Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
And its resulted in such devestaiting material as revelation that Joe Biden texted Hunter saying "I miss you, I love you".
50:50 chance he did it, or 50:50 chance the guy was a Russian spy?
I don't think Rudy is entirely clear in his own head about that. The degeneration of Giuliani (from an admittedly lowish start) is one of the minor notes in the Trump symphony.
“My guess is that George Soros is behind this counter-offensive… because he wants to create a socialist country,”
Has George Soros ever shown any particular signs of socialism...
Head of the Jewish capitalist, cultural marxist, commie cabal!
This is Putinist line as perfected by Orban, and echoed by Trumpsky.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
It depends on who catches it, and how many people have it any point in time: if it's mostly people under the age of 65, and hospitals are not overloaded, then it probably is 0.25%.
On the other hand, if it's a representative sample of the population, and there are (say) one in 30 people infected at any one time (i.e. two and bit million), then you might well end up with IFRs north of 2%.
But here's the thing:
These things are all theoretical anyway, because countries shut down just as hard when there are no restrictions as when there are many.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
Yes the economy is going to be obliterated from this.
Anecdotal evidence, Bury now has a huge number of empty units in both the large shopping centres and the big DW gym has closed down too. Any business that relies on people coming through their doors that isn't essential is going to go bust in the next 6 months.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
It depends on who catches it, and how many people have it any point in time: if it's mostly people under the age of 65, and hospitals are not overloaded, then it probably is 0.25%.
On the other hand, if it's a representative sample of the population, and there are (say) one in 30 people infected at any one time (i.e. two and bit million), then you might well end up with IFRs north of 2%.
But here's the thing:
These things are all theoretical anyway, because countries shut down just as hard when there are no restrictions as when there are many.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
Yes the economy is going to be obliterated from this.
Anecdotal evidence, Bury now has a huge number of empty units in both the large shopping centres and the big DW gym has closed down too. Any business that relies on people coming through their doors that isn't essential is going to go bust in the next 6 months.
The paper reports that even in locations with a high mortality rate - IFR was 0.57%
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
Very sorry to hear this. Try Samaritans initially if you feel the need to talk - 116 123. Definitely talk to your GP next week about this - they might be able to reassure you as to the seriousness of this.
If it gets worse over weekend and you feel you might even remotely act on the impulses then 999.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
Number of US states where you can NOT gamble in a local casino (commercial or tribal) is quite limited. Interesting factoid: only two states where virtually all gambling is still illegal are Utah and . . . wait for it . . . Hawaii.
Desire of states to get some of the gaming revenue, business, etc once monopolized by Nevada is the chief impetus for massive expansion of legal gambling across US.
Interest that this development has NOT seriously taken away from LV's growth. Certainly NOT the way COVID has is still is doing.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Put yourself in the position of someone who’s fighting cancer or other terrible disease and it may help you to realize that whatever else life is precious and shouldn’t be given up without a fight.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
I think this is a reasonable discussion to have, but I also think you're underestimating the societal impact of say 1% fatality in the population. We can assume that at least that many go through hospital (probably 5 times as many) and so we're looking at patients piled up on trolleys throughout hospitals and outside in makeshift tents, makeshift morgues, and not enough time or space to bury the dead. It would be more deaths than WW2, in a much shorter space of time.
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Put yourself in the position of someone who’s fighting cancer or other terrible disease and it may help you to realize that whatever else life is precious and shouldn’t be given up without a fight.
Thankyou, And I accept that real ill health for me would be a whole new level of FUCK. Good luck to you.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
Sorry to hear that, but gold star for noticing a problem.
You're presence here is as much a pixelated approximation as any of us, but you strike me as someone who needs new and exciting in their life. In which case, I can imagine the status quo being hellish. (Me, I'm remarkably cool with it, which I why I don't travel the world looking for newts to paint.)
You may need stories on your doorstep, what with how none of us can go anywhere. It's glib to say "go and find a night shelter to help at", but I bet you'll find stories there.
(Of course, I'm a random on the internet. You have more sense than to take advice from me.)
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Having the odd thought of chucking it all is quite common, though usually very sporadic.
One way to cope, is by considering the impact of your sudden, self-inflicted demise upon those who love and care about you. Including (in a very socially distanced way) many of your fellow PBers.
Also consider the glee of you enemies at hearing the "sad" news!
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Phone the Samaritans now - there are people out there waiting to help people in your situation.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Phone the Samaritans now - there are people out there waiting to help people in your situation.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Phone the Samaritans now - there are people out there waiting to help people in your situation.
Thankyou everyone, I'm going to call a good friend. I'm not slinging a noose around my neck as we speak - these urges are sporadic and VERY brief - but I have never had them before. So they are properly scary
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
Bear in mind that a 1% fatality rate (when full healthcare is available) still points to more deaths in the UK than the entire second world war.
Also bear in mind that the economic damage is largely attached to the healthcare damage rather than the instinctive intuitive “sacrifice one for the other” response we tend to come up with without analysis (as rcs1000 has repeatedly pointed out: the human instinct to avoid dying shreds economies without government intervention and studies of previous pandemics showed that states and cities that applied restrictions did better overall and long-term - born out by the fact that countries that have done better in avoiding lives lost have largely (with a small handful of exceptions) done better economically as well, as per the graph shown here last night.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Sorry to hear that. Intrusive thoughts can be debilitating and very scary especially if you aren't used to them. Meditation helped me, but that is medium to long term and certainly isn't for everyone. Medication can help short term. Especially if approached as a Summer fling rather than a life partner. Good wishes.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
I think this is a reasonable discussion to have, but I also think you're underestimating the societal impact of say 1% fatality in the population. We can assume that at least that many go through hospital (probably 5 times as many) and so we're looking at patients piled up on trolleys throughout hospitals and outside in makeshift tents, makeshift morgues, and not enough time or space to bury the dead. It would be more deaths than WW2, in a much shorter space of time.
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
--AS
Well there are no good moves from here, each decision is going to cost something, lives or economy or both..
Also I am assuming it will be less than 1% deaths and also it will be spread over 3-4 years. I am thinking 0.5% overall of those that catch it will die and around 50% of the population in total getting it at all.
So we're looking at around 0.25% of the total population dying over 4 years, so around 40k people per year.
There's about 600k deaths on average in the UK every year, so it will be around a 6.7% rise for a few years. That's assuming many of those that die would not have done anyway, so maybe take a few percentage off for that....so it will be around 5% extra a year for a few years.
It's bad yes, but should we shut everything down for this hoping for a vaccine? I don't know.
It's quite macabre totting up the numbers like this, but I think in the current situation some analysis of the numbers is needed.
