ABC 'World News Tonight' gives Cruz Cancun fiasco four times more coverage than Cuomo nursing home s

Absolutely. The Cuomo/COVID story was getting a little bit of traction before the sexual assault allegations, but the media "attention" certainly couldn't be reasonably described as an "extra-hard ass-bite", and I have NO IDEA where you could have possibly got that insane impression from. Now of course, the attention is 100% on the sexual assault stuff, which is quite convenient for a media which spent the last 12 months proclaiming that Cuomo was the greatest governor to ever govern!

The sexual assault allegations are serious and should be taken seriously. But it's not the REAL Cuomo scandal here. Not least because they are merely allegations.

Why the hell would the little bit of negative attention of the Cuomo/COVID story have "emboldened" women to share their stories? What POSSIBLE connection is there here?

Okay, well if The Albany are calling for his removal, but then enough idiotic, brain dead New Yorkers decide to stick with the useless piece of crap, how will it mean that the "media burying, or soft-pedalling, the stories" had precisely nothing to do with it? Perhaps because they are "idiotic, brain dead New Yorkers", in which case I have answered my own question!

All the more reason for New Yorkers to vote him the hell out.

Why the hell SHOULDN'T it have ebbed to silence? It wasn't even a scandal. It was just a politically dumb move on his part. Are you seriously suggesting that it should still be covered?

Well when it comes to stuff against women, Republicans are quick to act. Like Roy Moore, who was completely ostracised from the party based purely on allegations. If Cuomo isn't ostracised in the same way, that will be evidence that the Republicans take these things much more seriously than the Democrats.

Why can I not find one single news source reporting on the Cawthorn allegations?

 

Yes, we do sometimes mistake each other's meanings. In my defense, though, I'll say that I at least try to thoroughly explain my line of thought, whereas you adhere to a terser commentary style, which can be easier to misunderstand. Now, on to your questions.

This first one, about seniors contracting Covid has gone on for a bit, now, so I'm going to try to retrace it, to see if that helps.

As far as I recall, you said something about Cuomo causing the deaths of a lot of seniors, in nursing homes. I responded that he had been listening to the experts &, according to what they were then saying, what he did seemed to make sense to him. In other words, he was at least trying
to do the right thing. Not that this excuses his error, and definitely not his attempt to cover it up. But I pointed out that there were many governors who did not even try to save their seniors, because they did not mandate mask-wearing, and they would not keep things shut down, even the kinds of places which were likely places for the virus to spread, like bars, restaurants, and so forth. This was only meant to be a representative list, not an exhaustive one.

We all should know that large crowds, in confined areas, especially indoors, are the highest risk venues. Accordingly, I mentioned bars, restaurants, & movie theaters, the threw in water parks just for some variety, since I remember that from an article on some southern state opening up, in full. Even though those parks are outside, the combination of large crowds, standing close together (as in lines), and being in contact with water, which can also be a vehicle for Covid transmission, makes them not one of the safer venues.

In answer to, specifically, my indictment of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' lax Covid restrictions, you said:
"Seniors in nursing homes in Florida?"

And I answered:

"Seniors DON'T HAVE TO BE IN A NURSING HOME, in order to contract COVID, and DIE. In ANY state in which the Governor did not impose mask restrictions because he/she felt it inhibited freedom, or let unessential businesses, especially those in which crowds congregate (bars, restaurants, movie theaters, water parks, etc.) stay open, for economic reasons, it has been proven that resulted in more deaths. And the majority of deaths are seniors. In fact, that was even part of the argument many made, that only the old & weak would die, so why should the rest of us have to suffer?

"They were willing, as were those governors, to TRADE seniors' lives for economic activity & non-infringement of peoples', 'right,' to not wear a mask, & be a potentially prolific spreader of the virus. You can't have it both ways, & now say those governors weren't responsible for their, 'mistakes,' but Democratic governors are."
<End Snip>

So it should be clear to you that I was saying that, if Covid were allowed to run rampant-- by not closing down unessential businesses, and by not requiring the wearing of masks (and I remember hearing of at least one governor-- Georgia, I think-- who was over-ruling his mayors who were trying to institute their own, local mask regulations)-- that would lead to greater transmission throughout the state, not just at those sites that were implicated in the greater share of cases. Because, once someone catches Covid at one of those risky sites, they continue to move throughout the community, shedding germs, w/ the potential of spreading to other people, especially, if those infected people are not required to wear masks when they go, say, to the supermarket.

