Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

You've veered off into perceptions that are utterly unrelated to anything I've said or implied.

Over and over again, a dozen or more times, I've said that all churches I know of including mine shut down three weeks ago. Nobody is gathering for church anywhere in Georgia, that I'm aware of.

I do not advocate churches meeting at this time. When I was involved in making the decision for my church, that's why we did what we did. Back then it was voluntary.

Our church does have Facebook messages from the pastor. He does them from home. I don't have Faceboook but most folks do.

All of this is working fine.

And, to boot, the Covid-19 numbers from Georgia have been, and continue to be, most encouraging. Ten mortalities yesterday. Three so far today. This for the 9th most populous state in the Union. I think the state is doing pretty well.

Look - maybe your church congregation is smart enough to say "Hey - we'll postpone this for now." Maybe all of the churches you are aware of are just as smart. Maybe there are 0 churches open for any physical in Georgia. Maybe there are one or two you don't know of. In the end, the Governor of Georgia left open the door to allow a congregation to gather as long as they maintain 6ft of separation - without the 10 person limit.

The Mother Jones article referenced other states also - some that did not have a 6ft separation rule and one (Louisiana) that seems to be arresting pastors that hold public services.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is with Georgia having the ability to attend church per the rules put out by your governor. At the end of the day it is what it is. For myself - I'm kind of done with the subject of Georgia and churches.

Sheesh!

Durnedwolf, your sources (Mother Earth News and Channel 11 Atlanta) had it right. Mine (Channel 2 Atlanta) had it wrong. I regret quoting a reputable source that nevertheless didn't get it right.

Meetings of less than 10 are prohibited unless six feet or more space is kept between members. See excerpt from executive order below.

Aside from the practical issues pertaining to distancing, every church that I know of has closed. I haven't heard any news reports or rumors that any are meeting in our state. If there are any, they'd be few and far between.

Well, I haven't been the one who keeps pressing the issue. I've tried to be responsive to numerous questions and statements.

If there ever is any doubt or dispute, try to go to the source if you can.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Obvert, please step back and take a deep breath. It isn't dissent that is being challenged or shut down.

It's snarky innuendo and backhanded insults that are being rightfully attacked.

I expect the next moderator visit here will result in a lock now that the efforts at antagonism on the part of one bad apple have borne fruit.

Just want to comment since this last page of reading has been so fucking frustrating, but the innuendo and backhanded insults haven't been one directional. I have just kept my mouth shut about it since that's what people were asking for but unable to actually exercise any of their own self control. I get it, I used to be like that... but I was a 20 year old dumb ass on an internet forum (looks around).

People are just not very good at self-assessing their own snark IMO. Green button is there, and you don't need to advertise for all when you press it.

Peace and be safe.

For those with an interest in US projections and results, there's the set of charts that've been referred to in here many times. Link: https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

That site projects total US mortality in this pandemic at 93k.

To this point, four days since the last update, actual US mortality has mostly come in beneath projection. On the 5th, for instance, the projection was 1529 with a max of 1790 and a min of 1228. The actual number (per Worldometers nearing midnight on the 5th) was 1165.

So the actual is less than the minimum projected. Presumably, if that kind of result continues, the actual mortality would be considerably less than the 93k projected. These are projections and therefore uncertain and subject to changes and fluctuation, but the further in we get the more meaningful any sustained trends would become.

Forumites can make similar analysis for their state or any state they have an interest in. Are projections running too low, too high, or about expected?

For my state, the projection today was below the minimum projected. I think that was true yesterday too.

It's early yet, but NY is doing somewhat better than projections.

Given its size and density, NY is probably the bellwether for the US. The better it does, the more hope for the rest of the country.

Since Louisiana has been in the news a lot, took a look at it too.

It's total today was above the projected (dashed) line.

Interestingly, tomorrow is projected to be the peak day in LA. If that holds, the pandemic then begins the gradual decline. That would be encouraging.

ORIGINAL: Encircled

This is the UK advice on gatherings in parks (published today)

https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/sta ... 46/photo/1

This is the more general info on when you can or can't do stuff.

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Thanks man - I appreciate the links.

A quick scan of a few other jurisdictions showed Alabama and Massachusetts below the minimum projected, North Carolina and Ohio below projected and Washington State and Arizona above projected.

Dan - thanks for posting the graphs near the bottom of page 117.

The Covid-19 graphs for the US just updated. Projected US mortality dropped from 93k to about 82k:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Apparently the trends noted above have substance.

In Georgia, the peak for the pandemic dropped from 21 days away to 14 days, a major change.

There may be lots of nuggets in the info for each particular state.

The updated charts include some significant changes for the better in various states, including California.

A major drop in mortality projection there, from 127/M to 45/M.

Good news.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

This article contains additional background on past leaks of viruses from labs in China.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15844/coronavirus-china-cover-up

[EDIT] This is from a less trustworthy site known mostly for its Anti-Musilm articles and xenophobic content in general.
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/23/gat ... slim-hate/

[font="Trebuchet MS"]The fact-checking website Snopes has found multiple false viral stories originating with Gatestone. For instance, the site claimed falsely that in London — called “Londonistan” in the piece — 423 mosques were built “on the sad ruins of English Christianity,” as 500 churches closed. But the story cherry-picked the data to ignore hundreds of newly opened churches.

Many of the fake stories have percolated into mainstream U.S. politics. Gatestone was largely responsible for the false claim that there are “no-go zones” through Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, and other European states where Muslim immigrants have set up a parallel society in which local police no longer enforce the law.[/font]

However, from my limited fact checking of links, it seems to be (mostly) well supported and researched, with links to the BBC, the Times and other reputable institutions. Curious anyway for more input on the content and possible validity.