@Foxy Interesting post of yours on the last thread, and to hear your experience of schooling in Georgia and appreciation of aspects of southern redneck culture. Also pleasing to see you describe yourself as a patriotic Brit.
Bravo.
Yes, Southern Redneck culture certainly has a very dark side, but is also a strong and fascinating culture, and one that made me very welcome as a teenage English boy. I have travelled the world pretty widely, and trite as it may seem, find people pretty fundamentally decent everywhere, despite very different values and beliefs. Show some interest and respect for local ways and almost always you are made welcome.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Sorry to hear that. Intrusive thoughts can be debilitating and very scary especially if you aren't used to them. Meditation helped me, but that is medium to long term and certainly isn't for everyone. Medication can help short term. Especially if approached as a Summer fling rather than a life partner. Good wishes.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
I think this is a reasonable discussion to have, but I also think you're underestimating the societal impact of say 1% fatality in the population. We can assume that at least that many go through hospital (probably 5 times as many) and so we're looking at patients piled up on trolleys throughout hospitals and outside in makeshift tents, makeshift morgues, and not enough time or space to bury the dead. It would be more deaths than WW2, in a much shorter space of time.
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
--AS
Well there are no good moves from here, each decision is going to cost something, lives or economy or both..
Also I am assuming it will be less than 1% deaths and also it will be spread over 3-4 years. I am thinking 0.5% overall of those that catch it will die and around 50% of the population in total getting it at all.
So we're looking at around 0.25% of the total population dying over 4 years, so around 40k people per year.
There's about 600k deaths on average in the UK every year, so it will be around a 6.7% rise for a few years. That's assuming many of those that die would not have done anyway, so maybe take a few percentage off for that....so it will be around 5% extra a year for a few years.
It's bad yes, but should we shut everything down for this hoping for a vaccine? I don't know.
It's quite macabre totting up the numbers like this, but I think in the current situation some analysis of the numbers is needed.
Yes, I see what you mean, but I think 40k a year is significantly too optimistic, considering that more than that have already died this year despite strong social restrictions in Apr-May, and ongoing to a lesser degree. Also consider that immunity may be short-lived (we just don't know yet, it could go either way) in which case it would keep rolling on year after year. And Robert's point, made well and often here, that such deaths would change behaviour in an economically-ruinous way, even if there's no official lockdown.
It's certainly something to weigh carefully, but all in all it seems fairly clearly to land on the side of social restrictions and damaging the economy (some of it permanent damage, and certainly some unfortunate people will have livelihoods ruined, but with luck most of the damage is reversible), until a vaccine arrives. If no vaccine is coming, the calculation surely has to be at least somewhat different, but immunologists seem pretty confident that this is a vaccine-susceptible virus.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
I think this is a reasonable discussion to have, but I also think you're underestimating the societal impact of say 1% fatality in the population. We can assume that at least that many go through hospital (probably 5 times as many) and so we're looking at patients piled up on trolleys throughout hospitals and outside in makeshift tents, makeshift morgues, and not enough time or space to bury the dead. It would be more deaths than WW2, in a much shorter space of time.
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
--AS
Well there are no good moves from here, each decision is going to cost something, lives or economy or both..
Also I am assuming it will be less than 1% deaths and also it will be spread over 3-4 years. I am thinking 0.5% overall of those that catch it will die and around 50% of the population in total getting it at all.
So we're looking at around 0.25% of the total population dying over 4 years, so around 40k people per year.
There's about 600k deaths on average in the UK every year, so it will be around a 6.7% rise for a few years. That's assuming many of those that die would not have done anyway, so maybe take a few percentage off for that....so it will be around 5% extra a year for a few years.
It's bad yes, but should we shut everything down for this hoping for a vaccine? I don't know.
It's quite macabre totting up the numbers like this, but I think in the current situation some analysis of the numbers is needed.
Mortality has dropped substantially since the first wave, perhaps by 50%. No real major breakthrough but rather incremental improvements as we gain experience. I suspect by the end of the second wave it will have dropped a further similar amount. It is why procrastination works as a strategy to reduce overall deaths. At some point it shifts from being pandemic to being endemic in a way that we can cope with, albeit at some expense.
People change behaviour from their personal risk. I am a hypertensive fiftysomething with a BMI of 26, so reckon my risk of dying if I catch it around 1/100. Now I wouldn't bet the house on that degree of longshot, but it isn't an insignificant risk either. I cannot avoid a certain occupational exposure, but am careful elsewhere, only going places with appropriate measures in place, such as the cinema this week. Sure, I am missing some pleasures, but not so many that life isn't still good. I am in no hurry to meet my maker just yet.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
I have felt much more aggressive and angry than normal and itching for a fight.
I must confess I feel I know 2021 will be even worse and that makes me feel almost self-destructive (I don't want to live through endless crap, crisis, and torment - losing everything I hold dear) but I keep trying to think of my daughter, how she needs be and how happy she makes me when she's happy.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Open invitation from me to go for a pint with any pb'er who wants it anytime - just DM me.
Yes, we need to go to a Tier 1 zone and, yes, we need to be socially distanced etc but I think talking face to face over a beer is one of the best things we can do.
Thankyou everyone, I'm going to call a good friend. I'm not slinging a noose around my neck as we speak - these urges are sporadic and VERY brief - but I have never had them before. So they are properly scary
R appears to be falling - it won't take much to push it below 1 now.
Interestingly, R doesn't seem to vary a great deal at local level.
Local R -
You're staring in the rear view mirror: R is almost certainly already below 1. It therefore doesn't seem to make a whole bunch of sense to add a tonne of new restrictions.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
My experience with community mental health crisis teams has been positive on the two occasions when I needed to call upon them. Find the number for your local team and put it in your phone in case you need them.
GPs can be a bit patchy when it comes to mental health. However, finding someone qualified to talk it over with is a good idea.
@Foxy Interesting post of yours on the last thread, and to hear your experience of schooling in Georgia and appreciation of aspects of southern redneck culture. Also pleasing to see you describe yourself as a patriotic Brit.
Bravo.
Yes, Southern Redneck culture certainly has a very dark side, but is also a strong and fascinating culture, and one that made me very welcome as a teenage English boy. I have travelled the world pretty widely, and trite as it may seem, find people pretty fundamentally decent everywhere, despite very different values and beliefs. Show some interest and respect for local ways and almost always you are made welcome.
SO what are you're views (if any) re: grits, cornbread, pecan pie & boiled peanuts?
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
I think this is a reasonable discussion to have, but I also think you're underestimating the societal impact of say 1% fatality in the population. We can assume that at least that many go through hospital (probably 5 times as many) and so we're looking at patients piled up on trolleys throughout hospitals and outside in makeshift tents, makeshift morgues, and not enough time or space to bury the dead. It would be more deaths than WW2, in a much shorter space of time.