Understand, though you do get crowds at supermarkets, there are ways to make them safer. For instance, my local Stop 'n Shop was disinfecting the entire store, every night. Then, every morning when they opened, newly-cleaned, the first two hours were ONLY for people 65 up. Maybe they're still doing these things. And, of course, no matter when a shopper arrives, EVERYONE is required to wear a mask. This not only prevents direct person-to-person transmission, but also the contamination of the products with Covid germs, which someone else can come along, buy, & bring home (perhaps where a senior lives). And 6-ft. spacing is strictly-enforced at the check-outs. The aisles were also made one-way, but compliance on that was only partial, especially in the produce section. Nevertheless, there were notices & announcements about keeping safe distance from other shoppers, and most everyone cooperated with that request. Also, they kept track, all day, of how many were in the store, to keep it from becoming too crowded, and asked people to send only one member of the household at a time, on shopping trips, to keep down the numbers in the store. This is why, Chris, that just because seniors could shop relatively safely in many places, "around the world," where the virus was taken seriously, it's still fair to say that in the absence of restrictions, any trip would be dangerous for a senior; and if the senior avoided contagion while they were out, it still would not preclude their contracting it from a relative, perhaps with whom they live, since those other people would, also, be more likely to be exposed to the virus. This had been shown, beyond question, to be true: fewer restrictions = more transmission = greater number of deaths, the majority of which WILL BE SENIORS, even if they are not in nursing homes. So I hope that answers your two new questions about seniors, nursing homes, supermarkets, and water parks.

You specifically asked me if it was masks that was responsible for fewer cases of Covid this season's flu, or if it was due to the shutdowns. The answer, of course, is that each of the precautions contributes to the reduction, including the social distancing, and the frequent hand-washing.

If we agree that masks are effective, I don't know why you are questioning my comments about their effect; I guess that's where I got the idea that you weren't a big supporter of mask wearing. But I'm not going to go back to try & untangle the confusion. A little part of me is even wondering if you're just yankin' my chain, with that, "I don't know where you would get such an idea," comment. If we're close enough to agreement on this, though, I'm simply scratching it off the list.

As far as your google search goes, I can't speak for their system, but even though Covid does require water vapor in order to travel through the air to infect another person, at least according to science's most current understanding that I heard, that does not mean their system is so good that any scientific paper with the words covid & water vapor, will necessarily show up. But I'll offer a tip: even though search engines have gotten a lot better about this, spelling variations can still throw them off, so I would think you generally improve your odds by using American spellings; at least it can't hurt to try, if your Brit spelling strikes out. We don't put a, "u," in vapor, over here (or in flavor, or savor, if you use it in that word, as well).

I'm going to have to finish answering your post, about your road system analogy, at another time-- I'm bushed (or, if you prefer, boushed?)

 

Do you acknowledge that the shut downs were only ever meant to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed?

Yes, but you seemed to mention them specifically in relation to seniors. Bars, restaurants, movie theaters and water parks are not exactly places that lots of old people go to, certainly not during a pandemic. If they do and they die, then that's on them.

Why should the government determine what is essential and what is not essential? Every business is essential to the employer and the employees.

Everyone, including you, would make that argument if today we didn't have any hope at all of a vaccine, and the science community said that it's not going to be possible to make one. What other choice would we have but to return to normal?

Yes, it's clear to me. It seems then that we should have always been masking for the flu and we should continue to do so, or else roll out a flu vaccine in the same way as the COVID vaccine. Think of all of the lives which could have been saved and the lives which could be saved in the future.

Yes, just like driving on the road does not preclude someone from dying in a car crash. Is dying from COVID different?

Agreed.

I just wasn't aware of what the science said about the efficacy of masks, or if it the mask recommendations and mandates were based largely off an assumption that masks are effective against this virus. An assumption which I would have no problem with. I have no problem with masks and have worn one myself on public transport. I just don't like the idea of mask mandates.

Are you referring to 'droplets?

 

Thank you for pointing out that the non right wing news were all carrying the story of the NY Governor's actions many months ago even while Cruz was taking a vacation to Mexico while his neighbors were getting pounced. Strange so many on the right liked this, they're more normally blind to such things.

