Our Concerns are not Their Concerns
We are definitely not all in this together. Old news, that. But it was never clearer to me than it has been the last few days as the Media, Print, Web, and TV are indulging themselves in oceans of SCOTUS coverage.
WE are interested in the COVID spread which spiked alarmingly to 54,874 (per NY Times) new cases in one day. Up from many weeks of 30,000-40,000 new cases per day.
WE want to know when we can go back to work and earn enough money to take care of ourselves and our families.
WE want to know when our children and grandchildren can resume not only going to classes with other kids, but again participate in all the activities and experiences that a COVID free universe afforded them. How damaged-for-life is this disruption likely to be for our children?
WE want to know if/when we can see a doctor without it leading to bankruptcy.
So, OK, Media---you prattle on about the Participation Theater Events of the day. As out-of-touch as you are, surely there are some of you who get that the Democratic Party has neither the will nor the ability to do a damn thing for anybody but themselves. Mitch and Don will have their Judge. I'm ignoring the entire SCOTUS Pageant as it unfolds.
My personal participation in this election will be to Vote Early and to work with some of my neighbors in collecting ballots from the shut-ins who live in our building and delivering their Absentee ballots to drop boxes or the polls during early Voting and Election Day.
Comments
More Shitty Morons....aren't on our side at all
Although this is from Australia it represents a good view of what is occurring in all the
Western civiliation press and it ain't good.
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/mainstream-me...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
I mostly get my news here . . .
and a few YouTube folks, and CounterPunch, OpenMedia, and Resilience.org. I get Caitlyn Johnstone's and Sharon Tenneson's newsletters too.
SCOTUS shit show big-time funny was learning that Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton are on Trump's consideration list. OMG
There is so much shit out there now, it makes me laugh.
There is so much shit out there now, let's compost!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Consortium News is also good.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Need more dirt! LOL
hi and yeah OMG. I try to stay away from anything resembling a list these days. Compost it!
Sunday morning watering the dirt patch a guy pulled up to the sidewalk, hopped out and said "Looks like your ready for a citrus", and my reply without thinking was "Needs more dirt!" Heh. He was visiting the new house people, they are pretty quiet and their friends are pretty friendly. Chad in the silver prius liked my earthworm nest, coffee grounds, egg shells, yard clippings, super dry oak leaf mulch hole. I can't believe how many worms there are in there now, super care taken every turn. Right on. The rest of the dirt patch is a mess, still a healing spot just kinda parched. Now with two good arms I like playing a shredder, chopping everything up small with my little bud trimmers. Blessed are the dirt makers.
To all a Happy Equinox (belated)
Peace and Love
Covid-19 - UK competing with US for the worst
[video:https://youtu.be/JXdd8WzaK-Q]
UK Israel
We are the worst but surely not the only country that has fumbled our response.
NYCVG
And that's just one area!
Last I heard expect tens of millions who had a job in January to be jobless for a long time to come. And a good portion of those to become homeless.
And the plan being discussed by the Two Parties, media savants, think tanks, etc. is...? Oh, right, non-existent.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Yes.
Exactly my point.
NYCVG
Their plan is the Gates vaccine will solve everything
Maybe by wiping out the excess proles or making sure they don't reproduce.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
or leaving them
with lots of leftover side effects that will require further medical procedures along with the bills for it. Important to keep up a nice steady revenue stream for bill and his pharma buddies....
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
YES n/t
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Totally agree that "their concerns, are not ours," but,
am relieved that they're talking about something other than COVID.
At this point, I'd rather hear about "Aunt Mamie's goat," than listen to corporatist media 'talking heads' prattling on incessantly about COVID, never saying anything substantive.
(Don't get me wrong--want to hear any and all COVID news that's accurate and meaningful--just not so much mindless blather and/or opinion.)
Of course, in our neck of the woods, life has pretty much returned to normal for most people.
Except for 'seniors,' very few people are quarantined. Schools are open, again. Most businesses, too. Face masks are mostly required at national chains, but, not at all local businesses. (that I don't agree with, of course) We are concerned about the largest University opening for classes--there's been talk about filing a class action suit against the Board Of Regents, but, doubt it would do any good.
