TrueBlue4ever

For those who wrestle with isolation vs. less restrictions, COVID vs. economy, risk to millennials vs elderly, and "acceptable" levels of sacrifice, be it economic or health, here is the perspective from a COVID survivor. Just one viewpoint, would be happy to hear of others or if anyone refutes this person's opinion, having lived through it: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/us/coronavirus-survivor-response-to-protesters/index.html

Next to your toilet paper tower no doubt.

Not sure what the best place to post this was, could go in Canadian politics or the environmental or random news threads, but it seemed like it would get the most eyeballs here and does impact Trump’s big economic push to salvage his election chances. Oil went below $0 a barrel today. Yep, oil suppliers are now paying buyers to take it off their hands, since they have too much surplus and can’t even give it away for free. Can’t wait to go to Shell where the sign says “Gas, $20” and go to fill up and have them say “Here’s your gas. And here’s your $20.”

Speed flex was going off about the military in the streets enforcing laws and restricting our civil liberties. Well, I’d welcome that a whole lot more than seeing civilians parading around with assault rifles prepared to enforce their personal rights over the rights of society at large.

Trump’s biggest card is not to rev up his base, it is to disenfranchise as many voters as possible and use to courts to gerrymander the voting his way as much as possible. Eliminate mail-in, absentee or advance polling? Check, check, and wait for it. Declare a suspension of the election due to a National emergency? Wouldn’t surprise me. Get the Supreme Court to ignore the results of the vote and elect him by Supreme Court decision? Hey, we already have a precedent for that one.

And some who have it are not being tested. My friend showed up for testing and was told they wouldn’t test even though all the symptoms were present, and the health care workers acknowledged it as well. My friend them said “I’m an essential worker” (they are, not lying) and they reversed their decision and tested. Results are pending, but it shows that they are still being selective in who they test.

Sweden now has 1,400 deaths and 13,216 total cases, for a fatality rate of 10.6%. Worldwide the rate has jumped to just under 6.8%, US is almost 5.2%, Canada is a shade under 4.1%

God, that is such a punchable face.

The great unknown is how many deaths can be prevented by spreading out the curve. I get the idea that IF the health system is not going to be overwhelmed AND the same number of people are going to die in the end, then why stall it and hurt the economy, but the concern was exactly that the system WOULD be overwhelmed and more deaths would occur if it happened all at once. And this outcome had already been seen in Italy, where decisions were made not to treat patients over a certain age for no reason other than the fact that there were not enough s ventilators to administer to everyone and hospitals were literally choosing who lived or died based on age. Had there been a slower curve, it is logical that there would have been enough machines for every patient and more would survive than simply being left to die. Is it worth the economic losses? Some will say no, some will say it isn’t even a question to be considered. I guess my view is that the economy has bounced back before from bad times, but no one bounces back from being dead, and I don’t have statistics to show that an economic downturn will cause more deaths than Coronavirus, but stats are showing that a delinquent or non-response to social isolation has been causing a higher per capita incidence of death.

When Sweden had 477 deaths, they didn’t the same 10,483 cases that they have now. Both the number of deaths and number of cases have risen in the last week. When Sweden had only 477 deaths they also had only 7200 cases, not 10483, so their rate was 6.6%, not 4.5%. The liar comment was heavy-handed, sorry Statistics matter when making a point on either side.

Putting aside your mis-information on numbers, could you please cite what proof you have that a non-lockdown will save the economy, and a long-term lockdown will "crater" it as you say? Yeah the stock market is down and people are filing unemployment claims, but who is to say that long-term we can re-open and handle a second wave better because of the drastic measures now, or that the economy won't bounce back (it did in 1987, 2001, 2008), or that biting the bullet now will actually keep the economy afloat anyway? I'd be curious to hear your argument as to what is happening today is somehow irreversible, and why it is a black and white "save lives, kill the economy vs. risk lives, save the economy" pre-ordained result. Sources to back up your argument, if you please.

Based on worldometers.info stats (compiled from Johns Hopkins and WHO data, and cited by Floyd in an earlier post), your statement that Denmark in a lockdown is doing as bad as Sweden in non-lockdown is wrong. Your next statement that Sweden a week ago had a 3.82% mortality rate is, well I won't say wrong, I prefer to say it's a lie. As of April 13 - Sweden: population 10.099 million (#91 in the world), 10,948 cases (19th), 919 deaths (14th), 91 deaths per million pop. (12th), and a mortality rate of 8.4% (deaths/total cases) Denmark: population 5.792 million (#115 in the world), 6,318 cases (31st), 285 deaths (26th), 41 deaths per million pop. (20th), and a mortality rate of 4.5% (deaths/total cases) Finland: population 5.540 million (#116 in the world), 3,064 cases (46th), 59 deaths (52nd), 11 deaths per million pop. (48th), and a mortality rate of 1.9% (deaths/total cases) Norway: population 5.421 million (#119 in the world), 6,551 cases (29th), 134 deaths (34th), 25 deaths per million pop. (27th), and a mortality rate of 2.0% (deaths/total cases) One week ago, Sweden had 477 deaths and 7,206 cases, for a mortality rate of 6.6% Helps your argument if you don't make stuff up to back your hypothesis.

Heard on the radio that the health officials were taking a day off so the numbers were not going to be updated today, hence the zero new cases.