 

The Orwellian MSM cannot cover this story without also Whitmer (MI), Newsome (CA), Wolf (PA), also going down as they did the same thing with the same results and Whitmer has refused to share the real death counts like Cuomo.

Democratic Governors did this on purpose and the MSM will protect them and has since May of 2020 when we all knew of these tragic orders and they refused to cover it then too.

 

No. This is what comes up, immediately, on my phone when I type water vapor into the google bar:

Water vapor, water vapour or aqueous vapor is the gaseous phase of water. It is one state of water within the hydrosphere. Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Water vapor is transparent, like most constituents of the atmosphere. Wikipedia

Btw, asking your questions to me about it, rather than doing what I just did for you, is something that could be considered unnecessary homework. Thankfully, this was an easy assignment.

 

del

 

Cruz deserves all the bad press he gets. He's a lying cuck that gladly licked Trump's balls after he called his Wife fat & ugly.

Cruz takes pleasure in gaslighting and lying in Congress on a daily basis. I hope the press attacks him 24/7.

**** Cruz. ****ing pansy ass cuck.

 

No, you completely failed to grasp my explanation; please go back & reread my last reply-- I don't know how I could make it any clearer or any simpler. I guess, now, we're even, from my not paying attention & getting lost on your road analogy.

As you know, this is the term that is used. And no, not every job is essential to every worker unless, without working at that specific job, a person would starve for want of resources. I'm not going to get in a silly argument with your taking the point that, on a permanent basis, there is no other option. This change is NOT ON A PERMANENT BASIS. So to clarify the term for you, if the government said, "we're going to give everyone their normal salary to just take off from work this month (if it's a job you do in-person)," the essential workers would be the ones they couldn't allow to take off because, even relatively short-term, these particular JOBS NEED to be done. This would include people who work anywhere in the chain that produces, packs, transports, & distributes (sells) FOOD. Do I need to explain why the consequences
of closing down this operation would be much more dire for SOCIETY, ON THE WHOLE than would the closing of just any business? Medical workers are also, "essential." I'm sure you understand how these workers are more indispensable to society than most other workers, even for a short absence. The same goes of Police & Fire Departments, etc.

BTW, answering these kinds of, "questions," are something that really dulls my attention, which can then affect my apprehension of your subsequent questions, as witness my admission, above, regarding your road analogy (which had been at the end of your set of comments, it should be noted). What I'm asking, is would you please keep unessential questions to yourself, at home?

I can't say either: A) what alternatives our leaders or the medical community would offer, under those circumstances, or
B) what I would, then, be saying.

But since that is NOT the situation, & it was never considered even a POSSIBILITY, that makes your comment, it seems to me, meaningless.

Now THIS is the only really worthwhile comment in your entire reply. I will merely say, good point. I don't know that it's true that there would have been NO shutdowns at all, including with certain close-contact businesses in the entertainment industry (think bars, for example). But as far large-scale shutdowns, including schools, I will acknowledge that w/o the real concern over exceeding hospital capacity, these would have been far less likely.
It does, however, make it all the easier to disregard a couple of your other points. To wit:

IF the flu killed, required emergency & even critical care, and left survivors with the serious after-effects of Covid-19, you would be right. As NONE of those things is true, you are making what I believe is called a strawman argument. As a friend responded to something I once said, "And if the squirrel had a bazooka, the eagle wouldn't eat him." His point, in that instance, was that mine was irrelevant (even though I know you will want to take issue with the ability of a rodent to operate a bazooka). I could use my friend's expression with you, to answer this, big-"IF," point of yours.

There IS a new flu vaccine every year, anyway, which millions & millions of Americans, especially older people, take every year. Again, the reason it is not treated with the emergency mentality of Covid-19, is that it IS NOT the emergency, that Covid-19 is.

And it NEVER threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

And I feel myself nodding off, again.

Becoming of your absolutist reaction, to the idea that masks, which save lives during this pandemic, should be mandated in public (which I didn't say, but could be inferred from my comments): yes, Chris, for goodness sakes! While all people who die in car crashes do not die in the same manner, I would guess that the majority do not die from difficulties interfering with their ability to breathe-- there are definitely differences! Many, I feel, probably die on impact, or while unconscious, post-impact. And the majority of these auto deaths are quick.

