3,320 karma · joined October 18, 2016
No, not really. With trillions of dollars and 2 years there was absolutely plenty of time and resources to train more people and find new COVID-specific spaces. Nurses and PAs can be done in as little as two years with the current system, and people can be trained to handle just COVID patients much faster.
The problems are easily tractable, it's just poor leadership.
All these mandates and lockdowns are just performance art to distract from their abject failures.
The biggest story of COVID that no one is talking about is the absolute failure at all levels (political, medical establishment, etc) to increase hospital capacity.
We are in year 2 of a global pandemic and, at least where I am, there has been a reduction in ICU staff, beds and hospital capacity more generally. Vaccine mandates taking qualified healthcare workers out of the workforce is one of the biggest own-goals I've seen.
Why haven't we increased hospital capacity to deal with a highly transmissible disease we knew was never going away? Lockdowns, mandates, personal freedom restrictions are all just cover for not handling the basic blocking and tackling of fortifying our medical systems. All that money and none of it increased the ability to care for COVID patients. What a shame.
And anyways, they put the WashPo right of NYT? That hasn't been true since ol Jeff B took over.
- As you say, the plot is terrible. Kerouac had a more coherent narrative. What story there was strained believability even for pulp sci fi.
- The characters are utterly devoid of humanity. I don't even know who's who half the time, and there is no continuity throughout the series.
- There are no clever "ah ha" moments where the author has thought of something "profound" in relation to the scenario they've crafted. It's tropes and painful lurches from one thing to another.
I don't get it. I finished it and I couldn't believe all the people telling me how great it was.
From my recollection it was Barack Obama who continued the conflict in Afghanistan and was responsible for scores of extra-judicial assassinations throughout the world.
And while many people died in the Afghanistan conflict and it was a terrible tragedy, the silver lining was that many women gained new liberties. Education wasn't just for men, for awhile. Of course Joe Biden put a stop to that, didn't he?
Colin Powell did plenty of bad things, but the same folks crucifying him probably have a copy of "Dreams from my Father" in their library and have absolved the equally complicit left-leaning politicians of any crimes.
Every single national politician is a self-interested, amoral, shit-bag. Lionizing one side while pillorying the other is not helpful. All politicians should have less power, less influence and less money, across the board. Only then will things get better.
I find this notion of compounding to be much more useful in life than just in terms of finance and interest. Starting early, or doing something more, yields a compound benefit down the road. You get better at a thing faster, which compounds and lets you get better still. It's how expertise is realized and why there will never be equal outcomes between different people with different levels of motivation and persistence.
"Recent events suggest their [Redditors] suspicion that the decks are stacked against them is justified – which is a terrible look for capitalism."
Insiders profiting from private knowledge is hardly unique to capitalism. I think the author should check out China over the last 20 years to see truly stunning examples of insider profiteering. Feels more like the author wants to fill out their 2021 finance article bingo card than make a real connection here.
"[Insiders] also increased their buying and selling in the gaps between audit reports being produced for company boards and being made publicly available, and exploited rules governing scheduled trading schedules for profit."
I mean - insiders are required to schedule their trading activities ahead of time. There are whole groups of people who's trading strategies revolve around reading those disclosures and make the same trades.
And of course a little bit of the 2021 media's favorite tactic: "guilty until proven innocent"
"And while they said the trades were within the central bank’s rules, both are being scrutinized further. “We’re looking carefully at the trading that was done to make sure that it’s in compliance with our rules and with the law,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking Committee."
So wait, no concrete evidence their trades were against the rules, but Bloomberg will publish this hit piece anyways.
"And the growing prevalence of the fastest-growing companies staying off public markets and funding their expansion instead with private capital keeps them out of the portfolios of retail buyers, further stoking suspicion that the covenant between capitalism and society is asymmetrical and biased against individual investors."
What....? Loads of IPOs this year. And for those that are still private, or eschewing the public markets for whatever reason: no private company has an obligation to give Joe Retail Investor the ability to buy and sell shares of the entity.
Bloomberg has really become a joke.
The surgical mask effect is certainly interesting, but they couldn't de-correlate the effect from increased social distancing in the intervention arm. Certainly that seems just as likely to make a difference if not more so eh?
So I'm left where I started: Nothing of consequence about cloth masks, and a mild un-corroborated effect from surgical masks in a country that's about as different from the US as I could imagine.
I wouldn't base public policy on that study, that's for sure. I have no problem if people want to wear masks, go for it. But mandates? I have a higher bar than you to infringe on personal freedoms I guess.
But then they say this:
"while cloth masks clearly reduce symptoms, we cannot reject that they have zero or only a small impact on symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections"
Not exactly a slam dunk.
Look at the most recent issue of vaccine boosters. The FDA panel of experts (whom we're supposed to trust now, right?) said boosters are not necessary. CDC comes in and says the FDA is wrong, boosters are good jk lol. What a joke.
Can you point me to a well done study on cloth masks and their efficacy? 19 months in and I have yet to see one. But people "feel" that masks must work, so CDC guidance says wear them. Surely at this point we should have so much compelling data about masks if they are effective...
"But what about the children?!?!" is the next common refrain. What about them? Look at the numbers. COVID is not a relevant concern for pediatric public health policy.
https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true
COVID deaths account for less than 1% of deaths in children under 15. I think the other 99% of things killing our kids is a bigger concern, don't you?
The same people who are rabidly pro-vaccine are generally rabidly pro-choice when it comes to abortion. How does that reconcile? How come the government can sometimes tell you what to do with your body but not others?
And the same people who are in favor of the vaccine mandates are almost universally supporters of BLM and social justice. And yet... the majority of the vaccine hesitant are non-white. That doesn't square either.
The whole thing is absolutely fucking outrageous. I hate what the media has done to the United States. And I hate all the moral self-righteousness I see on display here and everywhere else.
I don't think one side has a monopoly on losing trust, behaving badly, or making anti-science decisions.
Closing schools last year due to COVID was as bad of a policy as putting COVID patients in nursing homes (looking at you MN and NY). We knew by September of last year that kids were less impacted by COVID (they spread it less, they get less ill etc). We learned from Europe that it wasn't killing teachers at an increased rate either (a fear-based argument I heard ad nauseum in my very blue state).
There was no good science-based argument to close schools last year in the US, especially when restaurants and hair salons were reopened. But political polarization - exacerbated by the media - ensured we did the worst possible thing for our children. I am continually disgusted with every person I encounter who promoted (and in many cases still promote) remote learning.
Rich parents could afford professional tutors and create pods and go to other great lengths to ensure their kids got some education. Meanwhile the poor parents were going to work in-person and leaving their kids to fend for themselves (many of whom, at least where I live, turned to committing crimes)
The most disgusting part is the people most in favor of closing schools were rich, left-leaning white collar workers. Nevermind that the very people they purportedly want to help with their policies were the most harmed. As long as you say the right words, who cares about outcomes yeah?
Some kids are terrified of loud noises. Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, whatever, will immediately set off tears and wailing. Even if they're four houses away. Other kids shrug it off like it's nothing.
Same with haircuts. My first kid handled the haircuts just fine at 2 years old. No big deal, hey I get to watch videos. Second kid was inconsolable the first four times we went - just had to get used to it.
Yeah... have some kids and then we'll see how confident you are. Young kids especially are irrational balls of emotion. Sometimes there is no winning move, but the hair needs to be cut.
My point is that these companies are moving focus away from the products that got them to where they are, to a set of vague handwavy concepts that are completely unquantifiable. And, in my experience anyways, this usually comes at a cost to the existing products.