perspective, numbers, facts

For philosophical reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic. How can philosophy help us to understand it, to combat it and to survive it?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Post Reply
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

perspective, numbers, facts

Post by henry quirk »

*Total number of reported COVID-19 deaths for the entire world as of Friday, April 17, 2020: 145,144

Number of non-COVID-19 deaths in the World **today as of 1:23pm (in Louisiana): 87,500









*from the first confirmed death to today

**beginning at Midnight
Last edited by henry quirk on Sun May 31, 2020 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

A counter perspective based only on the number 4

Post by FlashDangerpants »

None of those other causes of deaths doubles on average every 4 days with compound interest unless there is massive state interference in everyone's lives.
Impenitent
Posts: 4331
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:04 pm

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by Impenitent »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_ ... ted_States

the CDC reports the total from 1972-2016 was only 46,413,319

covid 19 has only about 46.3 million more to catch up...

-Imp
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Re: A counter perspective based only on the number 4

Post by henry quirk »

None of those other causes of deaths doubles on average every 4 days with compound interest

Where do you get that on average figure?


unless there is massive state interference in everyone's lives.

An over-reaction: jury is out on whether mitigation has done anything other than, mebbe, reduce hospitalizations in certain places (and unnecessarily wreck economies).

Keep in mind: here in the US, mitigation is haphazard and largely an honor system affair. It's enforcement in hot spots doesn't seem to have done much beyond, as I say, take some small burden offa those hospitals; and in non-hotspots, less stringently enforced (or non-enforced) mitigation doesn't seem to have led to an explosion of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: A counter perspective based only on the number 4

Post by FlashDangerpants »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:09 am None of those other causes of deaths doubles on average every 4 days with compound interest

Where do you get that on average figure?
Well technically the World average is 4.5 days
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... 3bbd284e9b

You can get a nice little interactive graph with sources here if you prefer to sort by region/date range or something.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
henry quirk wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:09 am unless there is massive state interference in everyone's lives.

An over-reaction: jury is out on whether mitigation has done anything other than, mebbe, reduce hospitalizations in certain places (and unnecessarily wreck economies).
I thought the point of using that very selective choice of just numbers was to remove the editorialising? You cracked pretty quickly.
henry quirk wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:09 am Keep in mind: here in the US, mitigation is haphazard and largely an honor system affair. It's enforcement in hot spots doesn't seem to have done much beyond, as I say, take some small burden offa those hospitals; and in non-hotspots, less stringently enforced (or non-enforced) mitigation doesn't seem to have led to an explosion of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
There have only been hot spots at all for a short while, NYC wasn't a hot spot at XMas. Once a place becomes one though, the growth is rather explosive (exponential, every few days).

But like I say, you've gone far beyond making your point with only uncontested numbers already. Is that genuinely what you want to do here?
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by henry quirk »

I thought the point of using that very selective choice of just numbers was to remove the editorialising?

you've gone far beyond making your point with only uncontested numbers already. Is that genuinely what you want to do here?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. -R Emerson
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6268
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Ok, so you gave it one go with unadorned numbers, but they were selected for propaganda purposes and not terribly relevant to a new epidemic. I guess that completes this game.
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by henry quirk »

Ok, so you gave it one go with unadorned numbers, but they were selected for propaganda purposes

Not at all, just the opposite. For reasons already explained: the globals are the only numbers that matter, that can't be used for propaganda. Any subset of those numbers is almost always used for propaganda.

My purpose is solely to hammer home perspective. It easy to get caught up in hysteria lookin' at subsets (or news coverage), but you gotta work hard to get your panties in a twist when you read...

John*S Hopkins 4-17-20

COVID-19: Approximately 2,169,022 cases worldwide; approximately 671,425 cases in the U.S. as of Apr. 17, 2020.

Flu: Estimated 1 billion cases worldwide; 9.3 million to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year.

COVID-19: Approximately 146,071 deaths reported worldwide; approximately 33,286 deaths in the U.S., as of Apr. 17, 2020.

Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the U.S. per year.

...and such comparisons (and others) ought to get a person thinkin' about the local, regional, and national responses to date, and how those responses mebbe coulda been a but more tailored.

I don't see what I'm doin' as propagandizin' but as clarifying.

If you disagree, well, ain't nuthin' I can or want to do about that.

As for my editorializin', well, I'll be as inconsistent as I like.


not terribly relevant to a new epidemic.

Sez you.


I guess that completes this game.

Then you'll be toddlin' off to the pub?

Have a pint for me.










*see, Robot Overlord? I cans lurn.
User avatar
Lacewing
Posts: 6604
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:25 am

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by Lacewing »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:16 am My purpose is solely to hammer home perspective.
Based on a narrow view that pleases you, by not taking into consideration anything else responsible for or resulting from the obvious fucking crisis. THAT'S your "perspective" you want to "hammer home". And it's not even your own thinking... it's just you latching onto numbers, as if you are somehow clever to do so. (yawn)
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22257
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by Immanuel Can »

The CDC says that in 2019, the US had 34,200 deaths from ordinary varieties of influenza. (Seems rounded, unless people die of the flu 100 at a time; but there it is).

