Climbing gym and coronavirus

If the fact that the rich can get what they want is your definition of a good healthcare system I'm not sure we'll find too much common ground outside agreeing on sport climbing.

Tammy Gueterman wrote: As Americans we know our healthcare system is terrible but it is our gift to the world. Our egregious spending on healthcare is effectively subsidizing drug and medical device development for the rest of the civilized world which negotiates reasonable prices after we bring products to market. The same could be said about our defense spending and the numerous European manufactures that win contracts as we fight endless wars.

The root of why America cannot get a coherent healthcare system together is because we have never been good at quashing corporate interests for public good. As a republic of states, our Constitution assigns 2 senators to every State regardless of population which means you have a bunch senators in rural America that have disproportionate per capita voting power and can be cheaply bought up by corporate interests and right-leaning pandering to social issues. This shifts our political spectrum right so that the furthest electable left-wing is just European centrist. We will need radical (impossible) restructuring of our government or practical if we ever want to change that. I know what the framers thought about a bicameral legislature, and what they said in the Federalist Papers, but they were just some smarter dudes that were in charge at a time when you could literally own a human, they weren't gods.

We are mostly young and healthy, coronavirus will be okay. The lavish wealth trickles down enough so we aren't starving. Best to just push this our of your mind and head off to the mountains.

..and get your asses out and vote, even if you don't have a great choice

Gumby the White wrote:

HAHAHA, yes third rate if you don't have money. Lots of the best doctors in the world are in America and our college education system is full of doctors who come here to get educated and then go back to their respective countries. So ya third rate lol. 

Three facts:
1. The US spends the most of any nation on healthcare and treatment.
2. The US has the worst overall health outcome and the lowest life expectance of any of the first world nations.
3. The single largest cause of personal bankruptcies is medical bills.

Yes, the US health system is very much third rate, if that.

Gumby the White wrote:

HAHAHA, yes third rate if you don't have money. Lots of the best doctors in the world are in America and our college education system is full of doctors who come here to get educated and then go back to their respective countries. So ya third rate lol. 

I'd agree with ya on the sport climbing and climbers!! lol

You are conflating quality medical care/expertise  (which we do have - if you can get to it) with a quality health care system (which we don't have and prevents us from getting the medical attention).

James W wrote: It's funny how some climbers live this adventurous, daring life, and most are all about evidence based whatever, yet are freaking out over something that has only effected 0.0013% of the world's population and has killed far less.

Seems like your climbing is just over compensation for your fear of the world.

Please look up the exponential growth curve associated with pandemics. You also lack an understanding of mortality rate, judging by your looking at percentage of world population killed.

See chart below, focusing on the orange and yellow curves (one dot per day):

• orange = number of cases in mainland China.  It has nicely flattened since the middle of February.  This shows how effective the Chinese response to the virus may have been.
• yellow = number of cases outside mainland China (ie. rest of the world), showing exponential growth.

Worldwide totals are still hinting at around 2% mortality rate overall (of reported cases, yes, but that is what the yellow curve also shows), and much higher numbers in some countries (including the US).  Extrapolate the yellow curve another month forward, multiply by 2% and get a feel for where this COULD be headed... unless we (1) get lucky, or (2) start taking this seriously.

Source: John Hopkins COVID19 tracking page, gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/… .  The site has much more raw data available (inlcuding these same curves on a log scale), and is updated constantly.

Hopefully a lot of people are worried and stop climbing I would love to have the gym empty tonight.  Serious answer I’m constantly exposed to dirt etc spending time outdoors hiking and climbing eating with dirt covered hands haven’t been sick in over 20 years.  Expose your immune system to crap constantly and it learns how to fight it off

Gumby the White wrote:

HAHAHA, yes third rate if you don't have money. Lots of the best doctors in the world are in America and our college education system is full of doctors who come here to get educated and then go back to their respective countries. So ya third rate lol. 

I'd agree with ya on the sport climbing and climbers!! lol

Except that what you are describing is in fact not so different of what you would find in the Middle East, where rich and connected get world-class care, while the rest dies.

Not being able to provide insuline, one of the cheapest drugs to manufacture out there, while being the richest country in the world isn't a testament of great health care. It is indeed third rate.

Adam W wrote: Hopefully a lot of people are worried and stop climbing I would love to have the gym empty tonight.  Serious answer I’m constantly exposed to dirt etc spending time outdoors hiking and climbing eating with dirt covered hands haven’t been sick in over 20 years.  Expose your immune system to crap constantly and it learns how to fight it off

Chinese researchers are saying that the reason children seem immune from the severe form is they routinely catch another coronavirus and its offering semi-protection. So what you are saying holds water. 

