Are We a Nation of Liars?

[mcq72]

Now were these “sick” people Cuomo was forcing nursing homes to take? No. They had to be cleared in a two-step process: they had to be certified “medically stable” and this had to be confirmed by individual phone calls.

well quickly, for you have provided much info, why did he have to change the policy ? I mean it seems pretty good the way you present it so why change anything?

 

[mcq72]

Doesn’t it bother you just a little, tiny bit that the US had MORE new cases yesterday than Japan has had total–from the beginning of the pandemic? Don’t you wonder why that is?

yes fascinating studies , like Taiwan. They indeed seem to have done much better. I did however want to research how they certify a Covid death. I know they are not part of WHO , whom I heard has some say on this. I mean do all nations determine a covid death the same way? I would think the US for political reasons would want to "trump’ them up, while Taiwan down, also for political reasons. I also see that Taiwan tests a lot less (1/100th of what we do). So of course they would have less cases , but obviously they would be less still. Agree fascinating study of what Taiwn did. ( I will say when Trump did his ban, a very basic beginning of a good plan overall, as Taiwan did even more, he got harshly criticized from the left).

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Well, if the last 48 hours here on CAF are any indication, yes we are most definitely a nation of liars.

Everybody calling for peace, but slinging sarcasm and hate.

The masks are off and the claws are out.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

well quickly, for you have provided much info, why did he have to change the policy ? I mean it seems pretty good the way you present it so why change anything?

Because of the politics and the perception.

 

[vz71]

The masks are off and the claws are out.

Gotta hurry to get those last minute digs in.
After all, once the forum closes, we lose that last opportunity to hurt some of these people.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

But I don’t want to hurt anyone

Difference of opinion one thing, but the mockery and hate is just ugly nasty

 

[Erikaspirit16]

yes fascinating studies , like Taiwan

I won’t respond to your comments, which are out of the Trump playbook (assume nations doing better are manipulating statistics or counting different ways, assume political motives for everything, testing more = more cases…) However, to think that 3 cases/100,000 population in Taiwan is somehow due to “undercounting” is equivalent to saying that Trump won Pennsylvania unanimously. Not every country tries to manipulate statistics for its political benefit–in fact, I can only think of two countries that do. One is China; I suspect you live in the other.

But you don’t have to wonder what Taiwan did; there are all sorts of videos:

--what happens when two students returned to
Taiwan; it also has Taiwanese officials explain what they did.

How Vietnam did it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TM-yilncgI And of course if you haven’t watched the “Hand Washing Dance” video from Vietnam, you haven’t lived. This is one of probably hundreds of versions. Thank you Vietnam! If you watch the video, notice that Vietnam (and other countries!!!) made it “cool” to wash hands, social distance, wear masks, etc. No political nonsense. It’s all about being a team to fight the virus.

There are LOTS of videos about Taiwan, Vietnam, .S Korea, etc. Again, it’s not a mystery!

 

[Erikaspirit16]

I sent the following to a group of friends this morning, and I think it’s worth sharing:

Covid…as the numbers spin totally out of control, it’s getting harder to comprehend. I thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to look at the “incidence rate” – how many confirmed cases per 100,000 population. I just picked places at random and put them in groups by 1,000. (In my e-mail to friends I could color code it by continent, but you’ll have to manage with black and white).)

1.4 Vietnam
3 Taiwan
6 Thailand
32 S. Australia
43 New Zealand
57 New South Wales (Australia) --and they had a large infected cruise ship that increased cases
74 S. Korea
92 Hong Kong
115 Hubei province, China (Wuhan!)
128 Japan
164 Kenya
168 Ghan
307 Victoria (Australia)
493 Finland
701 Norway
707 Br. Columbia
804 Vermont
890 Ontario
993 Maine
996 Singapore

1,239 Iran
1,373 S. Africa
1,410 Germany
1,507 Ireland
1,554 Alberta
1,573 Denmark
1,687 Russia
1,776 Quebec

2,330 Washington (state)
2,560 UK
2,726 Sweden
2,833 Italy

3,152 Brazil
3,181 Netherlands
3,237 Argentina
3,278 Washington DC
3,405 France
3,454 California
3,557 Maryland
3,589 Spain
3,628 New York
3,726 Massachusetts
3,766 N. Carolina
3,985 Israel

4,015 Switzerland
4,064 Ohio
4,261 Michigan
4,525 Colorado
4,558 Texas
4,747 Georgia
4,926 Florida

5,005 Arizona
5,149 Belgium (worst major country in Europe)
5,459 Nevada
5,504 Alabama
5,663 Arkansas
5,669 Indiana
5,866 Tennessee
5,882 Kansas

6,153 Minnesota
6,215 Illinois
6,221 Wyoming
6,351 Montana
6,719 Utah

7,182 Nebraska
7,575 Wisconsin
7,7454 Iowa

9,669 S. Dakota

10,917 N. Dakota

 

[vz71]

But I don’t want to hurt anyone

There are fewer and fewer that I believe share that sentiment.