Do you find this a useful answer? We could go back & forth on this topic, & the tangential ones it would spawn, for a couple of weeks. What benefit would there be in it? Certainly, any cause of death, has the same result. But that the logical ramification of this is that ANY ATTEMPTS TO LESSEN DANGER ARE INVALID (OR HYPOCRITICAL) UNLESS ALL CONCEIVABLE SAFETY MEASURES ARE EMPLOYED, is not a serious argument, but a patently ridiculous idea, that I would hope would be beneath you.

Here's a concept, w/ which I would've thought you were already familiar: balancing the risks, against the rewards. Our society, having done that, has not been willing to completely forego car travel-- though, to be fair, the horse-&-buggy would also have to go, because there have surely been related fatalities, at some point-- but instead has settled on a good number of safety features that HAVE been built into road travel. One of these is SEAT-BELTS, the wearing of which is mandated in many states-- do you also object to the requiring of life jackets, on a boat, or life rafts, on a ship? Or to a building being required to have fire-exits? One can think of these as laws for the stupid, or negligent, because any semi-intelligent & responsible person would not need to be told that these are necessary things. And while I would be sympathetic to an argument you might make about letting those stupid, irresponsible people eliminate themselves from the gene pool (& from causing problems for the rest of us), the difficulty is that they are not the only ones who die, or suffer, because of their actions, or non-actions.*

But, back to road travel, a great many other of these increased safety measures are also part of the vehicle, itself, in its frame, base materials/strength, brakes, & so on, including the requirement that they meet a minimum safety requirement in a crash-test. Many vehicles come with air-bags, standard.

Now, there is room here, for an interesting discussion/debate, had you chosen a more nuanced argument. I am very glad, for instance, that my car will offer me a certain degree of protection, in case of collision. I think shatter-proof windshields are a very sensible requirement of a motor vehicle. I am totally uninterested however, & would, myself, avoid any of the newer safety features in which the vehicle itself overrides the driver's control. What I am referring to, at the moment, are automatic braking systems, called, "collision-avoidance systems." Sometimes, in order to avoid a collision, the best way, or only way, is to speed up. I see these systems as mostly for dumbass, distracted drivers, who find it a bother to pay attention to the road. To my mind, those who need this, really shouldn't be driving, in the first place but, since there's no way that's going to happen, I guess I'm glad this technology is available, so none of them rear-end me. (I also feel drivers should be sufficiently competent to parallel park on their own, but that's a different issue). But instead of talking about how & where we should draw that line, I will finish addressing the argument you did actually present, that the reasonable alternatives are only either: every conceivable safety measure, including to not construct roads-- though there being an absence of roads, and so a greatly restricted access to hospitals or ambulance services, not to mention Fire & Police services, I would imagine, would lead to MORE deaths than accrue from driving-- or else NO SAFETY RESTRICTIONS, whatsoever.

Wrapping up on your point about the hazards of driving, one further safety restriction are SPEED LIMITS. Here again, in a different type of debate than the one we are, unfortunately, having, this would be a topic I would think two people could have valid points of view, and yet disagree, giving each the opportunity to benefit from seeing things from the other's perspective. Alas:

(From above, continued)
*This is, of course, most true of the designers & operators of a building, since all those using it could not know what chance they took entering, if not for building codes. Then, of course, are those who are forced to be in a particular structure, by their jobs. While I suppose you could argue that, where boats & ships were concerned, the responsibility should rest with the passenger, that would merely be transferring an obligation from a relative few service providers, to a vastly larger number of users of those services. Our society has long ago decided that the provider should be responsible for the safety of his product or service.

Was that argument as good for you, as it was for me? In that case, let's avoid these imbecilic points, in the future, and instead focus on the much better ideas of which, you've shown, we are both capable.

 

To confirm, we were talking about the COVID risk to seniors, right?

It certainly seems pretty permanent compared to the original '15 days to stop the spread!' Gee, that's a LONG 15 days!

Is it actually the case that every single person in the US who lost their job due to COVID continued to receive their normal salary? Plus, you said "this month", but I don't think anywhere in the US was only locked down for one month! Correct me if I'm wrong but some people haven't worked for TWELVE months! Plus, it's not all about the money. Work is essential for many people's mental health. If it was all about the money and people haven't lost any, then why are we seeing sky rocketing suicides?

Yes, I'm not saying that any of this should have been shut down! I just don't like the term 'non-essential.' However, I recognise the distinction between what has been deemed essential and non-essential.

