whiteflame

Again, Tylenol: a) is already approved for use in treating symptoms caused by COVID-19 because those symptoms are consistent with other diseases, b) is an over-the-counter medication, which means it's entirely up to patients to decide whether to get it. Tylenol has actually caused quite a few deaths, but that's another story.

Show me the link to the latter claim. I'd love to see what support they're giving for why doctors can legally prescribe this medication for off-label purposes. That's not my reading of the circumstances surrounding the application of medications for unapproved uses like this:

I'm arguing that having more troops on the border is part of the benefit that Israel has over us in this regard due to their draft. I'm also arguing that simply having more troops serves as a deterrence.

A year ago, I might have agreed with you that the financial issue is less important. Now, I'm not so sure.

We may simply disagree about the importance of maintaining ecosystems. You might think that it's the bleeding heart liberal in me that sees them as important, but it's actually the scientist. I know what disrupting ecosystems does to a region, and the effects can be wide-reaching very easily. If you want, we can get into them, though my impression is that you perceive them as less important than the potential benefits to economic and national security.

Agreed that there's a lot involved in how commerce would proceed with a wall in place and that we can't get into specifics without experts on the topic. That being said, I'm not convinced anyone really "knows" how this would go down, and I suspect our efforts to encourage commerce across the border after the wall is built will face a number of problems, especially if we're prioritizing national security in our efforts. To me, that uncertainty is among the biggest problems I have with such a wide-reaching project. It should be one of the first things we consider, yet I haven't seen much evidence that it is being considered.

What you said, and I'll quote you here, is that Republicans "are mostly blameless" despite their attempts to get a huge amount of money that they and only they controlled with no oversight. That was your point, and from the sound of it, the only reasons you see that as less problematic than what the Democrats were adding was a) because it is a Republican President and you simply trust him to use that money well, and b) that the targets the Democrats selected were problematic in your estimation (despite the fact that these are all organizations with employees who are clearly harmed by these circumstances, but let's not get into that). The former point is, as you say, bias-driven. The latter point is just frustrating to me because it says that you're more upset with a party that designates targets that you disagree with than one that allows full and unencumbered use of a very large amount of money to prop up any business or set of businesses they wish. Yes, that money could be used for good purposes, but it seems you're putting a lot of stake in a could, not to mention relying on a small set of actors to make choices with regards to its distribution. Some businesses will inevitably be left with less than they need, while others will get more than they need. I'd rather not have one party making those decisions alone. As for your other point, I disagree that this would have been easy to rectify if the bill was passed; it required amendment before it was passed, as actually happened. Modifying the terms of the bill would have been much more difficult after it was signed into law.

Ah, so we're finally back to this. Alright, let's cover it.

First off, it's not just about staffing the border. Israel has a far greater number of troops per its size, as well as a greater capacity to staff its borders. I agree that there are limits to their effectiveness in the latter capacity (though we probably would not agree on the numbers you're using), though not in the former, so even if we mobilized every person in the military reserves, I don't think it's possible to match or even come close to Israel's deterrence resulting from sheer force of numbers. 

Second, the amount of our GDP is really besides the point. Saying that we have more money to throw at the problem is technically accurate, but much of that money is already being used towards other ends. It would have to be stripped out from those and continually used to upkeep the wall. Also, you say it's "only a little over 13x larger", but that's not inconsequential. We aren't copying their wall design (in fact, we're spending about two times what they did to build theirs) and our maintenance costs are similarly quite a bit higher, with our cost per mile being $77,000. We're talking about roughly 2000 miles, so roughly $150,000,000 a year. We may have the GDP to cover it, but it's not small. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/copying-israels-wall-would-cut-trumps-price-nearly-in-half

Third, yes, it's not impossible to construct a border on this terrain. So, let's see how well we're doing:

"Eighty-seven percent of deaths occurred in those under 65 years of age with children"? 

That means that parents with children were the most likely to die of H1N1.

"Why do you say the flu is more of an economic problem, when this one will, or is about to cause a recession?  Are you talking about over the course of years?"

We can't know what the price of COVID-19 will be. We know what the price of the flu has been, and if we're talking about direct effects (i.e. number of people sickened and the effects on productivity that result), then it has a stronger effect on the economy. The response to COVID-19 has caused greater economic hardship, and it's possible that the direct effects could be as bad or worse than the flu, but we can't know that without allowing it to run rampant, which is not really an option.