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
--AS
Well there are no good moves from here, each decision is going to cost something, lives or economy or both..
Also I am assuming it will be less than 1% deaths and also it will be spread over 3-4 years. I am thinking 0.5% overall of those that catch it will die and around 50% of the population in total getting it at all.
So we're looking at around 0.25% of the total population dying over 4 years, so around 40k people per year.
There's about 600k deaths on average in the UK every year, so it will be around a 6.7% rise for a few years. That's assuming many of those that die would not have done anyway, so maybe take a few percentage off for that....so it will be around 5% extra a year for a few years.
It's bad yes, but should we shut everything down for this hoping for a vaccine? I don't know.
It's quite macabre totting up the numbers like this, but I think in the current situation some analysis of the numbers is needed.
Depends a lot which numbers you start with.
The "develop herd immunity by infection gradually" model depends on running society at R = 1 for several years. Eventually, you have to move to R = 1, because overwise the infection rate will beat the healthcare system; the only question is when you do this. Because raw politics and human instinct say that you can't really let it rip.
As we're seeing, R = 1 is boring and economy-harming. No question about that, though if you get the public health basics sorted, it's less tiresome than if you don't. But even herd immunity enthusiasts have to acknowledge that everyone getting this disease in a controlled way will take a long while, or do desperate things with the basic parameters.
So: if we're going to have an R = 1 lifestyle for several years, then the "restrictions harm the economy / mental health etc" arguments (which are worth considering) become increasingly irrelevant. Those restrictions are coming, no matter what. Freedom will be fleeting (look at what's happened to UK cases in the last six weeks). So we might as well keep more people alive, and give more headroom if something random happens. Because medium-term restrictions are pretty inevitable, unless you're cool with the consequences of exponential growth. And may the Lord have mercy on us all if we get to the point we have to do that.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I too have suffered from this for many years and the current situation has made it so much more difficult for everyone.
Firstly call the Samaritans. Then take a break. One thing that helps me, and some may even have noticed my absence on here over the summer, is to walk away from the Internet. Leave it for necessities alone - internet banking work etc but get off social media and message boards especially.. The rest of the Internet is an attention farm with people screaming “look at me, look at me”. The means by which they will do this is to scare you. It’s deeply unhealthy. We were not designed to process this much information. And the seeking of validation is worse - only today I had to stop myself reloading PH every 10 mins or more to see how many ‘likes’ I had.
For perspective, FWIW, sixty or so years ago France was on the brink of Civil War over Algerian Independence. The crisis passed in France - they moved on to new crises - but there were good times too. In Italy the “Years of Lead” tore the country apart in the 70s. So even when the worst does happen it passes. We’re not going to have one but, tragically, Yugoslavia had an actual and factual war in the 90s but, 20 years later, for the vast majority who made it through physically unscathed, things are as okay as they can be in a pandemic. Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s was no bed of roses either. But the difficult times, the deadly times eventually, passed. As with us over Brexit and America over Trump - all nations have their moments where it seems things are on the brink of falling apart through division. We don’t know when but those divisions too will pass. And pandemics pass too, they generally take a year or two to do so (Defoe’s “Journal of the Plague Year” is called that for a reason - it’s filled with daily bills of mortality published by the seventeenth century DoH) but they do.
But seriously, my advice would be to call the Samaritans then put your screen down.
@Foxy Interesting post of yours on the last thread, and to hear your experience of schooling in Georgia and appreciation of aspects of southern redneck culture. Also pleasing to see you describe yourself as a patriotic Brit.
Bravo.
Yes, Southern Redneck culture certainly has a very dark side, but is also a strong and fascinating culture, and one that made me very welcome as a teenage English boy. I have travelled the world pretty widely, and trite as it may seem, find people pretty fundamentally decent everywhere, despite very different values and beliefs. Show some interest and respect for local ways and almost always you are made welcome.
Yes, I'd agree with that. Finding out the positivity in mankind, and how we're all similar in wanting to show that despite having different values and ways of life, is one of the great pleasures of traveling.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
The more social of us are finding events rather hard, and the pleasures rather missed. Its easy to be morose, and drink doesn't help.
I agree with @dixiedean that medication can be a useful temporary help, and not one to be afraid of.
I find fresh air and nature an effective tonic. Being outside lifts the spirits, even if the weather isn't great. Music helps too, and switch off the news, now is the time that we need some shallow escapism. Movies and Tiktok etc
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
I am sorry to hear how you feel, but you are not alone. I too suffer from these and have had professional counselling and support. Once you start talking about it, it really helps. Being able to vocalise the darkness helps deal with it.
It is not easy and it takes time. You need to find someone who is a good listener and they are hard to find.
Go see your GP and ask for a referral to mental health services and talk to the Samartians or find a local support group. There are millions like us out there.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Open invitation from me to go for a pint with any pb'er who wants it anytime - just DM me.
Yes, we need to go to a Tier 1 zone and, yes, we need to be socially distanced etc but I think talking face to face over a beer is one of the best things we can do.
Thanks for the invite! Though sadly (for me anyway) am currently banned from traveling to UK,
Suggestion: would it be possible to have a PB virtual gathering via Zoom or somesuch? Like the old pub gatherings but without the smell of stale beer . . . unless of course that's part of the ambiance of your home base!
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
R appears to be falling - it won't take much to push it below 1 now.
Interestingly, R doesn't seem to vary a great deal at local level.
Local R -
You're staring in the rear view mirror: R is almost certainly already below 1. It therefore doesn't seem to make a whole bunch of sense to add a tonne of new restrictions.
Ton surely, if you are the US?
Could easily be just another swing in the graph. No long term trend set, as yet.
The hospitals are filling up. Sounds like a good time to put an extra turn on the wheel....
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Sure. Both "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
There may well be aspects to criticise, or at least the hero worship may well be over the top, I couldn't say, but that particular take, at this particular moment, comes across on the just too bold side to be serious and not trolling.
What was it Mao(?) said about the French revolution?
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Sure. Both "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
@Foxy Interesting post of yours on the last thread, and to hear your experience of schooling in Georgia and appreciation of aspects of southern redneck culture. Also pleasing to see you describe yourself as a patriotic Brit.
Bravo.
Yes, Southern Redneck culture certainly has a very dark side, but is also a strong and fascinating culture, and one that made me very welcome as a teenage English boy. I have travelled the world pretty widely, and trite as it may seem, find people pretty fundamentally decent everywhere, despite very different values and beliefs. Show some interest and respect for local ways and almost always you are made welcome.