It seems it’s already circulating in Congress, we’re doomed

Fehim Hasecic wrote: It seems it’s already circulating in Congress, we’re doomed

I can understand a lack of confidence in our elected leaders in Washington DC.  That said, Congress needs to put aside bipartisanship & do what is needed for the public health of the country.  Congress needs to do something major to invest in testing kits & centers, treatment & developing a vaccine.  Congress should not be worried about the price tag.  They should do it quickly.  If they can approve Trump's grotesque expanded military budget, then money is not an issue in the most powerful empire in the world's history.  The free market (not that such a thing ever really existed) will not solve this problem.  Coronavirus is another good reason why we need Medicare For All.  Under ObamaCare, The cost of a heath insurance plan deductible is more than anyone living paycheck to paycheck can afford .  If you are uninsured, a visit to the emergency room will leave someone in debt for years if they can ever pay it off. 

Gumby the White wrote:

Happened 10 years ago. I was tightening a new blade on a wood planer and the wrench slipped off and I karate chopped the blade. Flayed that baby open good, all the way to the pinky bone. Good times.

man, you are a gumby......most people cut themselves up on the machines when they are running.....you managed to do it with it off.....get rid of those long blades and get the spiral cutter. it works so much better, youll never go back.

ive been lucky so far, and i run machinery in my shop daily....some of it is pretty angry stuff too....closest ive come was i shut down the band saw,  and started vacuuming off the table. the sound of the vacuum covered up the sound of the saw spooling down. the vacuum nozzle hit the blade and it promptly chopped through it 80% of the way. luckily the blade was almost stopped because if it went through it would have got my wrist. its a 3" blade too.....only close call ive had except for the overarm router biting me when i stepped on the on switch accidentally.

youll have a real bad day if this thing bites ya.....

Marc801 C wrote: Incredibly uninformed opinion.

Swine flu:
It is estimated that in the 2009 flu pandemic 11–21% of the then global population (of about 6.8 billion), or around 700 million to 1.4 billion people, contracted the illness — more in absolute terms than the Spanish flu pandemic. However, with about 150,000–575,000 fatalities, it had a much lower case fatality rate. In August 2010, the World Health Organization declared the swine flu pandemic officially over.[4][5]
Subsequent cases of swine flu were reported in India in 2015, with over 31,156 positive test cases and 1,841 deaths up to March 2015.[6]

haha..... remember this?

Andrei Steclaru wrote:

Great copy-paste job there. What's your point though? Even if the 575k figure for deaths is accurate (which it probably isn't, as no one seems to agree on an actual number, but most studies put at around 300k), it's still nothing when you consider how large the world's population is. The media made it look like the world was ending though, which is exactly the same thing that's happening now.

Marc801 makes a very logical argument.  The media is not over-hyping the seriousness of the coronavirus.  I could spend all time criticizing the American mainstream corporate media.  There a number of great independent journalist debunking the western media lies about Russiagate, the Syrian conflict & the Maduro government in Venezuela.  Those journalist are not claiming coronavirus is propaganda or a conspiracy theory.  The scientific facts & numbers about this respiratory illness are well documented throughout world publications.

Meow Sherwood wrote:

Actually the efficacy of masks is pretty murky. Studies have shown wearers actually touch their faces more. So whatever defense they provide against airborne droplets is negated by your hands. Plus they deplete the supply of masks for healthcare workers.

Edit: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/worker-health-safety-us/all-stories/full-story-detail/?storyid=8950239c-cb80-4aae-9f7f-65a7073e8eb1..tldr: cloth masks don’t help. it’s very difficult to use an appropriate respirator properly, you need additional protection, you’d need to wear it outside all the time (you’d have to shave your beard!). Really only useful for working around infected ppl and camels.

You'll be surprised how often I catch my kid absently put his fingers in his mouth, up his nose, and rub his eyes. I'm certain the mask won't be enough to protect him if there is a massive outbreak in the general public, but at least it is a safety net...... The mask is mandatory in Taiwan for kids from K-12 in schools and all after-school activities. Remember this country as hit hard in 2003 by the SARS epidemic, and they are just practicing what they've learned from that experience.

Here, the health ministry is overseeing the production and distribution of surgical masks to the population to insure there are no shortages, and no hording. Shipping or transport of masks outside the country is strictly forbidden, and anyone caught trying to get them out will be heavily fined. This has so far been quite effective as we are starting to see a small surplus of masks as production efficiency picks up.

Here is something a Facebook friend of mine posted.
I'd like to run it by the knowledgeable people here for analysis/rebuttal:

*please read entire post and be sure you are well versed in the principles discussed before commenting.

CDC updates CoVid19 death rate to 3.4% with an R0 of 2.5.
(34 people per thousand infected will likely die.)
For comparison:
    Flu death rate is .1%
    And its R0 is 1.3
(1 person for every 1000 infected will die)

This means Covid death rate  is 3299% higher than the flu.
(%increase from .1 to 3.4%)
This means Covid19 is 92 % more contagious than the flu.  

