Coronavirus Outbreak

[AnthonyMartin]

Big sigh. Politic away. But, from my perspective that has involved some disaster response, political ideology has little impact on a person'sability to lead a command role in a disaster setting.

Mike Pence has not impressed me as having the ability to lead through crisis but I hope I'm wrong and I am rooting for him.

The scientists do not make good command staff because they get in the weeds and tend to make decisions too slowly. So the criticism that they should be leading this does not sit well with me. A good disaster command org chart puts them as knowledge experts in and assistant role to the incident commander.

As OP, you can ask admin/mods to move off-topic posts to Bunny Trails.

Thanks! I feel no need to control the dialogue. Politics are at the forefront of everyone's concerns and it seems it's the only lens through which most are able to view any issues.

I have the opportunity to speak and share and my voice seems to be heard, at least a little, so I'm grateful for that.

[temporal1]

Ken:
In any event, that's just a really long way of saying that the "I'm sorry for you in your blue prison, and sorrowful about the state of the country" just comes across as patronizing and dismissive
even though I don't think you really meant it that way.

no, i don’t mean it that way.
i feel trapped in the blue prison, in Illinois and WA, worse, my family is in it on the west coast.

i know not all of WA, CA, or OR, is in the blue prison, but, the prison dominates.

(i’m not sure if i can imagine living in a place like you describe. i’m not sure i would care for it.
non-stop politics, no matter which camp, is just “no way to live.”)

[temporal1]

Ken,
Except even here on MennoNet, the response from a left-wing poster who doesn’t like my views on LGBT issues is to ask the moderators/owner of this forum to ban me for being willing to speak the truth about what the Bible says about homosexuality.

That’s not a “healthy democracy”. We live in a society where people really do want to completely ice out anyone like me from being able to have a job or to express our beliefs.

Of course it doesn’t bother you since you don’t seem to hold any of these “forbidden” positions.

i wish this were an exaggeration.

[Ken]

Ken,

Except even here on MennoNet, the response from a left-wing poster who doesn’t like my views on LGBT issues is to ask the moderators/owner of this forum to ban me for being willing to speak the truth about what the Bible says about homosexuality.

That’s not a “healthy democracy”. We live in a society where people really do want to completely ice out anyone like me from being able to have a job or to express our beliefs.

Of course it doesn’t bother you since you don’t seem to hold any of these “forbidden” positions.

I agree with you entirely. No one should have their views censored if they are expressed in good faith.

[Robert]

Ken,
Except even here on MennoNet, the response from a left-wing poster who doesn’t like my views on LGBT issues is to ask the moderators/owner of this forum to ban me for being willing to speak the truth about what the Bible says about homosexuality.

That’s not a “healthy democracy”. We live in a society where people really do want to completely ice out anyone like me from being able to have a job or to express our beliefs.

Of course it doesn’t bother you since you don’t seem to hold any of these “forbidden” positions.

i wish this were an exaggeration.

It is an exaggeration bordering on a lie. I, nor any other moderator I know of here has been asked to ban Josh. This disappoints me that he would distort facts.

[Ken]

OK, back to the topic at hand then. Some numbers to think about as we try to wrap our heads around the possible effects of the COVID-19 virus. Please let me know if anything here doesn't make sense or seems off.

United States population: 329,000,000 (US census)

Total number of deaths in the US in a given year: 2,814,000 (CDC estimate for 2017)

Total annual deaths from influenza and pneumonia: 55,672 (CDC)

Total annual cases of influenza: 9,300,000 to 45,000,000 (CDC) That’s a wide uncertainty, no doubt because not everyone who has influenza goes to the doctor, much less is tested.

The numbers of cases of influenza are kept down by vaccinations and immunity in people who have had a similar strain of influenza in the past. COVID-19 has no such mitigating factors, which is why limiting people’s movement becomes important.

Right now, the death rate for influenza is generally agreed to be about 0.1%. For COVID-19, it’s about 2%.

Right now there doesn't seem to be anywhere near enough information to know if COVID-19 is as infectious as the flue and will propogate similarly. Or how comparable these two viruses are. But, if there are as many cases of COVID-19 as there are of influenza, that gives 186,000 to 900,000 deaths. That’s compared to 56,000 for influenza. Heart disease kills about 650,000 people a year, cancer 600,000 (CDC). And, without a vaccine or immunity from earlier infections, those numbers could be larger.

Sobering.

[temporal1]

Ken,
Except even here on MennoNet, the response from a left-wing poster who doesn’t like my views on LGBT issues is to ask the moderators/owner of this forum to ban me for being willing to speak the truth about what the Bible says about homosexuality.

That’s not a “healthy democracy”. We live in a society where people really do want to completely ice out anyone like me from being able to have a job or to express our beliefs.

Of course it doesn’t bother you since you don’t seem to hold any of these “forbidden” positions.

i wish this were an exaggeration.

It is an exaggeration bordering on a lie. I, nor any other moderator I know of here has been asked to ban Josh. This disappoints me that he would distort facts.

Josh ??

[Bootstrap]

Ken,

Would you consider opting out of the tribalism for this thread / this issue? (There are plenty of other threads where you can go complain about plain people, conservatives, Republicans, Trump, and so on.)

For all the talk about how bad tribalism is, I’d really like to see a few of our resident NeverTrumpers take a break from the tribalism.

Tribalism does not mean disagreeing with Trump or Fox News. People have the right to various opinions. Nobody is asking you to stop voicing yours. Tribal means attacking people who disagree, trying to shut them down or shut them up, distracting from a reasoned discussion of the facts to determine what is true together, starting from whatever viewpoints we start with.

Ken posted an article that paints the Trump Administration's handling of the Corona Virus in a bad light. If we are discussing the Corona Virus, then I think Ken's article is directly relevant. Is the article right in the claims it makes? If not, how can we know that?

People have responded with a LOT of very strong claims about the Obama Administration, but those same people have not looked at the factual claims in Ken's article and disputed them. A lot of these claims have very little to do with Ken's article. Some of them do - how have pandemics been handled by past administrations? Regardless, I think we could have a more reasonable, less emotional discussion that is focused on the actual topic we are discussing. And it's more helpful to point out where Ken got his facts wrong than to accuse him of being tribal when he is not being tribal.

[Ken]

Ken:
In any event, that's just a really long way of saying that the "I'm sorry for you in your blue prison, and sorrowful about the state of the country" just comes across as patronizing and dismissive
even though I don't think you really meant it that way.

no, i don’t mean it that way.
i feel trapped in the blue prison, in Illinois and WA, worse, my family is in it on the west coast.

i know not all of WA, CA, or OR, is in the blue prison, but, the prison dominates.

(i’m not sure if i can imagine living in a place like you describe. i’m not sure i would care for it.
non-stop politics, no matter which camp, is just “no way to live.”)

Actually this place is unusually a-political. The Democratic primary here is 2 weeks away and I don't think I've barely seen any yard signs except for a couple for Bernie on the main highway. Mostly the politics are local. The biggest political issue in the past year was whether to pass a bond to build a new community pool and that fight got so intense that the mayor lost her re-election and there were pro-pool and anti-pool yard signs everywhere. the NextDoor neighborhood forums completely melted down over the pool topic. It's only a few cranks who get completely wrapped up in the national politics but they are the ones you notice.

[Robert]

how have pandemics been handled by past administrations?

Can you give me a list of pandemics? I know of none since 1918.