500,000 and still counting

[bottlebass]

I remember when KGF mocked me for saying we'd hit 500,000 deaths in this country. Well here we are and still counting and not even close to done. We have new variants, a slow vaccine roll out and the risk of turning this into a constant battle for the rest of humanity. All because a large portion of you are/were too selfish to take simple precautionary measures to control this outbreak. I know none of you are embarrassed or ashamed for being so stupid hopefully some of you have realized how stupid you sounded back in March-April-May and changed your ways. I doubt it though, can't help stupidity.

 

[Blizzard]

can't help stupidity.

From showing up apparently.

 

[John Galt]

Imagine being so naive and selfish to think that if only everyone did it my way, no one would have died.

The data also proves you wrong, as we let the states experiment with different degrees of lockdowns and regulations. States with the most stringent lockdowns didn’t fare any better on average than those with the least.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

I remember when KGF mocked me for saying we'd hit 500,000 deaths in this country. Well here we are and still counting and not even close to done. We have new variants, a slow vaccine roll out and the risk of turning this into a constant battle for the rest of humanity. All because a large portion of you are/were too selfish to take simple precautionary measures to control this outbreak. I know none of you are embarrassed or ashamed for being so stupid hopefully some of you have realized how stupid you sounded back in March-April-May and changed your ways. I doubt it though, can't help stupidity.

Great post, thanks, and when you compare our death totals to other countries it is shocking when you do a little math to see how horrible our results were. India for example has a population of ~1.4 billion, 4 times that of the US (~330 million) and have a death total of 156K (see link below), while not being as wealthy or the healthcare system we have.

World Covid-19 tracker: Latest cases and deaths by country (cnn.com)

These covid-deniers will wail about overcounts/undercounts et al, which of course, is a intellectually weak and dishonest position/argument. You will likely also not hear them offer any empathy for the 500k dead/their family members, as they have been too busy worrying about mask mandates or that they couldn't sit down and eat at crappy chain restaurant. Sad and predictable. .

God Bless those who have died and the pain their family have endured and for the HCPs who have treated them.

For those who monitor my posting, this qualifies as a special event for me; feel free to ignore me, as I also thought you were an over rated kitchen utensil.

 

[bottlebass]

Imagine being so naive and selfish to think that if only everyone did it my way, no one would have died.

The data also proves you wrong, as we let the states experiment with different degrees of lockdowns and regulations. States with the most stringent lockdowns didn’t fare any better on average than those with the least.

Galty! Still too stupid to read, I knew I could count on you. 1 stupid person confirmed to still be stupid months later. There are about 10-12 more of you around here that were too stupid and selfish months ago.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

Galty! Still too stupid to read, I knew I could count on you. 1 stupid person confirmed to still be stupid months later. There are about 10-12 more of you around here that were too stupid and selfish months ago.

Let's not forget this chestnut (money quote) either from our former Liar-in-Chief -

 

[Go4Broke]

Many Right Wingers ridiculed Osterholm's prediction last April. As it turns out, he pretty much nailed it.

Mike Osterholm on April 21, 2020: He expected at least 800,000 deaths over the next 18 months (without a vaccine)

There are 320 million people in the United States. If half of them get infected in the next 6 to 18 months, that’s 160 million people. The 50% rate of infection over the course of the pandemic is at the low end of my colleagues’ consensus on what we can expect to see given the infectiousness of this virus.

About 20% of infected people will seek medical care. That’s 32 million people. Of those, about half will be hospitalized. That’s 16 million people. Of those who are hospitalized, about half will actually require some form of critical care. That’s 8 million people.

About 0.5 to 1% of the total number of 160 million infected people will die. So you have the possibility of at least 800,000 deaths in the US over the next 18 months. This is the number of deaths I’m expecting. We have a long way to go with this pandemic. We just need to make people understand that this is going to be bad until we get a safe, effective and widely available vaccine.

https://whdh.com/news/infectious-disease-expert-were-only-in-the-second-inning-of-the-pandemic/

 

[bottlebass]

Many Right Wingers ridiculed Osterholm's prediction last April. As it turns out, he pretty much nailed it.

Mike Osterholm on April 21, 2020: He expects at least 800,000 deaths over the next 18 months (without a vaccine)

There are 320 million people in the United States. If half of them get infected in the next 6 to 18 months, that’s 160 million people. The 50% rate of infection over the course of the pandemic is at the low end of my colleagues’ consensus on what we can expect to see given the infectiousness of this virus.

About 20% of infected people will seek medical care. That’s 32 million people. Of those, about half will be hospitalized. That’s 16 million people. Of those who are hospitalized, about half will actually require some form of critical care. That’s 8 million people.

