Sao Paulo favelas and Mumbai and Manilla, and Hudson co. NJ.

I don't think I am that smart and don't have the academic chops for it. To produce a powerful statistical model would take more than I can do on my own and direct access to CDC and state data. That would get attention in the right epidemiological circles. But it is enough for me to make a prediction for stocks and monetary items like inflation, monetary policy expectations etc. which will affect bonds. That all depends on how policy reacts (or not) to changes on the ground. 

The big issue is that policy is only going to respond to its own checklist of extracting all that is possible out of the crisis they created out of this pandemic. The pandemic is a moderate crisis of its own, the policy response is a much larger and more dangerous and deadly over-reaction that has its own dynamics. It is a question of how long it takes them to let people go back to business. It is already taking them long enough to consider the facts on the ground. Cuomo is still raging for ventilators and using inflated epidemiological models AFTER the virus was contained by the lockdown. That wile testing facilities are abandoned and emergency rooms are empty and ambulances sit immobile in parking lots. Yet nobody wants to consider that it is nearly over and there are no more sick people to be had and the big cities are likely at half way infected and now immune already.

You do understand why I am expecting that the infection rate is directly reflected by the % positives in the tests as it varies regionally. That R0 of NYC is on the order of perhaps 20, but Midwestern and Southern suburbia exurbia and rural areas it falls to 1.5 -2 or so with normal activity, less than 1 with just blocking mass congregations. There are plenty of rural and exurban people who showed up for tests with negligible symptoms and an empty system tested them because there was no consequence, but rates are single digit, in big cities, where the main mechanism of transmission appears to be public transport, the people showed up at first with dyspnea and now with just prolonged fever and a cough, and then the rest show up with just a contact history to justify testing. Yet the rate of positive tests is not particularly different than it was before. So we see a drop in new daily hospitalizations and that means that the symptomatics testing negative  were already rid of the virus early on, but were suffering from long term lung damage and organ damage from it. That should reflect in the general population. I can't know if the tested group are much more infected than those who didn't test, or about the same. Because most people survive just fine it is likely that both groups are positive to the same extent.

The Swedes appear to be the only rational actors in the Northern hemisphere. Taiwan Singapore Korea and Japan did their own way, but that took lots of preparation beforehand which they had done for SARS. It was much better in that their economies are functioning just fine. But so is Sweden's, and it is a lot easier to implement.

The lockdowns were never an appropriate scale reaction. This is not the bubonic plague. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

9 hours ago, D Coyne said:

Doug,

Can you tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese if they are not speaking in Korean or Chinese?  Most people cannot.

Tom's repost of the Chinese woman who bought up masks incites anger especially among racists.

See

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-china-virus-coronavirus-asian-americans-attack-activism-a9422721.html

Posts like Tom's reinforce this problem.

So Tom is somehow responsible for the ignorance of others?

[REAL Green + 65]

When the word collapse is scaled, I believe it better fits a view of what is coming.  This is a process and event.  This event is more disruptive than the last decade combined crowded into a few weeks and global.  This event then will unfold over the next 5-10 years in destructive change mostly but hopefully with resulting constructive change of altered lifestyles more attune to local resilience.  Destructive change has occurred meaning huge lost production event with damaged just-in-time value chains and the lost comparative advantage of regions.  Economic abandonment, dysfunctional networks, and irrational policy will result regardless of how wise the response is. 

 

When we scale the view of this then we will see areas hardest hit will be dispersed globally.  Some areas like the mega population area of the east coast naturally have a very disruptive period ahead.  The recovery will be help by the affluence of the region but this is more than regional it is also economic sectors so areas with damaged sectors will be pocketed around the world regardless of the virus impact.  This virus will have significantly damaged travel and leisure as an example which is huge in some areas.  Export areas manufacturing or commodity will likewise be damaged.  Looking further out we can see globalism itself being damaged significantly both with financial hits but also cooperative ventures.  Less foreign direct investment for example.  Globalism was already under pressure from trade tensions but now the retrenchment of value chains will be even more dramatic. 

