Replies to post #345742 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BlindSquirrelFindsNuts]

And yet not a single one of those other things you mention is contagious or has the ability to kill an entire building of people. Apples and oranges! Narcissist and enabling idiots in the White House!

[Susie924]

I don’t think there is a person in the country that doesn’t want things opening up but it has to be done carefully and in stages.

The states that are just opening up beaches, hair salons, tattoo parlors, massage parlors are being very reckless IMO.

I believe The standard is supposed to be that the number of cases has to be trending down for 14 consecutive days before any opening should begin and after that time if the numbers start to go back up things should be closed again.

Living in NY where the most cases have been I have been pretty much home bound for 2 months. Do I like it? Of course not but it is working. The numbers peaked and are now going down. If re-opening the entire state is going to push the numbers back up again, it’s not worth it IMO.

I would prefer another 2 months of life the way it is with the hope that things will look better at that time.

[blackhawks]

Let's start with this premise. Calls to 'open up' the economy, regardless of medical science and what is happening on the ground, are based upon magical thinking and blind ideology.

Trump states his belief, unfounded as you'll read, and maybe comprehend, and his benighted supporters parrot those beliefs.

Some of them even call poison control, but I digress.

This is ALL about Trump and his supporters wanting to avoid the electoral defeat that Trump has set himself up for with his belated and inept response to the pandemic.

Trump want's to avoid the consequences of his actions/inactions.

His supporters want to avoid the pain of repudiation of their wishful/magical thinking and the repudiation of the fucking moron who is the sad embodiment of that kind of thinking.

S'all that's going on.

Now, before you lose your shit and post another moronic fantasy about liberals sitting on their asses, smoking pot, and waiting for checks, FIND a fact check to counter the one below.

Should be one, IF...

This was written 50K COVID-19 deaths and one Easter Bunny wish ago.


Fact checking Trump's claim about suicides if the economic shutdown continues

He predicts "tremendous death" of people depressed over losing jobs.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fact-checking-trumps-claim-suicide-thousands-economic-shutdown/story?id=69790273

By Libby Cathey

March 25, 2020 ?4:05 ?PM

Trump hopes to jump-start US economy by Easter as virus spreads

Trump wants US open for business by EasterThe president said Easter would be a great timeline, but with the holiday only three weeks away, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that date is “very flexible.”

As some in President Donald Trump's inner circle push for loosening social distancing guidelines amid economic fallout from the novel coronavirus outbreak, he has predicted "tremendous death" and "suicide by the thousands" if the country isn't "opened for business" in a matter of weeks.

While public health officials warn that dropping social guidelines to boost the economy could quickly overload hospital systems, costing more money and more lives, the president has claimed several times this week that the number of suicides specifically would "definitely" be greater than the death toll from the virus itself as he pointed to people returning to work as a remedy.

"You're going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression." Trump said Tuesday in a Fox News town hall. "You're going to lose people. You're going to have suicides by the thousands."

One night before, at a coronavirus task force briefing, the president said, "I'm talking about where people suffer massive depression, where people commit suicide, where tremendous death happens… I mean, definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus."

A scientific report released March 16 by an epidemic modeling group at Imperial College London, found that without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of COVID-19, as many as 2.2 million people in the U.S. could die -- not accounting for the negative effects of health care systems being overwhelmed.


There's no way to predict the exact impact of an unprecedented pandemic, but experts also say that there's no evidence to suggest that the suicide rate will rise dramatically because people are stressed from losing their jobs or that the death toll would surpass potential coronavirus deaths.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide mortalities have gone up every year since 1999, but it's still "selective" for the president to latch onto that, says Richard Dunn, associate professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at University of Connecticut who has studied the connection between markets and depression.

"The general fact that President Trump cited is, in fact, true that when economies contract suicides do go up," Dunn said, acknowledging how the financial crisis of the early 2000s triggered more suicides, "but that is not the only cause of death that responds to economic downturn."

"If you were to look across all the current causes of death in a recession, you would see that the number of deaths actually declines. Heart deaths from heart disease fall. Deaths from motor vehicle accidents crashes fall," Dunn added. "One of the few activities that we have left to us in many parts of the country is to go out for a walk, so physical activity tends to go up."

"So we actually see overall that there are fewer deaths in economic downturn -- but suicide is the one major cause of death that does not follow that pattern," Dunn said.

While the global reported death toll for COVID-19 is nearly 20,000 people at this time, the CDC reports that 47,173 Americans died by suicide in 2017 alone and the number is on track to grow in coming years -- but experts still caution pairing the mortality rate to that of the current pandemic.

Timothy Classen, an associate professor of economics and associate dean at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University, notes that in the years since the Great Recession, unemployment numbers have recovered from roughly 10% to 4% -- yet suicides mortalities have continued to increase.

"That contradicts the notion that as unemployment increases, that's going to increase suicide rates," Classen said.

Classen also notes that while "of course" one individual's suicide has consequences to others, it does not transmit itself like a virus, adding to the difficulty in predicting either death toll, albeit comparing them through sound science.

The direct payments to individuals and extended unemployment benefits in the $2 trillion economic relief package Congress is close to approving, which also includes suspension of loan payments, could reduce a lot of the financial stress.

When it comes to next steps, former Trump administration homeland security adviser -- and now ABC News Contributor -- Tom Bossert cautions that allowing the disease to spread without making an effort to mitigate would still take a "devastating" toll on the country.

"I think everybody shares his [President Trump's] frustration and his hope -- but what he needs to do is avoid second waves and reinfections," Bossert said. "At this stage we've paid a very heavy cost in our economy and in our lives. To lose the benefit of it at this point by not sticking to our guns would be a really devastating decision."

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.