SO what are you're views (if any) re: grits, cornbread, pecan pie & boiled peanuts?
Not keen on grits or boiled peanuts, but thumbs up to cornbread, pecan pie and chicken fried steak, biscuits with gravy too.
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
When I've driven from Vegas to LA, I stop at a Golden Corral on I-15 at Hesperia. I don't know why I love them but I do - cheap, cheerful and plenty of it.
And its resulted in such devestaiting material as revelation that Joe Biden texted Hunter saying "I miss you, I love you".
50:50 chance he did it, or 50:50 chance the guy was a Russian spy?
I don't think Rudy is entirely clear in his own head about that. The degeneration of Giuliani (from an admittedly lowish start) is one of the minor notes in the Trump symphony.
“My guess is that George Soros is behind this counter-offensive… because he wants to create a socialist country,”
Has George Soros ever shown any particular signs of socialism...
I'm starting to see his attack on the Bank of England in a new light!
Thankyou everyone, I'm going to call a good friend. I'm not slinging a noose around my neck as we speak - these urges are sporadic and VERY brief - but I have never had them before. So they are properly scary
x
Hi LadyG, sorry to hear about your troubles.
About 20 years ago I suffered from suicide ideation, tried to battle though it but it just got worse. Eventually I went to the docs and ended up on Prozac. Suicide ideation is a common indicator of depression. Prozac worked fantastically for me, I was on a relatively low dose, 20mg a day, for two years. Like a crutch supports you so an injured leg can heal, I viewed Prozac as a chemical crutch that supported my brain to begin to run properly again. It helped me turn things around. Being open and speaking about it with friends and family helps - there’s no need to feel stigmatised about mental health - so please make that call to your friend.
My advice: go and speak to your GP. Some form of anti-depressant may help, maybe some therapy (which I never needed), but your GP will advise what may be best for you.
Lolz, Biden campaign most recent email has put out its "internal polling" figures. Says double digit national lead is illusionary an volunteer's need to work super hard to win the knife edge election
@Foxy Interesting post of yours on the last thread, and to hear your experience of schooling in Georgia and appreciation of aspects of southern redneck culture. Also pleasing to see you describe yourself as a patriotic Brit.
Bravo.
Yes, Southern Redneck culture certainly has a very dark side, but is also a strong and fascinating culture, and one that made me very welcome as a teenage English boy. I have travelled the world pretty widely, and trite as it may seem, find people pretty fundamentally decent everywhere, despite very different values and beliefs. Show some interest and respect for local ways and almost always you are made welcome.
SO what are you're views (if any) re: grits, cornbread, pecan pie & boiled peanuts?
Not keen on grits or boiled peanuts, but thumbs up to cornbread, pecan pie and chicken fried steak, biscuits with gravy too.
Am with you re: boiled peanuts; also like cornbread AND grits, in fact have already enjoyed both this morning. Am also fond of biscuits but NOT with gravy, but NOT big fan of chicken friend steak.
Forgot to ask you about hush puppies, but suspect I know your answer based on your views re: cornbread.
On of the advantages to spending quality time in Louisiana, is that you can get excellent Southern cooking PLUS superb Creole and Cajun cuisine.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
My experience with community mental health crisis teams has been positive on the two occasions when I needed to call upon them. Find the number for your local team and put it in your phone in case you need them.
GPs can be a bit patchy when it comes to mental health. However, finding someone qualified to talk it over with is a good idea.
I've never had to call local crisis lines for myself, but having to call them for people close to me they're excellent. There is usually a psychiatric emergency helpline which will get you the equivalent of a mental health A and E appointment. Please do use it if you're experiencing suicidal ideation. This is the mental health equivalent of chest pain, and it is worth going for treatment now because they can and will help.
R appears to be falling - it won't take much to push it below 1 now.
Interestingly, R doesn't seem to vary a great deal at local level.
Local R -
You're staring in the rear view mirror: R is almost certainly already below 1. It therefore doesn't seem to make a whole bunch of sense to add a tonne of new restrictions.
The problem with the modellers is that they're not modelling the number one factor that affects R: fear.
From the moment the message switched from saving the economy, get to work, eat out to help out etc ... To when we were panicking about R, reporting deaths, people going into hospital etc ... People are inevitably going to change behaviour which reduces R ... With or without restrictions.
R is almost certainly below 1 today. Not because of Tiers (though no doubt they're helping marginally) but instead because people are afraid.
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
Talk to someone, carefully selected. Probably consult GP and tell them how it is. It is sometimes medical and treatable. Samaritans are always there and can be amazing. Reflect upon effect on people important to you. Old fashioned maybe but count up blessings. (There's possibly no PB in the long sleep).
Longer term diet (some recommend low sugar, but avoid low fat - increase it a bit), sunshine (or looking at the sky on sunless days), Vitamin D, Omega 3, St John's Wort. Take care with alcohol which can be a powerful depressant.
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, get an operation, not have the explosion of mental issues related on here, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation. I'd certainly trade with them.
R appears to be falling - it won't take much to push it below 1 now.
Interestingly, R doesn't seem to vary a great deal at local level.
Local R -
You're staring in the rear view mirror: R is almost certainly already below 1. It therefore doesn't seem to make a whole bunch of sense to add a tonne of new restrictions.
The problem with the modellers is that they're not modelling the number one factor that affects R: fear.
From the moment the message switched from saving the economy, get to work, eat out to help out etc ... To when we were panicking about R, reporting deaths, people going into hospital etc ... People are inevitably going to change behaviour which reduces R ... With or without restrictions.
R is almost certainly below 1 today. Not because of Tiers (though no doubt they're helping marginally) but instead because people are afraid.
If you classify and quantize that then you'd have Tiers for Fears.
iirc Ferguson's model (still being used by SAGE as far as I know, and the basis for the Whitty graph of doom graph) is based on a IFR an order of magnitude higher.
Hang on am I understanding this correctly?
We're closing down the country for an illness that kills 0.23% of people it infects...is that really what the figures say?
That can't be right.
It’s not. That’s rather the point.
However, those who want to believe it will believe it with total credulousness. I mean, look at how they continue to unquestioningly follow Gupta.
Fair enough, what is wrong with that report and what are the correct figures?
There's a summary of a bunch of estimates here:
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population. He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason. His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion) He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
So if I am reading those graphs correctly after several glasses of wine then it is around 8x worse than flu on average for all age profiles.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?</p>
I think this is a reasonable discussion to have, but I also think you're underestimating the societal impact of say 1% fatality in the population. We can assume that at least that many go through hospital (probably 5 times as many) and so we're looking at patients piled up on trolleys throughout hospitals and outside in makeshift tents, makeshift morgues, and not enough time or space to bury the dead. It would be more deaths than WW2, in a much shorter space of time.
