re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ***W.H.O. DECLARES A GLOBAL PANDEMIC***

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There are so many people who have argued viciously that "the government shut down the economy." It wasn't true in Europe and it wasn't true here either. The freaking virus shut down the economy.

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With all due respect, I aint buying this. And yes, I understand that the economy would have taken a bit hit solely as a result of people's actions in response to the virus. But governmental actions had a huge effect both as to the severity of this and the duration of the crisis.

This is a virus that kills less than .5% of the people who get it, and mostly affects people at the end of life and those with co-morbidities. It is serious, but didn't warrant the panic and the rush to shutdown that ensued. We have been massively failed by our so called experts, our media and politicians in both parties.

How many total deaths would there be if the governors of states like NY, NJ and PA didn't make the decision to seed all of their nursing and assisted living facilities with Covid positive patients.

WHO starting to admit what many of us have been suspecting:

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The director of Public Health of the World Health Organization (WHO) , María Neira , said on Monday that the models they work with are "increasingly" ruling out a second important wave of the coronavirus

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LINK (article en Espanol, use Chrome to translate)

The link below was used in a thread on the OT page. Thought I'd put it in here since it's relevant to some frequent discussions in this thread.

LINK

The authors at least attempt to calculate the cost of the US lockdowns in lives. It's impossible to know in advance how accurate their calculations are, but I wouldn't be surprised if they end up understating that cost. Any "scientist", bureaucrat, politician or journalist who touts the benefits of lockdowns/social distancing and ignores the death toll of these untested, unproven, and unprecedented actions is worthless, IMO.

The author of that opinion piece makes some points, but I really don't feel that it's an honest attempt to consider the cost of lives "lost to lockdown." For example, it's completely irrational to extrapolate deaths from unemployment without at least considering all the extra unemployment money that people are specifically getting to prevent those deaths.

I think it’s becoming more and more obvious that these lockdowns were a massive overreaction. The fact they continued past the original “15 days to slow the spread” guidelines is downright criminal.

You keep talking about "directives" yet the article you link mentions only guidance and guidelines. Surely you know that many other states did not require their nursing homes to do this. Sorry, but Cuomo and the other governors own this. They are the ones that forced the nursing homes to take Covid positive patients. If you want to die on this hill defending this foolishness, go right ahead.

Edit: You know, this really isn't hard. If someone is ready for hospital discharge, but still Covid positive, all you need to do is hold them somewhere in quarantine until they recover. Put up tents if you have to. But there is no excuse for sending still positive people back into nursing homes. That is indefensible.

I think the "second wave" is instead manifesting itself as a long-tail. There may not be a "wave" but, rather, an enduring background noise of COVID hotspots here and there for awhile.

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The author of that opinion piece

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There were four authors of the analysis, and it's less of an opinion piece than all of the propaganda put forth in favor of lockdowns without even acknowledging the cost in lives, much less attempting to quantify them.

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it's completely irrational to extrapolate deaths from unemployment without at least considering all the extra unemployment money that people are specifically getting to prevent those deaths.

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Unemployment was only part of their analysis, but I don't think that part was irrational. The authors didn't say those deaths manifest immediately. So $600/wk is being handed out to prevent deaths? Will this be a permanent weekly stipend for all the folks who lose their jobs or their businesses, financed by printing press? Will those folks making more staying at home be happy when they go back to work for less pay, or will we fire up the wage price spiral of inflation, resulting in even more poverty? What about the psychological toll of losing your business or being jobless? That plays no role in substance abuse, violence, depression, health issues? What about people living on a fixed income and drawing zero percent interest on their savings so our govt can "afford" an ocean of debt; could paying all these bailouts affect their future health?

In my opinion, "completely irrational" describes folks who think that the Federal Reserve has discovered a free lunch; an almost childlike idea that we can reduce poverty by putting more and bigger government checks under the pillows, using the Fed in the role of tooth fairy. It's quite alluring to think we can use fresh new money to paper over and thus mitigate the economic and social impact of the lockdowns. In truth, monetizing debt may well end up being the deadliest aspect of the whole thing, simply because people can't feel the pain right away so they assume it's all going to work out just fine. I'd rather feel the heat immediately when I touch hot iron. If the govt tried to levy a direct income or asset tax to pay for those trillions in bailouts, or even committed to an immediate and permanent end to Fed debt monetization, I suspect it would clarify the true cost in a hurry.

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'Nursing homes should admit any individuals from hospitals where Covid is present.'

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This is a lot different than requiring nursing homes to take still positive Covid people.

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Yet, it was still the CDC/CMS that first recommended -- even using "should" in their wording -- this measure to relieve overcrowding hospitals and what the State Health Departments followed.

It was a big story in the news at the time with lots of criticism and that's why I recall the defense of it being that it was the CDC/CMS / Federal government recommendation. Really seems one sided to now try to pin that specifically on governors just like pinning a shutdown in Alabama only on the governor when the federal government recommended it.

Cuomo has certainly made mistakes in handling this but his much larger one, in my opinion, was pushing back against the mayor of New York's call to lockdown NYC much sooner. (Cuomo, at the time, cited concern that it would create a mass exodus from the city spreading carriers around the country since such a large percentage of the city are young people from all over). All NYC lock down measures ended up being a few days behind what happened in, say, SF/Oakland and it would seem that this may have had a huge effect in how badly it spread early on in NYC.