I don't know what led the Senate to pursue this avenue, but clearly they thought this was important enough to contribute $500 billion to. Whether that's the result of Trump's interventions or their own expectations for how he would use that money doesn't really matter to me. I simply don't have the same trust in Trump's (or, for that matter, any individual entity's) capacity to distribute that money equitably, nor his willingness to do so in a way that does the most to help the people who need the most help: their employees. 

I haven't read the bill - I don't think we have access to the full text. That being said, I'm not seeing Republicans coming out in droves to say how false it is that this money is being set aside in this fashion. If these conclusions were entirely fabricated, then I'd expect that Republicans would be doing everything they could to push back on the narrative in the media. I'm not seeing them doing that. If they were trying to put controls on the use of that money, I would expect to see McConnell mentioning that somewhere. I'm not, which concerns me.

It's hard to say what Trump actually wants to do with this money. I would hope, sometimes against hope, that Trump actually has our best interests at heart. I really want to believe that, especially at times like this. I haven't seen him conveying that very well, and maybe that's just because he's not a great communicator. I hope that's the reason. He may not be in this to enrich himself, but he certainly doesn't seem to care most about the people who are in the direst of straits right now.

Wow, just... wow. I have at no point defended any of the choices Democrats have made with regards to this stimulus package (though I'm pretty sure they have, and I simply don't feel the need to do so), save 1: not accepting this bill. "You know most of that 500 Billion will go to good deeds"... Really? How do I know this? If this was a Democratic president, would you be OK granting them total access to this much money, no strings attached? I'm not comfortable giving any single branch of government that kind of access without any mechanisms for ensuring that it's used properly, and I'm much less comfortable affording those kinds of funds to a single person who is very easily manipulated. And yes, the basis for the impeachment trial makes it all the more worrisome, as does the fact that Trump himself has refused to promise that he won't use those funds for the benefit of his own company. That was his choice, not mine. The fact that he's already used excessive amounts of taxpayer funds to fund his own business indirectly definitely doesn't help your case.

It's insane to me to see so many people who are usually so anti-big government and centralization of power supporting giving this much power and money to a single entity. This situation is nothing like the one that Trump encountered when he came into office, and shouldn't be treated the same in any way (though to be clear, Trump did not have this huge bolus of cash to use for any purpose he wished at the beginning of his presidency). If you want to talk about Trickle Down Economics (which, yes, I would say failed miserably), that's a different story and will really distract from this conversation. It has nothing to do with this. In my view, we already are in a recession and well on our way to a depression. That calls for a quick and decisive response, but that doesn't mean that any response will do. Like the responses of the Democrats in this case, I honestly don't see how you can defend this clear attempt to garner massive resources that he can use with absolutely no oversight. Just because it doesn't take the form of a specific pork barrel project doesn't mean it's any less an attempt to use this situation to his benefit.

"What I meant was, no one above 65 died, so if we are talking about the mortality rate, that whole group is pretty much taken out of the equation."

That's... not true either. A quote from the article cited in that CDC article: "Eighty-seven percent of deaths occurred in those under 65 years of age with children". They did die, just not as commonly as other groups. For COVID-19, the numbers of dead who aren't over 65 is minimal, so yes, there is a pretty dramatic difference between the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and this pandemic. That being said, I'm not sure which is worse. From a standpoint of which lives we care about most, I'd say that's a matter of opinion, though for economic activity, the flu is a greater problem. From a standpoint of which results in greater spread of the disease, I'd say COVID-19. The fact that it affects younger people less is actually a point in its favor for spread because a) those populations are more active, which means they interact with more people, and b) they are likely to get lighter symptoms, which they may ignore or suppress with medication, leading them to spread the virus more. If COVID-19 was allowed to spread more readily due to a lack of response, I have little doubt it would outpace H1N1 quickly.

It's fine that that's what Trump personally thought. It's not fine that that's what he broadcast. Trump has advisers around him, people who were telling him that this is not a simple flu well before many of us knew it. It was his choice to listen to his gut rather than respond to the problem the experts were telling him existed. And no, just because some other people around him agreed with him doesn't make this OK. Certainly no one was telling him that it would disappear like a miracle, or be gone when the warmer weather arrived. Those words were his.

