You guys need to Gray Davis that clown.

Trying to lock everyone down immediately after his French Laundry debacle has alienated absolutely everyone I know regardless of political leanings.

Yea, my cousins from SD tell me the tide has really turned against him. Kinda of weird that Pelosi has managed to avoid the same sort of hypocrisy, getting 80% of the votes this election. Uber liberal San Fran seems to be the only explanation for that one.

---

"Remember Red, Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."  - Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

Trying to lock everyone down immediately after his French Laundry debacle has alienated absolutely everyone I know regardless of political leanings.

Yea, my cousins from SD tell me the tide has really turned against him.  Kinda of weird that Pelosi has managed to avoid the same sort of hypocrisy, getting 80% of the votes this election. Uber liberal San Fran seems to be the only explanation for that one.

Just think of the homeless vote Nancy was able to solicit with her promise of a fresh cat food in every tent.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Trying to lock everyone down immediately after his French Laundry debacle has alienated absolutely everyone I know regardless of political leanings.

Yea, my cousins from SD tell me the tide has really turned against him.  Kinda of weird that Pelosi has managed to avoid the same sort of hypocrisy, getting 80% of the votes this election. Uber liberal San Fran seems to be the only explanation for that one.

Pelosi's only opponent in the general election at the beginning of this month was another Democrat, named Shahid Butler.
I don't know why backlash didn't materialize, but I don't think ideology explains it.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Trying to lock everyone down immediately after his French Laundry debacle has alienated absolutely everyone I know regardless of political leanings.

Yea, my cousins from SD tell me the tide has really turned against him.  Kinda of weird that Pelosi has managed to avoid the same sort of hypocrisy, getting 80% of the votes this election. Uber liberal San Fran seems to be the only explanation for that one.

In my immediate area she is every bit as disliked, maybe more actually for some of her stances on farming. But a lot of people in the metro areas view her as Trump's biggest foil and they really really dislike Trump.

---

Yea, my cousins from SD tell me the tide has really turned against him.  Kinda of weird that Pelosi has managed to avoid the same sort of hypocrisy, getting 80% of the votes this election. Uber liberal San Fran seems to be the only explanation for that one.

Pelosi's only opponent in the general election at the beginning of this month was another Democrat, named Shahid Butler.
I don't know why backlash didn't materialize, but I don't think ideology explains it.

Maybe it's because people knew how even more freakishly hideous she would look without a visit to the salon?

---

"Remember Red, Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."  - Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

So the John Hopkins study showed total deaths are on pace with past years.

So which is it, Trump has lead improvements in treatment and cures for all other diseases or the covid numbers are all made up?

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

---

They are definitely not made up, but I believe they are overinflated, almost certainly. I don't think you can get a pure picture from excess deaths because I'm sure some deaths were mitigated by lockdowns (car accidents, for example). The question regarding Coronavirus has always been what percentage of people that died from it were inevitably going to die in the next few months, anyways. We know it affects the heart, so it makes sense that it could be the final straw for people with systems that were already failing. I don't think we've looked at that closely enough. Regardless, I just don't believe the numbers are deadly enough to support lockdowns.

---

They are definitely not made up, but I believe they are overinflated, almost certainly. I don't think you can get a pure picture from excess deaths because I'm sure some deaths were mitigated by lockdowns (car accidents, for example). The question regarding Coronavirus has always been what percentage of people that died from it were inevitably going to die in the next few months, anyways. We know it affects the heart, so it makes sense that it could be the final straw for people with systems that were already failing. I don't think we've looked at that closely enough. Regardless, I just don't believe the numbers are deadly enough to support lockdowns.

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

---

This is a results-oriented business.  There are no trophies or titles given for "moral victories" or for "winning the draft".  Our record with DC is 37-86.  6-10 is our 2nd best season in 8 years of Caldwell leadership.  These are the FACTS.

