The Wuhan virus—how are we doing? - Page 108 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Provision of the two UN HDI indicators other than GNP.
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#15180534
Drlee wrote:And he ignores the moral hazard in making a decision to certainly accept more deaths.

In the US we could save over 40,000 lives a year by banning private ownership of vehicles and require everyone that can't buy an exception to use public transportation. Are you willing to ignore the moral hazard of accepting more deaths in order to accept individuals' right to own their own private vehicles? Do you agree with seatbelt and helmet laws for adults? In all cases I say no, the lower rate of deaths isn't worth the loss of personal freedom.

Here's a Pew Research poll of US Adults on the origins of the Wuhan virus and how important it is to get a real answer.

Believe the Covid-19 virus came from...

Total
  • A laboratory leak in China 52
  • Human contact from an infected animal 28
  • Neither(vol) 5
  • Both(vol) 6
  • Don’t know/Refused 9

Republicans
  • A laboratory leak in China 59
  • Human contact from an infected animal 23
  • Neither(vol) 2
  • Both(vol) 10
  • Don’t know/Refused 6

Independents
  • A laboratory leak in China 47
  • Human contact from an infected animal 25
  • Neither(vol) 7
  • Both(vol) 6
  • Don’t know/Refused 15

Democrats
  • A laboratory leak in China 52
  • Human contact from an infected animal 34
  • Neither(vol) 3
  • Both(vol) 3
  • Don’t know/Refused 8

Importance of the U.S. Government Investigating the Origins of the Covid-19 Virus

Total
  • Extremely important 33
  • Very important 29
  • Somewhat important 20
  • Not too important 11
  • Not at all important 5
  • Don’t know/Refused 2

Republicans
  • Extremely important 44
  • Very important 20
  • Somewhat important 18
  • Not too important 10
  • Not at all important 6
  • Don’t know/Refused 2

Independents
  • Extremely important 29
  • Very important 31
  • Somewhat important 22
  • Not too important 11
  • Not at all important 5
  • Don’t know/Refused 2

Democrats
  • Extremely important 30
  • Very important 34
  • Somewhat important 20
  • Not too important 11
  • Not at all important 5
  • Don’t know/Refused *

And here's the latest weekly numbers:

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Per the CDC, the US currently sits at 79% of those => 65 and 58.7% of those =>18 fully vaccinated.
#15180537
Doug64 wrote:In the US we could save over 40,000 lives a year by banning private ownership of vehicles and require everyone that can't buy an exception to use public transportation. Are you willing to ignore the moral hazard of accepting more deaths in order to accept individuals' right to own their own private vehicles? Do you agree with seatbelt and helmet laws for adults? In all cases I say no, the lower rate of deaths isn't worth the loss of personal freedom.


The thing about your choice between freedom and death is that it is not you making that choice for yourself.

The car driver is not just risking his life every time he gets in the car and spews carcinogenic gases, just as infected people not wearing a mask or self isolating is not just risking themselves.

Here you are arguing that other people should die for your freedom.

That is a selfish choice.
#15180866
Pants-of-dog wrote:The thing about your choice between freedom and death is that it is not you making that choice for yourself.

The car driver is not just risking his life every time he gets in the car and spews carcinogenic gases, just as infected people not wearing a mask or self isolating is not just risking themselves.

Here you are arguing that other people should die for your freedom.

That is a selfish choice.

Likewise, POD, by NOT converting to Evangelical Christianity, you are putting the entire world at risk for going to hell for eternity.

This is equally selfish of you, mainly because I am dumb, and think that Evangelical Christianity will get everyone into heaven forever.
#15181047
About 36 percent of Americans aged 65 and over say they will not stop wearing masks until at least 2022. And 12 percent said they will wear masks forever, according to a survey noted in the July/August 2021 issue of the AARP Bulletin.

Meanwhile, in Yolo County, California, the county health department is recommending that vaccinated people continue to wear masks in indoor shops and other establishments because of concerns regarding the rapid spread of the Delta Variant and because there is no practical procedure to deny indoor access to the non-vaccinated. However, that is only a recommendation, not a legal mandate.
#15181608
Here's the latest weekly numbers:

Image

Image

Also, in the news, Los Angeles County has announced that the indoor mask mandate is back, even for those that haven't been vaccinated. And in response, the Los Angeles County Sheriff has announced that the new mask mandate is not backed by science, contrary to CDC guidelines, and that his "underfunded/defunded" officers will not be enforcing it. Apparently, "[a]ll of the COVID-19 patients in county-run hospitals are unvaccinated, officials say."

