Corona

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Gregovic
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Re: Corona

Post by Gregovic »

Shannon SteelSlave wrote:So, my recent attempt to upgrade my career was met with disappointment. I walked in with my mask and assumed social distancing. Outside of a pandemic, these would be 2 things not to do at an interview. The manager seemed too busy at the time for the interview, and because of the virus, was not sure what current staff to keep, and who will be let go. I had more or less decided that at any rate, this is not a good time to make a change, regardless of why this owner seemed disorganized and uncertain.
Have you been interviewing? Do you think it is reasonably possible to conduct a proper interview these days? My experience has me believing that I should wait.
I think this very much depends on the job and the company you are applying to. Obviously if the manager that you're interviewing with doesn't know whether he's hiring or firing, steer clear. You're likely to end up on the wrong end of a dismissal soon enough as "the new guy we don't need". There's also many companies still desperately looking to hire qualified people as their as busy or busier than ever. I do think it's a time to be very cautious when making a career switch. If a company ends up having to let people go because of (financial) problems, the recent hires are usually first on the list. I've been involved in doing interviews via Skype myself, and the process is not great for either side of the conversation. A new hire would really like to see the business he's applying for and the working conditions he'd be facing, but that's impossible over a video interview. For the interviewers it's also much harder to get a good read on people if they're not in the same room and you can't shake their hand.
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OrgasmAlley
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Re: Corona

Post by OrgasmAlley »

Shannon SteelSlave wrote:Total Confirmed 4,836,329, Global Deaths 319,213
Hydroxychloroquine. (The anti-malaria, lupus and arthritis treatment drug) I spelled and pronounced it right without looking it up. Seems to be making headlines again, though its benefits against Corona are unknown, its side effects are well documented. Why does it continue to appear in the news? If I understand correctly, we don't have any proof that it works, and even if it did, it may kill just as many people as it could save.
"Trump" is certainly the answer... but not because he is promoting it. It's the oddest thing, but huge swaths of media are rooting against it as an effective treatment because Trump.

In point of fact, what we now know is that hydroxychloroquine in combination azithromycin and zinc sulfate is an effective combination. For example:

"In univariate analyses, zinc sulfate increased the frequency of patients being discharged home, and decreased the need for ventilation, admission to the ICU, and mortality or transfer to hospice for patients who were never admitted to the ICU. After adjusting for the time at which zinc sulfate was added to our protocol, an increased frequency of being discharged home (OR 1.53, 95% CI 1.12-2.09) reduction in mortality or transfer to hospice remained significant (OR 0.449, 95% CI 0.271-0.744)." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20080036v1

The only real knock available is that there are not yet full bore double blind studies is large populations quantifying the benefit. Duke is working on one such study specific to prophylaxis, and there are at least a dozen more around the world. Perhaps most telling about the drug at this time is a Jackson & Coker study from early April: "Sixty-five percent of physicians across the United States said they would prescribe the anti-malaria drugs chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine to treat or prevent COVID-19 in a family member," the survey, which questioned 1,271 doctors in 50 states, found. "Only 11 percent said they would not use the drug at all." Despite media suppression of positive information and promotion of generally false or misleading negative.

There is basically no risk of harmful effects from hydroxychloroquine at the dosage and duration involved in this treatment. It is a lower and far briefer treatment than millions of people with immune disorders (rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, etc) have been taking for a decade. Those who claim otherwise are simply lying.... this is very well-established across the drug's 60 year history (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine).

Perhaps we should be asking why is bad information still the norm, when the actual findings are good? Trump, obviously. Or perhaps we should be asking what other information is being spun by these same "news" sources, and why are people still listening to them?
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Shannon SteelSlave
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Re: Corona

Post by Shannon SteelSlave »

Gregovic wrote:A new hire would really like to see the business he's applying for and the working conditions he'd be facing, but that's impossible over a video interview. For the interviewers it's also much harder to get a good read on people if they're not in the same room and you can't shake their hand.
The in-person, socially distanced interviews aren't any better than the video interview you described. I felt cheated, and I am sure the interviewer felt the same.
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OrgasmAlley
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Re: Corona

Post by OrgasmAlley »

This is a very expansive and useful data set, fairly unique in that it closely ties together both COVID data and COVID response impact data:

https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-man ... mpilation/

And has a data study -- shockingly, not widely reported -- supporting contentions that A) lockdowns were the wrong response and B) places stopping them see infection rates continue to fall (that ism there's no second wave):

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... laims.html
tiemeupalso
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Re: Corona

Post by tiemeupalso »

I heard on the news last night that both the stata and the cdc have been adding together the # of people exposed and the people that have the white cells together ( which mean they could have been exposed yyears ago) which throws all of the #s you are hearing as BS.i said in the beginning they were unbelievable and now they are going to tye and separate them
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Gregovic
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Re: Corona

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tiemeupalso wrote:I heard on the news last night that both the stata and the cdc have been adding together the # of people exposed and the people that have the white cells together ( which mean they could have been exposed yyears ago) which throws all of the #s you are hearing as BS.i said in the beginning they were unbelievable and now they are going to tye and separate them
If they're testing specifically for COVID-19 antibodies, the person CAN'T have been exposed years ago though because the virus wasn't around then. The good antibody tests are pretty discriminatory.
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Gregovic
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Re: Corona

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OrgasmAlley wrote:This is a very expansive and useful data set, fairly unique in that it closely ties together both COVID data and COVID response impact data:

https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-man ... mpilation/

And has a data study -- shockingly, not widely reported -- supporting contentions that A) lockdowns were the wrong response and B) places stopping them see infection rates continue to fall (that ism there's no second wave):

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... laims.html
A) Lockdowns WERE the right response with the knowledge at the time. B) Places that have stopped lock downs have NOT stopped taking other measures. Turns out if you plan a bit there is a lot you can do to stop the spread without requiring a total lockdown. We didn't know that when the measures where implemented.

It's also ignoring that pretty much all countries that DIDN'T start a lockdown have (on average) a higher infection and spread rate than those that don't. And the spread of the virus is not slowing down nearly as fast in countries that didn't take measures as it is in countries that DID take measures.

It's a mistake to apply hindsight to choices made with limited data. Lockdowns were the right choice in several cases, it wasn't the right choice in some others, but we couldn't know that at the time. Is it the right choice to continue having them? Depends. While it sucks, massive indoor or outdoor events with large groups of people in limited space is definitely a wrong choice right now. Opening bars and clubs is probably also not a right choice in many cities.
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OrgasmAlley
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Re: Corona

Post by OrgasmAlley »

Gregovic wrote:A) Lockdowns WERE the right response with the knowledge at the time.
I don't agree. I would agree that lock downs were the right response based on the projections used to justify them at the time. There were plenty of alternate views, at the time, that were not used... and were they used would not have justified lock downs. The alternate views have turned out to be far more accurate than those accepted by (most) governments.

So basically, because our leaders accepted the wrong projections, they justified the lock downs. We now know that was wrong, both the data accepted and the subsequent decision. What's more, the evidence has been increasingly clear for something like 6 weeks that the accepted data and decision upon it were both wrong. Yet we have remained largely locked down for most of that time.
Gregovic wrote:B) Places that have stopped lock downs have NOT stopped taking other measures.
Of course. I am not suggesting that the right response would have been do nothing, nor is anyone else. This is not a binary choice between locking down and doing nothing.
Gregovic wrote:It's also ignoring that pretty much all countries that DIDN'T start a lockdown have (on average) a higher infection and spread rate than those that don't. And the spread of the virus is not slowing down nearly as fast in countries that didn't take measures as it is in countries that DID take measures.
Yet look at Florida v. California. Germany was late to the lock down game, and is doing quite well. Whether or not your claim is true (on a population level, the difference between Sweden and Norway is not statistically significant, for example), what has happened to-date is at best a partial measure of impact. The accurate comparison will be the difference between populations for death and lasting medical consequences (it's a disease, people will get infected... we measure by comparing significant consequences) VERSUS the costs of locking down in life and related impacts in the long term.

For every 1% increase in unemployment in the US, studies associate a 3.6% increase in opioid deaths, 920 suicides, 650 homicides, and 3,300 incarcerations. That data is in normal times... it's unlikely to hold for the ~20% increase we causing. My point is that you cannot ignore costs on the other side of the lock down... the costs locking down CAUSES.
Gregovic wrote:It's a mistake to apply hindsight to choices made with limited data. Lockdowns were the right choice in several cases, it wasn't the right choice in some others, but we couldn't know that at the time. Is it the right choice to continue having them? Depends. While it sucks, massive indoor or outdoor events with large groups of people in limited space is definitely a wrong choice right now. Opening bars and clubs is probably also not a right choice in many cities.
We assess past decisions based on data not known then all of the time.

Michael Levitt had a good interview several weeks ago that's relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl-sZdfLcEk
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Shannon SteelSlave
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Re: Corona

Post by Shannon SteelSlave »

So, tele-health. What does a tele-health "visit" accomplish? Has anyone had one? Is it more of a check-in type procedure, or did I hear that they may become at least a part of our health care future?
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I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!....I, I mean S-M-A-R-T!
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OrgasmAlley
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Re: Corona

Post by OrgasmAlley »

About the latest fatality rate update from the CDC: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy ... 026-nearly

Best estimate 0.4%, low estimate 0.26%. About what I've been saying for many weeks, and certainly not something that would justify the lock down.

Another interesting piece of analysis. Although just 1.8% of US residents live in nursing homes, people in nursing homes account for 42% of COVID deaths in this country. Heavily leaning to the northeast, where several states including New York forced nursing homes to accept from hospitals COVID positive recovered cases.

Australian study finds extremely low transmission rate by children in schools, to either other children or adults in close contact with infected children: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... cts-2020-5

863 students and staff came into close contact with 9 students and 9 teachers infected with the COVID over the course of a month. 2 became infected, a transmission rate of 0.23%.
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ruru67
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Re: Corona

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OrgasmAlley wrote:Another interesting piece of analysis. Although just 1.8% of US residents live in nursing homes, people in nursing homes account for 42% of COVID deaths in this country.
Yeah, here in NZ, over half the deaths were from one aged care facility. Now that was partly because it got into a dementia ward, where many of the residents had orders not to perform any heroics to save them.

Oh yeah, the lockdowns worked here. We (NZ, pop 5 million) locked down hard from 23 March with just 100 or so active cases (but an alarming trajectory), and are now just mopping up the last couple of dozen, just 3 new cases in the last two weeks, all closely associated with known infections and are in the process of opening up with a pretty clear timetable and risk profile. Australia has a similar experience, as have other countries that took this seriously early.

Those that have let it get away by pretending it wasn't a problem are basically going to be stuck trying to manage this thing until a vaccine shows up or you build herd immunity, and your health systems (or for USAnians, your health not-a-system) and economies are going to suffer for a long time. And since these countries are the ones who made us do what we did (our early cases came from Europe and the USA, not China), we have no sympathy whatsoever.
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Shannon SteelSlave
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Re: Corona

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I think our "quarantine" here is the US is what I would call a "half measure". For you "Breaking Bad" fans, I am referring to what Michael Ermantrout said to describe his mishandling of a domestic abuse case he worked on when he was a cop many moons ago. His story is perhaps a little too vulgar for this crowd, but go ahead and look up Breaking Bad half measures if you're curious and not familiar. We're not doing any better, just boiling already hot water.
So tele-health and virtual tours. Does anyone else think they sound like kind of a joke? I have heard some of these online meetings may permanently replace some ways we do business as they are discovered through our crisis. A lot I could say about tele health, but I wanted to see if anyone could give more than a public news perspective.
Bondage is like a foreign film without subtitles. Only through sharing and practice can we hope to understand.
A Jedi uses bondage for knowledge and defense, never for attack.
I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!....I, I mean S-M-A-R-T!
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OrgasmAlley
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Re: Corona

Post by OrgasmAlley »

ruru67 wrote:And since these countries are the ones who made us do what we did (our early cases came from Europe and the USA, not China), we have no sympathy whatsoever.
That's an interesting position. There was only one point at which the COVID could have been contained from worldwide spread, and it wasn't either the US or Europe.
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Gregovic
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Re: Corona

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OrgasmAlley wrote:
ruru67 wrote:And since these countries are the ones who made us do what we did (our early cases came from Europe and the USA, not China), we have no sympathy whatsoever.
That's an interesting position. There was only one point at which the COVID could have been contained from worldwide spread, and it wasn't either the US or Europe.
I blame China for not controlling it's internal travel when the outbreak first started. I blame the European countries and the US for not controlling those coming into those countries much much sooner. The outbreak in the Netherlands could have been much, much more contained (to the point of remaining in control and being to track all cases) if they had reacted 2 weeks earlier when all the signs were already there and taken steps and stopped "Carnaval" (Big folk celebration mostly in the south of the Netherlands, in the area hit hardest by this virus).

This virus could have been much more controllable, and measures would have had to have been far less severe if they had taken steps in time. Step one was to stop international travel from China as soon as it became clear this virus was not in control there. It took 2 weeks AFTER the first confirmed case within europe before such measures were taken iirc.
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Re: Corona

Post by tiemeupalso »

nobody wanted to hurt someones feelings.
bull shit excuse
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