President Trump, First Lady Melania Test Positive for Coronavirus

[churchmouse]

I required a bone marrow transplant last year, and the insurance coverage was extremely iffy. Pretty much you had to have the procedure done and then if they didn't cover it you had to jump through hoops and possibly pay out of pocket. Only estimation the hospital would give is around $500,000. They said just do it, what are they gonna do repo your bone marrow. I'm still dealing with insurance over this.

I have had a very similar situation. Not sharing the particulars but that put us in a terrible spot. Terrible. Unless you have experienced this please do not pass judgement.

 

[churchmouse]

If **** happens through no fault of your own, bankruptcy is not a disgrace.

If you live way beyond your means and fill up 10 credit cards, then bankruptcy is a disgrace.

Well stated.
And true.

 

[Ingomike]

Very well stated.

Thank you

 

[ditcherman]

After this whole episode, as the cherry on top of the past four years, I never want to hear any more lectures on civility from the Democrat party

Well, don’t hold your breath for that, or gasp for breath, or even take a deep breath or anything. If it weren’t for double standards they wouldn’t have any standards at all.

 

[jamil]

I read an interesting article the other day where Trump's activities re; Covid were compared with a more stereotypical president. As to 'real' differences, there were few. Where Trump losers points is acting as if he knows and understands more than he does. Once again, his effusiveness does not serve him well. He should STFU...but we know that his personality disorder won't allow that.

That’s [STRIKE]Rutabaga[/STRIKE] fair.

 

[BugI02]

You can take steps that make it less likely to happen to you on a given day. You could do everything you did before this, with out any precautions, and you'll probability that the virus could spread to you. Or you could eliminate some of those ways, reducing your probability of getting it on a given day. That is self evident. Of course you can't eliminate all the ways you might possibly get it, and even if you followed all the protocol precisely, you could still get it.

Medical professionals catch it despite protocols because they're exposed to it much more than most people. There's a medical professional in my extended family who just got it. I'm sure she followed the protocols and got it anyway. She has a much higher probability of getting it even if we weren't talking about any protocols. And following them does reduce that probability. It doesn't eliminate it.

Okay, so it your contention that they all had the same probability of spreading covid without following the protocols as if they had? So, social distancing, handwashing, disinfecting, mask wearing. Same probability either way?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...s-forcing-scientists-to-rethink-herd-immunity
Covid Spread Can’t Only Be Explained by Who’s Being ‘Bad’

 

[BugI02]

OMG! He's not fully recovered from a 10+ day illness in seven days!

I am curious if he's on blood thinners. Huge risk of clotting such as stroke and pulmonary embolism with this.

I find it freaking hilarious that humans are so damned arrogant to think we can change what a respiratory illness will do in a population, just as we claim to be able to change the earth's temperature.

TRUMP WAS NOT FOLLOWING SOCIAL DISTANCING!!!!! Right... he's running a country, not a coffee shop

LOVE the last sentence! Stealing it!

 

[BugI02]

Whoa! Whether or not it's a standard practice or not, it can still be subjected to a value judgment.

Leaving Trump out of it. Are we now saying we admire folks who declare bankruptcy for doing so? Are we saying that it doesn't change our opinion of them one way or another?

Why are conservatives usually trying to limit bankruptcy filings?

This line of reasoning does not make sense to me. Long before Trump I was raised with a belief that declaring bankruptcy was, in general, indicative of financial mismanagment. I, like Kut, thought it was a conservative principle. If this is a wrong way to thing about bankruptcy then I want the credit card laws changed back to the way they used to be.

Without speaking to people that abuse the system, I can see bankruptcy protection being an encouragement to innovate and take chances. You know Henry Ford had an auto company before FMC, and it went bankrupt. I would argue that a way to prevent the failure of a company or idea from also ruining the man doing the innovation can only enhance innovation and invention

 

[jamil]

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...s-forcing-scientists-to-rethink-herd-immunity
Covid Spread Can’t Only Be Explained by Who’s Being ‘Bad’

Got into a little debate with a coworker who insisted that the spike over the summer was caused by red states, because conservatives aren't following protocols, and progressives are.

- I said, alright. Let's look at some data from a source you agree with. Let's look at deaths per capita.

- Oh, no. We should look at number of cases because they're driving the number of cases up.

- Okay. Fine, but states with higher populations will have higher positives. So let's look at case rates.