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
--AS
Well there are no good moves from here, each decision is going to cost something, lives or economy or both..
Also I am assuming it will be less than 1% deaths and also it will be spread over 3-4 years. I am thinking 0.5% overall of those that catch it will die and around 50% of the population in total getting it at all.
So we're looking at around 0.25% of the total population dying over 4 years, so around 40k people per year.
There's about 600k deaths on average in the UK every year, so it will be around a 6.7% rise for a few years. That's assuming many of those that die would not have done anyway, so maybe take a few percentage off for that....so it will be around 5% extra a year for a few years.
It's bad yes, but should we shut everything down for this hoping for a vaccine? I don't know.
It's quite macabre totting up the numbers like this, but I think in the current situation some analysis of the numbers is needed.
Yes, I see what you mean, but I think 40k a year is significantly too optimistic, considering that more than that have already died this year despite strong social restrictions in Apr-May, and ongoing to a lesser degree. Also consider that immunity may be short-lived (we just don't know yet, it could go either way) in which case it would keep rolling on year after year. And Robert's point, made well and often here, that such deaths would change behaviour in an economically-ruinous way, even if there's no official lockdown.
It's certainly something to weigh carefully, but all in all it seems fairly clearly to land on the side of social restrictions and damaging the economy (some of it permanent damage, and certainly some unfortunate people will have livelihoods ruined, but with luck most of the damage is reversible), until a vaccine arrives. If no vaccine is coming, the calculation surely has to be at least somewhat different, but immunologists seem pretty confident that this is a vaccine-susceptible virus.
--AS
That’s about where I’m at, too. I think a successful vaccine is quite likely, but it’s not inevitable. And I know I keep banging on about it, but I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of mass testing returning things to almost normal sometime next year (which incidentally is the other upside for them of New Zealand’s strategy).
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
I don't want to seem unfeeling, but if you haven't had any of those flashes previously I'd say you've been fortunate. Personally having the option of escaping from awfulness has been something of a comfort, even if never acted upon. Also I know acting upon that impulse would be a disaster for people that I loved and loved me.
If you can't sleep for these thoughts or are waking up in the dead hour assailed by them, talk to someone whether it's a good friend, the Samaritans or a doctor.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
There may well be aspects to criticise, or at least the hero worship may well be over the top, I couldn't say, but that particular take, at this particular moment, comes across on the just too bold side to be serious and not trolling.
What was it Mao(?) said about the French revolution?
Cho En-lai (or Zhou Enlai) who when asked about influence of French Revolution supposedly replied, 'Too early to tell' or words to that effect.
BUT Richard Nixon's translator says Cho was ACTUALLY thinking about 1968 rather than 1789 when he gave his famous answer.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
I'm trying to read David Bowie's 100 favourite books before all this is more or less over. I'm on the Iliad and have decided Homer needed a good editor. The endless battle scenes in the middle....I love a good war story as much as the next man but....urgh....
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
Foreign holidays are not a big thing for most Kiwis, but the domestic tourist industry must be a big economic hit in parts. Opening up probably wouldn't help much economically, as tourism is on its back everywhere else.
Sure. Both "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
EVERYBODY on here should read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 if they haven't alread read it, as it is one of the best books about US politics ever written, and by God it will ring true now more than ever.
I echo all the best wishes to @LadyG . And yes, talk to someone when this happens. As something of an introvert, being locked down or similarly socially constrained as a result of Covid regs is relatively bearable for me. My impression (FWIW) is that LadyG lies at the other end of the scale.
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
Foreign holidays are not a big thing for most Kiwis, but the domestic tourist industry must be a big economic hit in parts. Opening up probably wouldn't help much economically, as tourism is on its back everywhere else.
A good place to be at the moment.
Well yes. The suggestion that the policy pursued is "disastrous" is clearly ridiculous. The only downside to it is that it might need to be reversed in future. But that still doesn't put them in a worst position than anyone else. Except to the extent that such a reversal might be more politically difficult. But in practice, any such reversal would probably be done with public support.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
Sure. Both "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
EVERYBODY on here should read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 if they haven't alread read it, as it is one of the best books about US politics ever written, and by God it will ring true now more than ever.
My favorite part of FALOTCT'72 is HST's account of Edmund Muskie's Florida campaign train versus the Savage Boohoo. NOT to be missed.
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
Foreign holidays are not a big thing for most Kiwis, but the domestic tourist industry must be a big economic hit in parts. Opening up probably wouldn't help much economically, as tourism is on its back everywhere else.
A good place to be at the moment.
Well yes. The suggestion that the policy pursued is "disastrous" is clearly ridiculous. The only downside to it is that it might need to be reversed in future. But that still doesn't put them in a worst position than anyone else. Except to the extent that such a reversal might be more politically difficult. But in practice, any such reversal would probably be done with public support.
To say it is "disasterous" is nakedly partisan clickbait. She's on the other side of the culture war ergo can do no right. If Scott Morrison wins reelection in Australia having had similar success the Guardian will run a similar headline.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
Foreign holidays are not a big thing for most Kiwis, but the domestic tourist industry must be a big economic hit in parts. Opening up probably wouldn't help much economically, as tourism is on its back everywhere else.
A good place to be at the moment.
Well yes. The suggestion that the policy pursued is "disastrous" is clearly ridiculous. The only downside to it is that it might need to be reversed in future. But that still doesn't put them in a worst position than anyone else. Except to the extent that such a reversal might be more politically difficult. But in practice, any such reversal would probably be done with public support.
Yes, it’s a psychological problem more than anything. It’s one thing to have been caught unawares at the start of the pandemic, it’s quite another to voluntarily take a course of action that you know will cost lives, even if it’s probably the right thing to do.
However, if a decent vaccine comes along, that will make the transition to integrating with the rest of the world that much easier.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
Sure. Both "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
EVERYBODY on here should read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 if they haven't alread read it, as it is one of the best books about US politics ever written, and by God it will ring true now more than ever.
My favorite part of FALOTCT'72 is HST's account of Edmund Muskie's Florida campaign train versus the Savage Boohoo. NOT to be missed.
If only Hunter was alive today to describe The Great Trumpus Hunt ...
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
Foreign holidays are not a big thing for most Kiwis, but the domestic tourist industry must be a big economic hit in parts. Opening up probably wouldn't help much economically, as tourism is on its back everywhere else.
A good place to be at the moment.
Well yes. The suggestion that the policy pursued is "disastrous" is clearly ridiculous. The only downside to it is that it might need to be reversed in future. But that still doesn't put them in a worst position than anyone else. Except to the extent that such a reversal might be more politically difficult. But in practice, any such reversal would probably be done with public support.
