More lies from the deranged. Trump was the one who wanted to ban travel from China early on, it was the dems who screamed "Racist! You can't do that!" with Pelosi and crew urging people to go down to Chinatown and shop and mingle in the crowds instead.
Trump brought up his doctor's recommendation of zinc and HCQ. Immediately the anti-science media, dems, and pharma-shills jump out and start shrieking that it's fake and harmful, with none of them taking a step back to look into it first, or acknowledging that
More lies from the deranged. Trump was the one who wanted to ban travel from China early on, it was the dems who screamed "Racist! You can't do that!" with Pelosi and crew urging people to go down to Chinatown and shop and mingle in the crowds instead.
And still, to this day, the best scientific evidence suggests that travel bans are mostly useless.
Trump brought up his doctor's recommendation of zinc and HCQ. Immediately the anti-science media, dems, and pharma-shills jump out and start shrieking that it's fake and harmful, with none of them taking a step back to look into it first, or acknowledging that it's a cheap, safe, proven combo that's been used for a long time.
It is absolutely not proven. Every study suggesting that it is effective has been thoroughly debunked. And every study suggesting it is safe has been at such a low dose that it has no statistically significant effect.
Twitter, Facebook, and the media was immediately censoring and attacking anyone who claimed that this came from the Wuhan lab instead of the claimed "wet market". Any evidence put forth was deleted and the author's smeared.
What "evidence"? You mean a bunch of conspiracy theory drivel spewing from people with a long history of spewing conspiracy theory drivel? If there were any evidence that were even *slightly* c
>And still, to this day, the best scientific evidence suggests that travel bans are mostly useless.
Yeah, retard. That's just what fucking science says. Science says that isolating people as much as possible doesn't ease spreading communicable disease. You know you're a fucking moron, right?
It's always way too late. Statistically, unless you're in a tiny country that nobody visits, you will never successfully get one in place before a communicable disease has reached your country, and after that, there's no point.
It's cruel. Statistically, if there's a serious pandemic, most nonessential travel stops. So what you're doing is basically keeping people from returning home, or going to take care of sick relatives, or whatever.
Keeping people away from home makes the spread of disease worse. When folks are out there in an unknown area, possibly without health coverage, having to interact with the public in ways that far exceed what would be required if they were at home and could utilize the services that they are familiar with, this cannot possibly be an improvement.
Isolating people does ease the spreading of communicable diseases. But banning travel per se is almost completely useless, and can actually make things worse. At best, it reduces the number of cases by the number of people who would have gotten sick while on the plane, and only if those folks wouldn't have otherwise gotten sick.
What does help is a strict post-travel quarantine policy — requiring everyone, whether a tourist or a local returning home, to be quarantined for two weeks *after* they travel, to ensure that anything they picked up (whether on the ground or in the air) doesn't spread any further.
This conversation has convinced me of a few things:
First, that there are three general opinions on the issue of travel bans:
A: Trump's dumb because travel bans don't work, and they're bad if they prevent people from coming home
B: Trump's dumb because he didn't impose a travel ban earlier and universally, and was stupid for not blocking American citizens from coming back as well
C: Sure it didn't do much for this long-incubation-period sometimes-asymptomatic virus, but it was probably worth a shot given
Group A is wrong, both because they're mixing politics and science and because travel bans do kind of work at preventing adding more infected people than are already here; they just aren't the best way to do that, and cause disproportionate harm compared with the benefit.
Group B is wrong, both because they're mixing politics and science and because what they're proposing would have caused vastly more harm than it prevented.
we knew at the time was that the virus had a long incubation period
So in January we were still not sure about whether sustained transmission was possible, but we had firm numbers on the incubation period?
Yes. The travel ban was announced on January 31. Here's a journal article from four days prior [jwatch.org] saying that the incubation period can be up to two weeks, based on information announced by China on the day before that (January 26).
As for doubts about whether sustained transmission was possible, that might have been true at the beginning of January, but not by January 31. After all, China quarantined the entire city of Wuhan beginning on January 23, a full eight days before Trump announced the travel ban.
had the February 2 order implemented a mandatory quarantine on anyone coming back from overseas regardless of country, rather than being a stupid ban on travel from only a specific location
All President Trump had to do was listen to people who disagreed with them, think about what they were saying, acknowledge that they had a valid point, and add a quarantine-on-entry policy, and we would have avoided the overwhelming majority of coronavirus cases and deaths.
had the February 2 order implemented a mandatory quarantine on anyone coming back from overseas regardless of country, rather than being a stupid ban on travel from only a specific location
All President Trump had to do was listen to people who disagreed with them, think about what they were saying, acknowledge that they had a valid point, and add a quarantine-on-entry policy, and we would have avoided the overwhelming majority of coronavirus cases and deaths.
Yeah, because every expert at the time was firmly against travel bans and all in on universal quarantines, and the president has a clear legal right to do that. That explains why all of the non-Trump heads of state did that at the time./s
The number of people who did the wrong thing is not an indication that it wasn't the wrong thing. Just look at what medical experts were saying about travel bans at the time, and you'll see that I'm right about this.