They are definitely not made up, but I believe they are overinflated, almost certainly. I don't think you can get a pure picture from excess deaths because I'm sure some deaths were mitigated by lockdowns (car accidents, for example). The question regarding Coronavirus has always been what percentage of people that died from it were inevitably going to die in the next few months, anyways. We know it affects the heart, so it makes sense that it could be the final straw for people with systems that were already failing. I don't think we've looked at that closely enough. Regardless, I just don't believe the numbers are deadly enough to support lockdowns.

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

Surely one like you with such high intellect should be able to comprehend that the mortality rate in 2019 being the same as 2020 with the worst ever deadly pandemic in the history of the world is subject to inquisition, no?

---

Original Season Ticket Holder - Retired  1995 - 2020


At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening.
 

They are definitely not made up, but I believe they are overinflated, almost certainly. I don't think you can get a pure picture from excess deaths because I'm sure some deaths were mitigated by lockdowns (car accidents, for example). The question regarding Coronavirus has always been what percentage of people that died from it were inevitably going to die in the next few months, anyways. We know it affects the heart, so it makes sense that it could be the final straw for people with systems that were already failing. I don't think we've looked at that closely enough. Regardless, I just don't believe the numbers are deadly enough to support lockdowns.

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

101%

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

So the John Hopkins study showed total deaths are on pace with past years.

So which is it, Trump has lead improvements in treatment and cures for all other diseases or the covid numbers are all made up?

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

It actually looks like all cause mortality is decreased a little. Doesn’t matter tho, we just need to mask up and social distant and lockdown to prevent the virus from getting worse, just imagine how bad this would have been if we did nothing /s.

---

Yes, it's improvement, but it's Blaine Gabbert 2012 level improvement. - Pirkster

http://youtu.be/ouGM3NWpjxk The Home Hypnotist!

http://youtu.be/XQRFkn0Ly3A Media on the Brain Link!
 

Peyton must store oxygen in that forehead of his. No way I'd still be alive after all that choking.

 

So the John Hopkins study showed total deaths are on pace with past years.

So which is it, Trump has lead improvements in treatment and cures for all other diseases or the covid numbers are all made up?

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

It actually looks like all cause mortality is decreased a little. Doesn’t matter tho, we just need to mask up and social distant and lockdown to prevent the virus from getting worse, just imagine how bad this would have been if we did nothing /s.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

Surely one like you with such high intellect should be able to comprehend that the mortality rate in 2019 being the same as 2020 with the worst ever deadly pandemic in the history of the world is subject to inquisition, no?

I will type slower so you can understand what I said...

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

---

This is a results-oriented business.  There are no trophies or titles given for "moral victories" or for "winning the draft".  Our record with DC is 37-86.  6-10 is our 2nd best season in 8 years of Caldwell leadership.  These are the FACTS.

Surely one like you with such high intellect should be able to comprehend that the mortality rate in 2019 being the same as 2020 with the worst ever deadly pandemic in the history of the world is subject to inquisition, no?

I will type slower so you can understand what I said...

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

No lock down would be supported. Lock downs don't work because people still have to leave their home. What you are saying is don't leave your house unless it is for an approved activity. If its on the approved list, you are perfectly safe, but if it's not you are going to die by leaving your house.

Intellectual people can see the facts and see that the lock downs are shams. Protect yourselves and keep at risk people isolated, but don't force shut downs.


Now if you wanted to talk about a true shut down for 2-4 weeks for virus with a 100% transmission rate, I would be more open to that than a partial shut down. That would take a national emergency though.

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

---

They are definitely not made up, but I believe they are overinflated, almost certainly. I don't think you can get a pure picture from excess deaths because I'm sure some deaths were mitigated by lockdowns (car accidents, for example). The question regarding Coronavirus has always been what percentage of people that died from it were inevitably going to die in the next few months, anyways. We know it affects the heart, so it makes sense that it could be the final straw for people with systems that were already failing. I don't think we've looked at that closely enough. Regardless, I just don't believe the numbers are deadly enough to support lockdowns.