I think that we can safely say that a world with no hope of a vaccine wouldn't include continued lockdowns. The world would simply have no choice but to get back to normal, just as the world did after the flu started before a vaccine was developed, and NO I'm not saying that COVID is the same as the flu. And I have to believe that you wouldn't agree with continued lockdowns for the rest of time, even if for some reason a piece of crap tyrannical government went down that track.

I was just making the point that eventually even you would be making the same argument that people have been making, in the hope that you would see that maybe it's not such an unreasonable position after all, after perhaps thinking that you could NEVER in a million years make such an argument, without thinking of my worst case scenario of no vaccine.

I'm sorry, "IF" the flu killed? Surely you can't be serious!

My 'flu' argument is really an argument against the idea that EVERY life is worth saving. If you're not making that argument then it's irrelevant, but it seemed that you MIGHT have been.

When I asked, "is dying from COVID different", I didn't mean, do people die in the same way. I meant, is it worse if someone dies from COVID
than if they die from a car crash or another means? To me a life lost is a life lost.

Yes, it would certainly be beneath me, which is why I'm not making that argument. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that it can be said that "ALL CONCEIVABLE SAFETY MEASURES" have been employed on the road system AND with COVID-19 at least at some point during the pandemic.

It all goes back to what you said: "They were willing, as were those governors, to TRADE seniors' lives for economic activity & non-infringement of peoples', "right," to not wear a mask, & be a potentially prolific spreader of the virus." You go on to make it clear that you know this, but you didn't seem to understand that government makes TRADE OFFS all of the time! I used the road analogy, because the government is willing to TRADE all of the lives that are lost on the road so that the road system can remain open. The government is saying that the lives lost is an acceptable loss in order for the road to remain open. Just as certain governments are saying that the lives lost to COVID is an acceptable loss for people to get back to their normal life. Now, if the number of lives lost started to become too high, things would change, just like with COVID. Lets say that a thousand people in a town lost their life on one particular road in one week, which would risk overwhelming the local hospital. Well, there's a very good chance that the government would shut down that road until they can sort something out.

Do I "ALSO object?" Why the hell do you ask this as if I object to seat belts?

If all of these things plus seatbelts didn't exist, the road system would still be operating just as it is now, just as it did before the introduction of these safety systems. The only reason they were implemented is because they were invented by the automotive industry and because Capitalism exists, whereby customers wanted their cars to be safer. They were not implemented in order to keep the road system operating.

Well again, you totally screwed up my argument. That's NOT the argument which I "did actually present!" And a road system which saves as many lives as possible without considering the 'rewards', would be a road system open exclusively to emergency services vehicles. Otherwise, you're right, it would lead to more deaths.

Yep, this is a genuine point about road safety as opposed to the vehicle safety systems, not least because they have been around forever. The COVID equivalent of speed limits would be hand washing, mask mandates, or small scale physical distancing. But the COVID equivalent to the road system being shut down is lockdowns.

 

Chris, you HAVE TO learn how EXAMPLES work! I'm going to go through this with you now but, if it doesn't click, & you continue just picking out some of my words, while ignoring the ones leading up to them, on which their meaning is predicated, I'm going to have to re-think the way I answer your posts, to make my replies far more sparse, which won't allow me to do much explaining, at all. SO, you asked:

Then I responded, insinuating that you were just giving me a hard time over something you already understood-- the classification of workers as essential or non-essential-- and NOT actually presenting any point of argument that my post, to which you were replying, had erroneously failed to consider:

I COLORIZED the words that should have prevented the misunderstanding of your latest quote: 1) I tell you, at the start of that explanation, that the sole purpose of what is to follow is, "TO CLARIFY THE TERM (essential worker, about which you asked) FOR YOU." This means I am merely explaining WHY some workers' jobs are deemed, "essential," & others are not, despite your argument that ALL jobs are considered essential, by the workers who do them & rely on them for their paychecks. Therefore, you should have known at that point, I was just going to use some hypothetical situation, in order to ILLUSTRATE the different classifications. 2) The word that follows the phrase (above) cueing my intention, further emphasizes the merely theoretical nature of what I'm about to write: "IF..." Had I decided to use a specific example from the past, I would have started with the word, "WHEN (the government said...)." Do you recognize the difference between, " WHEN the government SAID or DID such-n-such," versus, "IF the government said or did this-or-that?" If you can't, then we have a problem, because I can't keep explaining & re-explaining things that I've already explained the piss out of, & which usually shouldn't need to be explained, in the first place. Who doesn't know, at this point, what one means when they say, "essential workers?"

