News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by oarsinsync on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:39PM (#24212421)
What else is Qatar doing?

What does Qatar do to a person who is confirmed infected? Does the same action occur to someone with the flu?

What is Qatar asking it's population to do differently today, compared to this time a year ago? Does that have any meaningful impact on transmission rates?

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by ReptileMan on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:43PM (#24212481)
It's pretty locked down. You have an app that unless it's says healthy you are not allowed into any public place.

I illustrated it as a place in which there is so much mass testing that the mortality figures are more fact than fiction.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by oarsinsync on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:50PM (#24212564)
> > That is not much higher than flu.

> It's pretty locked down. You have an app that unless it's says healthy you are not allowed into any public place.

The explicit comparison to the flu doesn't really seem to hold, since the conditions applied to the infected aren't equal. If those carrying the flu were subject to the same conditions as those carrying this covid-19, the comparison would hold up a lot better.

> I illustrated it as a place in which there is so much mass testing that the mortality figures are more fact than fiction.

Mortality numbers as a % of tested peoples are hugely variable due to the differences in testing between nations.

Mortality numbers as a % of the population (deaths per 100k/1m) make for good comparisons, and unless the nation is engaging in outright deception, those numbers are reasonable to use as a comparison.

According to https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality the USA has 52.52 deaths per 100k. In line with your previous, Qatar has 6.94 deaths per 100k.

10x more people have died in the USA vs in Qatar. What's going on?

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by ReptileMan on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:58PM (#24212683)
There are 10 times more cases in US that haven't been tested for is one explanation.

Look - my country no one bothers to observe measures and our system is far from overloaded.

I think that a lot of influential l people threw too much social capital on stay at home and stuff like this and now they just can't handle the situation if covid is less dangerous than thought.

I think we are in the sink cost fallacy.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by oarsinsync on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:11PM (#24212857)
> There are 10 times more cases in US that haven't been tested for is one explanation.

There are 10x more deaths as a percentage of the population in the USA than in Qatar. The number of tests / positive cases is not relevant to that number.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by komali2 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:47PM (#24212539)
You deny the fact that at least 172,000 Americans have died from covid?
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by ReptileMan on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:52PM (#24212596)
No. Is that much for a nation of 333 000 000? People die all the time. Covid just frontloads some death for old people and ones with comorbirbidities.
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by cmrx64 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:17PM (#24212964)
how is it that almost 6 months have passed and this same syllogism gets trotted out repeatedly? this is 1. factually incorrect, 2. morally reprehensible. everyone dies eventually and gets sick with something else someday. let’s just front load all the death into 2020 and get it done with forever, eh?
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by rurp on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @04:12PM (#24215669)
> Covid just frontloads some death for old people and ones with comorbirbidities.

Why bother treating any sick person if this is your position? The healthcare system would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier if we just "frontloaded some death" for everyone who gets seriously ill.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by komali2 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:21PM (#24213053)
> Covid just frontloads some death for old people and ones with comorbirbidities

When the actions to prevent these people from dying, uh "just earlier than they would have," are as simple as wearing a mask and social distancing, it is unethical to not do so.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by SpicyLemonZest on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:25PM (#24213096)
I think it's pretty misleading to characterize "no going to the gym, ever, until further notice" as a simple action.
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by komali2 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @02:00PM (#24213656)
Why? It's a pandemic. If anything we're lucky it wasn't more deadly than it is.

I'm not gaining muscle mass but I'm having absolutely no trouble whatsoever maintaining it at home with exercise bands and calisthenics. It's a tiny, tiny price to pay for helping keep my community safe.

I would sacrifice the gym for the rest of my life if it meant adding even a year of life to a single person. Sentient existence is immeasurably more valuable.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by SpicyLemonZest on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @02:12PM (#24213839)
I guess there's a values gap there I don't know how to bridge. I don't recognize the entire category of unbounded obligations to preserve life that you're suggesting.
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by dublin on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:25PM (#24213099)
Yes, emphatically. The statistics clearly show that deaths from flu and other infectious diseases and lung conditions have dropped to nearly zero over the past several months. This doesn't pass the most basic smell test: People didn't stop dying from those things simply because of a new virus. The only reasonable conclusion is that those deaths were misattributed to the Wuhan virus because of political, economic, or other pressures.
Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by didibus on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:40PM (#24213329)
What are you talking about, here's the link to the CDC flu data: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

It shows:

39,000,000 – 56,000,000 flu illnesses

18,000,000 – 26,000,000 flu medical visits

410,000 – 740,000 flu hospitalizations

24,000 – 62,000 flu deaths

Which is actually kind of on the higher side for the flu season. They attribute that most likely on the increased testing happening this year due to people getting tested for Covid.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by komali2 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:57PM (#24213626)
The evidence doesn't support your, uh, "thesis."

Until you provide overwhelming evidence (because that's what you're up against), you're spreading misinformation.

Seems to me like you're speaking from a feelings position, rather than a facts one.

Re:Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition by gowld on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @01:31PM (#24213213)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Total predicted number of excess deaths since 2/1/2020 across the United States:

All causes: 174,930 - 235,728

All causes except COVID-19 : 29,416 - 78,932

> the Wuhan virus

Propaganda pro-tip: If you want people to trust you, suppress the obvious tells.