As of April 7th, 2020, the CDC reported 12,757 lab confirmed deaths in the US by COVID-19. (Yet it's got to be obvious that ordinary influenza would also have killed some of these people, so these poor folks just got one instead of the other.)

Moreover, the at-risk population is overwhelmingly the immuno and lung compromised...who could also be killed by ordinary pneumonias. How many of them would have died of an ordinary stressor like pneumonia anyway?

So how many actual deaths has COVID-19 actually, all by itself, caused in the US? Nobody really knows. But it's not more than 12, 757, and very likely a lot fewer. And it's not out of step with the national yearly average, especially if we consider that annual flu season is mostly over.

Interesting?

So stay away from folks until you're told not to, and wash your hands -- always a good idea. But let's keep it in perspective.
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by henry quirk »

Based on a narrow view that pleases you,

Nuthin' narrow about it: I'm pointin' to the forest, as a whole, while you focus on the trees.


by not taking into consideration anything else responsible for or resulting from the obvious fucking crisis.

The fuckin' crisis is in a hyperbolic response to a nasty cold virus.


And it's not even your own thinking

Sez the lil Polyanna.


it's just you latching onto numbers

Cuz the numbers, by themselves, don't lie.


as if you are somehow clever to do so.

I'm a clever monkey, yes I am.


(yawn)

*fart*
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by henry quirk »

So how many actual deaths has COVID-19 actually, all by itself, caused in the US?

The most accurate numbers for infections, hospitalizations, deaths and recoveries was at the start, before folks figured out how to capitalize on the virus.

Any number you look at today (includin' the globals I'm fond of) is skewed.

Consider...

As I say in the coronavirus craziness thread, if we could get a full account, I suspect we'd find beer flu has been out and about longer than is assumed and that way more folks were and are infected and are asymptomatic. Some recent research from Stanford supports this notion.

New York just formally adjusted their practices so as to include in the beer flu death count, presumptive cases. That is: if Joe dies of coronary failure in-hospital, a hospital treatin' wu flu patients, Joe is counted as a Fu Manflu victim. That's how NY kung flu death numbers jumped by 5,000 overnight. I'm thinkin' NY (and New Orleans) has been paddin' the numbers for awhile now.

China, that lyin', sack of shit, commie love fest, has lied about the beer flu from the start. How many commie and commie victims died, are dyin', will die behind The Great Wall?

If 20, 30, or even 40% of the global population was or is infected and is largely asymptomatic, then the mortality rate everyone pisses themselves over is even more infinitesimal than I think it is now (even if you include what I hope are massive Chinese Communist deaths...great heapin' piles of dead, rottin'' commies).

If only true, confirmed cases of Coronavirus death were bein' recorded, this too would, I'm thinkin', crank that mortality rate even lower.

As I say: we're bein' hoodwinked.

How's that for flat-out propagandizin', Flash?
User avatar
Lacewing
Posts: 6604
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:25 am

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by Lacewing »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:01 am
Lacewing wrote: (yawn)
*fart*
:lol: :lol:
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Impenitent wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:33 pm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_ ... ted_States

the CDC reports the total from 1972-2016 was only 46,413,319

covid 19 has only about 46.3 million more to catch up...

-Imp
This is cheapskate equivocation and conflation.

So are you implying humanity need to ignore Covid19 or give it less attention but direct attention to the issue of abortion?

The critical point is Covid19 is a new threat and there is a lot of uncertainty over it.
We don't know yet whether if any vaccine is discovered whether it can catch up if this unfamiliar virus can mutate too fast for the vaccines to control it.
Thus due to this uncertainty, Covid19 would possibly exterminate the human species if we do not give it the current attention and preventive measures.

Abortion is a problem but we know it is not a threat to the extermination of the human species.
Impenitent
Posts: 4331
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:04 pm

Re: perspective, based only in the numbers

Post by Impenitent »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:42 am
Impenitent wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:33 pm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_ ... ted_States

the CDC reports the total from 1972-2016 was only 46,413,319

covid 19 has only about 46.3 million more to catch up...

-Imp
This is cheapskate equivocation and conflation.

So are you implying humanity need to ignore Covid19 or give it less attention but direct attention to the issue of abortion?

The critical point is Covid19 is a new threat and there is a lot of uncertainty over it.
We don't know yet whether if any vaccine is discovered whether it can catch up if this unfamiliar virus can mutate too fast for the vaccines to control it.
Thus due to this uncertainty, Covid19 would possibly exterminate the human species if we do not give it the current attention and preventive measures.

Abortion is a problem but we know it is not a threat to the extermination of the human species.
https://tennesseestar.com/2020/04/06/wo ... -pandemic/

I was just playing the statistics game... some murders are better than others

-Imp
Post Reply