Mr M remarked just this afternoon that traffic is almost back to normal, after he made the mistake of getting in "after school/2nd shift" traffic when he made a pharmacy run, and it took him an extra quarter hour to get back home.
Like many others, here, I'm trying to keep my sanity by blogging, and keeping up with the news posted here.
I do agree that all the SCOTUS-talk is being run into the ground. Aside from a social issue or two, all the sitting Justices are centrist or conservative on most issues/matters. IMO, Biden's refusal to put forth a list of his potential nominees, tells us everything we need to know. And, we 'know' that OM (Orange Man) will nominate a right-wing nut job--so, no news there.
Glad COVID is much better controlled in your locale, after such a rough period. Obviously, I hope that children in your area can soon return to school. I truly feed badly for them, and for their parents.
Take care. Be well.
Mollie
"The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation."
~~Matt Taibbi, The American Press Is Destroying Itself, June 12, 2020
"I know, I know. All passion; no street smarts."
~~Captain West, 1992 Rob Reiner/Aaron Sorkin Movie, A Few Good Men
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
~~Will Rogers, Actor & Social Commentator (1856-1950)
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
COVID/Job Losses
have affected hundreds of thousands of Americans and we have no way to stop it.
As Trump said in February, "It's in the air." The CDC published something truthful on Monday and retracted it on Tuesday.
You are one of the lucky ones whose life hasn't been ended or upended by this thing out of a horror movie that we, at least so far, cannot eliminate. I understand that it may be tiresome reading.
NYCVG
Hey, NYCVG, wasn't my intention to minimize
the seriousness of COVID, much less the terrible (and ongoing) human tragedy that it has wrought. I apologize if my words came across as insensitive or uncaring. That is not an accurate reflection of my feelings on this topic, I assure you.
When I said,
I wasn't referring to the essays (here), or serious print media articles, especially, in medical journals and websites. I had in mind "cable teevee news."
As it happens, we listen (in background) to quite a bit of it, daily. Much of what they say is not only inaccurate, it's virtually useless.
And, I can assure Everyone--Cable News Channels are still talking about it (propagandizing, some would say). It's still almost 24/7 on CNN. MSNBC--a fair amount, but, they also talk a good bit of 2020 election horse race, too. Fox ('news' side)--reports on COVID much like CNN and MSNBC, but, less coverage; however, the Fox 'opinion' hosts definitely downplay COVID, and push for 'opening up' the economy.
Further, IMO, cable news so-called reporting is mostly intended to spread misinformation, and incite panic. Not inform.
As far as I'm concerned, it is settled science that COVID is 'airborne.' My understanding is that the CDC will post an update of the guidance in coming days. If that's a BS explanation/excuse for pulling it, it doesn't change anything (for me). I will continue to follow WHO's guidance.
The CDC has made a couple of very serious mistake. First, they failed to produce an accurate, speedy and inexpensive COVID screening test.
Secondly, according to former USDA Commissioner Gottlieb, the CDC did not believe that COVID had crossed our borders early on, because they were mistakenly using a influenza-like illness surveillance network--basically a surveillance network of who's presenting to hospitals with flu-like symptoms. And, since they didn't see a spike in people presenting with respiratory symptoms, they thought the coronavirus was not spreading in the US. (back in February) IOW, they grossly underestimated the threat to us, early on.
Thought about elaborating a bit on how much our life has changed, but, it'll have to wait, since (today) I've got to prepare for a hours-long virtual meeting tomorrow.
Bottom line, I wish you and yours the best. I can't imagine having been in NYC during all this. I was thinking that cases there were down, dramatically (according to cable reporting). Naturally, I hope lost jobs will come back, there and everywhere.
It's a double-edged sword for many seniors--some, if not all, are in the position that they can isolate, and are (hopefully) self-sustaining, financially.
Of course, the other side of that coin for many--the senior cohort runs the greatest risk of not surviving COVID if contracted. (percentages of death that I've seen, nationally--between 80 and 90% for ages 65+).
Hope this nightmare ends soon. For all of us.
Take care of yourself.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I understood
what you meant. Sorry if I came across as the prissy ex-schoolteacher, which is part of what I still am. Apparently. Sadly.
