All We Have to Fear Is the MSM Itself

[TBoneTX 43,018]

Common sense, writ plainly.  Comments?

Quote

All We Have to Fear Is the MSM Itself

by Frank Miele

 

President Trump finally answered the concerns of millions of Americans on Monday when he tweeted: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.”

 

At that point, [...]

 

Continues here: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/27/all_we_have_to_fear_is_the_msm_itself_142788.html

 

[90DayFinancier 910]

11 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Common sense, writ plainly.  Comments?

This is not the flu. Quit comparing it to the flu.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

It's a good article, 1/5th to 1/20th of the American population every year gets influenza, tens of thousands of sick people die every year with various influenza strains. It's a very similar and highly contagious disease. Yet, for this, people are wanting to send the economy to a grinding halt and just chaos everywhere, ignoring the cost to people's livelihood. It really does demonstrate the volatility of PR, the desire to cater to irrationality. Politicians are afraid of looking like heartless people, in today's PR world, catering to hysteria is seen as "caring", they're scared ****less of the media's hyper-partisan and coordinated industry-wide narrative driving and its destructive capability. They fear its effect on their "electability" (and all the moronic criteria used to quantify it) more than the unnecessary chaos. We need politicians with a spine.

[TBoneTX 43,018]

The second response above is more persuasive to me than the first.

[yuna628 9,527]

7 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

The second response above is more persuasive to me than the first.

TB I think everyone has tried with varying degrees of eloquence and expertise explained in almost every single thread on the subject that this is not the flu. At some point you just either believe it or don't. So I would direct you to chew on these two well-written topics as food for thought:

https://medium.com/@joshgans/health-before-wealth-the-economic-logic-9c5414ae259c

https://medium.com/swlh/a-war-footing-surfing-the-curve-f5ffe6134e37

[NikLR 13,220]

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-similarities-and-differences-covid-19-and-influenza

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

Eloquence, expertise, and titles are irrelevant.That's all for religion. Rationality matters. The virus itself is ridiculously similar to influenza, the way it spreads is the same, management of symptoms. The overwhelming difference is the PR. Causing panic and chaos (destroying economies, livelihood, raiding stores, fighting, and so on) is totally asinine and insanely disproportionate to what this is actually causing. Unfortunately because of the political environment, and general stupidity, people aren't approaching this with rationality. This is where a spine comes in handy, and very few politicians have one.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[Crazy Cat 39,182]

These numbers are interesting..  From Worldometer:  Currently, roughly 2% of active US cases are serious....

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Lucky Cat

[90DayFinancier 910]

Trump said of the coronavirus: "You can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I'm not sure anybody even knows what it is."

Facts First: You cannot accurately call the coronavirus "a flu." They are, simply, different viruses with different characteristics, though they share some symptoms the coronavirus has a much higher mortality rate.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday during an online chat with NBA star Stephen Curry that the coronavirus is "very much more transmissible than flu and more importantly, it's significantly more serious" -- with a mortality rate approximately 10 times higher than the 0.1% for the flu.

It's also obviously untrue that there is not "anybody" who knows what the coronavirus is. Though it was initially seen as a mystery virus when it emerged in China, we knew its genetic information by early January.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/politics/fact-check-coronavirus-briefing/index.html

 

Note: this is not msm contradicting the media, it is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases AND a member of  the Presidents task force.

[Dashinka 23,199]

20 minutes ago, 90DayFinancier said:

Trump said of the coronavirus: "You can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I'm not sure anybody even knows what it is."

Facts First: You cannot accurately call the coronavirus "a flu." They are, simply, different viruses with different characteristics, though they share some symptoms the coronavirus has a much higher mortality rate.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday during an online chat with NBA star Stephen Curry that the coronavirus is "very much more transmissible than flu and more importantly, it's significantly more serious" -- with a mortality rate approximately 10 times higher than the 0.1% for the flu.

It's also obviously untrue that there is not "anybody" who knows what the coronavirus is. Though it was initially seen as a mystery virus when it emerged in China, we knew its genetic information by early January.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/politics/fact-check-coronavirus-briefing/index.html

 

Note: this is not msm contradicting the media, it is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases AND a member of  the Presidents task force.

