As well as just plain stupid.
I get the sense you took offense at the suggestion that doctors and nurses were going to be akin to front-line soldiers in a battle against the coronavirus. People use war analogies for too many things. But if coronavirus goes the way it looks like itâs going to go, doctors and nurses are going to be out there literally giving their lives to protect other people. And after weâre going to treat them probably about the same way we treat veterans: a lot of superficial respect and not a lot of actual care.
Itâs funny because when I heard âinflection pointâ I was thinking of the actual inflection point of the curve because of course spread of disease through a population isnât exponential, itâs some kind of S-shaped function. And that made me think they were saying half the population was already infectedâŚ
World Heath Organization myth-busting page:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters
Iâm sorry, could you rephrase that in the form of not being a Malthusian ass?
Still business as usual at the Mail then.
That would be this Logistic function - Wikipedia and students are often introduced to it in the context of population growth meeting the limits of an environment. I donât know if COVID would follow the model or if it would be true exponential growth until the ceiling (7-some billion) was hit.
The concept we may be searching for is this: Tipping point (sociology) - Wikipedia It came out of sociology, but may apply in other disciplines. Great wiki entry, I recommend reading the whole thing.
There was a different meeting insteadâŚ
Lamar Alexander: putting the âassâ in Tennassee since 1940. 
Itâs probably terrible of me, but my first thought reading that was âYup, heâs about to come down with Covid-19 in about a week from now. Good riddance.â
Basically we need to spend the next 12-18 months on lockdown until we have a serviceable vaccine available at scale. Or we need to be prepared to accept the deaths of tens of millions in order to carry on with business as usual. What are we going to choose to do?
Thread:
If I may ask questions here:
- Does anyone have an idea (thatâs not a half-assed guess
) of how many people in the US are ultimately going to be infected with COVID-19? - Once one is infected and makes it out the other side alive, do they have any sort of immunity against it in the future, or can they come down with it again?
ETA: question 2 is answered in Ars Technicaâs coronavirus FAQ. tl;dr - Theyâre not sure.
Of course Trump is cutting funding to the CDC
Youâd be surprised how many do not. Especially after taking into account their high expenses, such as required malpractice insurance and constant ongoing education.
For example, I know several pediatricians who make less than high level executive assistants (with little or no college) and even non-profit administrators.
Right⌠part of my point, actually. Especially not GPs. But the assumption is that they are all raking it in, driving high end cars, and thatâs the only reason that some glorify doctors.
So they get it wrong on multiple levels!
Unsurprising, of course. Some people, even when faced with reality and facts, will believe the spectacle over reality⌠itâs part of how we got here, unfortunately.
That, and theyâve got good TV-PR like cops. But when the local GP fails to live up McFancyPants MD, Certified Diagnostic Genius and tells them boring things like âyou have high blood pressureâ, they donât like it and express their personal disappointment and displeasure.
In other words, people respect the idea of doctors a lot more than they do actual doctors themselves.