Had we moved sooner, they might also have moved sooner, and staved off the virus's spread to Europe, where it mutated into the even more deadly version that screwed up NYC so badly.
Which is why a time-bounded travel shutdown would have been great.
Travel bans are ludicrously stupid, except the variations I like, which are great.
I never said they were ludicrously stupid. I said that they are "almost completely useless". I stand by that statement. They are not at all effective at the claimed goal of keeping a disease out of your country, because they are always — always — too late to achieve that.
The number of people who did the wrong thing is not an indication that it wasn't the wrong thing.
Quite true. On the other hand it is an indication that their incorrect action was understandable. If 99 out of 100 of people get a question wrong, then getting the question wrong does not mean that you're at the bottom of the class.
Travel bans are bad because they're the equivalent of using nuclear weapons to solve Florida's mosquito problem.
The number of people who did the wrong thing is not an indication that it wasn't the wrong thing.
Quite true. On the other hand it is an indication that their incorrect action was understandable. If 99 out of 100 of people get a question wrong, then getting the question wrong does not mean that you're at the bottom of the class.
True. On the flip side, when everybody else copies off the kid who get it wrong... well, yeah, everybody was still pretty dumb.:-D
Travel bans are bad because they're the equivalent of using nuclear weapons to solve Florida's mosquito problem.
I never said they were ludicrously stupid.
I'm a fan of using hyperbole, but you don't get to say that someone is "worse than Hitler" and then get mad when people think that you don't like him.
I think you're misunderstanding the point of that analogy. The point wasn't to say "this is literally as bad as using a nuclear weapon". The point was to say that it is a ridiculously heavy-handed solution to the problem that could be much better solved with a much less extreme solution (and, secondarily, that any improvement would be, at best, very temporary). If you would
People crossing the border illegally will not even try to quarantine, and will actively avoid contact tracing. This will lead to outbreaks popping up no matter how well most people handle things.
Sadly, that may be true, but we have only our backwards immigration policies to blame for that. This is a problem that's relatively easy to fix.
But if you're not willing to fix that, you can still largely avoid the problem by using a private company to administer the program, and passing laws prohibiting that company from asking for the citizenship status of anyone involved or sharing any information with law enforcement under any circumstances unless the company itself is being sued for fraud. If necessa
Sadly, that may be true, but we have only our backwards immigration policies to blame for that.
It's not so much the policies, it's the selective enforcement. If we have heavily restricted immigration and strong, uniform enforcement, that would probably lead to relatively few illegal immigrants, even if you disagree with the policy. Same with a lax policy matched with cops not harassing people who are within the law. But the way things are, the lax enforcement lets them in, and then the restrictive laws ke
I thought you meant that you thought the government would evacuate people as a way of catching illegal immigrants. I hope you can understand why my reaction was absolute bafflement.:-D
Wow. If you think some of the problem was on my end could you quote the part that threw you off?
It was definitely a mix. Specifically this sentence threw me:
And of course this isn't temporary, because people will mess up quarantine, an emergency or a natural disaster will occur, drugs and other contraband will still get smuggled, and the whole thing will start over again.
Which I interpreted to mean that they would do a future evacuation because of either A. someone screwing up the quarantine, B. some other emergency or natural disaster necessitating an evacuation, or C. to stop drugs and contraband, whereas you meant that other disasters and/or people smuggling drugs/contraband will mess up the quarantine.
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
- Henry Spencer, University of Toronto Unix hack
More TDS (Score:-1, Troll)
More lies from the deranged. Trump was the one who wanted to ban travel from China early on, it was the dems who screamed "Racist! You can't do that!" with Pelosi and crew urging people to go down to Chinatown and shop and mingle in the crowds instead.
Trump brought up his doctor's recommendation of zinc and HCQ. Immediately the anti-science media, dems, and pharma-shills jump out and start shrieking that it's fake and harmful, with none of them taking a step back to look into it first, or acknowledging that
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
More lies from the deranged. Trump was the one who wanted to ban travel from China early on, it was the dems who screamed "Racist! You can't do that!" with Pelosi and crew urging people to go down to Chinatown and shop and mingle in the crowds instead.
And still, to this day, the best scientific evidence suggests that travel bans are mostly useless.
Trump brought up his doctor's recommendation of zinc and HCQ. Immediately the anti-science media, dems, and pharma-shills jump out and start shrieking that it's fake and harmful, with none of them taking a step back to look into it first, or acknowledging that it's a cheap, safe, proven combo that's been used for a long time.
It is absolutely not proven. Every study suggesting that it is effective has been thoroughly debunked. And every study suggesting it is safe has been at such a low dose that it has no statistically significant effect.
Twitter, Facebook, and the media was immediately censoring and attacking anyone who claimed that this came from the Wuhan lab instead of the claimed "wet market". Any evidence put forth was deleted and the author's smeared.
What "evidence"? You mean a bunch of conspiracy theory drivel spewing from people with a long history of spewing conspiracy theory drivel? If there were any evidence that were even *slightly* c
Re: (Score:0)
>And still, to this day, the best scientific evidence suggests that travel bans are mostly useless.