And back to the issue of children in schools, here are some results from a poll of American Adults Rasmussen announced last week:

Should schools require children to wear masks to protect against COVID-19?

  • Yes 39%
  • No 42%
  • Not sure 19%

Republicans
  • Yes 27%
  • No 60%
  • Not sure 13%

Independents
  • Yes 32%
  • No 44%
  • Not sure 24%

Democrats
  • Yes 58%
  • No 23%
  • Not sure 19%

Should schools require children to get vaccinated against COVID-19?

  • Yes 39%
  • No 45%
  • Not sure 16%

Republicans
  • Yes 29%
  • No 61%
  • Not sure 10%

Independents
  • Yes 30%
  • No 52%
  • Not sure 18%

Democrats
  • Yes 56%
  • No 25%
  • Not sure 19%
#15181736
I forgot to include the national vaccination rate, per the CDC: 59.5% of adults => 18 and 79.5% => 65 are fully vaccinated, and increase of 1.2% and 0.5% over last week.

CNN has a look at why politicians won't reach the vaccine hesitant:

Poll of the week: A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that 64% of American adults have gotten or want a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as possible, 15% will wait and see and 19% will either definitely not get one or will only get one if it is required.

This data matches up with other polling that suggests that roughly 60% to 65% of American adults want a shot or have had one, 15% to 20% will wait and see and 20% don't want one.

What's the point: The number of new Americans who have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine has been tumbling in recent weeks, as the people who really want a vaccine have been able to get one. The need now is to get those who are hesitating (i.e. the wait and see group) to get past their hesitation, as the 20% of vaccine resisters have been steady in their opposition.

The question is how to get it done. A lot of attention has been spent on Republicans being the problem, leading to calls for former President Donald Trump to address the group.

A look at the data reveals that the vaccine hesitant group, however, are not big Trump lovers. They're actually likely not to be Republican. Instead, many of them are people who are detached from the political process and didn't vote for either major candidate in 2020.

The most recent Kaiser poll helps illustrate that the vaccine hesitant group doesn't really lean Republican. Just 20% of the group called themselves Republican with an additional 19% being independents who leaned Republican. The clear majority (61%) were not Republicans (41% said they were Democrats or Democratic leaning independents and 20% were either pure independents or undesignated).

This is very much unlike the vaccine resistant group, of whom 55% are Republican or Republican leaning independents. Just 21% of that group are Democrats or Democratic leaning independents.

The Kaiser poll points to a larger problem: There isn't going to be a single ideological message that appeals to a majority of the vaccine hesitant group. They're of all political stripes.

The March Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows us another issue: Traditional political type messages may not work on them either. That poll asked respondents whether they were registered to vote and for whom they voted for in the 2020 election.

The overwhelming plurality (48%) were people who either didn't vote, voted third party or weren't willing to disclose who they cast a ballot for. The rest were split 31% for Trump and 20% for President Joe Biden.

The poll gets at the fact that the efforts to vaccinate the population isn't a political campaign to reel in voters. If we use traditional election tactics to reach the vaccine hesitant group, we're likely to lose.

Just 62% of the voting age population cast a ballot in 2020, even though the election featured the highest turnout in a long time. The number of adults who didn't vote was larger than the number of people who voted for either Biden or Trump. The wait-and-see category is disproportionately made up of this group.

People who are not registered to vote are among the most likely to say they're in the wait-and-see camp. In a Monmouth University poll last month, 34% of adults who were not registered to vote said they wanted to "see how it goes" (i.e. wait-and-see) before getting a vaccine. That was significantly higher than the 10% of registered voters who said the same.

Another way to look at this is that most political campaigns are focused on older people because they make up the lionshare of habitual voters.

The people who are vaccine hesitant are not old. The clear majority (about 60% to 70%, depending on the poll) are younger than 50. These are largely not going to be people who watch cable news.

We have to be able to convince them that they should get the vaccine for themselves and their neighbors, even though the mortality rate for a lot of them is lower than it is for older people.

According to the polling, there are a lot of different ways we might be able to do that, such as making it easier to get the vaccine and confronting falsehoods about the vaccine.

The good news is that people, especially younger people, are far more likely to get a vaccine when they know someone else who has gotten one. If professionals can get a single person in a social circle to get a vaccine, it will make their overall job of getting people vaccinated that much easier.
#15182014
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I have just developed a very precise test for witchcraft.