 

There will be some gains from certain areas that see production moving back but overall consumers will see their cost of living go up and choices down.  In a sense many people were already struggling but this struggle was also with a globalism that exploited.  There was a life of excess built in to this struggle.  Too many people today enjoy unneeded pleasures and then say they are struggling.  It may be the case that this crisis forces people down an economic level but to a level more realistic. 

 

It could force necessary retrenchment with food and consumerism.  More food will have to be local and less of the expensive processed kinds and less imported luxuries.  The cornucopia of unneeded things maybe should end.   We might see less travel vacations strengthening locals.  We can expect more virus waves if this virus follows previous pandemics like the Spanish Influenza.  This surely will affect peoples desire to travel meaning a reboot to the travel related economic sector will be greatly damaged.  Businesses may start more remote work.  We may see less car culture because the auto manufacturing business will be badly hurt. 

 

I am very hesitant to describe this period we are entering because of how I got the 08 crisis right then the pseudo recovery wrong but this is different because it represents a radical change potential for globalism in general and lifestyles of normal people in particular.  Regardless many people will die and more will see their lives destroyed.  This is a consequence of bad behavior many times not anyone’s fault.  Realgreenadaptation.blog

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Put your blog in the blog section...that is what it is there for!

[Otis11 + 551]

21 hours ago, D Coyne said:

Tom,

The post I was referring to was the one with the Chinese person hoarding ppe. Such a post incites racists to attack Asians.  No explanation needed, imagine your wife was in the US, perhaps you would not post that crap in that case.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-china-virus-coronavirus-asian-americans-attack-activism-a9422721.html

So a question for you - would Tom's post have been racist if it has been a picture of a white person hoarding PPE?

(Hint - if not, it's not actually racist.)

[timamtti + 17]

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

All are in the 40s % and up positive tests. 

Sure, but you're using that number to extrapolate to the whole population. And that doesn't work, because we're not testing people randomly, but the people who get tested are a highly selective group. People get symptoms and they go to get tested. 

Would you use the same kind of method for HIV prevalence in the population? X number of people go to get tested and of them Y number test positive. Would you then say that Y/X part of the population is HIV positive? Of course not because it's mainly those people who think that they may have got HIV that will go to get tested. Is there any reason to believe that the same is not true for covid-19, especially as the tests have been rationed so that in many places you can only get tested after being referred by a doctor, which means that the doctor must think that you are likely to have the virus? 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

The CDC said - your interview is from a week ago. That US penetration is estimated at 5%

No. That was not an estimate for now but for end of May when we are already way over the peak of the epidemic. 5% means that the vast majority of the people haven't had the virus. 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

That is probably true but a low ball value, but it reflects rural and exurban America at 1-2% suburbia 2-5%, metro areas 20% to 50%,

You don't provide any reference to your estimate. By the according to this 86% of Americans live in urban areas. 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

Pretty much all of Wuhan will turn up testing positive on antibody tests

How do you know that? Was it just a coincidence that the new cases plummeted exactly at the same time when the lockdown was put in place? If pretty much everyone already had the virus, the lockdown shouldn't have had any effect on the spread of virus. 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

I don't think I am that smart and don't have the academic chops for it. To produce a powerful statistical model would take more than I can do on my own and direct access to CDC and state data.

Then what are you basing your estimates that differ so massively from others if not on "powerful statistical models"? Just a hunch? I mean, if you have evidence supporting your claims, it should be trivial to write that paper. The key word is evidence. What is the data that makes you think that you're right and almost all the world's epidemiologists are wrong? If you have that data, then even if you're wrong by a factor of 2, your estimate would still be much much closer to the true number than what others are saying. 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

The dense metro population is a small fraction in the US. Huge in developing economies and in Japan, Korea, Western Europe.

 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

You do understand why I am expecting that the infection rate is directly reflected by the % positives in the tests as it varies regionally. That R0 of NYC is on the order of perhaps 20,

So, then R0 in Korea and Japan must be close to R0 in NYC, right? If so, why the disease is not spreading there? The entire Japan has about 4k confirmed cases when NY has over 100k. Korea had about 7k cases already in early March. Now they have 10k. If the virus spreads like wildfire in urban populations and especially without us detecting the spread how is it possible that Japan and Korea have been able to contain the spread of virus? The method used in Korea that stopped the spread there on its tracks was based on the massive testing and contact tracking. But that doesn't work if the tested positive people account only a small fraction of the true positive cases. You're saying that a half of the NYC has the virus, which means that the tested 100k represent a small fraction of the total positive cases. Why is that not the case in South Korea? 

