(09-09-2020 02:21 PM)Monarchblue Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 02:12 PM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 01:41 PM)EverydayInVA Wrote: [ -> ]The lockdown has cost an estimated 250 million per life saved according to the prior estimates, worth it?
I call bull****. You're counting the cost of COVID itself in there not simply the opportunity cost of the lockdown. Airlines would have needed bailing out, hospitality, restaurants, etc. Show your work.
An effective lockdown would have saved money, a botched lockdown is certainly a waste.
Evidence?
Sweden who did not lockdown, agree with it or not, has had the best economic outcome of Western nations.
-8.6 So on par with their neighbors Norway (-8.7) and fairly worse than Denmark (-7.4) & Finland (-6.4). And it only cost them 6-7K lives, one of the highest deaths per capita in the world. What do you think? Cost/benefit? Economically relatively the same as their neighbors but orders of magnitude more dead.
(09-09-2020 02:37 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ]Data on Sweden's economy here: https://fee.org/articles/bbc-sweden-s-ec...-pandemic/
![[Image: EfENIm8XkAAZYMw?format=jpg&name=900x900]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfENIm8XkAAZYMw?format=jpg&name=900x900)
Costs to US here:
https://www.aier.org/article/the-covid-19-catastrophe/
Quote:In early March, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the economic output of the United States economy over the period 2020 through 2025 would total $120 trillion. Just four months later and because of the Covid lockdown, the CBO reduced its projection by almost $10 trillion. That $10 trillion difference is income Americans would have earned had the lockdown not happened, but now won’t.
Quote:All in, the effort to save two million lives from Covid-19 will end up costing us somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 million per life saved. People generally assume the lockdown was worth this massive cost, but there are a couple of things to consider before drawing that conclusion. First, for the same cost, could we have saved even more lives than we did by doing other things? Second, how plausible was the prediction of two million dead in the first place?...
The ICL model overestimated Sweden’s Covid-19 deaths by a factor of nearly fifteen.
If the ICL model overestimated US Covid-19 deaths merely by a factor of ten, the number of Americans who would have died had we not locked down the country, but instead practiced social distancing and banned gatherings of more than 50 people, would have been around 220,000.
To date, the CDC reports around 170,000 covid deaths in the United States. In other words, adjusting – even conservatively – for the ICL model’s demonstrated error, it appears that the $14 trillion lockdown perhaps saved about 50,000 US lives. If that’s the case, the cost of saving lives via the lockdown was not $7 million each. The cost was over a quarter of a billion dollars each.
You can see my post above comparing Sweden to their neighbors instead of the much larger economies of Europe which were hit early and hard, especially Italy.
Regarding your cost to US article, I still call bull****. It's putting 100% of the economic downfall on the lockdowns which is BS. When Covid hit the US there were two certainties: 1) People would die 2) There would be recession. This article is acting like if we hadn't locked down the economy would have kept on humming and that is, well a lie. It's a dishonest article. Even if the US had done everything right and squashed Covid by summer we would have fell into recession because it's a global economy.
Sweden? Y'all are arguing about Sweden?
I hate this ******* place now, and I hate my role in making it so.
quote='Monarchblue' pid='16984339' dateline='1599677441']
(09-09-2020 01:08 PM)Chillie Willie Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 12:52 PM)Monarchblue Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 12:15 PM)Chillie Willie Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 10:50 AM)Monarchblue Wrote: [ -> ]This is not how you conduct public policy. You can't govern a population based on empathy for a single person.
Paul Bloom makes this case well
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-C...0062339338
Oxymoron of the day: distanced compassion. Sounds like something you would use to spin an iron-fisted dictator.
I don't see it that way at all. You can be compassionate without being blind to the negative effects that making the empathetic choice my cause.
As it relates to COIVD, you can have compassion for those families that have lost loved ones, but not be so overcome by that compassion that you lose sight of the fact that giving into pure empathy could lead to far worse outcomes for society at large.
The problem with empathy is you have to decide who gets it. Do I give my empathy to the 180k souls who have passed due to COVID, or do I give my empathy to those millions of souls whose lives have been destroyed by the efforts that might save some of those 180k lives. How do you pick?