To finish my current explanation OF my previous explanation, the word, 3) "WOULD," is an additional indicator that what I am describing is only suppositional, conjectural. If I had been talking about a factual event, which had already occurred & which I was simply recounting, why would I say, "would be the ones..." and, "...would include..." instead of, "WERE the ones..." and, "INCLUDED...?"

I have to now end, without having had the time to read, much less answer, most of your reply.
I hope the foregoing will help bring about an adjustment, because it is an unacceptable situation for me to need to spend my entire day, just to answer one of your replies.
Be well, and I'll pick this up, later.

 

You really didn't have to waste your time with all of that! I know what you meant by essential and non-essential. I was simply making the point that the government doesn't get to decide what is essential to people. When you said, "if the government said, we're going to give everyone their normal salary to just take off from work this month (if it's a job you do in-person)," who were you referring to who would get their normal salary? I thought that you were referring to the many people who received unemployment benefits during COVID.

 

As I began that long section, I wrote that it was a silly argument to act as if these shut-downs were PERMANENT, when they were TEMPORARY. While they have been going on, in one state or another, for a year, they have been INTERMITTENT. No state has had a complete shut down of the economy, excepting for essential workers, for anything like a year. And there HAS BEEN, as you alluded to, money for those who were affected, both through standard unemployment insurance payments, as well as the supplementary, federal additions to those payments, and the unconnected, federal stimulus checks. Does that mean that NO ONE has suffered, or is suffering, economic hardship from the pandemic? Of course not! But, I would point out that allowing the virus to run rampant, with no businesses being shut down, and no requirement of mask-wearing, would ultimately ALSO HAVE LED TO GREAT ECONOMIC HARDSHIP!

Do you not realize that a lot of people VOLUNTARILY stayed home instead of eating out, or going to bars, or dance clubs, or concerts, or comedy shows, or movies, etc., and put off travelling (especially flying or going on cruises)? And you are wrong, Chris: in an emergency, our elected government does, at least to a degree, "get to decide what is essential to people."

I would also add that, at the beginning of all this, the experts told us that if we were to have a total shutdown, throughout the country, for just 6 wks, and used that time to be ready with sufficient capacity for Covid testing, and tracing of contacts-- which is something the federal government never tried to help develop or implement, before the virus became so widely distributed-- we would have had the situation in hand, such that (assuming mask-wearing & social distancing) the economy could go back to something close to normal, with (I would guess) only some capacity-limitations, that would affect a minority of businesses.

So what had been your ultimate, "point?" That economic hardship outweighs risk to health? That the government, despite its mandate to protect the country & its citizenry, has no right to impose any restrictions that will strike anyone in the pocketbook?

It would seem, if the threats of starvation, homelessness, and so forth, for those who've permanently lost their jobs & have been prevented from finding replacement work, were your primary concerns, one might consider supporting increased government subsidies, specifically to those who were bearing the brunt of the pain for the measures that were being employed for the good of the country, as a whole.

But I thank you, in this reply of yours, for being clearer & more precise about your meaning. I knew you had it in you. So now, my response has not required me to address so much that I was unsure about, whether or not you were saying. That was all I was aiming for, in my last post's entreaty to you. It won't necessarily get us to agree on more things, but it will be a much more enjoyable experience, debating them with you, if we can keep up this kind of unobscure communication.

(To be continued.)

 

I don't think that you had any reason to think that I WAS acting like that.

I realise that, but at least it would have been reduced capacity rather than government enforced closure.

Sure, from a legal perspective.

Yes, because the so called 'experts' have been SO reliable! Fauci got everything right! Plus, testing and contact tracing was being done by the States.

No.

Yes, I support government support during COVID, although there's an argument that the support should come from the States, because not all States are locked down to the same degree.