Difference of opinion one thing, but the mockery and hate is just ugly nasty

Agreed.
I wish the moderators would step up more during these last remaining days.

 

[mcq72]

I won’t respond to your comments, which are out of the Trump playbook (assume nations doing better are manipulating statistics or counting different ways, assume political motives

sorry i was not being sarcastic when I said fascinating…i meant it in a good way…i really sincerely asked a legitimate question as to how countries count covid deaths. It for sure won’t change a good or bad handling of it all. By any counting, Taiwan has done marvelously, and we are getting hammered. And not sure it is wrong to think that anything a government does has political ramifications also. You don’t think Taiwan has a political adversary in China, a competitor so to speak ? Has Taiwan done better than China in this fight? In the end just a question , this death criteria counting.

Do any of the videos you gave answer that question ? the Vietnam one was cute…actually reminded me of perhaps better days when the US was unified, in our cold war fight, and the drills schools did in case of any nuke attack , crawling under desks drills etc.

I am not against applying the verse, “The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and suffer the consequences.” Proverbs 22:3

it was a reminiscent pleasure of my younger days to see all the stores closed on Sunday earlier this year, and Walmart finally closed on Thanksgiving day!!!. We shouldn’t go and be spitting into the wind. The proud are humbled and the abased lifted. Yet Lord have mercy on us.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

sorry i was not being sarcastic when I said fascinating…i meant it in a good way…i really sincerely asked a legitimate question as to how countries count covid deaths.

Fair enough. I will let you check this out yourself, but yes, not only countries, but states count in slightly different ways, and many states have changed their method of counting in the middle of all this, which is understandable but confusing if you don’t understand what they’re doing.

For example if you look at Wyoming, they have two categories: “confirmed deaths” and “probable deaths.” Some states weren’t counting nursing home deaths (!) early on. And I linked to an article earlier that explained the various steps that most states take before a Covid death is recorded as official–the process takes at least several days. And to complicate it more, some states take holidays off (Wyoming…) and don’t report anything, which means the day after the holiday has a much higher number. And most states don’t report as much on Sunday as they do other days. You can go on and on. But whenever a state changed it’s methods (the UK did the same thing) it has revised its earlier numbers–either by adjusting the daily numbers in the past, or just dumping the new numbers (always more, not less) in the new cases for that day. So I think on the whole, the numbers are as accurate as possible.

All the experts agree that reported numbers undercount Covid deaths. Early on (and even now) there weren’t enough tests, so if someone died and had all the symptoms of Covid but were never tested, some states would count it, some wouldn’t. And some changed their minds and changed methods after a few months.

And yes, if someone had Covid and was hit by a truck, obviously that death shouldn’t be counted as Covid. But if they died of pneumonia brought on by Covid, yes, they should be counted.

And of course they are now finding there are all sorts of physical / neurological problems that people who have “recovered” have months afterwards. And of course no one knows if those problems will go away or not over time. So it’s not just a matter of death vs. no death. Mayo Clinic:

COVID-19: Long-term effects - Mayo Clinic

The point is that yes, it’s complicated, but given the magnitude of the numbers, it doesn’t really matter if the numbers are off 1% or something. Has the US had 14,944,968 cases as Johns Hopkins says tonight, or is it 14,862,456? Or some other number? Does it matter? If it were a case of 50 cases vs. 20 cases, that would be a big deal. But it’s not. For example, to my knowledge no one has challenged the Taiwan numbers. People did challenge the Vietnam numbers, but US doctors working for WHO in Hanoi confirmed that their statistics were accurate.

Now leaked internal documents from Wuhan, show China’s earlier cases and deaths were greatly under-reported. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html
For political reasons presumably. The question now is was the suppression of the “real” numbers done by local officials or at the top?

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Other countries have done hand washing videos as well–Here’s S. Korea:

Or Thailand:

They did all these early on–March. They certainly weren’t mandated or produced by the gov. or health departments–they just took off and went viral. But again, the point is that taking all the precautions was made to look “cool” and necessary. Unity. Everyone on the same page. Discipline! And of course those countries are back to their normal lives, and the US is bracing for even worse numbers.