I can find some articles on the flu and COVID-19, but I'm not sure which one is the one you're discussing. I can take a look if you give me the title, but the ones I'm finding aren't comparing COVID-19 to the flu beyond this one, and it's not giving the message you say it does.

I see the media asking a lot of questions, and some of them aren't the greatest. I also see him flipping out on basic questions about providing assurance to those in the US who are scared and uncertain. Trump should not be blamed for every lapse in knowledge on his part, but his PR could really use some work.

No, I don't find it odd that certain things cannot be found at grocery stores. It's difficult to keep things in stock when everyone comes in at opening and buys up whole shelves to stockpile. Is that in response to the media? Not necessarily. They may contribute to it, but they're certainly not alone. Trump himself plays a role, as do those in his government and those in state governments. That's a major failing on their parts as well, though to some degree, I think overreactions are inevitable.

I believe there's a pretty big difference between calming people and spreading misinformation about the virus, which is what Trump was doing early on. I fully expect leaders to downplay or minimize the risks, and if that was all that Trump did, I probably wouldn't have as great of a problem with his response. It's the absolute dismissiveness he brought to the issue that gets to me, and much as he's doing better now, there is still room for improvement.

I'm... a bit confused by the statement that "it was only affecting people under 65" - it says most of the deaths occurred in people under 65, but not that it only affected people under 65 or that it excluded those "above that age". The numbers include people above 65. I'm not sure what should have been done with H1N1. It's entirely possible that those numbers could have been reduced substantially, in which case it may have required more attention. That being said, I don't think measures being taken now for COVID-19 would have been as necessary for H1N1, given the differences in their mortality rates.

What's difficult about determining the number of deaths is determining how many of those deaths can be attributed to the virus. They tested many of those patients who died, I'm sure, but it's difficult to know that the virus caused some of those deaths. So yes, there's an estimation involved, though the number of actual deaths looks pretty finite to me.

Cool, I'm always up for discussing this kind of stuff. It really interests me.

I still don't see much point in designating celebrities as an appropriate sample, and frankly, even if we did find that they were largely akin to other populations in this regard, they're simply too small of a pool to make any larger conclusions off of. Epidemiologic data is only good if you have a large enough sample size and, last I checked, not enough celebrities have the disease to qualify.

- The terrain on which these walls have been/are being built is very different. From your source:

"'Most of the Israeli fence goes through open, arid terrain. Easy to access, easy to build, easy to monitor with agents,' Jones said.

- The legal response has been different, and it has been much better correlated with Israel's success. From your source:

"The number of illegal border crossings decreased drastically "in an extremely short time" after the implementation of an "Anti-Infiltration Law" in mid 2012, Jakubowicz said. Under the law, individuals caught illegally entering Israel could be detained for up to three years, Jakubowicz said. The number of people illegally crossing Israel’s southern border decreased after the law came into effect, even though the fence was not fully completed, he said."

"Better physical barriers make it easier to block illegal immigrants from entering the country."

I still haven't been convinced that this is true. The number of illegal immigrants coming into the country was declining when no walls were going up, and it has largely continued to decline. If you have evidence that physical barriers have worked/will work, I'd like to see it.

"If you cannot control who comes into your country, it is very difficult to have a successful quarantine."

Again, I disagree. I don't think a trickle of other people into the country actually does much to disrupt a quarantine because reduced social interactions are still reduced with, say, a couple hundred other people in the mix (though, to be clear, we don't have a quarantine in most parts of the country - shelter in place rules basically allow people to go out anyway, so I don't see how having a few others in the mix who may also have the virus suddenly escalates the problem). Whether they know our quarantine procedures or not seems largely irrelevant to me - they aren't likely to pass it to other people because other people are staying out of public spaces where they could do that. If they're not engaging in social distancing right now, then they're already putting themselves at risk. How does this pose a substantially increased threat to those, or for that matter, any other people?

"These immigrants know that our hospitals won’t refuse them care, so that creates a huge incentive for individuals, especially sick ones, to attempt to enter the country to receive treatment."

This seems largely non-unique to me. Plenty of people are already flooding emergency rooms with all manner of respiratory diseases. I fail to see how a small trickle of people from other countries coming in does any substantial harm above what already exists.

"I think we certainly should have set up travel restrictions much sooner, as well. If you can prevent sick people from entering the country, you can pretty effectively combat a pandemic."