That piece re: NZ in DT is a joke alright.
Interesting, turns out that two leading lights from the Brexit campaign - Arron Banks & Andy Wigmore - were working this year for Winston Peters and his New Zealand First Party. With lots of big promises and brash talk (or was it visa versa?)
Result was the NZF went from 9 seats to zero, and Winston Peters from Foreign Minister in coalition government to a political has-been, after more than forty years in public life.
Go to Nevada. Las Vegas is open. You can go and stay at the Bellagio or the Wynn or the Ritz Carlton (all Five Star hotels) for $120 a night. You can gamble and drink in bars and eat good food. And you can fly to Vegas for a fraction of the normal price.
The Vegas occupancy rate is normally 89%.
Yet it's a ghost town right now. People simply aren't going to Vegas (no matter how cheap it is) because they're scared of catching CV19. Irrespective of government diktat, behaviour is changed.
No we can't. America's borders are closed to the British.
As to why Americans aren't going to Vegas, that's a different question. Much of the weekend traffic comes from CA and from more conservative parts of the country - people come to Vegas to do what they can't do at home.
On my way back from Santa Fe, I went via Barstow. That's traditionally the halfway stop between Vegas and LA, where one stops for an In'n'Out Burger and to stretch one's legs. Sunday, 3pm, it's usually heaving as the weekend crew head back from Vegas. When we were passing through three weeks ago, it was dead.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It is, of course, where the drugs began to take hold...
I've never read Fear and Loathing,
Should I?
Fck me, yes. PG Wodehouse at his best level of funny.
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
Don't want to get too personal, but, PB, I have had little flashes of suicidal ideation in recent weeks.
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
There are so many having similar thoughts to you. You have charmed life compared to the vast majority of people. This era will pass, we just don`t know when.
Have you got family support? Children?
I have kids but they are teens that don't want to talk. I have family and friends. I am indeed - in wider context - lucky, and I wholly acknowledge that.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
I don't want to seem unfeeling, but if you haven't had any of those flashes previously I'd say you've been fortunate. Personally having the option of escaping from awfulness has been something of a comfort, even if never acted upon. Also I know acting upon that impulse would be a disaster for people that I loved and loved me.
If you can't sleep for these thoughts or are waking up in the dead hour assailed by them, talk to someone whether it's a good friend, the Samaritans or a doctor.
Sorry to hear this, Lady G. I am not a mental health professional but my advice to friends suffering depression to lay off the booze, eat plenty of healthy food and go for long walks. If this doesn't work then seek professional help.
Also, count your blessings. I know a lot of people think this is twee and patronising but I find it helps to think of the positives in my life rather than the negatives.
Generations in the past have got through plagues and famines, etc. All this will pass.
In the short term she has gambled and won massively, and on the back of that deserves her electoral victory. Because it could have gone a lot worse. However it is not actually difficult to see how in the longer term she has created a massive problem for New Zealand, certainly without a successful vaccine - and in fact even possibly with a vaccine, so massively has she succeeded in 'beating' Coronavirus.
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
However, not having to socially distance, being able to watch sports, the arts, go to the pub, attempt to engage in casual sex, travel the country freely, work and shop normally, etc.,etc., are serious counter balances. The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
Foreign holidays are not a big thing for most Kiwis, but the domestic tourist industry must be a big economic hit in parts. Opening up probably wouldn't help much economically, as tourism is on its back everywhere else.
A good place to be at the moment.
Well yes. The suggestion that the policy pursued is "disastrous" is clearly ridiculous. The only downside to it is that it might need to be reversed in future. But that still doesn't put them in a worst position than anyone else. Except to the extent that such a reversal might be more politically difficult. But in practice, any such reversal would probably be done with public support.
That piece re: NZ in DT is a joke alright.
Interesting, turns out that two leading lights from the Brexit campaign - Arron Banks & Andy Wigmore - were working this year for Winston Peters and his New Zealand First Party. With lots of big promises and brash talk (or was it visa versa?)
Result was the NZF went from 9 seats to zero, and Winston Peters from Foreign Minister in coalition government to a political has-been, after more than forty years in public life.
Good job, guys!
Wigmore has been one of the guinea pigs for a coronavirus vaccine trial so at least he's done one useful thing.
O/T but on the subject of the New Zealand election though. Achieving an overall majority in a PR system is an interesting dilemma - is it a bonus or a problem? Majorities in PR systems are so rare that the effects aren't perhaps truly considered. Because when they happen, if they then lead to a party governing alone (rather than anyway seeking a coalition) there seems to be an argument that they actually could lead to more trouble than you would instinctively expect. Because in effect, it leads to a Government with an extremely fragile majority which could therefore struggle to get legislation through. Especially if it leads to opposition parties moving towards a more instinctive "oppositionist" stance as you get in FPTP systems.
I suppose one might compare the examples of the UK govt 2010-2015 and the ones that followed to 2019. One a coalition with a healthy majority that had largely free reign in the House of Commons. To one that had to fight hard to preserve its fragile majority on every vote. Which was the stronger Government? Clearly the former. Although in principle the latter (whilst weaker) was in principle in a better position to enact Conservative policy priorities. But also brexit...
Comments
They are very odd. Like little electric shocks. Sudden thoughts of: DO IT
My personal circs are somewhat gloomy but far from awful. Billions of humans face a life, on the face of it, infinitely worse than mine.
Advice?
I am 98% sure I'd never act on these odd impulses; on the other hand I have never had them before, and I have been in far worse places (ostensibly). Very odd.
Anecdotal evidence, Bury now has a huge number of empty units in both the large shopping centres and the big DW gym has closed down too. Any business that relies on people coming through their doors that isn't essential is going to go bust in the next 6 months.
(Durham University reported a 1000 in one week).
So if 1% end up hospitalized, it means nationally there must 100s students in hospital. now.
We would surely have heard about this, if true.
As with all scientific findings, there's a lot of fuzziness between different studies. None of them are pointing towards Ioaniddis's numbers, though.
The outcomes in Italy, Spain, Arizona, Brazil, New York, and a whole bunch of areas around the world don't march with an IFR of 0.05% in all under 70s.
He cherry-picks studies that aren't representative of the population.
He deliberately excludes healthcare workers from his findings, for some reason.
His search strategy was inadequate and incomplete (and then excluded, by as little as one day outside his range in a couple of cases, data that was completely divergent with his conclusion)
He underestimated the number of deaths in the studies he did use (by such things as taking cases where the outcome was not yet complete and reporting only deaths that had happened so far, and not deaths that occurred after the original time of writing from the same infections)
Stuff like that (and all of the above was raised by reviewers in previous attempts to get it published)
Have you got family support? Children?