I would prefer that we take empathy out of the equation and use data to make decisions that are born out of intense analysis of costs and benefits. From the perspective of the person overcome with empathy for COVID deaths, it may seem reasonable to destroy countless lives to save 10,000 people from COVID death. Is that fair? What if we saved 20,000, 50,000, 100,000? How do we determine the correct balance of preventing COIVD death, and preventing personal ruin if empathy is the driving factor?
Alternatively, we have compassion for COVID deaths, and we have compassion for lives destroyed, but we allow data and analysis to provide some distance between us and the decisions that we employ within our society.
You are equating empathy with emotion. I agree that decisions should be made without emotion. But the emotions of those affected by the decision should be taken into account. That is empathy.
So we should pick winners and losers based on who has the more emotionally appealing case? I am still not understanding how you justify that to the group you have decided are losers. The truth is that every choice in government makes some people winners and others losers, and I don't believe considering people's emotions is an effective way to ensure that you get the best outcome for 326 million people.
People's emotions, fear, excitement, hatred, ire, pride, etc often lead them to pine for an outcome that ultimately will not be the best outcome for themselves, let alone the entire society. We elect representatives to provide that necessary distance from personal issues with the expectation that they will make the most prudent decisions. This was the genius of our Forefathers who saw the ghastly consequences of direct democracy that leads to emotional appeals and ultimately mob rule that crushes minorities.
We used to measure the efficacy of a plan against our national mores, but since those have been eroded, we are now stuck without a moral compass, and without that compass, all too often politicians take the expedient approach which is to make an emotional appeal and fall wherever the wind takes them on policy.
[/quote]
I am going to respond to this here since we got yelled at in the other thread. The truth is that not every decision results in winners and losers. But those decisions are definitely the most difficult. And all I said was that empathy should be a factor in the decision, not the overall strategy. There has to be compromises in every decision. The strategy should be to not overly damage any group over another and make it as equitable as possible. Sometimes that happens, but it is usually in the favor of a group that is underprivileged or has been previously damaged in some way. People that are on the wrong side of a decision will most likely not agree with it because they see how it affects them and not society as a whole. If that group is a majority, then the decision makers hear a lot of backlash. But any decision maker with a hint of integrity will know that the decision was made for the good of society as a whole with the info available at the time, and stick by it. The problem is a lot of these decisions are made by politicians who are more concerned about getting re-elected than making the best decision.
And our forefathers supported the right to assemble and protest. That is not the same as “mob rule”.
(09-09-2020 03:21 PM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 02:37 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ]Data on Sweden's economy here: https://fee.org/articles/bbc-sweden-s-ec...-pandemic/
Costs to US here:
https://www.aier.org/article/the-covid-19-catastrophe/
Quote:In early March, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the economic output of the United States economy over the period 2020 through 2025 would total $120 trillion. Just four months later and because of the Covid lockdown, the CBO reduced its projection by almost $10 trillion. That $10 trillion difference is income Americans would have earned had the lockdown not happened, but now won’t.
Quote:All in, the effort to save two million lives from Covid-19 will end up costing us somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 million per life saved. People generally assume the lockdown was worth this massive cost, but there are a couple of things to consider before drawing that conclusion. First, for the same cost, could we have saved even more lives than we did by doing other things? Second, how plausible was the prediction of two million dead in the first place?...
The ICL model overestimated Sweden’s Covid-19 deaths by a factor of nearly fifteen.
If the ICL model overestimated US Covid-19 deaths merely by a factor of ten, the number of Americans who would have died had we not locked down the country, but instead practiced social distancing and banned gatherings of more than 50 people, would have been around 220,000.
To date, the CDC reports around 170,000 covid deaths in the United States. In other words, adjusting – even conservatively – for the ICL model’s demonstrated error, it appears that the $14 trillion lockdown perhaps saved about 50,000 US lives. If that’s the case, the cost of saving lives via the lockdown was not $7 million each. The cost was over a quarter of a billion dollars each.
You can see my post above comparing Sweden to their neighbors instead of the much larger economies of Europe which were hit early and hard, especially Italy.