The corporate clap-trap is what's mind numbingly dull.
The crisis it self all too real.
NYCVG
No probs, NYCVG. After a re-read of my comment,
I thought that it might have come across as flippant (at least, to someone who didn't know me well)--which would be totally inappropriate, considering the dire circumstances endured by many people, and, which threaten all of us, daily.
Have a good one.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
80 to 90% ?
IIRC an essay here had numbers putting it at 20%. That's russian roulette with a five cylinder revolver but not 80 to 90%. I think that percentage is for people already seriously ill with another condition.
Overall population is 2.5% here in Illinois. Yes, it was 50% in a DuPage County nursing home, but permanent residents can pretty much hear St. peter calling already.
Prior to COVID, the leading cause of death (officially) in the USA was not cancer or stroke or heart failure. It was pneumonia.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Hi, Voice! Just heard 80% on teevee, again, today. But,
I've seen figures that are higher, up to 90%.
Remember, unlike many European countries, the US counts several categories of deaths as COVID deaths--even if COVID was not the direct or immediate cause of death.
For now, I'll just leave you with a CDC chart of COVID statistics--Deaths By Age Group or Cohort:
If my math's correct, the percentage tally of deaths for the 65 and older is 80.731. That is what I heard again, today. I've read ranges from 80-90%, though.
Again, not saying that the 80% figure reflects deaths caused from COVID--without any comorbidities.
I would imagine that it'd be fairly uncommon to find many people over the age of 65, and, certainly, over the age of 75-80, who don't have some pre-existing serious medical condition. (My Mother was one--but, she was a total exception to the rule, I'd say.
)
Have a good one!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
You're both right ...kinda
Me thinks you and Voice are talking slightly apples and oranges here.
Seems you, Mollie, are speaking of the total number of COVID deaths over 65 and Voice is speaking of the percentage of those over 65 who expire after contracting COVID.
Not quite the same thing, although I think both your numbers are pretty close for what each of you is talking about.
Hi, travelerxxx--good to see you. Okay, think
I see what you mean.
Just found the figure of 28.2 percent of deaths of people over age of 65 - which is the percentage of deaths of the 65+ cohort out of the entire populace--not just as a percentage of COVID-diagnosed patients.
(The CDC chart I posted reflects percentages among only COVID-diagnosed patients--not the overall, or general populace.)
Makes sense, and is much closer to Voice's figure.
Thanks for making that point.
Hope you're doing well. Take care.
Mollie
"The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation."
~~Matt Taibbi, The American Press Is Destroying Itself, June 12, 2020
"I know, I know. All passion; no street smarts."
~~Captain West, 1992 Rob Reiner/Aaron Sorkin Movie, A Few Good Men
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
~~Will Rogers, Actor & Social Commentator (1856-1950)
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Exactly!
I can well believe that 80% of those who have died are over 65. But that is not the risk that we oldsters face. It's the percentage of us that die out of the sum of died plus recovered. Not counting damaged, but damaged is better than dead.
The CDC is truly trying to scare us into surrendering to the state.
It's too bad this has been politicized. Public health should not be a political football.
I see small businesses and restaurants going broke and big mega-corporations getting trillion dollar hand outs. it's hard to believe that the duopoly isn't planning to use this as an excuse to impoverish the small businesses and workers. and that Durbin and Pelosi aren't in it up to their eyeballs. I'm hearing rumbles elsewhere that the "official vaccine" will be mandatory. Good way to get rid of excess prole population. Ten years later when young prole couples are infertile it will be "Oh, what a tragic side effect, no one could have known. well, we will need to import more foreign students and workers on temporary visas."