A positive reading on the WCR machine means that the person tested has a 99.741 % chance of being a witch, and needs to be burned within 2 weeks of a positive result, in order not to infect others with witchcraft, or allow for the casting of spells. The impressively high rate of accuracy means that if we burn a million witches, only a negligable number of non-witches will be affected. This is the common sense thing to do.

By buying my patented WCR (witch-craft risk) test, progressive cities like Salem, Mass. have been able to eliminate any danger of a black-magic epidemic.

In the future, only witch-free cities like Salem will be able to have bake-sales or barn building parties.

If your town isn't using the WCR test, it is at risk of burning in the fires of witch hell forever. What are you waiting for? Get the test!
#15182038
@Sandzak CNN did not say 4 to 5 million deaths. False information. India still has only had around 420,000 deaths. USA has still suffered the most from this pandemic.

Piss off, @QatzelOk. The pandemic is not a joke, even if you're a self-righteous francophone who lacks human empathy.
#15182044
Godstud wrote:Piss off, @QatzelOk. The pandemic is not a joke, even if you're a self-righteous francophone who lacks human empathy.

You seem to know "what it is."

I have no idea how you *know* this.

And since you ALWAYS go along with the crowd, your opinion must be the same as the imaginary crowd you're trying to impress with your averageness.
#15182048
One problem with the CNN article about the political divisions of those who are hesitating to get vaccinated (15%) and those that will only if it is required or not at all (19%) is that it doesn't give you the divisions for the combined groups. So, in the interest of a complete look, for the combined 34% the results are:

  • Republicans/Republican-leaning Independents: 47.9%
  • Democrats/Democrat-leaning Independents: 29.8%
  • Independents/Undesignated: 22.3%

So overall, Republicans have a clear plurality but not a majority, and any campaign to convince Hesitaters/Rejecters otherwise aimed at just Republicans is going to miss most of them.

Meanwhile, some of the political fallout of the pandemic:

Michigan House votes to repeal emergency law used by Whitmer during pandemic
The Michigan House voted 60-48 Wednesday to repeal a law used by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to issue dozens of executive orders at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The House vote approves the Unlock Michigan petition initiative, which received more than 500,000 signatures in support of repealing the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act.

The Legislature's approval of the repeal means the issue won't go before voters at the next general election, as is usually the case with an initiative petition. The repeal takes effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session, or a few months into 2022.

The 1945 law is all but defunct at this point after the Michigan Supreme Court in October ruled it was unconstitutional.

"We're grateful to the members of the House and Senate who stood with the people of Michigan, and we're grateful for their help in repealing the misguided 1945 law that caused so much pain once and for all," said Fred Wszolek, a spokesman for Unlock Michigan.

Four Democratic lawmakers joined Republicans Wednesday to repeal the law, including Rep. Tim Sneller of Burton, Rep. Karen Whitsett of Detroit, Rep. Sara Cambensy of Marquette and Rep. Richard Steenland of Roseville.

Far too much of the hardship faced during the pandemic was a result of decisions made by government leaders, causing residents to decide "they had enough" as they "stood up to make a difference," House Speaker Jason Wentworth, R-Farwell, said in a statement Wednesday.

"They took strong action to protect their families, their children’s education and their ability to make ends meet, and we can never thank them enough," Wentworth said in a statement.

“They deserve a state government that is willing to do the same. They’ve earned that much. That’s why we had their back today and put this petition into law.”

House Democratic Leader Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township, called Wednesday's vote "political theater."

"What we know was this was put on the board — unlike any bill that would have helped Michiganders — this was put on the board in order to make a political point," Lasinski said.

Unlock Michigan leaders collected more than 540,000 signatures over 80 days last summer and into the fall before turning in its signatures on Oct. 2, the same day the Michigan Supreme Court ruled the law was unconstitutional.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections in April recommended the Board of State Canvassers certify the petition initiative, but the board deadlocked along party lines on the petition until the high court directed canvassers to certify.

The initiative was certified by the board last week and two days later the Michigan Senate voted 20-15, along party lines, to adopt the measure.

"Next, we'll turn our attention to the public health law Whitmer abused to destroy lives, businesses, and futures," Wszolek said, referring to a second initiative seeking to place a 28-day limit on public health epidemic orders. "Don't bet against our success there either."

Keep Michigan Safe, a group formed to oppose the Unlock Michigan initiative, criticized the House vote as a "political power grab" that will restrict Michigan's ability to react swiftly in a time of crisis.

"Today, House Republicans voted to eradicate an important tool for elected leaders trying to save lives and stop the spread of deadly, infectious diseases like COVID-19, Legionnaire’s, tuberculosis and anthrax," said Mark Fisk, a spokesman for Keep Michigan Safe.