Maybe. I'm not so sure that travel restrictions do much to actually manage disease spread, largely because it is already here and spreading. There are simply far more cases here now than are coming in from other countries. Hence, I disagree with the latter statement. The pandemic is here, and it's likely already spread far wider than we know.

"We probably should have begun disease testing much sooner as well."

Completely agree.

"That all being said, this virus doesn’t appear to be very serious to me. The death rate, except for the very old with preexisting health conditions, is incredibly low. Really, only those individuals and those working in close proximity with them should be quarantined. Unless something is being hidden from us, this is just media-induced, irrational panic."

I pretty thoroughly disagree with this. It's pretty serious, and for those with weakened immune systems, getting it is very nearly a death sentence. That's a big problem for a lot of people, and while working in close proximity is one way to get the virus, literally any interaction can pass the virus from one person to the next. And much as you're correct that complications from the disease are minimal in those under 65, that is precisely the problem. Younger people still get and spread the virus, even without showing any symptoms whatsoever. It's much more deadly than any pandemic we've seen since SARS, and SARS didn't spread nearly so rapidly as this. You might argue that that shouldn't have yielded this strong of a response, but the numbers of infected will soar in the coming weeks. We will see that the disease burden is far larger than we know right now. In a manner of speaking, this is hidden from us, but only insofar as the testing has been too minimal to detect it. Speaking as someone who knows something about disease spread (note: I am neither an epidemiologist nor an expert in human viruses, though I am a microbiologist and am more than a little familiar with the scientific literature in these areas), this is serious, and I think any effort to minimize the impact of the disease does more harm than good because it encourages more people to interact more often, which will spread the disease. It may not be a huge impact to you, personally, but to others this disease is devastating. And it's not going away anytime soon.

I get that not everyone's taking the precautions they should, and honestly, limited social interaction seems fine to me as long as you're taking precautions while doing so. That being said, I think there are a lot of people who just aren't taking this seriously at all, and whether that's the elderly or the young, they're both increasing the harms that will be caused by the disease and lengthening the duration of the pandemic by doing so.

For me, I've largely cut off interpersonal contact that isn't through a phone or computer screen. Any visits with friends are going to be with maybe 1 or 2 people at most. My wife is one of those immunocompromised, vulnerable people, so I feel very acutely how much this matters within my own life. My birthday is coming up, as is Passover, and I unfortunately plan to spend those in social isolation. It's frustrating, but I feel it's necessary. 

If we're speaking on how things are being handled right now, I think they're generally good, though I'd say most of the responsibility for those effective efforts have been on the state and county levels. It took quite a while for the federal government to provide much in the way of guidance, and even then, I haven't seen them working very closely with states to deal with more specific problems each state is managing. That being said, while the current federal response is laudable in many ways, I don't think there is any reasonable defense for how Trump handled the early stages of this outbreak. His attitude was largely dismissive and minimizing. He claimed several times that it would simply disappear like a miracle and seemed most concerned with how well he appeared rather than actual issues of spread. Frankly, the continued lack of access in many locations to basic tests for COVID-19 still stands as a massive failure to me - detection is key to prevention, and yet we're still falling flat on our faces in this regard. Is anyone going to seriously argue that Trump's disbanding of the NSC directorate for global health and security and biodefense was a good choice at this point? 

@bmdrocks21

I'm honestly not sure how a wall has or would have any meaningful effects on the spread of COVID-19 for multiple reasons. First, what we have of a wall didn't stop them and, I would argue, wouldn't have stopped them from coming in. Illegal immigrants can and have circumvented physical barriers to entry. Second, these people were caught crossing the border, which means that their entry into the US was stopped. If anything, this kind of entry makes it simpler to ensure that we take appropriate precautions for everyone crossing over who could be infected. Third, COVID-19 is already here, in every state. Having a few immigrants cross the border doesn't suddenly increase our disease burden by any appreciable amount, and the notion that because they're Chinese they somehow present more of a threat is problematic in and of itself. 

@SupaDudz

A couple of inaccuracies in your post. The virus is deadly to more than just senior citizens - it's because they're largely immunocompromised that it causes a lot more problems in the elderly, but the same is true of anyone who has a weakened immune system. The notion that there are false positives may be accurate, but it's extremely unlikely that flu cases are testing positive in the same fashion. They're extremely different viruses. Other coronaviruses may yield false positives, but I don't think the flu would.