18-29 year olds
84803 cases
2041 hospitalisations
10-17 year olds
20095 cases
281 hospitalisations
5-9
5686 cases
59 hospitalisations.
All of those age groups above 1% hospitalisation.
If it gets worse over weekend and you feel you might even remotely act on the impulses then 999.
It's just that all the things I love: me, my kids, my parents, family, friends, work, nation, Europe, civilisation, humans, seem to face an endlessly worsening future and there is the odd moment when I think just: FUCK IT
And that adds up to a nasty moment of End it All.
But it is just a moment. However, maybe the PB brains trust has a way of dealing with these tiny moments, because they are shocking and painful, however unjustified.
Not that the comparison to flu really matters, we know it is worse. The important thing to consider is whether it is bad enough to destroy the economy over.
If it is really <1% IFR then come on...it's crazy isn't it?
Desire of states to get some of the gaming revenue, business, etc once monopolized by Nevada is the chief impetus for massive expansion of legal gambling across US.
Interest that this development has NOT seriously taken away from LV's growth. Certainly NOT the way COVID has is still is doing.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/06/trump-big-red-wave-2018-628691
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/28/politics/blue-wave-2018/index.html
I think it really is quite sensible to take drastic action to avoid this, *if* one is confident that treatments or a vaccine are coming, so that the actions are temporary. My view is that they are indeed coming. But I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this.
--AS
You're presence here is as much a pixelated approximation as any of us, but you strike me as someone who needs new and exciting in their life. In which case, I can imagine the status quo being hellish. (Me, I'm remarkably cool with it, which I why I don't travel the world looking for newts to paint.)
You may need stories on your doorstep, what with how none of us can go anywhere. It's glib to say "go and find a night shelter to help at", but I bet you'll find stories there.
(Of course, I'm a random on the internet. You have more sense than to take advice from me.)
One way to cope, is by considering the impact of your sudden, self-inflicted demise upon those who love and care about you. Including (in a very socially distanced way) many of your fellow PBers.
Also consider the glee of you enemies at hearing the "sad" news!
Nationally -
R appears to be falling - it won't take much to push it below 1 now.
Interestingly, R doesn't seem to vary a great deal at local level.
Local R -
x
Also bear in mind that the economic damage is largely attached to the healthcare damage rather than the instinctive intuitive “sacrifice one for the other” response we tend to come up with without analysis (as rcs1000 has repeatedly pointed out: the human instinct to avoid dying shreds economies without government intervention and studies of previous pandemics showed that states and cities that applied restrictions did better overall and long-term - born out by the fact that countries that have done better in avoiding lives lost have largely (with a small handful of exceptions) done better economically as well, as per the graph shown here last night.
Meditation helped me, but that is medium to long term and certainly isn't for everyone.
Medication can help short term. Especially if approached as a Summer fling rather than a life partner.
Good wishes.
Also I am assuming it will be less than 1% deaths and also it will be spread over 3-4 years. I am thinking 0.5% overall of those that catch it will die and around 50% of the population in total getting it at all.
So we're looking at around 0.25% of the total population dying over 4 years, so around 40k people per year.
There's about 600k deaths on average in the UK every year, so it will be around a 6.7% rise for a few years. That's assuming many of those that die would not have done anyway, so maybe take a few percentage off for that....so it will be around 5% extra a year for a few years.
It's bad yes, but should we shut everything down for this hoping for a vaccine? I don't know.
It's quite macabre totting up the numbers like this, but I think in the current situation some analysis of the numbers is needed.
Californians aren't doing the weekend trip.
It's certainly something to weigh carefully, but all in all it seems fairly clearly to land on the side of social restrictions and damaging the economy (some of it permanent damage, and certainly some unfortunate people will have livelihoods ruined, but with luck most of the damage is reversible), until a vaccine arrives. If no vaccine is coming, the calculation surely has to be at least somewhat different, but immunologists seem pretty confident that this is a vaccine-susceptible virus.
--AS
People change behaviour from their personal risk. I am a hypertensive fiftysomething with a BMI of 26, so reckon my risk of dying if I catch it around 1/100. Now I wouldn't bet the house on that degree of longshot, but it isn't an insignificant risk either. I cannot avoid a certain occupational exposure, but am careful elsewhere, only going places with appropriate measures in place, such as the cinema this week. Sure, I am missing some pleasures, but not so many that life isn't still good. I am in no hurry to meet my maker just yet.
I must confess I feel I know 2021 will be even worse and that makes me feel almost self-destructive (I don't want to live through endless crap, crisis, and torment - losing everything I hold dear) but I keep trying to think of my daughter, how she needs be and how happy she makes me when she's happy.
Yes, we need to go to a Tier 1 zone and, yes, we need to be socially distanced etc but I think talking face to face over a beer is one of the best things we can do.
GPs can be a bit patchy when it comes to mental health. However, finding someone qualified to talk it over with is a good idea.
The "develop herd immunity by infection gradually" model depends on running society at R = 1 for several years. Eventually, you have to move to R = 1, because overwise the infection rate will beat the healthcare system; the only question is when you do this. Because raw politics and human instinct say that you can't really let it rip.
As we're seeing, R = 1 is boring and economy-harming. No question about that, though if you get the public health basics sorted, it's less tiresome than if you don't. But even herd immunity enthusiasts have to acknowledge that everyone getting this disease in a controlled way will take a long while, or do desperate things with the basic parameters.
So: if we're going to have an R = 1 lifestyle for several years, then the "restrictions harm the economy / mental health etc" arguments (which are worth considering) become increasingly irrelevant. Those restrictions are coming, no matter what. Freedom will be fleeting (look at what's happened to UK cases in the last six weeks). So we might as well keep more people alive, and give more headroom if something random happens. Because medium-term restrictions are pretty inevitable, unless you're cool with the consequences of exponential growth. And may the Lord have mercy on us all if we get to the point we have to do that.
Firstly call the Samaritans. Then take a break. One thing that helps me, and some may even have noticed my absence on here over the summer, is to walk away from the Internet. Leave it for necessities alone - internet banking work etc but get off social media and message boards especially.. The rest of the Internet is an attention farm with people screaming “look at me, look at me”. The means by which they will do this is to scare you. It’s deeply unhealthy. We were not designed to process this much information. And the seeking of validation is worse - only today I had to stop myself reloading PH every 10 mins or more to see how many ‘likes’ I had.