The simple fact is that we have no idea what the mortality rate is on this one yet.  All the numbers are based on identified cases that are highly biased since only those being tested show some kind of symptoms and even those are showing only an approximate 15% positive rate. Yes, technically, this is not an influenza virus, but it is too early to tell if the effects are worse that the common influenza virus.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

The simple fact is that we have no idea what the mortality rate is on this one yet.  All the numbers are based on identified cases that are highly biased since only those being tested show some kind of symptoms and even those are showing only an approximate 15% positive rate. Yes, technically, this is not an influenza virus, but it is too early to tell if the effects are worse that the common influenza virus.

Mortality rate is already falling despite skyrocketing diagnoses, which we knew would happen months ago.

 

I think the sports analogy is a good one to look at. Look how often they play with the flu, they'll play through serious injuries, give themselves concussions which develop into permanent brain injuries that have led to suicides. Now suddenly a guy gets sick and touches microphones, as dumb as it is, and they shut everything down. 

 

Clearly PR.

 

This exaggerated reaction is likely recompense for the fact that we've spent a lot of time not taking general illnesses seriously and not caring about one another. However, the logical way to overcome underreacting (if thats a word) isn't overreacting. It's simply to, in general, work to stop the spread of influenza every year and be respectful of others' health.

 

Naturally, that's boring, and people hate taking personal responsibility when they can just blame other things instead. The same rationale behind why the populace re-elects corrupt people in Congress but blames Congress, money, anything under the sun, rather than their own choices and the logic behind it. Can literally watch society devolving in real time.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[Steeleballz 7,550]

12 hours ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

It's a good article, 1/5th to 1/20th of the American population every year gets influenza, tens of thousands of sick people die every year with various influenza strains. It's a very similar and highly contagious disease. Yet, for this, people are wanting to send the economy to a grinding halt and just chaos everywhere, ignoring the cost to people's livelihood. It really does demonstrate the volatility of PR, the desire to cater to irrationality. Politicians are afraid of looking like heartless people, in today's PR world, catering to hysteria is seen as "caring", they're scared ****less of the media's hyper-partisan and coordinated industry-wide narrative driving and its destructive capability. They fear its effect on their "electability" (and all the moronic criteria used to quantify it) more than the unnecessary chaos. We need politicians with a spine.

 

 

    They are both respiratory infections spread by droplet transmission. Both infections can make people very sick and they both can kill people. Beyond that, the pathology of both infections have more differences than similarities. 

 

    People claiming this is "just like flu" may be book smart and they may be great at statistics and compiling information from aggregate sources, but I am certain they haven't seen what it looks like with people coming in to ER and getting admitted to hospital with these infections. If they do end up there, it will be an epiphany, and hopefully not one that came too late.   

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Steeleballz

[90DayFinancier 910]

2 hours ago, Dashinka said:

The simple fact is that we have no idea what the mortality rate is on this one yet.  All the numbers are based on identified cases that are highly biased since only those being tested show some kind of symptoms and even those are showing only an approximate 15% positive rate. Yes, technically, this is not an influenza virus, but it is too early to tell if the effects are worse that the common influenza virus.

Wait, no idea?, There is a cone of uncertainty but we have some idea from Spain and Italy. If you do not delay the spread, your medical systems will get overloaded, and choices on who will live and die will be made. 

When people like the author of this article are criticizing the media, they are really trying to dispute facts. 

 

You can wish that the country will be"open for business" by Easter, but that will not make it so.  Facts are stubborn things.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

2 hours ago, Dashinka said:

The simple fact is that we have no idea what the mortality rate is on this one yet.  All the numbers are based on identified cases that are highly biased since only those being tested show some kind of symptoms and even those are showing only an approximate 15% positive rate. Yes, technically, this is not an influenza virus, but it is too early to tell if the effects are worse that the common influenza virus.

 

   More than 50 doctors have died in Italy now from nosocomially acquired Covid-19. It would be interesting to see someone come up with the last time that happened with flu. My guess would be 1919.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

The strains of yearly flu people tend to have some semblance of immunity toward. New/mutated strains result in more people getting sick, it means more die as well, then the number drops. Doctors as you mention are being exposed to a new pathogen. It's not too unlike when someone visits a new region and gets exposed to new germs, pathogens, etc., and they get sick. Doesn't necessitate the hysteria. It sucks, and we can learn things from it, and should take better care in general not to spread pathogens, but the idea of shutting things down isn't conducive to reason. The time to act on it if it were to be taken seriously was long ago and no one did. Furthermore, China helps ensure it spread across the globe, maliciously, as well, by facilitating ads telling people to behave in a way that helps spread the virus. Strangely those pitching hysteria don't seem to mind this much.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds