Biden: 1/20/21-1/20/22; Your first year grade

[TheGreatBuzz]

5 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

Largely because Republicans are ****ing useless pieces of ****.

 

That said, the general management of this pandemic (which I understand from the inside of it) has been to leave it to the States (who pass it further down) to set rules.

 

I'd be curious which federal mandate would be considered targeted? Maybe tying federal funding to immunization rates? 🙂

Looks like it has been mentioned already but I was talking target mandates like “employees who interact with non-employees on a regular basis” or whatever.  My understanding is SCOTUS said it was too broad because a landscaper who works outside and doesn’t interact with customers has minimal risk from an OSHA point of view.  But from the way their opinion was written, Biden could put out a mandate that “restaurant servers must be vaccinated” and it would fall within the SCOTUS opinion.

 

4 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

I get that.  I'd say taking that route will  be challenged in court by ****face antiscience pro death Republicans and have a nil chance of standing in these conservative packed courts. 

 

The rollout of the mandates really has to come at the State level (because of this era of the do nothing Republican Party). To me, the only way the Fed Govt can get a national policy is by getting the States to sign on. And to do that, they need  a really big carrot. 

 

 

 

If it falls within the opinion SCOTUS just put out, then the lower courts can kick rocks.

 

4 minutes ago, tshile said:

The politics podcast for npr literally just did a segment on how her whole thing isn’t going very well. This is not made up nonsense, it’s basically a consensus option at this point. 

 

Was it Up First?  I listen to that one most every day but I don’t remember hearing that.

Edited January 26, 2022 by TheGreatBuzz

[tshile]

3 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Was it Up First?  I listen to that one most every day but I don’t remember hearing that.

The npr politics podcast

How Has Kamala Harris Fared In Her First Year As Vice President? : The NPR Politics Podcast  - https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074871441/how-has-kamala-harris-fared-in-her-first-year-as-vice-president

 

[PokerPacker]

3 hours ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

No my retirement $$ has dropped substantially since the new year (or mid to late December really). Comment wasn’t clear, but was in response to the democrat sharing a gif of the stock market improvements under Biden. Just saying the timing of even that isn’t great right now. 

All your money tied up in Netflix and the growth didn't meet projections?

[steve09ru]

1 hour ago, PokerPacker said:

All your money tied up in Netflix and the growth didn't meet projections?

Netflix is old news, all Doge and Shibu!

[Fergasun]

We are on crack to even have this discussion.  It was cute a few days ago, and even I dropped whatever I thought. This is the biggest domestic crisis since.... World War 2.  Name me a time when the whole country (just talking America here) has suffered as much as under COVID.  When there was no part of the fabric of society that was stained or torn apart as the current pandemic. 

 

I'll just go back to the 80s/90s.  Historians can call me out if I miss something. Domestic issies Pre-COVID... Trump border wall squabbles?  Electing a racist sexist President?  Obama budget fights with Boehner and GOP? 

 

I'll stop on the continuing fatigue over the Global War on Terror and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hard to put it exactly in the timeline because it could run from 2007 to 2014.   Servicemembers and their families bore the brunt of the trauma, loss and hardship. 

 

2007 to 2009 financial crisis -- a V shaped recovery if I ever saw one.  But it probably had a bigger impact on more Americans than the GWOT.  Iraq War - see GWOT fatigue, but I recall most Americans not batting eyelids over the initial incursion.  See also Michael Moore's Oscars getting booed.  Young, naive me excitedly watched the Iraq War unfold in real time and thought it was the coolest thing on TV.  

 

9/11... kicking off the GWOT.  Most of us never experienced the huge loss of nearly 3000 Americans over the course of a couple of hours and the collapsing of the iconic Twin Towers.  I don't know where we are now, there was a period where COVID was taking out 3000 Americans every 2 days.  Seems like we have one 9/11 every three days... that is... 

 

The COVID death toll is the equivalent of a 9/11 event every 3 days.  For more than 2 years. 

 

I am just going to stop.  If we had 9/11 like terrorist attacks every 3 days, it would be sensationalized, crazy, everyone would focus on the problem.  No one would act insensitive or ignore it.  But because this is a wild, boring, scientific infectious disease... we want to just forget about it get on with life. 

 

National trauma on a scale our nation has never seen.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

11 hours ago, PokerPacker said:

All your money tied up in Netflix and the growth didn't meet projections?

 

Dude, the stock market is down 5.6% since the start of the year. I know stock markets are fluid. I am not panicking. Tshile said someone posted a GIF showing the stock market growth as a reason why Biden has been doing well, and I jokingly said "even that might not be so timely" ...

 

I mean the stock market being down 5.6% over a 3-4 week period is pretty ****ty. I have no idea which stocks are most effected, and while I don't check my IRAs every week or even every month, the one iRA that I don't contribute to (so it's growth is easiest to track based on what's in the account because I'm not adding anything to it) ... had $22k in it in November, it's down to $20,000. Not a big deal. That account is playing the long game. BUT I'm just saying, I don't exactly "feel great" about my stocks over the last month or so based on that ...

Edited January 26, 2022 by JamesMadisonSkins

[JamesMadisonSkins]

8 hours ago, Fergasun said:

National trauma on a scale our nation has never seen.

 

I agree with this. I especially, especially think this is true for people in poor socioeconomic areas.

 

I am very insulated. Every single person with exception of maybe a few I can count on my hand has had COVID. Many before the vaccine. TONS with omicron. I don't know anyone who has been hospitalized. I know that's not the case for many other people. My wife's great aunt who I never met just died from COVID but she was 83 and had COPD and Emphasyma, so lots of comorbidity there.

 

But this pandemic wiped out families in poor health and in lower socioeconomic conditions, particularly early on. Yes, older people died, and that's tragic, but the trauma of losing an 87 year old grandfather is not close to the trauma of losing a 42 year old father.

 

Our mental health and physical health as a whole was already in the toilet in this country pre-pandemic. Thanks to a toxic ****tail of poor diet (Thanks FDA), processed foods, and poor dietary guidelines ... not to mention an overreliance on prescription drugs and the phharma industry that provide horrible side effects in combination and extrapolate the problem.

 

I'm not sure how we come out of this better than we were going in, which was already pretty bad. Maybe those like myself will realize the benefit of good health and a slower, more intentional lifestyle. People like me are making changes to adapt to the new world we want to surround ourselves with and by. I'm lucky to be able to do that, but the communities greatest impacted by the traumas of COVID likely are not. And I don't know what the answer to that problem is in the long-run.

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

The economy is bad tho.

[Riggo-toni]

I'll give him a C+

I am just grateful our democracy will survive at least until 2025.

I wish he had reversed Trump's trade war, done a bit more to revive the JCPOA, and didn't cater to unions to exclude Tesla from the newest round of EV credits.  Mostly he is caught between his 1970s blue collar Dem outlook, a GOP that would fight him if he said the sky was blue, and the impossible task of balancing far left Bernie Bros and the centrist Dems.

I don't regret voting for him even one iota. I will take boring calm anyday over maniacal incompetence.

[The Evil Genius]

 

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Oh one other black mark I forgot to mention against the Biden camp is the complete lack of really addressing the Chinese “re-education camps” for the Uighurs and other minorities.  From what I have read, this practically a second holocaust.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Biden…pro-Holocaust!

[bearrock]

On 1/26/2022 at 9:52 AM, JamesMadisonSkins said:

 

I agree with this. I especially, especially think this is true for people in poor socioeconomic areas.

 

I am very insulated. Every single person with exception of maybe a few I can count on my hand has had COVID. Many before the vaccine. TONS with omicron. I don't know anyone who has been hospitalized. I know that's not the case for many other people. My wife's great aunt who I never met just died from COVID but she was 83 and had COPD and Emphasyma, so lots of comorbidity there.

 

In the last 2 years, covid accounted for the following percentage of all death by age group:

 

25-34: 6.13%

35-44: 10.52%

45-54: 14.25%

55-64: 13.71%

65-74: 13.99%

75-84: 13.27%

85+: 11.27%

 

Now, that tracks from January 2020, so if taken during March 2020 to now, it should be higher.  By mid 40's covid as cause of death is consistent for almost all age group.  Mid 30's to mid 40's?  Still over 10%.  And if you think 6% is not a big deal for 25-34, if compared to 2018, adjusting for 22 months, covid would be the 3rd leading cause of death behind injury and suicide and ahead of homicide for that age group.  It would be the 2nd leading cause of death for 35-44, 3rd leading for 45-54 (but almost the same with 1st and 2nd), 3rd leading for 55-64.  So it's not just your grandparents at risk for death from covid.

 

Now imagine a world where you can nearly wipe out a top 5 cause of death by masking and vaccinating.  Lot of people keep insisting on viewing going back to normal as a binary thing.  That somehow putting a piece of paper on the lower half of your face in a crowd is an unconscionable intrusion on your individual freedom.  Experts are saying 2 out of 3 (mask, vaccination, and/or testing) for high risk activities such as large indoor gatherings.  If you get vaccinated and wear a mask, you are pretty much free to do whatever you'd like.  But, nope, that's not good enough.  It's gotta be just the way it was in January 2020.  

 

 

[JamesMadisonSkins]

@bearrock the goal should have focused on vaccinating the most at-risk, and providing resources to hospitals to treat COVID. I know there have been things not as publicized happening behind the scenes, but the public perception, for the most part, is that the Administration's COVID actions are trying to convince the country as a whole to get vaccinated, when you have Omicron running amock among everyone.

 

Also, this supports my point. You can say 6% of deaths for 25-34 year olds, but the truth is 6% of a small number is still small. This is as of January 19th. Now if you break it down by case number and age group (reported, and remember, many many tests went unreported), the survival rate for 0-17 is 99.99% ... for 18-29 it's 99.95% ... for 30-39 it's 99.79% ... for 40-49 it's 99.42% ... for 50-64 it's 98.12% ... it's not until you get to the 65-74 age group that you see a steep decrease in survival, which is 93.9% .. and the 75-84 age group survival rate is 86.08% ... finally, the 85+ group, survival rate is 73.32%

 

So yes, 800k have died over the last two years in the U.S. and I really don't want to gloss over that, BUT the risks are clearly greatly diminished the younger you are, to the point that most of the people under 75 that are dying with COVID have multiple other health issues.

 

People  who go find this data are a lot less afraid of COVId than those who don't do any digging and take their cues from the cable news networks or Howard Stern.

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by JamesMadisonSkins

[JamesMadisonSkins]

 

 

Source for Cases: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1254271/us-total-number-of-covid-cases-by-age-group/

Source for Deaths: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/

 

This shouldn't be anything new, but I am always surprised by how wrong people are about the actual statistics around COVID deaths. They focus on the big number, but not the percentages which are a lot less dire.

 

You've got to do some manual math to make the earlier age ranges sync with the other chart, but wanted to put the data out there.

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by JamesMadisonSkins

[Ball Security]

30 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

In the last 2 years, covid accounted for the following percentage of all death by age group:

 

25-34: 6.13%

35-44: 10.52%

45-54: 14.25%

55-64: 13.71%

65-74: 13.99%

75-84: 13.27%

85+: 11.27%

 

Now, that tracks from January 2020, so if taken during March 2020 to now, it should be higher.  By mid 40's covid as cause of death is consistent for almost all age group.  Mid 30's to mid 40's?  Still over 10%.  And if you think 6% is not a big deal for 25-34, if compared to 2018, adjusting for 22 months, covid would be the 3rd leading cause of death behind injury and suicide and ahead of homicide for that age group.  It would be the 2nd leading cause of death for 35-44, 3rd leading for 45-54 (but almost the same with 1st and 2nd), 3rd leading for 55-64.  So it's not just your grandparents at risk for death from covid.

 

Now imagine a world where you can nearly wipe out a top 5 cause of death by masking and vaccinating.  Lot of people keep insisting on viewing going back to normal as a binary thing.  That somehow putting a piece of paper on the lower half of your face in a crowd is an unconscionable intrusion on your individual freedom.  Experts are saying 2 out of 3 (mask, vaccination, and/or testing) for high risk activities such as large indoor gatherings.  If you get vaccinated and wear a mask, you are pretty much free to do whatever you'd like.  But, nope, that's not good enough.  It's gotta be just the way it was in January 2020.  

 

 

Is there a way to view these numbers across time.  For example, of the 300k or so deaths in 2020, what was the age breakout of deaths?  Then compare it the deaths now.  So far in 2022 there have been 50k reported COVID deaths in the United States.  What is the age breakdown?  My assumption is that these percentages are not linear.  Does the CDC or anywhere else provide that information?

[bearrock]

25 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

@bearrock the goal should have focused on vaccinating the most at-risk, and providing resources to hospitals to treat COVID. I know there have been things not as publicized happening behind the scenes, but the public perception, for the most part, is that the Administration's COVID actions are trying to convince the country as a whole to get vaccinated, when you have Omicron running amock among everyone.

 

Also, this supports my point. You can say 6% of deaths for 25-34 year olds, but the truth is 6% of a small number is still small. This is as of January 19th. Now if you break it down by case number and age group (reported, and remember, many many tests went unreported), the survival rate for 0-17 is 99.99% ... for 18-29 it's 99.95% ... for 30-39 it's 99.79% ... for 40-49 it's 99.42% ... for 50-64 it's 98.12% ... it's not until you get to the 65-74 age group that you see a steep decrease in survival, which is 93.9% .. and the 75-84 age group survival rate is 86.08% ... finally, the 85+ group, survival rate is 73.32%

 

So yes, 800k have died over the last two years in the U.S. and I really don't want to gloss over that, BUT the risks are clearly greatly diminished the younger you are, to the point that most of the people under 75 that are dying with COVID have multiple other health issues.

 

People  who go find this data are a lot less afraid of COVId than those who don't do any digging and take their cues from the cable news networks or Howard Stern.

 

 

You're viewing the mortality rate that comes at the end of lockdown, shutdown, distancing, vaccination, masking, and etc.  The vaccine is critically important for not just the at-risk, but everybody (even if stopping transmission is not as effective after Omicron, because it's still doing a bang up job in stopping hospitalizations and deaths).

 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm#T1_down

In October-November 2021, the incidence of covid for unvaccinated18-49 was 760K case with 2K deaths.  That's about 2.5 more than the flu.  I can agree with the proposition that covid is much more dangerous for the elderly and those with comorbidities (that's also true with almost any disease).  But it's not a no-big deal for the younger population, especially considering that if we continued in pre-covid life with no vaccination or mask, then pretty much everyone would've gotten covid (resulting in about 360K death of 18-49 by the Oct-Nov 21 unvaccinated mortality rates [0.26% of 138 mil 18-49 in US).  In a world where vaccine is in short supply, should it be prioritized for the at-risk? Absolutely.  But now when everyone can walk into a pharmacy and get it for free?  I have no problem with mandating it.  When there's no vaccine and no way to stop the spread to the at-risk other than harsh shutdown and distance measures?  Yeah, we can do it for a very short term.  Now that there's a vaccine and plenty of high grade masks available?  Get the vaccine, wear a mask in appropriate settings, and go live life.  But if someone wants to die on a hill saying that they want to go back to life as it was without vaccine, without masking, or any of the other precautions?  In a setting where hospitals are struggling to keep pace with the demand?  That's an easy no.  

 

Just now, Ball Security said:

Is there a way to view these numbers across time.  For example, of the 300k or so deaths in 2020, what was the age breakout of deaths?  Then compare it the deaths now.  So far in 2022 there have been 50k reported COVID deaths in the United States.  What is the age breakdown?  My assumption is that these percentages are not linear.  Does the CDC or anywhere else provide that information?

 

I only saw the cumulative report for 2020 to present: https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true

I'm sure there's data from which you could get the info you're seeking, not sure exactly where though.  Maybe compare end of 2020 numbers with end of 2021 numbers?

[tshile]

1 hour ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

goal should have focused on vaccinating the most at-risk, and providing resources to hospitals to treat COVID.

I don’t know where you get your information, or what rock you just crawled out from under, but this has been, from day one, and continues to be the number 1 and number 2 priorities. 
 

one of my favorite podcast episodes to listen to, because it at a time where negativity rules everything it is an amazingly positive view of the power of America when we actually try, is the planet money (npr) episode where they went through what certain companies and industries did to get parts manufactured for ventilators. 
 

im sorry if you haven’t been in tune with what’s going on. But these have been the priorities. Declaring it should have been, and hand waving away everything that happened as some ambiguous “behind the scenes” thing, is nonsense. 

I mean we literally rolled out every stage of every vaccine based on vulnerability. Every single one of them. Every single time. 
 

you have to actually put in effort to not understand that. 

[Momma There Goes That Man]

2 hours ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

So yes, 800k have died over the last two years in the U.S. and I really don't want to gloss over that, BUT the risks are clearly greatly diminished the younger you are, to the point that most of the people under 75 that are dying with COVID have multiple other health issues.

you don’t really want to gloss over almost a million people dying in 2 years, as you proceed to gloss over it. Also, would these people with multiple other health issues have died if they didn’t have covid? Why are their deaths less of an issue or their lives less valuable because they had diabetes or had other health issues? Surely they would have lived longer than they did had covid never occurred, right? 
 

We can’t brush off everyone dying with a comorbidity because they were on death’s door, hanging by a thread, about to die anyway. That’s simply not reality and is a dishonest attempt to dismiss and downplay the very real deaths that are occurring 

Edited January 27, 2022 by Momma There Goes That Man

[Ball Security]

4 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

you don’t really want to gloss over almost a million people dying in 2 years, as you proceed to gloss over it. Also, would these people with multiple other health issues have died if they didn’t have covid? Why are there deaths less of an issue or their lives less valuable because they had diabetes or had other health issues? Surely they would have lived longer than they did had covid never occurred, right? 
 

We can’t brush off everyone dying with a comorbidity because they were on death’s door, hanging by a thread, about to die anyway. That’s simply not reality and is a dishonest attempt to dismiss and downplay the very real deaths that are occurring 

My research indicates that 100% of people who died of COVID and had comorbidities did not die before they had COVID.