Regarding your cost to US article, I still call bull****. It's putting 100% of the economic downfall on the lockdowns which is BS. When Covid hit the US there were two certainties: 1) People would die 2) There would be recession. This article is acting like if we hadn't locked down the economy would have kept on humming and that is, well a lie. It's a dishonest article. Even if the US had done everything right and squashed Covid by summer we would have fell into recession because it's a global economy.
I’m still confused about the use of the term “lockdown”. In my opinion we weren’t in a lockdown for very long, maybe a few weeks or a month? People have has pretty much free reign to move about as necessary for months now. Maybe that term is meant to refer to non-essential businesses that were closed for a while. But even those have been open for a while now, with some restrictions of course. I think at this point there have been far more deaths reported after lockdown restrictions were lifted than during lockdown. But again, I might just be confused about what we are referring to as “lockdown”.
(09-09-2020 04:40 PM)Chillie Willie Wrote: [ -> ]I’m still confused about the use of the term “lockdown”. In my opinion we weren’t in a lockdown for very long, maybe a few weeks or a month? People have has pretty much free reign to move about as necessary for months now. Maybe that term is meant to refer to non-essential businesses that were closed for a while. But even those have been open for a while now, with some restrictions of course. I think at this point there have been far more deaths reported after lockdown restrictions were lifted than during lockdown. But again, I might just be confused about what we are referring to as “lockdown”.
I feel badly that no one has responded to you on this. It's true that the term is used ambiguously. I know I'm guilty of using it, with basically any restriction the Governor imposes. Personally, if I'm a business owner and told I'm only allowed to open my business at 30% or 50% capacity, I'm, in effect, locked down. Especially if I operate a restaurant for example. Margins at most restaurants are razor thin. There is a good chance that with any type of restriction, my business is no longer profitable, and thus, I might as well be locked down.
I'm not sure we were ever truly "locked down," but unsurprisingly, I don't think we ever should have been. For the great majority of us, this thing isn't all that dangerous, so the giving up of liberty for this little bit of safety gained, just isn't worth it.
(08-27-2020 10:06 AM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (08-26-2020 10:52 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote: [ -> ]Anyone know the number of students on ODU's campus this Fall. Ran into 3 young ladies camping at False Cape State park, all ODU students, all taking a Gap year. Are we down 25% or 50%. What about kids on grants, most start a 4 year time frame that starts, so with a Gap you lose a year of grant money.
Classes start Saturday. Move-in started yesterday, I think. Not sure anyone knows exactly what the enrollment numbers are until classes actually start, but from what I've heard, the don't expect a significant decrease in enrollment at all.
Here's an update from Harry:
Quote:At a time when college enrollment is falling nationally, tentative early figures indicate Old Dominion University's enrollment has increased.
ODU enrolled 24,233 students for the fall semester, a 2.5% increase over last fall.
https://www.odu.edu/about/odu-publicatio...0/feature1
(09-11-2020 09:37 AM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (09-09-2020 04:40 PM)Chillie Willie Wrote: [ -> ]I’m still confused about the use of the term “lockdown”. In my opinion we weren’t in a lockdown for very long, maybe a few weeks or a month? People have has pretty much free reign to move about as necessary for months now. Maybe that term is meant to refer to non-essential businesses that were closed for a while. But even those have been open for a while now, with some restrictions of course. I think at this point there have been far more deaths reported after lockdown restrictions were lifted than during lockdown. But again, I might just be confused about what we are referring to as “lockdown”.
I feel badly that no one has responded to you on this. It's true that the term is used ambiguously. I know I'm guilty of using it, with basically any restriction the Governor imposes. Personally, if I'm a business owner and told I'm only allowed to open my business at 30% or 50% capacity, I'm, in effect, locked down. Especially if I operate a restaurant for example. Margins at most restaurants are razor thin. There is a good chance that with any type of restriction, my business is no longer profitable, and thus, I might as well be locked down.
I'm not sure we were ever truly "locked down," but unsurprisingly, I don't think we ever should have been. For the great majority of us, this thing isn't all that dangerous, so the giving up of liberty for this little bit of safety gained, just isn't worth it.
Thanks Coach. Your always looking out for your brothers. I heard just recently about a jail that went into lockdown because of COVID breakout. That is the kind of lockdown I don’t think anyone would like to experience. Reminds me of Kingsman The Golden Circle where they rounded up everybody that had the blue vein disease and put them in cages stacked on top of each other inside a giant stadium. Cruelty to the max.