 

There are a lot of things to cover here, not following a very straight path, though. These are not from your last reply, but a recent one that I never got all the way through, because I went off on my long monologue about "examples," when I got to the part where you mistakenly thought I was maintaining that the explanation I was using for essential/non-essential workers was something that had, specifically, occurred, in detail, the way I was laying out in my example (btw, it's the jobs, not the workers, which are non-essential, and that's nothing at all like saying they aren't important) There are a number of parts here where you clearly make your case-- I'll note that these have, frequently, begun with the words, "I was only trying to say..." or the like, & how nice it would be for them to come out that way to begin with, rather than after I have blathered on about something you hadn't intended to suggest. But these are definitely a mixed lot of comments. I'll start with the worst:

I've previously stressed to you the need to consider context, but I didn't think I would need to explain that meant not splitting off part of a sentence, when the rest of the sentence is all part of the same idea. Here is that sentence, in full:

Though I would typically find this annoying, my sentence, in this case, has a grammatical error so, though I still think the meaning should be clear, I can believe that you read it differently than it was meant. This is why, though, I'd like you to be more exact in your posts: when I have to write back so much else, to cover all the possibilities of what you may have been saying, I'm bound to not want to go to every possible length to avoid being misread. The meaning of that sentence was supposed to be: If the flu killed, required emergency/critical care, and left survivors with serious side effects in the manner of Covid, or to the degree of Covid, then you'd be right-- that is, you are comparing apples & oranges, if the flu doesn't do those things with the same frequency as Covid and, particularly in the case of deaths, in similar numbers.

I know what you meant & included the idea that dead, is dead, at the end of my little "playing along" with what I took to be your absurd idea-- which you now tell me was mistaken-- that, since people die on highways but we don't outlaw driving, therefore it would be inconsistent to mandate mask-wearing. This is what I took to be your all or nothing approach: that if, for safety's sake, we think it's acceptable to mandate masks, we should also not allow people to drive. You say this was not your argument but, at this point, I'm unclear as to how you differentiate your own perspective.

Anyway, that is why I began that paragraph with, "Becoming of your absolutist," view on mask-wearing...That meant that I was going to give your question the silly, literal answer, that your flippant way of addressing my points, warranted.

YES!!! YOU'VE ABSOLUTELY HIT THE POINT! AND YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING, BASICALLY (No, I wasn't holding the view that, to save one life, I would expect the country to go on lockdown, as you mention elsewhere, you were unsure of).To answer your puzzlement over why then, we come to different conclusions, YOU must supply the specific which is missing from your argument: just what number of deaths do you consider the, "acceptable price," to keep the economy at full throttle? Because I feel states like Florida, recklessly exceeded that number by a longshot.

Also, one aspect missing from your road analogy is that, by waiting until you are getting a death toll that is unjustifiably high BEFORE taking any business-dampening actions, you have guaranteed yourself far more deaths. A contagious disease is not something you turn off as easily as putting up a, "ROAD CLOSED," sign. A more accurate analogy would be, if the government could know, in advance, that 1000 people would be dying on that road in a week, a couple of months in the future, and that if they waited to close it, those people would still die (don't get overly-picky with me here on a literal analogy; I'm trying to work with what you offered), let's say on adjacent roads, would you leave the road open? Well governors like DeSantis, decided yes, leave that road open, even though contagious disease experts-- and one needed to be no such thing, but only required a touch of common sense to recognize that this is how it would be-- told them, in advance, this would be the result. And as that warning began to show itself to be accurate, many kept it open, until the day-to-day carnage became intolerable, though their acting at that point, even if it had been with a full closure, would have meant similar levels of death for several more weeks, followed by only a gradual decline. Nevertheless, these closures were often, still, only partial (as if, in your road analogy, only during certain hours, and with exceptions for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays, like the Superbowl, & Spring Break).

And now, with the immunization process bringing the light at the end of the herd-immunity tunnel into view, the governor of Texas feels the unnecessary deaths of an early-opening, before we get to the tunnel-exit, are worth putting a few more bucks in peoples' pockets, & in state coffers. So, OK, Chris, if you support that approach, give me an equation to show what you think is a fair trade. Then we can take the weekly deaths leading up to the Texas re-opening (which were, I would guess, steadily declining) and compare it to the deaths in the period afterward, prior to the vaccination levels getting us near herd immunity, to approximate how many additional lives were lost by the premature dropping of restrictions. That way, we can see how your calculus for acceptable death measured up to your guess of the consequences. Seem fair?


(There were a couple more of your quotes, but this seems a good place to leave it, for now.)

 

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