Grey Cup replay on right now (Sunday April 12 at 4 pm. On TSN 3

Grey Cup replay on right now (Sunday April 12 at 4 pm

I could not see Bernie winning against Trump. Not because he is crazy or that his ideas aren’t good for the country. The simple thing is that this is the US. Trump got elected for a number of reasons, but one of the big ones is the simple mindset of the USA that “we are #1” (the only thing Dems and Repubs could truly agree on) And are the best at everything, especially our democracy and economy, from which we derive our strength, even if the outside world knows it’s patently false. They are not #1 in education, health care, standard of living. They are #1 in Incarceration rates and population percentage believing in God, and #2 in per capita gun deaths. They don’t think like the rest of the world does. They have had capitalism drummed into their heads for so long that no matter how much sense saving the planet or universal health care or social safety nets make (and this pandemic is making a pretty good case for this stuff) I don’t think that matters much to a “me first, my personal rights supersede everything else” mentality that feels overwhelming at times in the states. A moderate voice that doesn’t scare people is what will win in the US for Democrats, not a radical shift to the left to counter the hard right shift. JMO.

The proof will be if we immediately drop the social isolation rules and say “back to normal” and then there is a second spike. If the approach of “it is working so keep it up” rather than “it worked so we are done with it now” is maintained, in the long run it should mean less deaths and less of a second wave. I’ll defer to the experts on when the social distancing should be relaxed. And by experts, I don’t mean Mr. “the country will be up and running by Easter”.

There are two members (at least) on this very forum who seem to be advocating for it. And it's amazing what people are in favour of if they are told what to be in favour of given the power of celebrity endorsement or media manipulation.

And the Electric Mayhem (Dr. is on the keyboards, Animal on drums, Zoot on saxophone, Floyd on guitar, and Janice on vocals)

Ah, but this is asking for a straight one person - one vote system. Trump would not be President based on that approach.

"Raising the issue" would be simply asking the question "Should Americans vote on letting COVID-19 run its course?" FULL STOP. This piece uses such inflammatory one-sided language that the author has essentially answered his own question with a resounding "YES!". Most overt example of the bias in this article is the leading question: "As control of our own lives and some of our very freedoms are taken from us “for our own good,” do we have the right to make our voices heard?" A counter-opinion question might be "As we are being handed heavy does of mis-information falsely accusing the media of overhyping the disease and spouting as-yet-unproven doom-and-gloom scenarios about the collapse of Western civilization based on a one week dip in the stock market, should the public just sit back and heed the words of medical experts as opposed to jumping on the bandwagon of financial analysts in the pockets of big business and a corrupt President who has no expertise in the area of pandemics and exposing themselves to unnecessary risk just to serve those who are putting a dollar value on human life for their own greed?" But because a question mark is put at the end of the leading, clearly slanted opinion, it's OK right? I mean, we're not saying America is being held hostage by a Government who have trampled on our civil liberties, we're just asking. Jon Stewart did a piece on this a few years ago on The Daily Show to expose this media trick. Unfortunately Comedy Central won't release the video, but his satire was much more clever than this opinion piece, which doesn't even try to be subtle. And if the simple question was asked without the slant, the answer should still probably be "no". Direct democracy via referendum on everything doesn't work. Case in point, Hal Anderson is the 34th Greatest Canadian simply because he had a platform to get his vote out. Also, Stockwell Day floated this idea back in the day, saying if a plurality of Canadians (350,000 people was his target) petitioned on an issue, it should be forced to go to an automatic vote. "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" then put out a petition saying people should vote on forcing Stockwell Day to legally change his first name to "Doris". The petition got 370,000 votes in no time.

Surprised that Dr. Dre and Dr. Pepper have not been consulted yet. "Trust me, I'm a doctor".

Canada-wide stats for April 5: 1,600 new cases today (Highest daily total to date) and 49 more deaths (second highest daily total to date).

1) I was not JUST arguing that Canada is not doing well. I have NEVER made that argument. I have argued that those who have said that the measures taken are unnecessary because it is media hype are ignoring the seriousness of the threat and not following the raw data on the exponential progression of the spread. You wanted to, in my mind, minimize the risk by saying the fatality rate was only 0.017%, according to your own data, and you were flat out wrong in reading your own stats. The lockdown is working, but where you and I may differ is that you act like the measures can now stop because it has worked and we are out of the woods. I see it getting worse before it gets better, based on where the curve is going now and based on how other countries who started feeling the effects of the virus months ahead of us have turned out. If it is starting to plateau, great, but that means we stay the course until the threat has really passed rather than saying back to work since we are on top of it today. 2) Given your accusation of me flip-flopping on arguments, thought I’d refresh your memory on your time frame for the passing of the virus in your opinion. In the span of one day and 3 posts you went from Easter to start of May to June as the all clear period So you can’t even hold to your own story when it is questioned. 3) Just for the record, I do have a Government job, as does my wife. We are both essential services, me for law enforcement and her in a health care being called to multiple hospitals to care for patients, including testing patients for Covid 19. So neither of us are sitting in our house collecting a cheque, we don’t get that option to work from home and are forced to still go into the community at large and expose ourselves every day to those who may her the virus, certainly her more than me. We’ve even moved out of our house and are living in cottage country so as to separate ourselves from our kids to protect them. She is a nervous wreck every day leaving the house, and because the governing health agency has decided masking is not essential for health care workers, and they won’t employ the use of the filtered masks, and won’t test every person who shows symptoms because they may not qualify (ie did not also travel), she has had to buy her own limited supply of 95 grade masks and filters out of her pocket. Not sure what she’ll do when she runs out.