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

All decisions, especially political ones, are trade-offs in some capacity. I don't really don't care to entertain the leftist position that we risk everything to save one life. That's [BLEEP], and we don't operate like that anywhere else. It just rhetoric they used to create a political advantage for themselves. There is an opportunity cost for every political decision. You aren't just looking at fatality rate, you are looking at everything else you'd be losing as well. So, I guess I'm saying I don't think there's a clear cut answer, but I can share my thoughts on where I stand. My position hasn't changed much since early April. 

I've followed this very closely, since mid-late January. I told my wife that I thought we were headed for a lockdown, well before it was even on the radar here in the US, not because of what we knew, but because of what we didn't. The virus appeared to be deadly, and some numbers had the fatality rate at 65% for the elderly and 1-3% for healthy adults. Those are insanely high numbers and would have wiped out millions of people. However, we were getting all of our data from that time from China, and I wasn't sure if the numbers were accurate. This was bad enough, but we also didn't know how it spread, if people developed immunity, or anything else about it. In that scenario, it seemed better to shut things down early. I was even thinking we should cut off all travel in the US by mid-Feb, but a lot of people were still optimistic we could contain the virus. I was hopeful that China would get it under control and we wouldn't have to worry about here, but I certainly thought it was going to be catastrophic if it broke contain.

After the virus showed up in Italy, I knew that it had broken contain and that there was very little chance the virus would die. This is when we started learning there were several people who didn't have any symptoms at all, which meant the fatality rates were overestimated, and it primarily affected the elderly and people with weak immune systems. It also appeared that people developed immunity. By then, I felt comfortable enough saying that only people who were over 55 and with preconditions should go into lockdown, along with their families (in retrospect it probably should have been 65 and older). If we had done that, the US would have likely achieved herd immunity with very few deaths, and, since immunity would be fairly widespread, the elderly and compromised would probably be able to end their lockdowns by now. Keep in mind, that the global goal shifted after Italy because the virus had clearly broken contain, and the only options left were herd immunity or a vaccination. It blows my mind that there are people that still think we can snuff this virus out by social distancing, but whatever. Still, I stocked up on meat and non-perishables early (didn't think about hand-sanitizer and TP, unfortunately). 

Then the virus hit the US, and I didn't mind a 3-4 week shutdown, but it was pretty clear that we were overreacting at that point. Most of our early deaths were due to bad policies by some governors and the mistaken belief that people should be put on ventilators to help them breath. If you eliminate those practices, I speculate that we would have cut our early deaths in half. Since then, we have gotten even more data and the truth is that this thing isn't any more deadly than the flu. If we knew that from the outset, would we even care? I don't think we would.

Anyways, that's a meandering, non-specific answer to your question, but the truth is there is no perfect answer. We should be following the actual science, which is distinct from the party that just uses that saying as a slogan. More people in US has been swayed by their political leanings than by the scientific evidence. Our media is largely to blame for that, because they are just a bunch of fear-mongering, money-hungry mouthpieces for their party.

---

What would be the fatality rate for a disease need to be for you to support lockdowns?

All decisions, especially political ones, are trade-offs in some capacity. I don't really don't care to entertain the leftist position that we risk everything to save one life. That's [BLEEP], and we don't operate like that anywhere else. It just rhetoric they used to create a political advantage for themselves. There is an opportunity cost for every political decision. You aren't just looking at fatality rate, you are looking at everything else you'd be losing as well. So, I guess I'm saying I don't think there's a clear cut answer, but I can share my thoughts on where I stand. My position hasn't changed much since early April. 