Fauci...
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/pu...s-needs-to
I'm sorry, but this is over. You can't go from "Two weeks to flatten the curve so we don't overwhelm the hospital system" to "hunker down." I was all for flattening the curve, but it's clear that with the exception of about 2 hospitals in the country, at no point were we in danger of overwhelming the system. It's time to give people the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves.
(09-11-2020 01:22 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ]Fauci...
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/pu...s-needs-to
I'm sorry, but this is over. You can't go from "Two weeks to flatten the curve so we don't overwhelm the hospital system" to "hunker down." I was all for flattening the curve, but it's clear that with the exception of about 2 hospitals in the country, at no point were we in danger of overwhelming the system. It's time to give people the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves.
Had the Moronic JizzRag in the white house put tough measures and a total lock down for a couple of weeks when this thing started while they worked out logistics on how to control the flow of people with out putting a deadlock on every damn thing we wouldn't have to come to this and from what i heard from both left and right media this idiot seems to be aware of this before this became public. I don't think we can do anything about that now but hunkering down through the fall would just about cost a lot of small companies their business for good and it will be a disaster on top of another. I don't know where you got that number of hospitals overwhelmed from but that is way off from what i can tell. I am aware of two medium to bigger hospital systems in and around Atlanta(NGHS and Emory) that had to add extra beds for treating the patients that were admitted for COVID-19. Both my neighbors are doctors that share duties between those systems in emergency care.
Wonder if students are being charged full activities fee.
(09-11-2020 09:40 AM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (08-27-2020 10:06 AM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (08-26-2020 10:52 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote: [ -> ]Anyone know the number of students on ODU's campus this Fall. Ran into 3 young ladies camping at False Cape State park, all ODU students, all taking a Gap year. Are we down 25% or 50%. What about kids on grants, most start a 4 year time frame that starts, so with a Gap you lose a year of grant money.
Classes start Saturday. Move-in started yesterday, I think. Not sure anyone knows exactly what the enrollment numbers are until classes actually start, but from what I've heard, the don't expect a significant decrease in enrollment at all.
Here's an update from Harry:
Quote:At a time when college enrollment is falling nationally, tentative early figures indicate Old Dominion University's enrollment has increased.
ODU enrolled 24,233 students for the fall semester, a 2.5% increase over last fall.
https://www.odu.edu/about/odu-publicatio...0/feature1
Thanks Coach, that is certainly some good news. Hope everyone does a good job staying safe.
(09-11-2020 03:00 PM)12thmonarch Wrote: [ -> ]Had the Moronic JizzRag in the white house put tough measures and a total lock down for a couple of weeks when this thing started while they worked out logistics on how to control the flow of people with out putting a deadlock on every damn thing we wouldn't have to come to this and from what i heard from both left and right media this idiot seems to be aware of this before this became public. I don't think we can do anything about that now but hunkering down through the fall would just about cost a lot of small companies their business for good and it will be a disaster on top of another. I don't know where you got that number of hospitals overwhelmed from but that is way off from what i can tell. I am aware of two medium to bigger hospital systems in and around Atlanta(NGHS and Emory) that had to add extra beds for treating the patients that were admitted for COVID-19. Both my neighbors are doctors that share duties between those systems in emergency care.
I absolutely reject the idea that the POTUS has or should have the authority to lock our nation down. I certainly don't want the current occupier of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to have that authority, but truthfully, I don't think I'd be comfortable with any President having it.
There is a big difference between "adding extra beds" which many, many hospitals have the capacity to do, and hitting capacity.
And there is a big difference in facilities needed with no lockdown vs. a lockdown.
(09-11-2020 03:15 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (09-11-2020 03:00 PM)12thmonarch Wrote: [ -> ]Had the Moronic JizzRag in the white house put tough measures and a total lock down for a couple of weeks when this thing started while they worked out logistics on how to control the flow of people with out putting a deadlock on every damn thing we wouldn't have to come to this and from what i heard from both left and right media this idiot seems to be aware of this before this became public. I don't think we can do anything about that now but hunkering down through the fall would just about cost a lot of small companies their business for good and it will be a disaster on top of another. I don't know where you got that number of hospitals overwhelmed from but that is way off from what i can tell. I am aware of two medium to bigger hospital systems in and around Atlanta(NGHS and Emory) that had to add extra beds for treating the patients that were admitted for COVID-19. Both my neighbors are doctors that share duties between those systems in emergency care.