At 2.5 R0 we can expect 70% of the U.S. population to be infected.  
That makes an expected U.S. 231,700,000 infections.
7,877,800 deaths.  

This assumes unmitigated spread.
No treatment is currently available to treat CoVid19
*R0 is not a biological constant for a pathogen as it is also affected by other factors such as environmental conditions and the behaviour of the infected population.

R0 and Death rate Numbers are based on current data and estimates from CDC, and WHO based on infections and deaths seen OUTSIDE of china and are averaged among the entire age range of the population.

revans90 wrote:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387?query=featured_home 

Thats not just an article, it's an editorial by officials in the Trump administration. It literally says editorial in red letters at the top of the page.  Trump has repeatedly sent out his folks to flat out lie, mislead and blame others for their mistakes.  We are still barely testing people for this virus. The US seems to be the only industrialized country that can't get its act together. The administration is failing. 

Even if the fatality rate is 0.2% overall. The fatality rate for my 79 year old father is probably at the least 2 or 3 percent. There is a good chance that over the next year this will kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. 

One of the authors Robert R. Redfield head of the CDC is a religious nut who was against needle exchange programs and promoted quarantine for aids patients.

Redfield's early engagement with the AIDS epidemic in the US in the 1980s and 90s was controversial. As an Army major at Walter Reed Medical Institute, he designed policies for controlling the disease within the US military that involved placing infected personnel in quarantine and investigating their pasts to identify and track possible sexual partners. Soldiers were routinely discharged and left to die of AIDS, humiliated and jobless, often abandoned by their families.

Redfield wrote the introduction to a 1990 book, "Christians in the Age of AIDS," co-written by Smith, in which he denounced distribution of sterile needles to drug users and condoms to sexually active adults, and described anti-discrimination programs as the efforts of "false prophets."

In the early 1990's, ASAP and Redfield also backed H.R. 2788, a House bill sponsored by deeply conservative Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-California). It would have subjected people with HIV to testing, loss of professional licenses and would have effectively quarantined them. (The bill died in Congress.) In the 2000s, Redfield was a top advocate for the so-called "ABCs of AIDS" in Africa, pressing to prevent HIV infection through sexual abstinence, monogamy and the use of condoms only as a last resort.

The Coronavirus task force prays during its meetings.  I'll admit I've prayed a few times but usually only when I was pretty sure I was going to die.  https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/03/we-are-so-screwed-photo-of-pence-praying-with-coronavirus-task-force-draws-criticism-from-the-left-praise-from-the-right/

Wash your hands and don't cough in people's faces.

Marc801 C wrote:

This is like arguing with an anti-vaxxer or flat-earther.

Okay, it seems like you didn't get my point at all, so I'm gonna try and lay it out as clearly as possible:

1. You called my opinion 'incredibly uninformed'. Yet, your rebuttal of my 'incredibly uninformed' opinion was literally to google 'swine flu' and copy the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article. Are you serious? There is a reason why Wikipedia is not considered an acceptable resource for any academic work.

2. Even now, after 10 years from the swine flu, we don't actually know how bad it really was. The confirmed death count for the swine flu is around 19k according to the WHO. All the other figures you see are based on prediction models. I'm not for one second saying that there have only been 19k deaths from it, but the other figures are, essentially, just guesses. Do you really think that we should start spreading panic over guesses?

3. I don't think that number of infections is that important, certainly not as important as the mortality rate. In other words, unless you're likely to die from it, why worry about it?

4. So, let's take your 'figures': for the worst case scenario of 575k deaths with 700 million infected, that's a mortality rate of just 0.082%. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over a less than 1% chance of dying if I do get sick. Yes, I'm aware that currently the death rate is slightly higher for the COVID-19, but it's simply too early and we have too little information to draw any conclusive facts.

5. My main point: the way the media is portraying this. Do you know what is the most common 'argument' I see online whenever someone has the audacity to suggest 'Hey people, let's just calm down here, we don't know how serious this thing is yet'? It's 'Well, they wouldn't be talking so much about it if it wasn't serious'. Do you not see a problem with this approach? The world isn't ending, yet a good portion of the population is panicking needlessly simply because they constantly talk about it on the news. Exactly the same thing happened in 2009, and it turned out to not be that big a deal. There's no reason to believe that this will be that much differently, so why stoke the fire?

All I'm saying is that, despite this being on the news 24/7, based on past epidemics and how they were portrayed, you're most likely gonna be fine, so take a chill pill and carry on.

Yer all gonna DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!

When they close school systems due to a local outbreak it will drastically slow the spread of the virus. Children are the main disease vector in all respiratory infections, plus it will force at least half the parents to stay home.