I've followed this very closely, since mid-late January. I told my wife that I thought we were headed for a lockdown, well before it was even on the radar here in the US, not because of what we knew, but because of what we didn't. The virus appeared to be deadly, and some numbers had the fatality rate at 65% for the elderly and 1-3% for healthy adults. Those are insanely high numbers and would have wiped out millions of people. However, we were getting all of our data from that time from China, and I wasn't sure if the numbers were accurate. This was bad enough, but we also didn't know how it spread, if people developed immunity, or anything else about it. In that scenario, it seemed better to shut things down early. I was even thinking we should cut off all travel in the US by mid-Feb, but a lot of people were still optimistic we could contain the virus. I was hopeful that China would get it under control and we wouldn't have to worry about here, but I certainly thought it was going to be catastrophic if it broke contain.

After the virus showed up in Italy, I knew that it had broken contain and that there was very little chance the virus would die. This is when we started learning there were several people who didn't have any symptoms at all, which meant the fatality rates were overestimated, and it primarily affected the elderly and people with weak immune systems. It also appeared that people developed immunity. By then, I felt comfortable enough saying that only people who were over 55 and with preconditions should go into lockdown, along with their families (in retrospect it probably should have been 65 and older). If we had done that, the US would have likely achieved herd immunity with very few deaths, and, since immunity would be fairly widespread, the elderly and compromised would probably be able to end their lockdowns by now. Keep in mind, that the global goal shifted after Italy because the virus had clearly broken contain, and the only options left were herd immunity or a vaccination. It blows my mind that there are people that still think we can snuff this virus out by social distancing, but whatever. Still, I stocked up on meat and non-perishables early (didn't think about hand-sanitizer and TP, unfortunately). 

Then the virus hit the US, and I didn't mind a 3-4 week shutdown, but it was pretty clear that we were overreacting at that point. Most of our early deaths were due to bad policies by some governors and the mistaken belief that people should be put on ventilators to help them breath. If you eliminate those practices, I speculate that we would have cut our early deaths in half. Since then, we have gotten even more data and the truth is that this thing isn't any more deadly than the flu. If we knew that from the outset, would we even care? I don't think we would.

Anyways, that's a meandering, non-specific answer to your question, but the truth is there is no perfect answer. We should be following the actual science, which is distinct from the party that just uses that saying as a slogan. More people in US has been swayed by their political leanings than by the scientific evidence. Our media is largely to blame for that, because they are just a bunch of fear-mongering, money-hungry mouthpieces for their party.

The biased media swings from both sides.  CNN skews it one way, Fox News another.  I don't count OAN or Newsmaxx as credible attempts at news; they basically are network versions Info Wars.

Social media is even worse.  Like the claim the Johns Hopkins study states there isn't any excess death in the United States this year.  This is completely false:

https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/09/01/comorbidi...eaths-cdc/

"Looking at 2020 since March, the raw number of excess deaths is 200,000 more people than a normal year. When we try to understand that, COVID-19 is the most rational and likely explanation. If you don't believe it's COVID-19, try to pinpoint why this year has been so different than any other. Why would a new disease that kills people not be the cause?"

This article is directly from Johns Hopkins and dated Sept. 1.  It is much worse now, and will be WAY worse a month from now.  Its not just news sources, but people in general (see Copycat and P_Rushing on this thread), that get shepherded to believe what they want to believe, or what their political affiliation tells them to believe, rather than apply the simplest of critical thinking skills or basic research.  Strong opinions with weak minds is not a good combination. Again, it is the difference between evidence-based opinions and opinion-based evidence. Even flat-earthers can find "evidence" to support their opinions; just like Trump's lunatic legal team can find "evidence" of voter fraud. But its not credible when you evaluate the entire landscape.

And your assertion that this virus is no more deadly than the common flu is comical.   Basic research shows epidemiologists state it is anywhere from 10-20 times more deadly.  Recent articles have said improved therapeutics in the future could get it under 10x the flu's mortality rate, but still significantly greater.

---

This is a results-oriented business.  There are no trophies or titles given for "moral victories" or for "winning the draft".  Our record with DC is 37-86.  6-10 is our 2nd best season in 8 years of Caldwell leadership.  These are the FACTS.