23 hours ago, 0R0 said:

The Swedes appear to be the only rational actors in the Northern hemisphere. Taiwan Singapore Korea and Japan did their own way, but that took lots of preparation beforehand which they had done for SARS. It was much better in that their economies are functioning just fine. But so is Sweden's, and it is a lot easier to implement.

You do understand that the route of Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Korea is completely opposite to what Sweden is doing? Those countries won't have the herd immunity. South Korea has had more testing than anyone else and they have it at about 0.02% of the population having had the disease. And as I said, if their number is way off, they would not have been able to have done what they have done, namely contact tracing and isolating the positive cases. That doesn't work if the tests are catching only a tiny fraction of the actual positive cases. 

Regarding Sweden, we'll see where it ends. Their current death rate per million is about an order of magnitude higher than their neighbours Norway and Finland. The deaths are also increasing rapidly. Yesterday they had over 100 new deaths which in proportion to the population size is about 50% higher than in the US. 

Edited April 8, 2020 by timamtti

[0R0 + 6,251]

31 minutes ago, timamtti said:

On 4/7/2020 at 6:33 PM, 0R0 said:

All are in the 40s % and up positive tests. 

Sure, but you're using that number to extrapolate to the whole population. And that doesn't work, because we're not testing people randomly, but the people who get tested are a highly selective group. People get symptoms and they go to get tested. 

Would you use the same kind of method for HIV prevalence in the population? X number of people go to get tested and of them Y number test positive. Would you then say that Y/X part of the population is HIV positive? Of course not because it's mainly those people who think that they may have got HIV that will go to get tested. Is there any reason to believe that the same is not true for covid-19, especially as the tests have been rationed so that in many places you can only get tested after being referred by a doctor, which means that the doctor must think that you are likely to have the virus? 

That is what I was thinking initially. But there is the question, if there are folks coming in with a steady consistent level of threshold symptoms justifying to obtain tests, then why is the rate of positives differing so substantially from state to state and is so much higher in high density cities than in lower density areas. The only possible answer is that the rate of positives corresponds to the general rate of infection in the local community, not to the symptoms. Thus the symptoms, generally similar to those of quite a few other diseases including simple flu, are not a suficient indication of the disease, but tests are. 

So as the temperature measurement charts show a great fall below seasonal flu and pneumonia numbers where CV19 is not widespread, then the disease would show up as a higher % of symptomatic cases. That isn't happening. Instead, each region has a roughly steady % positives over some weeks now. Meaning that only the prevalence of the coronavirus infection in the community could have caused it. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

41 minutes ago, timamtti said:

On 4/7/2020 at 6:33 PM, 0R0 said:

The CDC said - your interview is from a week ago. That US penetration is estimated at 5%

No. That was not an estimate for now but for end of May when we are already way over the peak of the epidemic. 5% means that the vast majority of the people haven't had the virus. 

I didn't understand it correctly then, in which case it would be an underestimate. But that does not change my comments that followed.

[John Foote + 1,135]

On 4/6/2020 at 8:59 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Edit out the word "national"

Of course I'd be in trouble since much of what I cross check isn't national, so I'd run out of things to be mislead about

 

[timamtti + 17]

36 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

That is what I was thinking initially. But there is the question, if there are folks coming in with a steady consistent level of threshold symptoms justifying to obtain tests, then why is the rate of positives differing so substantially from state to state and is so much higher in high density cities than in lower density areas.

Because they are in a different state of the epidemy. If California has 0.04% of their population infected and New York 0.7% they are very far from each other in terms of relative spread of the virus, but they are both miles away from your 50% rate. 