Then there is the opposite tack. the guy who came to service my backup generator had gray hair and no mask! His job is visiting different strangers all day and he had no mask! seemed amused by my wearing a mask and keeping six feet or more away (pretended to be inspecting plants while he worked." I wasn't surprised when he patted his side chest (looked like the outline of a shoulder holster when he patted his jacket) and said he had his concealed carry license and wasn't afraid of anything. later he told me that trump was the greatest president that every lived. I told him, "I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, but, honestly, I don't care for either one of the candidates." Not quite honestly because I LOATHE both of the candidates. But the other part is true. Two good work friends that think Trump walks on water, one very old work friend that has never voted (D) in his life because his parents told him that FDR destroyed their family business by not letting them cut their prices. I find him more sane than the Trump-walks-on-water guys. The third guy distrusts ALL politicians but thinks all Democrats are Communists. When I told him I was voting for Obama in 2008 he was aghast. "You must be joking! He's a Socialist!" "No, he's not Paul. If he were I'd be working for him door to door instead of just voting." Truly horrified, Paul nearly had a stroke, "Tony! You can't mean that! You don't know what you are saying!" Well, Paul is a good guy, but he is petty bourgeois born and from an old Danish/German family. not at all like a proletarian from Southern or Eastern European roots. We used to say as kids that there were Italian names, Polish names, Irish names and "Real American" names. Any English name was American. A name ending in o,a,i or ski or wicz was not. Nor those starting with O apostrophe.
Kind of wandered off the subject here.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Definitions
Pretty funny! Have to admit that I've done similar ...with similar results. I've found few people who can actually come close to defining "socialist" – or "capitalist" for that matter. Quite often conservatives attempt to tell me they are "capitalists," but they totally fall down when they are asked to explain how they are. Similar results are often found when I ask a rabid Democrat (professing to be "progressive") what that entails.
Republicans leaving for an extended vacation
until after the Nov 3 elections without agreeing to more COVID help for the masses.
How hard is Pelosi playing ball to force the GOP to the table?
Following the House's passage of the resolution earlier this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who from the start rejected calls to use the government funding negotiations as leverage to force through additional Covid-19 aid—expressed "hope" that Congress could still "reach a bipartisan agreement on coronavirus relief."
Pelosi went from telling us to calm down in April because she will get us relief to going on to praying for us and for those who refuse to do so.
Good grief when will this old bag retire?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Pelosi and Schumer didn't support stimulus--$1200. EOM
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Pelosi killed UBI
that had a good chance of passing the house. This bag needs to be beat by the guy running against her!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Hi, It seems that the PCR
Hi, It seems that the PCR test is generating approximately 90% false positives. "Cases" should be labeled "positive PCR test results." "Cases" in med terminology (as I understand it, or as wikipedia defines it) indicates someone with a condition that includes definite defined symptoms. The PCR test picks up fragments left over from an earlier natural recovery as well as from an ongoing sickness. Apparently the test is difficult to use correctly. It is the wrong tool for widespread immediate testing for those who are actually in the midst of the disease.
Check out this report from a researcher in Britain:
Lies, Damned Lies and Health Statistics – the Deadly Danger of False Positives
https://lockdownsceptics.org/lies-damned-lies-and-health-statistics-the-...
It explains why the decreasing death rate does not reflect the increasing number of "cases."
I find it hard to believe that Fauci and all the experts we hear from on TV news haven't figured this out. It is bad news about the quality of our leaders, but it is good news for us.
WOW! I read that link.
I can find no fault with the math, assuming his definition of "false positive" is correct and not "percentage of positives that are false" as everyone assumes.
I've also read that ventilators do more harm than good. Especially when staff puts you on and doesn't want to go near you and just waits for you to die and fakes the DNR order.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Is it the test or how it's being
used in some countries? If China, S. Korea, and Vietnam are getting any false positives, the numbers are extremely low as would be expected from a PCR test. Even when China did a mass test of millions within a couple of weeks (after having stomped on it), they found no more than a few hundred out of over a hundred million tests. Its case fatality rate still sits at 5.4%, a number that I'm sure they wish were lower and if they manipulated anything, it would more likely be the number of deaths.
For the past few months, Spain's CFR has been dropping because its cases have doubled. Perhaps the increased cases are from the unreliable antibody test. In the UK, even with the alleged 80-90% false positive cases, its CFR is 10%, double that in China.
What I find most curious is the exceedingly high number of tests that most countries claim to have administered. Why are so many non-symptomatic people that have had no contact with an infected person being tested? (I'm not including China in the criticism because they were open about their mass testing to confirm that it had been stomped out in certain populations.)