All decisions, especially political ones, are trade-offs in some capacity. I don't really don't care to entertain the leftist position that we risk everything to save one life. That's [BLEEP], and we don't operate like that anywhere else. It just rhetoric they used to create a political advantage for themselves. There is an opportunity cost for every political decision. You aren't just looking at fatality rate, you are looking at everything else you'd be losing as well. So, I guess I'm saying I don't think there's a clear cut answer, but I can share my thoughts on where I stand. My position hasn't changed much since early April. 

I've followed this very closely, since mid-late January. I told my wife that I thought we were headed for a lockdown, well before it was even on the radar here in the US, not because of what we knew, but because of what we didn't. The virus appeared to be deadly, and some numbers had the fatality rate at 65% for the elderly and 1-3% for healthy adults. Those are insanely high numbers and would have wiped out millions of people. However, we were getting all of our data from that time from China, and I wasn't sure if the numbers were accurate. This was bad enough, but we also didn't know how it spread, if people developed immunity, or anything else about it. In that scenario, it seemed better to shut things down early. I was even thinking we should cut off all travel in the US by mid-Feb, but a lot of people were still optimistic we could contain the virus. I was hopeful that China would get it under control and we wouldn't have to worry about here, but I certainly thought it was going to be catastrophic if it broke contain.

After the virus showed up in Italy, I knew that it had broken contain and that there was very little chance the virus would die. This is when we started learning there were several people who didn't have any symptoms at all, which meant the fatality rates were overestimated, and it primarily affected the elderly and people with weak immune systems. It also appeared that people developed immunity. By then, I felt comfortable enough saying that only people who were over 55 and with preconditions should go into lockdown, along with their families (in retrospect it probably should have been 65 and older). If we had done that, the US would have likely achieved herd immunity with very few deaths, and, since immunity would be fairly widespread, the elderly and compromised would probably be able to end their lockdowns by now. Keep in mind, that the global goal shifted after Italy because the virus had clearly broken contain, and the only options left were herd immunity or a vaccination. It blows my mind that there are people that still think we can snuff this virus out by social distancing, but whatever. Still, I stocked up on meat and non-perishables early (didn't think about hand-sanitizer and TP, unfortunately). 

Then the virus hit the US, and I didn't mind a 3-4 week shutdown, but it was pretty clear that we were overreacting at that point. Most of our early deaths were due to bad policies by some governors and the mistaken belief that people should be put on ventilators to help them breath. If you eliminate those practices, I speculate that we would have cut our early deaths in half. Since then, we have gotten even more data and the truth is that this thing isn't any more deadly than the flu. If we knew that from the outset, would we even care? I don't think we would.

Anyways, that's a meandering, non-specific answer to your question, but the truth is there is no perfect answer. We should be following the actual science, which is distinct from the party that just uses that saying as a slogan. More people in US has been swayed by their political leanings than by the scientific evidence. Our media is largely to blame for that, because they are just a bunch of fear-mongering, money-hungry mouthpieces for their party.

The biased media swings from both sides.  CNN skews it one way, Fox News another.  I don't count OAN or Newsmaxx as credible attempts at news; they basically are network versions Info Wars.

Social media is even worse.  Like the claim the Johns Hopkins study states there isn't any excess death in the United States this year.  This is completely false:

https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/09/01/comorbidi...eaths-cdc/

"Looking at 2020 since March, the raw number of excess deaths is 200,000 more people than a normal year. When we try to understand that, COVID-19 is the most rational and likely explanation. If you don't believe it's COVID-19, try to pinpoint why this year has been so different than any other. Why would a new disease that kills people not be the cause?"

This article directly from Johns Hopkins is dated Sept. 1.  It is much worse now, and will be WAY worse a month from now.  Its not just news sources, but people in general (see Copycat and P_Rushing on this thread), that get shepherded to believe what they want to believe, or what their political affiliation tells them to believe, rather than apply the simplest of critical thinking skills or basic research.  Strong opinions with weak minds is not a good combination.