Yeah, retard. That's just what fucking science says. Science says that isolating people as much as possible doesn't ease spreading communicable disease. You know you're a fucking moron, right?
Re:More TDS (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, here's why travel bans don't work:
Isolating people does ease the spreading of communicable diseases. But banning travel per se is almost completely useless, and can actually make things worse. At best, it reduces the number of cases by the number of people who would have gotten sick while on the plane, and only if those folks wouldn't have otherwise gotten sick.
What does help is a strict post-travel quarantine policy — requiring everyone, whether a tourist or a local returning home, to be quarantined for two weeks *after* they travel, to ensure that anything they picked up (whether on the ground or in the air) doesn't spread any further.
Re: (Score:2)
This conversation has convinced me of a few things:
First, that there are three general opinions on the issue of travel bans:
A: Trump's dumb because travel bans don't work, and they're bad if they prevent people from coming home
B: Trump's dumb because he didn't impose a travel ban earlier and universally, and was stupid for not blocking American citizens from coming back as well
C: Sure it didn't do much for this long-incubation-period sometimes-asymptomatic virus, but it was probably worth a shot given
Re: (Score:2)
And all of those three opinions are wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
So in January we were still not sure about whether sustained transmission was possible, but we had firm numbers on the incubation period?
Oh, wow. For a moment I thought you were being serious.
I agree for the most part. And you know what would help accomplish those things or prep them? A week or two of extra time.
Re: (Score:2)
So in January we were still not sure about whether sustained transmission was possible, but we had firm numbers on the incubation period?
Yes. The travel ban was announced on January 31. Here's a journal article from four days prior [jwatch.org] saying that the incubation period can be up to two weeks, based on information announced by China on the day before that (January 26).
As for doubts about whether sustained transmission was possible, that might have been true at the beginning of January, but not by January 31. After all, China quarantined the entire city of Wuhan beginning on January 23, a full eight days before Trump announced the travel ban.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, because every expert at the time was firm
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, because every expert at the time was firmly against travel bans and all in on universal quarantines, and the president has a clear legal right to do that. That explains why all of the non-Trump heads of state did that at the time. /s
The number of people who did the wrong thing is not an indication that it wasn't the wrong thing. Just look at what medical experts were saying about travel bans at the time, and you'll see that I'm right about this.
Travel bans are ludicrously stupid, except the variations I like, which are great.
I never said they were ludicrously stupid. I said that they are "almost completely useless". I stand by that statement. They are not at all effective at the claimed goal of keeping a disease out of your country, because they are always — always — too late to achieve that.
A limite
Re: (Score:2)
Quite true. On the other hand it is an indication that their incorrect action was understandable. If 99 out of 100 of people get a question wrong, then getting the question wrong does not mean that you're at the bottom of the class.
I'm a fan of using hyperb
Re: (Score:2)
Quite true. On the other hand it is an indication that their incorrect action was understandable. If 99 out of 100 of people get a question wrong, then getting the question wrong does not mean that you're at the bottom of the class.
True. On the flip side, when everybody else copies off the kid who get it wrong... well, yeah, everybody was still pretty dumb. :-D
I'm a fan of using hyperbole, but you don't get to say that someone is "worse than Hitler" and then get mad when people think that you don't like him.
I think you're misunderstanding the point of that analogy. The point wasn't to say "this is literally as bad as using a nuclear weapon". The point was to say that it is a ridiculously heavy-handed solution to the problem that could be much better solved with a much less extreme solution (and, secondarily, that any improvement would be, at best, very temporary). If you would
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine, but you don't get to go over-the-top and then expect people to understand exactly what your real feelings are.
Re: (Score:2)
People crossing the border illegally will not even try to quarantine, and will actively avoid contact tracing. This will lead to outbreaks popping up no matter how well most people handle things.
Sadly, that may be true, but we have only our backwards immigration policies to blame for that. This is a problem that's relatively easy to fix.
But if you're not willing to fix that, you can still largely avoid the problem by using a private company to administer the program, and passing laws prohibiting that company from asking for the citizenship status of anyone involved or sharing any information with law enforcement under any circumstances unless the company itself is being sued for fraud. If necessa
Re: (Score:2)
It's not so much the policies, it's the selective enforcement. If we have heavily restricted immigration and strong, uniform enforcement, that would probably lead to relatively few illegal immigrants, even if you disagree with the policy. Same with a lax policy matched with cops not harassing people who are within the law. But the way things are, the lax enforcement lets them in, and then the restrictive laws ke
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. If you think some of the problem was on my end could you quote the part that threw you off?
It was definitely a mix. Specifically this sentence threw me:
And of course this isn't temporary, because people will mess up quarantine, an emergency or a natural disaster will occur, drugs and other contraband will still get smuggled, and the whole thing will start over again.
Which I interpreted to mean that they would do a future evacuation because of either A. someone screwing up the quarantine, B. some other emergency or natural disaster necessitating an evacuation, or C. to stop drugs and contraband, whereas you meant that other disasters and/or people smuggling drugs/contraband will mess up the quarantine.