For perspective, FWIW, sixty or so years ago France was on the brink of Civil War over Algerian Independence. The crisis passed in France - they moved on to new crises - but there were good times too. In Italy the “Years of Lead” tore the country apart in the 70s. So even when the worst does happen it passes. We’re not going to have one but, tragically, Yugoslavia had an actual and factual war in the 90s but, 20 years later, for the vast majority who made it through physically unscathed, things are as okay as they can be in a pandemic. Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s was no bed of roses either. But the difficult times, the deadly times eventually, passed. As with us over Brexit and America over Trump - all nations have their moments where it seems things are on the brink of falling apart through division. We don’t know when but those divisions too will pass. And pandemics pass too, they generally take a year or two to do so (Defoe’s “Journal of the Plague Year” is called that for a reason - it’s filled with daily bills of mortality published by the seventeenth century DoH) but they do.
But seriously, my advice would be to call the Samaritans then put your screen down.
I agree with @dixiedean that medication can be a useful temporary help, and not one to be afraid of.
I find fresh air and nature an effective tonic. Being outside lifts the spirits, even if the weather isn't great. Music helps too, and switch off the news, now is the time that we need some shallow escapism. Movies and Tiktok etc
I am sorry to hear how you feel, but you are not alone. I too suffer from these and have had professional counselling and support. Once you start talking about it, it really helps. Being able to vocalise the darkness helps deal with it.
It is not easy and it takes time. You need to find someone who is a good listener and they are hard to find.
Go see your GP and ask for a referral to mental health services and talk to the Samartians or find a local support group. There are millions like us out there.
You are not alone
Suggestion: would it be possible to have a PB virtual gathering via Zoom or somesuch? Like the old pub gatherings but without the smell of stale beer . . . unless of course that's part of the ambiance of your home base!
Should I?
Could easily be just another swing in the graph. No long term trend set, as yet.
The hospitals are filling up. Sounds like a good time to put an extra turn on the wheel....
ETA and the only opening line which will ever be competitive with "Call me Ishmael."
Because effectively the policy in New Zealand is to respond to any untraceable community detected cases with city wide lockdowns. It is very similar (although differently implemented) to what is happening in China (such that we can work out given the secrecy). Under this policy they simply CANNOT open their borders to anyone, and cannot relax their quarantine protocols at all.
Given that a vaccine is unlikely to be totally effective they are in a position of effectively having to accept a level of deaths to pivot to a position of opening up. Maybe this will not be so difficult to sell as the economic effects seriously feed through, but it is a political risk.
If there is no reasonably effective vaccine - it is not at all clear where they go at all.
About 20 years ago I suffered from suicide ideation, tried to battle though it but it just got worse. Eventually I went to the docs and ended up on Prozac. Suicide ideation is a common indicator of depression. Prozac worked fantastically for me, I was on a relatively low dose, 20mg a day, for two years. Like a crutch supports you so an injured leg can heal, I viewed Prozac as a chemical crutch that supported my brain to begin to run properly again. It helped me turn things around. Being open and speaking about it with friends and family helps - there’s no need to feel stigmatised about mental health - so please make that call to your friend.
My advice: go and speak to your GP. Some form of anti-depressant may help, maybe some therapy (which I never needed), but your GP will advise what may be best for you.
My second bit of advice: listen to the late, great Bill Hicks - “It’s just a ride...“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0mBAsIPS1w
https://twitter.com/plural_vote/status/1317531512930144256?s=19
Forgot to ask you about hush puppies, but suspect I know your answer based on your views re: cornbread.
On of the advantages to spending quality time in Louisiana, is that you can get excellent Southern cooking PLUS
superb Creole and Cajun cuisine.
From the moment the message switched from saving the economy, get to work, eat out to help out etc ... To when we were panicking about R, reporting deaths, people going into hospital etc ... People are inevitably going to change behaviour which reduces R ... With or without restrictions.
R is almost certainly below 1 today. Not because of Tiers (though no doubt they're helping marginally) but instead because people are afraid.
Longer term diet (some recommend low sugar, but avoid low fat - increase it a bit), sunshine (or looking at the sky on sunless days), Vitamin D, Omega 3, St John's Wort. Take care with alcohol which can be a powerful depressant.
All the best.
The Telegraph seems determined to become clickbait rather than a serious news organisation.
I'd certainly trade with them.
I think a successful vaccine is quite likely, but it’s not inevitable.
And I know I keep banging on about it, but I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of mass testing returning things to almost normal sometime next year (which incidentally is the other upside for them of New Zealand’s strategy).
If you can't sleep for these thoughts or are waking up in the dead hour assailed by them, talk to someone whether it's a good friend, the Samaritans or a doctor.
BUT Richard Nixon's translator says Cho was ACTUALLY thinking about 1968 rather than 1789 when he gave his famous answer.
A good place to be at the moment.
A conditional formatting on your regional R numbers to show <1 as green and >1 as red would be quite interesting I reckon? Just a random suggestion.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/10/14/sweden-students-told-to-stop-partying-as-coronavirus-cases-rise/
As something of an introvert, being locked down or similarly socially constrained as a result of Covid regs is relatively bearable for me. My impression (FWIW) is that LadyG lies at the other end of the scale.
However, if a decent vaccine comes along, that will make the transition to integrating with the rest of the world that much easier.
"A builder who stabbed three attackers to death in self-defence is the first person in the UK to avoid charges after a triple killing.
Gurjeet Singh, 30, fatally knifed the trio, who were armed with knives and hammers, after four men cornered him in an East London alleyway."
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12954838/builder-stabbed-three-street-attackers/
Interesting, turns out that two leading lights from the Brexit campaign - Arron Banks & Andy Wigmore - were working this year for Winston Peters and his New Zealand First Party. With lots of big promises and brash talk (or was it visa versa?)
Result was the NZF went from 9 seats to zero, and Winston Peters from Foreign Minister in coalition government to a political has-been, after more than forty years in public life.
Good job, guys!
Also, count your blessings. I know a lot of people think this is twee and patronising but I find it helps to think of the positives in my life rather than the negatives.
Generations in the past have got through plagues and famines, etc. All this will pass.
https://twitter.com/andywigmore/status/1316703721607307265
https://twitter.com/HSJEditor/status/1317496694808956928
A statement that is both obscene AND deviant to American ears, but is still (I think) lacks those connotations in Anglo English?
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotland-54573288
If everything goes great we might be able to go to Cornwall on holiday next year (with masks) & by Christmas 2021 have the family around....
I suppose one might compare the examples of the UK govt 2010-2015 and the ones that followed to 2019. One a coalition with a healthy majority that had largely free reign in the House of Commons. To one that had to fight hard to preserve its fragile majority on every vote. Which was the stronger Government? Clearly the former. Although in principle the latter (whilst weaker) was in principle in a better position to enact Conservative policy priorities. But also brexit...