"Of course, the other side of
"Of course, the other side of that coin for many--the senior cohort runs the greatest risk of not surviving COVID if contracted. (percentages of death that I've seen, nationally--between 80 and 90% for ages 65+)."
This is not accurate. People age 60 to 70 are at some risk--about 1.5 percent may die if they catch COVID. That leaves 98.5 percent who will be fine. It is when you get up around 80 years old and above that you see big fatality figures. And most of those occur in nursing homes. An 80 year old outside a nursing home is much less likely to die. People in nursing homes usually have a life expectancy of a couple of years, if that, pandemic or no pandemic.
Hi, Out Of LF - since you disagree with the CDC statistics,
(not to say you're incorrect) do you have a source/link for your statistics, that you'd mind posting.
Today, don't have time to post it, but, I heard an interview (and made a note so that I could find the transcript) that acknowledges that in the US--there are several categories of people who are counted as COVID deaths (regardless of their age).
And that includes those who tested positive for it, but, whose deaths had nothing to do with COVID.
For sure, I don't agree with that type of accounting, but, it's not up to me.
Have a good one!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Covid19 IFR statistics
Hi Unabashed Liberal. One source may be found here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v4
Here is a quote from the abstract:
"This paper assesses the age specificity of the infection fatality rate (IFR) for COVID-19 using seroprevalence results from eight national studies , regional studies of fifteen locations in Europe and the United States, and five countries that have engaged in comprehensive tracing of COVID-19 infections. The estimated IFR is close to zero for children and younger adults but rises exponentially with age, reaching 0.4% at age 55, 1.3% at age 65, 4.5% at age 75, and 15% at age 85. We find that differences in the age structure of the population and the age-specific prevalence of COVID-19 explain 90% of the geographical variation in population IFR. Consequently, protecting vulnerable age groups could substantially reduce the incidence of mortality."
Covid 19 IFR statistics (continued)
Here is another good source listing many different studies on Covid19 lethality:
https://swprs.org/studies-on-covid-19-lethality/
Here is a quote from that page:
"Until May 2020, New York City counted about 20,000 confirmed and probable Covid-19 deaths among its 8.4 million citizens and registered an antibody prevalence of about 20%. Studies estimating the infection fatality rate (IFR) for New York City found values between 0.7% and 1.1% based on confirmed deaths and up to 1.45% based on confirmed and probable deaths.
About 52% of Covid deaths in NYC occurred in the 75+ age group. This value is lower than in Europe, where about 90% of deaths were 70+. In all of New York State, about 6,300 patients were sent from hospitals into nursing homes, which ultimately registered between 6,600 and 13,000 deaths.
As in Italy and other hard-hit places, the IFR for age groups above 65 dropped by about 50% during the course of the pandemic, possibly due to better medical preparedness and treatment strategies.
Assuming that serological IgG antibody tests do not capture the full extent of coronavirus infections (e.g. due to mild cases without IgG antibodies), the overall IFR in New York City might drop to about 0.50% or below, and the actual spread of the coronavirus might be above 50%."
Thank you, Out Of LF - I have
my hands full this evening, but, I'll sure chew over the info/resources you've furnished over the weekend.
We are quite fortunate (or, were) to live in an area that wasn't hit near as hard as many locales (by COVID).
As a matter of fact, until university students returned, there had only been '5 'deaths (although they posted a sixth one, which was retracted--strange, eh?) since the Coronovirus came on the scene. IOW, an almost 7-month period.
(BTW, our stats are some of the best in the state--due to demographics,
That is, through mid-August--after University students returned to campus, late July, for a short summer semester. Mr M just checked--now COVID deaths number "39." Law suits are flying (I hear). Hope they're successful at shutting down "in-person classes" throughout the entire state university system.
By far, they most 'cases' in this state are among the 20-29 age group. Next group, 30-39.
The idea of allowing college students to swarm back into a small college town was absolutely insane. Phew!
(Not that I'm not sympathetic regarding the preference for an on-campus college experience--I get it. But, IMO, it can and should wait until sometime next year, or, until we have a decent vaccine.)
Again, thanks. Have a good one!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.