About 0.5 to 1% of the total number of 160 million infected people will die. So you have the possibility of at least 800,000 deaths in the US over the next 18 months. This is the number of deaths I’m expecting. We have a long way to go with this pandemic. We just need to make people understand that this is going to be bad until we get a safe, effective and widely available vaccine.

https://whdh.com/news/infectious-disease-expert-were-only-in-the-second-inning-of-the-pandemic/

Yep, Osterholm was who I was referencing when KGF embarrassed himself by saying I was ridiculous we'd hit 500,000.... Where you at killer?

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

Yep, Osterholm was who I was referencing when KGF embarrassed himself by saying I was ridiculous we'd hit 500,000.... Where you at killer?

Osterholm still says a category 5 covidcane is about to hit and the worst is still to come...

 

[bottlebass]

Osterholm still says a category 5 covidcane is about to hit and the worst is still to come...

There is a possibility this could get much worse due to the new variants and slow vaccine roll out as I referenced in my OP. I know the same people that denied the seriousness of the situation before will deny this current situation too. We are in real danger of this becoming a permanent problem. People need to wake the F up and start listening to medical professionals and stop being so selfish. We've had an entire year of this now due to their selfishness.

 

[Go4Broke]

Covid-19 Greatest Hits from February, 2020

 

[GophersInIowa]

Imagine being so naive and selfish to think that if only everyone did it my way, no one would have died.

The data also proves you wrong, as we let the states experiment with different degrees of lockdowns and regulations. States with the most stringent lockdowns didn’t fare any better on average than those with the least.

I can’t believe people are still making this claim. The states with the worst death numbers either have done very little with restrictions/masks or were states that were hit hard very early on before restrictions and masks could have done anything.

Restrictions and masks work. The discussion should be at what point does the damage of those things outweigh the positives.

 

[Go4Broke]

More Greatest Hits: February, 2020

 

[golfing18now]

I remember when KGF mocked me for saying we'd hit 500,000 deaths in this country. Well here we are and still counting and not even close to done. We have new variants, a slow vaccine roll out and the risk of turning this into a constant battle for the rest of humanity. All because a large portion of you are/were too selfish to take simple precautionary measures to control this outbreak. I know none of you are embarrassed or ashamed for being so stupid hopefully some of you have realized how stupid you sounded back in March-April-May and changed your ways. I doubt it though, can't help stupidity.

I don't know. This is a little too harsh for me. In a country where we can't come close to agreeing on things like common sense gun control measures or even what bathroom we should all be using, we were never going to come close to agreeing on how to handle a pandemic. Furthermore, we were never going to come close to having 100% participation or adherence to these measures no matter who was in charge.

A reasonable person could say we should have locked down things for as long as necessary to get this under control. We should have had a universal mask mandate from the start and much more restricted movement. Human life should have trumped (sorry) everything else. He/she would have been right.

Another reasonable person could say we should have put all our efforts into protecting the vulnerable. Once more information was available about who was at risk, we should have created a bubble around these people and put much more responsibility on families to protect their parents, etc. We have created far more damage to individuals (job loss, suicide, chemical dependency issues, etc.) to individuals that would have never been at any high risk from this pandemic. He/she would also have been right.

But honestly, all hope for any sort of universal response was lost once the protests/rioting started. The messaging then became it was ok to gather in groups for this cause (safe) but it wasn't ok to have two sinks open next to each other on Lake Superior (unsafe). Then all the measures BB's post refers to mattered only as much as the cause mattered. Church and school (insert activity here) are far more important to many than the protests but those were not allowed. Any chance of an ongoing unified response was lost.

There will be many years of Monday morning quarterbacking on this past year. Far too much blame will be levied at certain politicians on both sides. But at the end of the day, this was about how much do you want to kick the can down the street and how much damage do you want to ignore as you were doing so? No perfect answers and in some ways a perfect storm for a country far too divided.

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

There is a possibility this could get much worse due to the new variants and slow vaccine roll out as I referenced in my OP. I know the same people that denied the seriousness of the situation before will deny this current situation too. We are in real danger of this becoming a permanent problem. People need to wake the F up and start listening to medical professionals and stop being so selfish. We've had an entire year of this now due to their selfishness.

Like the UK variant? What's happening there is exactly what's currently happening in the US. Cases and deaths are plummeting, which is expected this time of the year due to typical coronavirus seasonality and now the vaccine rollout.





Most people have taken it seriously but the problem with the health experts like Fauci and Osterholm is they continue to flip flop on a regular basis, and are in many cases ignoring past coronavirus science and resorting to scare tactics with no end game.

That's why people have had enough.