[bearrock]

25 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

My research indicates that 100% of people who died of COVID and had comorbidities did not die before they had COVID.

 

Lies, damned lies, and statistics!

[JamesMadisonSkins]

came across this today. I like Breaking Points because they tend to provide non-partisan discussion. Anyway, it hits basically everything I was trying to say last week about the impact on development of kids and the effects it’ll have long term. For those interested in the topic, I think it’s a worthy discussion. I know it’s not tied into Biden’s year 1 grade but

it was a spin-off conversation. 
 

Now I see this and feel very “heard” on many of the things I’ve been feeling with two young kids this entire pandemic. I’m open to hearing how this video might be wrong (or right) and I concede there’s not really a “right answer” with any of this.

Edited January 30, 2022 by JamesMadisonSkins

[fullnelson9999]

I've heard "Save the kids!" too much in my lifetime.

[bearrock]

8 hours ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

came across this today. I like Breaking Points because they tend to provide non-partisan discussion. Anyway, it hits basically everything I was trying to say last week about the impact on development of kids and the effects it’ll have long term. For those interested in the topic, I think it’s a worthy discussion. I know it’s not tied into Biden’s year 1 grade but

it was a spin-off conversation. 
 

Now I see this and feel very “heard” on many of the things I’ve been feeling with two young kids this entire pandemic. I’m open to hearing how this video might be wrong (or right) and I concede there’s not really a “right answer” with any of this.

 

Well, if you've been watching that show a lot with that kind of incendiary language ("catastrophic moral crime"?) and you like them, I'm not sure how you come out thinking there's really not a right answer to this.

 

But to put a few things in context.  There's no questioning that without the covid measures, way more individuals, including kids, would've gotten the disease, many of them before the vaccines were ever available.  So while you see deaths from other causes being multiples higher than covid for school aged children, that is with stringent measures during the early days of the pandemic and with the benefit of vaccination/masking/mitigations in place once in person school opened in full.  

 

Still, death for school age children is a very low risk, thankfully so.  Numbers say unvaccinated school age children have a lower risk of death from covid than a vaccinated adult.  But just because kids are spared from death doesn't mean that they are spared entirely.  Verified case of MIS-C in the US is 6400.  That's with 15% of the school age population that has been infected.  Many of those infections occurred after vaccination.  I shudder to think what the numbers would've been like if host of infections occurred prior to vaccinations.

 

Let's then turn to the developmental delay.  I agree that the first few years of life are critical to development.  Every parent knows that.  But every parent also knows that the public school system has very little role to play in the first few years of life.  No one forbade kids from going out and playing with other kids on the playgorund.  No one recommended against small gathering of like minded parents with their newborn and infants.  I would hope the adults would take precautions, but the kids can still interact and be kids.  I'm not sure what school masks have anything to do with this.  But I guess it's effective to keep the fires going?

 

So I have very little qualms about saying that the host of that show is an idiot for claiming that entirety of the past two years were a "catastrophic moral crime".  Now, let's move on to more interesting discussion.  What do we do now?

 

On one hand, we now have the vaccine, better know-how in treatment, and non-individual mitigation measures in schools such as improved ventilation.  We also know that while kids have a low mortality rate, they can still get pretty sick and be hospitalized.  We also know that there's currently about 3000 people hospitalized with covid in Virginia (and no, there is no grand conspiracy to pump up the number of covid hospitalization by counting everyone who happens to test positive for covid in the hospital.  HHS tracks covid patients separately as individuals whose primary diagnosis is covid.  3000 is about 2800+ who meet that criteria and about 100+ who are waiting for test results).  There's also 1800 hospital beds remaining in the state, 100 non-ICU pediatric and about 200+ ICU pediatric.  

 

So, let's imagine a world where we throw caution to the wind and open up the schools and say hell with masking cause kids don't die (Not easily anyway.  And sorry teachers, including the approximately 25% who are high risk groups.  Hope this isn't too demoralizing.  But if it is, no worries, you can quit your job and we'll just replace ya with those loads of qualified dedicated teachers we got lying around.).  I don't think it's too farfetched to imagine that more kids will in fact get infected with covid, resulting in more trips to doctors, emergency rooms, and hospitalizations.  Shouldn't be too big a problem with those loads of beds lying about.  Hope the doctors and healthcare workers haven't been too busy the last two years.  They might be in for a bit of extra shifts if Youngkin gets his way.  

 

How I wish I could make the virus go away by pretending that things are back to normal.  Doesn't quite seem to work that way unfortunately.

[China]