I absolutely reject the idea that the POTUS has or should have the authority to lock our nation down. I certainly don't want the current occupier of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to have that authority, but truthfully, I don't think I'd be comfortable with any President having it.
There is a big difference between "adding extra beds" which many, many hospitals have the capacity to do, and hitting capacity.
I don't want to get into the whole discussion of who is right or wrong but we(at least the majority of us) chose the person holding the position of the president to be the leader and decision maker for the nation when we bought into the idea of government. Coming to the added bed capacity i am well aware that most hospital systems are capable of adding capacity when needed but from what i heard both systems were way understaffed even after employing temp nursing staff that were not prepared for this before they ran out of beds and additional capacity. I am sure most Hospital systems weren't prepared for anything like this in the 2000's.
(09-11-2020 03:41 PM)12thmonarch Wrote: [ -> ] (09-11-2020 03:15 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (09-11-2020 03:00 PM)12thmonarch Wrote: [ -> ]Had the Moronic JizzRag in the white house put tough measures and a total lock down for a couple of weeks when this thing started while they worked out logistics on how to control the flow of people with out putting a deadlock on every damn thing we wouldn't have to come to this and from what i heard from both left and right media this idiot seems to be aware of this before this became public. I don't think we can do anything about that now but hunkering down through the fall would just about cost a lot of small companies their business for good and it will be a disaster on top of another. I don't know where you got that number of hospitals overwhelmed from but that is way off from what i can tell. I am aware of two medium to bigger hospital systems in and around Atlanta(NGHS and Emory) that had to add extra beds for treating the patients that were admitted for COVID-19. Both my neighbors are doctors that share duties between those systems in emergency care.
I absolutely reject the idea that the POTUS has or should have the authority to lock our nation down. I certainly don't want the current occupier of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to have that authority, but truthfully, I don't think I'd be comfortable with any President having it.
There is a big difference between "adding extra beds" which many, many hospitals have the capacity to do, and hitting capacity.
we as people chose the person holding the position of the president to be the leader and decision maker for the nation
We sure as hell did not. We chose the head of the Executive Branch, which is delegated very specific and narrow powers by our Constitution. We did NOT elect a benevolent dictator to make the decisions for our nation, and God willing we never will.
(09-11-2020 03:41 PM)12thmonarch Wrote: [ -> ]I don't want to get into the whole discussion of who is right or wrong but we(at least the majority of us) chose the person holding the position of the president to be the leader and decision maker for the nation when we bought into the idea of government.
I happen to have two copies of the Constitution on my desk in my office (just in case one goes missing), and nowhere does it grant "decision maker" to the Executive Branch. I suppose one could argue that as Commander-in-Chief, he could have some decision making powers with regards to the military. But, other than that, Article II, Section 2 really doesn't grant the POTUS much authority at all.
(09-11-2020 03:50 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (09-11-2020 03:41 PM)12thmonarch Wrote: [ -> ]I don't want to get into the whole discussion of who is right or wrong but we(at least the majority of us) chose the person holding the position of the president to be the leader and decision maker for the nation when we bought into the idea of government.
I happen to have two copies of the Constitution on my desk in my office (just in case one goes missing), and nowhere does it grant "decision maker" to the Executive Branch. I suppose one could argue that as Commander-in-Chief, he could have some decision making powers with regards to the military. But, other than that, Article II, Section 2 really doesn't grant the POTUS much authority at all.
I am not trying to get into semantics and sure as hell don't carry a thesaurus much less a constitution but whatever the party that has majority gets to decide and make decision on key issues and as the leader of the majority(I know senate majority leader and president are different as i am well aware of muppet Mitch) he has a say in it and to what degree it really depends. If you guys are saying you aren't impacted by certain decisions then i understand but we are all covered under a rule if the government puts it out whether you like it or not.
It's not semantics to say that the POTUS (nor anyone in the federal government) lacks the authority to enforce a complete nationwide lockdown.