So I shared my screen, we looked at case rates ranked by state, and sure enough, he's right. The top 10 are pretty much red states. But I already knew this before looking.

- He said, Ah HA! See? It's all those Republicans not wearing masks.

- Is that the only factor?

- Pretty much.

- Are red states better at treating covid than blue states?

- No. Of course not. That's absurd.

- Then why doesn't the deaths per capita track the case rate?

- What?

So then we went to death rates per capita and it's mostly blue states at the top. So unless blue states have ridiculously worse outcomes than red states, there are other factors. For one thing, death rate implies case rate to the extent that treatments and attribution of cause are pretty much to the same. So maybe southern states don't test as much. So the denominator is lower and the case rate is artificially higher. Does that mean that blue staates have an implied higher case rate than red states? Well yeah, but it makes sense that it would. Blue states tend to have a higher population density. That's probably a much bigger factor in spreading covid than a state's dominant politics, or compliance with covid protocols.

It's not either/or. It's multi-factored. Compliance with protocols is a factor. Population density is a factor. Super-spreader events is a factor too. Of course there are more factors but you get the point. Covid spread indeed cannot only be explained by not following protocols. It's a factor of many.

 

[jamil]

LOVE the last sentence! Stealing it!

It's a pithy sound bite for sure. But it's also a false dichotomy. Running a country does not preclude social distancing. Also, many things can be true at the same time. You can social distance while running a country. Following the protocols does decrease the probability spreading it. Following protocols doesn't prevent spreading it altogether. We don't know to what extent it helps. People still get sick while following protocols.

 

[jamil]

Whoa! Whether or not it's a standard practice or not, it can still be subjected to a value judgment.

Leaving Trump out of it. Are we now saying we admire folks who declare bankruptcy for doing so? Are we saying that it doesn't change our opinion of them one way or another?

Why are conservatives usually trying to limit bankruptcy filings?

This line of reasoning does not make sense to me. Long before Trump I was raised with a belief that declaring bankruptcy was, in general, indicative of financial mismanagment. I, like Kut, thought it was a conservative principle. If this is a wrong way to thing about bankruptcy then I want the credit card laws changed back to the way they used to be.

I probably have missed parts of the conversation here. But what you quoted doesn't mention that anyone particularly admires Trump for declaring bankruptcy. Even if someone admires something about someone doesn't mean they admire everything about the someone either. If someone has some character flaws, but does other things that are good, it's possible to admire the good qualities while not admiring the bad.

In the business world, some people use bankruptcy as a tool. I don't think that's a particularly great strategy, ethically, because it harms the people he owes. They're not gonna get what's owed. So that's definitely a strike against Trump. If all else were equal between candidates, and the other one is pure as the driven snow, that might be a valid reason not to vote for Trump. But all candidates are flawed. We overlook those in the candidates we support because of bias. I kinda think Trump's character isn't all that great. I kinda think Biden's character isn't all that great. So now what? I guess if Trump filing bankruptcy is the most important thing, then you'll have to do what you have to do. But don't fool yourself into thinking that you're voting for the most moral person of the two. Biden probably participated with Hillary on the Russia hoax. And I only say probably because he's innocent until proven guilty. But it's looking like he probably did it. I kinda think that sux. But that's not even why I'm not voting for Biden. He hasn't displayed any ability to figure out that the Left can even go too far. SJW's will run all over him. And then President Harris takes over. OMG, I think it's actually immoral to vote for any ticket that has her on it.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Got into a little debate with a coworker who insisted that the spike over the summer was caused by red states, because conservatives aren't following protocols, and progressives are.

- I said, alright. Let's look at some data from a source you agree with. Let's look at deaths per capita.

- Oh, no. We should look at number of cases because they're driving the number of cases up.

- Okay. Fine, but states with higher populations will have higher positives. So let's look at case rates.

So I shared my screen, we looked at case rates ranked by state, and sure enough, he's right. The top 10 are pretty much red states. But I already knew this before looking.

- He said, Ah HA! See? It's all those Republicans not wearing masks.

- Is that the only factor?

- Pretty much.

- Are red states better at treating covid than blue states?

- No. Of course not. That's absurd.

- Then why doesn't the deaths per capita track the case rate?

- What?