Michigan law gives the Legislature 40 days after the certification of an initiative to adopt or reject the proposal. If no action is taken, the initiative would appear on the ballot at the next general election.

In the case of Unlock Michigan, leaders of the initiative have planned from the start for the GOP-majority Legislature to adopt the initiative before it could go before voters. The adoption of the initiative sidesteps a Whitmer veto, which was all but guaranteed if the repeal had gone through the regular legislative process.

Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, said Wednesday that the law gave Whitmer “practically unlimited executive decision making" and was rightfully overturned by the Supreme Court.

"After months of delay, it is time for us to repeal an unconstitutional law," Fink said.

Rep. Julie Rodgers, D-Kalamazoo, said the question is better put to voters at the ballot box than to lawmakers. She also defended the governor's actions during the pandemic.

“This is not a rogue governor following her own rules,” she said. “She was following a statute that was written and only recently ruled on by the Supreme Court.”

Cambensy, D-Marquette, urged lawmakers to find a replacement for the 1945 law to guide the state in future crises.

"The Legislature makes the laws. The court interprets them. And it would be inappropriate for this body not to respect the (Supreme Court) ruling," Cambensy said. "It’s time to move on. It's time to work together on a law that clearly defines how we will deal with the pandemic going forward."

Rep. Jack O'Malley, R-Lake Ann, defended the Legislature's decision to vote to repeal the law the Supreme Court overturned while the governor "defends it to this day."

"Here we are, acting in a constitutional fashion to defend this state from any future governor regardless of their political affiliation," said O'Malley said.

"I will not be voting yes today. I will be voting ‘hell yes.’”
Last edited by Doug64 on 22 Jul 2021 02:58, edited 2 times in total.
#15182050
@QatzelOk Sanctimony, thy name is QatzelOk.

I am sorry you are such an ignorant person. I really pity you.
#15182282
Sorry, @Sandzak, but I do not consider Youtube to be a source of anything but misinformation(too much editing out facts). Supposition and speculation are not facts, either.
#15182301
Sandzak wrote:India has according CNN-report 4-5 Million deaths.


The figure is actually about excess deaths in India and counts of deaths from all causes of death, including COVID-19, are presented. For the study cited by CNN, the Center for Global Development used three different data sources to estimate India's excess all-cause mortality during the pandemic. These excess deaths could represent misclassified COVID-19 deaths, or could be indirectly related to COVID-19, but we can never tell for sure.

India lacks an authoritative estimate of the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic. We report excess mortality estimates from three different data sources from the pandemic’s start through June 2021. First, extrapolation of state-level civil registration from seven states suggests 3.4 million excess deaths. Second, applying international estimates of age-specific infection fatality rates (IFR) to Indian seroprevalence data implies a higher toll of around 4 million. Third, our analysis of the Consumer Pyramid Household Survey, a longitudinal panel of over 800,000 individuals across all states, yields an estimate of 4.9 million excess deaths. Each of these estimates has shortcomings and they also diverge in the pattern of deaths between the two waves of the pandemic. Estimating COVID-deaths with statistical confidence may prove elusive. But all estimates suggest that the death toll from the pandemic is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count of 400,000; they also suggest that the first wave was more lethal than is believed. Understanding and engaging with the data-based estimates is necessary because in this horrific tragedy the counting—and the attendant accountability—will count for now but also the future.

We provide code and workbooks to replicate all our calculations here.

https://cgdev.org/publication/three-new ... 9-pandemic
#15182302
Sorry, @AFAIK. People who use Youtube videos should expect people to question them. There is too much editing being done.

I can find no source to support this claim about Covid-19 killing 4-5 million Indians. Speculation isn't evidence of it actually happening.
#15182305
Godstud wrote:I can find no source to support this claim about Covid-19 killing 4-5 million Indians. Speculation isn't evidence of it actually happening.


I think the problem we have is every nation records Covid Deaths differently Godstud. We in the UK will record a Covid death of any cause with a positive test within 28 days. I suspect India will record the underlying issue as the factor. There is of course no official data to prove around 5 million people have died of Covid19 in India given they are official recordings however there is evidence in the excess deaths count which is perhaps the only data we can use as a comparable rates for which nations are doing the best today.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/india-excess-deaths-during-covid-could-be-10-times-official-toll
#15182307
This kind of guesswork is precisely why some people on the right-wing say the science is bullshit. People propose things for which there is no evidence.

I know covid-19 is bad, but estimates of millions dead is over-the-top.
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