And your assertion that this virus is no more deadly than the common flu is comical.   Basic research shows epidemiologists state it is anywhere from 10-20 times more deadly.  Recent articles have said improved therapeutics in the future could get it under 10x the flu's mortality rate, but still significantly greater.

What is wrong with the study they did? John Hopkins retracted the study because it didn't meet the results they wanted, not because it was wrong. The CDC's own data shows only 6% die with just covid. How do you propose we measure the rest other than comparing total deaths? You can't measure any other way because the data is not trustable or standardized in how people are classified.

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

---

The biased media swings from both sides.  CNN skews it one way, Fox News another.  I don't count OAN or Newsmaxx as credible attempts at news; they basically are network versions Info Wars.

Social media is even worse.  Like the claim the Johns Hopkins study states there isn't any excess death in the United States this year.  This is completely false:

https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/09/01/comorbidi...eaths-cdc/

"Looking at 2020 since March, the raw number of excess deaths is 200,000 more people than a normal year. When we try to understand that, COVID-19 is the most rational and likely explanation. If you don't believe it's COVID-19, try to pinpoint why this year has been so different than any other. Why would a new disease that kills people not be the cause?"

This article directly from Johns Hopkins is dated Sept. 1.  It is much worse now, and will be WAY worse a month from now.  Its not just news sources, but people in general (see Copycat and P_Rushing on this thread), that get shepherded to believe what they want to believe, or what their political affiliation tells them to believe, rather than apply the simplest of critical thinking skills or basic research.  Strong opinions with weak minds is not a good combination.

And your assertion that this virus is no more deadly than the common flu is comical.   Basic research shows epidemiologists state it is anywhere from 10-20 times more deadly.  Recent articles have said improved therapeutics in the future could get it under 10x the flu's mortality rate, but still significantly greater.

What is wrong with the study they did? John Hopkins retracted the study because it didn't meet the results they wanted, not because it was wrong. The CDC's own data shows only 6% die with just covid. How do you propose we measure the rest other than comparing total deaths? You can't measure any other way because the data is not trustable or standardized in how people are classified.

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

As usual, you have no idea what you are looking at or talking about.  Go sit at the intellectual kiddie table and let the grown-ups speak.

---

This is a results-oriented business.  There are no trophies or titles given for "moral victories" or for "winning the draft".  Our record with DC is 37-86.  6-10 is our 2nd best season in 8 years of Caldwell leadership.  These are the FACTS.

What is wrong with the study they did? John Hopkins retracted the study because it didn't meet the results they wanted, not because it was wrong. The CDC's own data shows only 6% die with just covid. How do you propose we measure the rest other than comparing total deaths? You can't measure any other way because the data is not trustable or standardized in how people are classified.

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

As usual, you have no idea what you are looking at or talking about.  Go sit at the intellectual kiddie table and let the grown ups talk.

Once again you try to attack someone and provide no points to backup your thoughts. If you don't know how to discuss and debate your points, you should leave. This isn't liberal safe space group think time.

I also understand your points, but I don't agree with them. You are using a metric for additional deaths that is fraught with bias. Has covid caused people to die that were maintaining their illnesses, yes. There are issues with the data for why people died. The metric is open to manipulation and analysis to get the results you want. Total deaths are not open to bias. It tells you how many people have died regardless of the claimed cause.

Sent from my SM-T970 using Tapatalk

---

All decisions, especially political ones, are trade-offs in some capacity. I don't really don't care to entertain the leftist position that we risk everything to save one life. That's [BLEEP], and we don't operate like that anywhere else. It just rhetoric they used to create a political advantage for themselves. There is an opportunity cost for every political decision. You aren't just looking at fatality rate, you are looking at everything else you'd be losing as well. So, I guess I'm saying I don't think there's a clear cut answer, but I can share my thoughts on where I stand. My position hasn't changed much since early April. 