So then we went to death rates per capita and it's mostly blue states at the top. So unless blue states have ridiculously worse outcomes than red states, there are other factors. For one thing, death rate implies case rate to the extent that treatments and attribution of cause are pretty much to the same. So maybe southern states don't test as much. So the denominator is lower and the case rate is artificially higher. Does that mean that blue staates have an implied higher case rate than red states? Well yeah, but it makes sense that it would. Blue states tend to have a higher population density. That's probably a much bigger factor in spreading covid than a state's dominant politics, or compliance with covid protocols.

It's not either/or. It's multi-factored. Compliance with protocols is a factor. Population density is a factor. Super-spreader events is a factor too. Of course there are more factors but you get the point. Covid spread indeed cannot only be explained by not following protocols. It's a factor of many.

You are not looking granularly enough. Indiana is considered a blue state. But the vast majority of the infections are from red pockets (Indy, Bloomington, etc) So do we still count us as blue when the infections in the blue parts of the state are lower than the red parts? Granted that is typically due to density and not ideology, but you get the point; its not that easy to assign blame.

 

[jamil]

You are not looking granularly enough. Indiana is considered a blue state. But the vast majority of the infections are from red pockets (Indy, Bloomington, etc) So do we still count us as blue when the infections in the blue parts of the state are lower than the red parts? Granted that is typically due to density and not ideology, but you get the point; its not that easy to assign blame.

Do you have your colors mixed up? Indiana is a red state not a blue state. It's very Republican, albeit milquetoast Republican. It only went blue briefly in 2008 to vote for Obama, which was corrected in 2012, voting overwhelmingly against Obama. It went big time for Trump in 2016. Indy is not a "red" pocket. Bloomington is not a "red" pocket. Both are notoriously blue. The bat **** crazy leftists in Indiana's representatives are from those blue areas.

But that's not the point. The vast majority of infections are indeed coming from the places where human interaction is the greatest, which tends to be larger cities, college towns, transportation centers. Those tend to be 'blue' (progressive). I doubt infection rates have much to do with political leanings. My point was just that. It's not the politics or collective behaviors that are driving the numbers. It's the size of the denominator. If all else is steady, bigger denominator looks like it generally means a much bigger numerator.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Yes, you are correct I mixed them up. Not enough coffee this AM.

 

[HoughMade]

Got into a little debate with a coworker who insisted that the spike over the summer was caused by red states, because conservatives aren't following protocols, and progressives are...

By only looking at "over the summer", you exclude, largely, blue states that had a huge surge in the late winter/spring...and you also incorporate better treatments that were not available in the spring.

Therefore, limiting the analysis to "over the summer" ignores the fact that many blue states had already been hit hard, but also ignores the fact that outcomes everywhere are better now than they were then.

...and all any preventative measure could ever do is reduce the rate of transmission...not prevent transmission.

 

[jamil]

By only looking at "over the summer", you exclude, largely, blue states that had a huge surge in the late winter/spring...and you also incorporate better treatments that were not available in the spring.

Therefore, limiting the analysis to "over the summer" ignores the fact that many blue states had already been hit hard, but also ignores the fact that outcomes everywhere are better now than they were then.

...and all any preventative measure could ever do is reduce the rate of transmission...not prevent transmission.

Well, I brought that point up to my coworker. That point does not change the conclusion that the spread of disease is multi-factored, and doesn't give a flying **** about politics, which is what he was trying to assert. If we isolated the numbers we'd get the same conclusion. Areas where there are more humans interacting tend to have the highest infections. Undoubtedly the protests, both the lockdown protests and the BLM protests helped spread covid, because those were events where large number of people were interacting closely. The BLM events probably had a higher number of people following protocols than the lockdown protestors. But I'd bet more of those were infected than the lockdown protestors, not because of their ideology, or despite their better adherence to protocol, but because there were orders of magnitude more of them participating in protests, and the large numbers overcome the protocols. In other words, looking at those two types of events, the rate of infection may have possibly been lower with BLM protestors because they wore masks, but they didn't socially distance themselves from other people. They were shoulder to shoulder with orders of magnitude more people in denser spaces.

 

[chipbennett]

By the way, I happen to love rutabaga, and I think it is awesome that I am the, er, root of its propagation in the search results of INGO.

 

[jamil]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to chipbennett again.

 

[JettaKnight]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to chipbennett again.

Don't worry, I'll get him for you... with neg rep!

 

[Phase2]

Don't worry, I'll get him for you... with neg rep!

Wouldn't be the first time.