[ExI] The USA is number one!

Mon Apr 13 14:20:41 UTC 2020

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2020 4:29 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] The USA is number one!

On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 6:23 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

>>… Actually, to China, public relations is more important than truth.

>…If that is what's happening in this case and happening to a factor of 20 (much less to a factor of 50 as Spike claims) then, as I've said before, that fact will become very obvious even to a blind man in a fog bank the minute China reopens its economy and tries to get back to business as usual. And we both know that's not going to happen. Reformulating facts to fit theories rather than reformulating theories to fit the facts is the very reason the US's response to the virus was so dismally poor. And rot starts at the head so the theory that Trump is doing a good job and the US's response was more effective than China's simply isn't scientifically viable.  And no, that doesn't mean I'm a communist, it means I respect the scientific method more than any political idiot-ology. … John K Clark

How would it be obvious if the Chinese understated their numbers by a factor of 50?  And why is the comparison between a communist dictator and a US president relevant?  A communist dictator can do anything he wants.  POTUS has nowhere near the power (which is a good thing.)  The real power of POTUS has been declining for the first time in decades (another good thing) because of rigorous scrutiny and increased avenues to leak information.)  

China doesn’t have freedom of speech or free press.  A Chinese citizen can face execution for something they posted on Twitter.  Can you imagine being hauled off to prison and sitting there while the authorities review everything you have posted on ExI?  It isn’t that way here, because we have first amendment rights and second amendment protections of first amendment rights.  I love America.  What a great country!  It’s a shining beacon on the hill, beckoning the world to greater personal freedom.  Set your people free, Mr. Xi.  Let them speak their minds and hearts.  Make it the law of the land.  We will sell them the guns to make sure you never change your totalitarian mind.

Back to question 1: imagine China understated its cases by a factor of 50 and they have not 83k but rather 4mega cases.  The fatality rate is about 1 percent, so about 40k deaths in a tightly-controlled country of 1.4 billion.  That wouldn’t show up in the noise out of a sound-proof room. 

>…For the last 3 days the number of new COVID-19 deaths in the US has declined, from 33,752 to 27,421

I expected the total number of deaths to decline once we realize they were intentionally overcounted:

: DR. DEBORAH BIRX: So, I think in this country we've taken a very liberal approach to mortality. And I think the reporting here has been pretty straightforward over the last five to six weeks. Prior to that when there wasn't testing in January and February that's a very different situation and unknown.

There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem some countries are recording as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now we are still recording it and we will I mean the great thing about having forms that come in and a form that has the ability to market as COVID-19 infection the intent is right now that those if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.

Dying with Covid-19 is counted as dying of Covid-19 in the US, because that allows the hospital to tap into a deeper insurance pool.  This makes perfect sense to do this, it doesn’t requires any conspiracy, it isn’t political, it is perfectly understandable economic pressure.  Hospitals are under enormous economic pressure as their customer load is way down: elective surgery people are deciding they really don’t need a butt-lift all that badly.  Hospitals are suffering from low customer load.

spike

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