 

[MennoSota]

We can look at the glass barely empty or at the glass almost full.
First, the 500,000 number is inflated by false Covid deaths. For example my wife's friend reported that her father's death was listed as Covid, but he never was even tested for covid. It seems medical facilities get more compensation when coding the death as Covid.
Second, many of the elderly may have died this year even had they not been exposed to Covid.
Third, we have a population of well over 300 million people. 500,000 is a pinch of salt in the numbers. Therefore glass almost full perspective.
Finally, for anyone who had a person die over the past year, that grief is real and I don't downplay it. My mom died from ovarian cancer in January. Due to Covid, my family and my brother's family chose to take turns living at my mom's place and caring for her until she died. We, along with hospice, worked through the time of diagnosis (Sept 6) until death (Jan 15) trying to give the highest quality of life possible. In addition to cancer, my mom had dementia. The last month she didn't know us nor did she recognize she was in her own home. We loved her through it all. So...I get the grief of death over this past year, but on a national scale, the glass is almost full. That's my perspective anyway.

 

[saintpaulguy]

It will years before we have a full accounting of the health damage due to Covid, particularly mental and developmental. Just for example, among the things schools do is identify students who have learning disabilities, mental health disorders, and at risk home situations. NONE of this was going on during distance learning, to any meaningful measure.
Wonder why we have roving bands of 12 year olds car jacking? They have nothing to do.
It isn't all life or death. The damage is ongoing.

 

[MplsGopher]

BB, where ya been the last 5 months? Almost to the day (Sept 24).

You lose a 5-month bet on here?

 

[MplsGopher]

States with the most stringent lockdowns didn’t fare any better on average than those with the least.

How do you explain South Korea, then?

~52 million people in an area the size of Indiana.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

About 0.5 to 1% of the total number of 160 million infected people will die. So you have the possibility of at least 800,000 deaths in the US over the next 18 months. This is the number of deaths I’m expecting. We have a long way to go with this pandemic. We just need to make people understand that this is going to be bad until we get a safe, effective and widely available vaccine.

https://whdh.com/news/infectious-disease-expert-were-only-in-the-second-inning-of-the-pandemic/

The 800k -1.8k in 18 month prediction may come to pass, but probably won’t. We’ll see. The countries that have done well have one of or a combination of the following:

1) geographic isolation
2) draconian lockdown policy
3) unified, sensible culture adherent to behavior guidelines
4) lack of reporting

We have had none of the first 3 but have done well on the latter since late March/April. The faste than expected vaccines will have an impact going forward. It seems to almost be over.

 

[MplsGopher]

due to typical coronavirus seasonality

You laugh and ridicule late-night restrictions by saying "covid knows when it's 10pm and decides to start being infectious".

Right back at ya: "covid knows when it's spring/summer, and it's time to turn the knob down for a few months".

 

[MplsGopher]

the 500,000 number is inflated by false Covid deaths.

You want this to be true. And yet, almost all 500k of these people would be alive today if there was no pandemic.

 

[MplsGopher]

Wonder why we have roving bands of 12 year olds car jacking? They have nothing to do.

They were doing it before the pandemic, and will do it after it has settled down and restrictions are removed.

This mostly has to do with the prevalence of poverty and drug gangs where they grow up.

 

[MplsGopher]

3) unified, sensible culture adherent to behavior guidelines

You mean, like a country should be. Must be nice.

 

[bottlebass]

Like the UK variant? What's happening there is exactly what's currently happening in the US. Cases and deaths are plummeting, which is expected this time of the year due to typical coronavirus seasonality and now the vaccine rollout.

View attachment 11772

View attachment 11770

Most people have taken it seriously but the problem with the health experts like Fauci and Osterholm is they continue to flip flop on a regular basis, and are in many cases ignoring past coronavirus science and resorting to scare tactics with no end game.

That's why people have had enough.

The UK variant has never been the scary one. SA, Brazil, and their future mutations that are happening faster than our vaccine roll out are scarier. UK was just the first identified.

 

[bottlebass]

BB, where ya been the last 5 months? Almost to the day (Sept 24).

You lose a 5-month bet on here?

I got sick of arguing with stupid people who'd rather not wear a mask (cuz 'murica) than save lives. I am truly embarrassed so many stupid people exist in this world.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

It will years before we have a full accounting of the health damage due to Covid, particularly mental and developmental. Just for example, among the things schools do is identify students who have learning disabilities, mental health disorders, and at risk home situations. NONE of this was going on during distance learning, to any meaningful measure.
Wonder why we have roving bands of 12 year olds car jacking? They have nothing to do.
It isn't all life or death. The damage is ongoing.

Yep, and we continue to roll backward on school reopening based on unfounded worries, confounding policies and guidelines and enabling of this by the new administration. The schools are the real national disgrace.

 

[MplsGopher]

Being an American is not something to be proud of, as it once was.

That is for sure.

 

[MplsGopher]

confounding policies and guidelines and enabling of this by the new administration.

Was with you until here. This is a big reach, and pretty much wrong at a national level.

You like to pretend sometimes that what's happening in California is the same thing as the US.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

You mean, like a country should be. Must be nice.

You’re not a multiculturalist?