I'm still waiting for your explanation on why the growth in number of cases plummeted in Wuhan right when the lockdown came in effect. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

10 minutes ago, timamtti said:

Because they are in a different state of the epidemy. If California has 0.04% of their population infected and New York 0.7% they are very far from each other in terms of relative spread of the virus, but they are both miles away from your 50% rate. 

I'm still waiting for your explanation on why the growth in number of cases plummeted in Wuhan right when the lockdown came in effect. 

Er, because the CCP said it did?

[Marcin2 + 725]

@timamtti I think I should inform you that most of commenters at this forum are hardline members of Trump cult.

Whenever you would say anything that is not in line with CURRENT Trump opinion about any topic the same things happen:

- people do not answer your arguments, you are again and again trying with ORO but it will not work, it will not work with nearly any other commenter,

- when they get tired of evading your questions your whole argumentation would be called nonsense cause data you are using are manufactured by CCP or  UE,

- at last you would be called Chinese agent just because you have different opinion

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 hours ago, timamtti said:

On 4/7/2020 at 6:33 PM, 0R0 said:

That is probably true but a low ball value, but it reflects rural and exurban America at 1-2% suburbia 2-5%, metro areas 20% to 50%,

You don't provide any reference to your estimate. By the according to this 86% of Americans live in urban areas. 

Dense urban center does not equal urban. The general designation of urban does not differentiate between single family housing, which is how most Americans live in suburbs vs. dense metro centers, which are largely high rise apartments, high rise offices and heavy reliance on public transportation. Particularly overly dense subways.

The figures are samplings of the US rural counties' positive testing ratio vs. central metro counties' figures and suburban counties outside of NY and Chicago Metro - where commuters are on crowded trains whether they live in single family tracts or in apartments. Actually, Queens - i.e. commuter central, in the NY boroughs, has the highest rate of positive tests 57% though it is for the most part single family or duplex houses. While Manhattan has 40% because its residents do not commute for long or at all.

Detroit tests high, Philladephia test high, Los Angeles does not. It is on the low end of dense urban centers (in this case DTLA downtown LA) Boston is high Chicago is not so bad for some reason. 

[Marcin2 + 725]

I still sometimes go through some threads of this forum to find any non cult commenters like you.

You really bring added value to this forum, but as many before you would get tired fast.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Marcin2
Typo

[timamtti + 17]

9 minutes ago, Marcin2 said:

 I think I should inform you that most of commenters at this forum are hardline members of Trump cult.

Thanks. Regarding the Trump cult, we're in an interesting experiment. Trump changed his stance quite radically with COVID-19 from "we don't have to care about it" to "this is a national emergency, we'll have to keep the country closed at least to the end of April". That has dropped the cult members in an interesting void. Should they continue on a stance of downplaying the threat that they adopted when Trump was on that side and resist all the restrictions for people's movements and gatherings or rally behind Trump and support his actions. It's a horrible cognitive dissonance that is wrecking their brains probably worse than any other effects of the epidemic. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 hour ago, timamtti said:

Because they are in a different state of the epidemy. If California has 0.04% of their population infected and New York 0.7% they are very far from each other in terms of relative spread of the virus, but they are both miles away from your 50% rate. 

I'm still waiting for your explanation on why the growth in number of cases plummeted in Wuhan right when the lockdown came in effect. 

Does not explain the difference. And it is not anywhere near the 0.04% or 0.7% you are quoting. The symptomatic patients qualifying for tests are a tiny fraction of the number infected. Thus 1 tested positive means at least 10 infected 4 with mild symptoms who were done with the virus by the time they may have tested, 5 with no symptoms at all. The symptomatics would show up with roughly the same % positives in both degrees of virus propagation of 0,04 and 0.7%, the negatives would heavily predominate the results as most of the symptomatics would have other diseases. The only reason they wouldn't is because the penetration is the same as in the general community, meaning up to 57% in Queens, + the portion that has defeated the virus but continues having symptoms due to lung damage. That is more true now that the flu has become a thing of the past due to quarantine.

As far as China sourced information is concerned, the words "China" "virus" and "disease" are as far as I would believe official statements. I would not believe any modifier quantitative value, or characterization of the virus or the disease. Some scientific literature I would take at face value until it is shown wrong in duplication.