I've followed this very closely, since mid-late January. I told my wife that I thought we were headed for a lockdown, well before it was even on the radar here in the US, not because of what we knew, but because of what we didn't. The virus appeared to be deadly, and some numbers had the fatality rate at 65% for the elderly and 1-3% for healthy adults. Those are insanely high numbers and would have wiped out millions of people. However, we were getting all of our data from that time from China, and I wasn't sure if the numbers were accurate. This was bad enough, but we also didn't know how it spread, if people developed immunity, or anything else about it. In that scenario, it seemed better to shut things down early. I was even thinking we should cut off all travel in the US by mid-Feb, but a lot of people were still optimistic we could contain the virus. I was hopeful that China would get it under control and we wouldn't have to worry about here, but I certainly thought it was going to be catastrophic if it broke contain.

After the virus showed up in Italy, I knew that it had broken contain and that there was very little chance the virus would die. This is when we started learning there were several people who didn't have any symptoms at all, which meant the fatality rates were overestimated, and it primarily affected the elderly and people with weak immune systems. It also appeared that people developed immunity. By then, I felt comfortable enough saying that only people who were over 55 and with preconditions should go into lockdown, along with their families (in retrospect it probably should have been 65 and older). If we had done that, the US would have likely achieved herd immunity with very few deaths, and, since immunity would be fairly widespread, the elderly and compromised would probably be able to end their lockdowns by now. Keep in mind, that the global goal shifted after Italy because the virus had clearly broken contain, and the only options left were herd immunity or a vaccination. It blows my mind that there are people that still think we can snuff this virus out by social distancing, but whatever. Still, I stocked up on meat and non-perishables early (didn't think about hand-sanitizer and TP, unfortunately). 

Then the virus hit the US, and I didn't mind a 3-4 week shutdown, but it was pretty clear that we were overreacting at that point. Most of our early deaths were due to bad policies by some governors and the mistaken belief that people should be put on ventilators to help them breath. If you eliminate those practices, I speculate that we would have cut our early deaths in half. Since then, we have gotten even more data and the truth is that this thing isn't any more deadly than the flu. If we knew that from the outset, would we even care? I don't think we would.

Anyways, that's a meandering, non-specific answer to your question, but the truth is there is no perfect answer. We should be following the actual science, which is distinct from the party that just uses that saying as a slogan. More people in US has been swayed by their political leanings than by the scientific evidence. Our media is largely to blame for that, because they are just a bunch of fear-mongering, money-hungry mouthpieces for their party.

The biased media swings from both sides.  CNN skews it one way, Fox News another.  I don't count OAN or Newsmaxx as credible attempts at news; they basically are network versions Info Wars.

Social media is even worse.  Like the claim the Johns Hopkins study states there isn't any excess death in the United States this year.  This is completely false:

https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/09/01/comorbidi...eaths-cdc/

"Looking at 2020 since March, the raw number of excess deaths is 200,000 more people than a normal year. When we try to understand that, COVID-19 is the most rational and likely explanation. If you don't believe it's COVID-19, try to pinpoint why this year has been so different than any other. Why would a new disease that kills people not be the cause?"

This article is directly from Johns Hopkins and dated Sept. 1.  It is much worse now, and will be WAY worse a month from now.  Its not just news sources, but people in general (see Copycat and P_Rushing on this thread), that get shepherded to believe what they want to believe, or what their political affiliation tells them to believe, rather than apply the simplest of critical thinking skills or basic research.  Strong opinions with weak minds is not a good combination.  Again, it is the difference between evidence-based opinions and opinion-based evidence.  Even flat-earthers can find "evidence" to support their opinions; just like Trump's lunatic legal team can find "evidence" of voter fraud.  But its not credible when you evaluate the entire landscape.

And your assertion that this virus is no more deadly than the common flu is comical.   Basic research shows epidemiologists state it is anywhere from 10-20 times more deadly.  Recent articles have said improved therapeutics in the future could get it under 10x the flu's mortality rate, but still significantly greater.