Here is one excerpt, but there is much more about how accidental releases from Chinese labs have happened before. Much of the information comes from Chinese scientists and medical professionals, who are just as wary of their government (or more so) than many of us are. It would be good to get some input from anyone who speaks Chinese and can corroborate these sources.

"Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention" wrote David Ignatius of the Washington Post.

"Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?".

"Collecting viruses" presumably does not exclude the possibility of a "leaked virus". Worse, if China is not able to protect its laboratories, it needs to be held accountable and made to pay for the devastating global damage.

"Experts know the new coronavirus is not a bioweapon. They disagree on whether it could have leaked from a research lab", stated The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Professor Richard Ebright of Rutgers University's Waksman Institute of Microbiology, and a major biosecurity expert, agreed with the Nature Medicine authors' argument that the coronavirus was not manipulated by humans. But Ebright does think it possible that the Covid-19 started as an accidental leak from a laboratory, such as one of the two in Wuhan, which are known to have been studying bat viruses:

"Virus collection or animal infection with a virus having the transmission characteristics of the outbreak virus would pose substantial risk of infection of a lab worker, and from the lab worker, the public."

Ebright has also claimed that bat coronaviruses are studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, "which provides only minimal protection" compared with the top BSL-4.

Although it sounds like conspiracy theory, there have been so many links to the labs in Wuhan that have some validity and many citations here bring up missing doctors, scientists and journalists from the December to January period of this crisis in China. there is also ample evidence the Chinese initially destroyed all evidence of this virus in the labs studying it after it was noticed in Wuhan.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The Covid-19 graphs for the US just updated. Projected US mortality dropped from 93k to about 82k:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Apparently the trends noted above have substance.

In Georgia, the peak for the pandemic dropped from 21 days away to 14 days, a major change.

There may be lots of nuggets in the info for each particular state.

This is very good news, and I hope this trend continues. I have been hoping people begin to take this as seriously as others have had to in Italy, Spain and elsewhere, including here in the UK. With the tough news out of NY and surrounding areas lately I think it's hitting home, both from these trends and reports from others I know in various parts of the states.

You asked, Dan, for the map on movement. I had posted it earlier. It's here again, from the NY Times. It was posted April 2 and shows movement for the week of March 23 (I think beginning March 23).

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... Position=1

Stay-at-home orders have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely, potentially exposing more people as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates, according to an analysis of cellphone location data by The New York Times.

The divide in travel patterns, based on anonymous cellphone data from 15 million people, suggests that Americans in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home. Disease experts who reviewed the results say those reductions in travel — to less than a mile a day, on average, from about five miles — may be enough to sharply curb the spread of the coronavirus in those regions, at least for now.

“That’s huge,” said Aaron A. King, a University of Michigan professor who studies the ecology of infectious disease. “By any measure this is a massive change in behavior, and if we can make a similar reduction in the number of contacts we make, every indication is that we can defeat this epidemic.”

But not everybody has been staying home.

In areas where public officials have resisted or delayed stay-at-home orders, people changed their habits far less. Though travel distances in those places have fallen drastically, last week they were still typically more than three times those in areas that had imposed lockdown orders, the analysis shows.

This is from the time period Feb 28-March 27. It is done by the county, since that was the most common area of difference in stay at home orders for this time, local governments taking charge of this decision.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: warspite1


warspite1

Why is the US States situation more complicated than the German Lander?

For the avoidance of doubt that is a genuine question.

It's not. Most Americans simply don't know anything about the political makeup of Germany or any similarities that exist with the US.

The Lander system has worked well there as early on the regional governments all activated local labs for testing and isolating people with the virus.

There were local labs testing early on as well. One in Washington state comes to mind.

I think the other Germans and me could explain a lot about the situation in Germany and its approach to the crisis and how our federal system works. But I'm afraid that they and me are genuinely disgusted about the dogmatism and bad athmosphere of this thread now. Did you notice that fewer and fewer non-USA forumites are posting? Soon even the last Scots and Brits will have left.
I for my part won't post anything anymore because I seems to be of no use at all. You already seem to know everything and if it doesn't fit into your view of the world the "offender" receives a US shit storm in the end. So this thread turned into a club of people discussing US internal affairs. International statistics and comments are only needed if they fit into their view of the world. Unfortunately no Chinese forumite is present. I would have liked to hear his opinion about all the abstruse theories about China (audiatur et altera pars!) Good luck to you all and goodbye WitP-forum!

So this Gatestone Institute then?

Google searches just add to my disquiet.

I'm sorry lads, but some of you have gone into a long, dark tunnel and you ain't coming out of it anytime soon.

Take care all, and remember the US of pre-2016 with fondness and respect, rather than the one it is today.

ORIGINAL: Kursk1943

I think the other Germans and me could explain a lot about the situation in Germany and its approach to the crisis and how our federal system works. But I'm afraid that they and me are genuinely disgusted about the dogmatism and bad athmosphere of this thread now. Did you notice that fewer and fewer non-USA forumites are posting? Soon even the last Scots and Brits will have left.

I for my part won't post anything anymore because I seems to be of no use at all. You already seem to know everything and if it doesn't fit into your view of the world the "offender" receives a US shit storm in the end. So this thread turned into a club of people discussing US internal affairs. International statistics and comments are only needed if they fit into their view of the world. Unfortunately no Chinese forumite is present. I would have liked to hear his opinion about all the abstruse theories about China (audiatur et altera pars!) Good luck to you all and goodbye WitP-forum!

That is unfortunate.

Meanwhile the numbers here in Oz continue to fall away.