I don't think we are evaluating the entire landscape, though. I think we have a bunch of research that is hyper focused on whatever their particular study is with regards to Covid. We have tons and tons of conflicting data, because everyone is specializing right now, and the ones that are supposed to be aggregating the data and unpacking it for us are politicizing it instead. 

I agree that basic research would show that Covid deaths are higher, but I would argue that is because Covid is tested and measured more thoroughly than the flu. Iirc, he flu and covid are comparable for people under the age of 65. This means most of the difference between Covid and Influenza exists primarily in the elderly. Since Covid is tested for regularly and the flu isn't, basic research is going to correctly associate more of these diseases with Covid. However, they don't look for the flu the same way. I read a paper earlier this year that was from 2 years ago that said as many as 40% of pneumonia patients biopsied had the flu, but there was no mention of that on their death certificate. The paper was making the case that influenza exacerbates pneumonia, but isn't considered the culprit in many of the deaths. I think Covid does the same thing, only we are looking for it. Adding 40% of pneumonia deaths to the flu puts it slightly less deadly than Covid to people over the age of 65. So, yeah, still not quite as bad as Covid for the elderly, but in the same ballpark, especially now that we are able to treat it better. Keep in mind, that is with a flu vaccine. 

The most useful part that came out of the John Hopkins study was that heart disease deaths decreased at a similar rate to Covid increases. Being that Covid is a blood disease, it makes sense that the virus would act as the final straw to break hearts that were already compromised. Covid has the same average death rate as the national average, so again, that suggests that Covid is acting as the final straw of sorts. Just like the flu, this doesn't mean that's true for every individual, but it is true statistically. Unlike the flu, it seems that Vitamin D may play the biggest role in preventing death. Should be common knowledge, but big pharma is greedy and big tech is stupid.

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The biased media swings from both sides.  CNN skews it one way, Fox News another.  I don't count OAN or Newsmaxx as credible attempts at news; they basically are network versions Info Wars.

Social media is even worse.  Like the claim the Johns Hopkins study states there isn't any excess death in the United States this year.  This is completely false:

https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/09/01/comorbidi...eaths-cdc/

"Looking at 2020 since March, the raw number of excess deaths is 200,000 more people than a normal year. When we try to understand that, COVID-19 is the most rational and likely explanation. If you don't believe it's COVID-19, try to pinpoint why this year has been so different than any other. Why would a new disease that kills people not be the cause?"

This article directly from Johns Hopkins is dated Sept. 1.  It is much worse now, and will be WAY worse a month from now.  Its not just news sources, but people in general (see Copycat and P_Rushing on this thread), that get shepherded to believe what they want to believe, or what their political affiliation tells them to believe, rather than apply the simplest of critical thinking skills or basic research.  Strong opinions with weak minds is not a good combination.

And your assertion that this virus is no more deadly than the common flu is comical.   Basic research shows epidemiologists state it is anywhere from 10-20 times more deadly.  Recent articles have said improved therapeutics in the future could get it under 10x the flu's mortality rate, but still significantly greater.

What is wrong with the study they did? John Hopkins retracted the study because it didn't meet the results they wanted, not because it was wrong. The CDC's own data shows only 6% die with just covid. How do you propose we measure the rest other than comparing total deaths? You can't measure any other way because the data is not trustable or standardized in how people are classified.

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This is an incorrect talking point. There should be 0% deaths from Covid, and the people who listed it on a death certificate are either uninformed, lazy, or greedy. Covid can't kill you by itself. It creates complications in your body that kill you. You will die from pneumonia, or a heart attack, or a stroke. All certificates should have the actual cause of death, with Covid listed as a complicating factor. Maybe this is a bad analogy, but it's like saying a person died of suicide. No, mental illness caused them to want to kill themselves, but they died from a gunshot wound or poison or whatever.

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