Stupid shit in Medellin

[Paulie97]

Check my photo attachments, a huge high five to New Yorkers who learned and have done a marvelous job of containing a pandemic. The same data can be found via the link below, and by scrolling down and viewing the graphs related to daily new cases and daily deaths, fucking impressive.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/

Enjoy your weekend gentlemen, and again, hats off to New York! .

[JjBee62]

You are so fucking stupid that you cannot make up your mind who to blame. Is it people like me or was it the international community? Is it China, Europe, or the US? On one hand, you say the virus travels on its own and politics do not matter than you blame Trump.

Do you realize what a narcissistic, egotistical fuck you have to be to claim that YOU know what would have stopped this virus?

On the one hand, you say that laws are worthless if they are not enforced. Yet, you propose the whole international community follow a law passed by whom? And enforced by whom?

Of course, it is no surprise to me that a liberal dumb ass like you claims to have complete knowledge about the virus and blames people who like Trump. Yes, we are the problem when it comes to the virus. Then tell me please why New York, a Democrat stronghold, has more deaths than any other state by a mile? How was that the fault of people like me? Here is why, dumbass. Because your dumb ass liberal governor, the one who showed "real leadership", ordered infected nursing homes residents to not be isolated in Covid only nursing homes. THAT was the single dumbest political decision made with regards to lives, and the numbers back it up!.

Did you forget to take your Lithium today?

I've never claimed to know everything about anything, certainly not about this virus. The voices in your head are lying to you, just like they were lying when they said drinking hand sanitizer was a good idea. You really shouldn't have listened to them.

But, let's entertain your fantasy for a moment. Go search my posts. Find one place where I claimed to know everything about this virus. Link it here and I'll send you $1,000 and I'll leave ISG. Surely you can do that.

I don't have the time or energy to deal with all of your educational deficiencies today. Let's just stick with one of the idiotic things you keep repeating:

"None of the experts have been 100% right."

100% is a mathematical concept, it has no other place in science. In fact, the idea of being 100% correct is antithetical to science. It's the mistaken belief there is no more knowledge to be gained.

The pinnacle of scientific achievement is the theory. Most people use the word without any knowledge of what a theory is. You've used it several times, showing your complete lack of knowledge of science.

The dictionary definition of theory is:

"a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained."

Which is not the definition of a scientific theory. In science a theory is the best current explanation for observed phenomena which accounts for all known data without contradiction. As anyone can see, there's no place for 100% in there. As more data becomes available, the theory must account for it, it must evolve as the tree of knowledge grows.

However, let's try out your "we can't trust anything from anyone who is not always 100% correct" claim. If you're going to apply it to the novel coronavirus, it's only fair you apply the same standard everywhere.

Let's start with Trump, because that's the easiest. You can't believe anything Trump says because he wasn't 100% correct when he said the 15 cases would soon be zero. I could pick out 30 more examples, but using your standard, anything less than 100% means everything coming from that source must be ignored.

Shall we look at your Bulgarian butt buddies? Have they been 100% correct on everything over the years? If not, everything from them, using your logic, must be assumed to be wrong.

Next on the agenda, air travel. Planes still crash. Therefore you can never get on another plane, because they're not 100% safe.

Women? Yep. You know that you've picked women who haven't lived up to your expectations. You're going to have to give them up too.

Add food to the list. Not all food is 100% safe to eat, therefore, no food is safe to eat.

You'll need to stop breathing too. We all know the air isn't 100% safe.

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? But that's the standard you're trying to hold every expert to. Worse, you're claiming that anyone who isn't an expert, who makes 1 correct statement needs to be accepted as always being 100% correct, no matter how wrong everything else is.

Keep trying Elvirus.

[JjBee62]

You are so fucking stupid that you cannot make up your mind who to blame. Is it people like me or was it the international community? Is it China, Europe, or the US? On one hand, you say the virus travels on its own and politics do not matter than you blame Trump.

Do you realize what a narcissistic, egotistical fuck you have to be to claim that YOU know what would have stopped this virus?

On the one hand, you say that laws are worthless if they are not enforced. Yet, you propose the whole international community follow a law passed by whom? And enforced by whom?

Of course, it is no surprise to me that a liberal dumb ass like you claims to have complete knowledge about the virus and blames people who like Trump. Yes, we are the problem when it comes to the virus. Then tell me please why New York, a Democrat stronghold, has more deaths than any other state by a mile? How was that the fault of people like me? Here is why, dumbass. Because your dumb ass liberal governor, the one who showed "real leadership", ordered infected nursing homes residents to not be isolated in Covid only nursing homes. THAT was the single dumbest political decision made with regards to lives, and the numbers back it up!

If you actually get your news from medical journals and not MSDNC and the NYT, you would see there is controversy even about how the virus is spread. This is from JAMA:..

Did you skip your Lithium today?

I've never claimed to know everything about anything. However, let's make a bet. Go back through my posts. Find 1 place where I claimed to know everything about this virus. Link it here. I'll send you $1,000 and I'll leave ISG. If you can't find it, I'll just continue to point out your educational deficiencies.

I don't have the time and energy today, so I'll just clear up one of the idiocies you keep repeating:

None of the experts have.

[JjBee62]

Do you think they handle it effectively from the very beginning before March or after certain time? That to me is an important distinction. If it is the later, then it means they failed before and they have learned their lesson to do better. Just like lots of people need to experience it to learn the lesson and in this case, it is costly.

Yes. Initially they failed. Initially the entire US failed. New York was hardest hit because NYC has the highest population density in the US, the highest public transportation usage and the highest number of international arrivals. It's not a surprise they were hardest hit.

However, they took action and continue to take action. Their numbers now are among the best in the US. They learned. That is a mark of leadership.

What's sad is that, instead of learning from New York, most of the US stood around criticizing them. Now places like Houston and Miami are facing the same problems.

Back in April, New York hospitals were paying registered nurses $5,000 and up per week to come work in NYC. That all ended in July when they no longer needed the staffing. Right now, Florida hospitals (with a much lower cost of living) are paying up to $4,400 per week for nurses because of staffing shortages.

It could have all been prevented, but that's asking a lot. People have to suffer and die before we will take serious action. So, 100,000 US deaths, or 150,000 were probably unavoidable, necessary losses to wake the country up and pull it together. But there's nobody pulling it together. Everyone is pulling in their own direction. Without any coherent leadership it's anyone's guess how much worse it will get.

200 k by the end of August? 400 k by the end of September? Who knows?

[PolloNegro]

And you carry on throwing money around and giving several hundred thousands of pesos to persons you do not know.

I been with the same Girl since late April, so who am I freely giving pesos to? See'Mon. Dude, you threw shade & I addressed it, don't be daft! Pollo negro is out!

[Turgid]

.........But Carry On, I know what I am and what I am not! Pollo Negro is Out!

And you carry on throwing money around and giving several hundred thousands of pesos to persons you do not know.

[Elvis 2008]

I didn't blame you. I blamed people like you.

If international travel had been severely restricted in January, combined with aggressive testing and contact tracing, the virus could have been contained in China. This is exactly what was done to contain the Ebola virus. It's exactly what China did to control the spread of the virus in China, on an international scale.

You are so fucking stupid that you cannot make up your mind who to blame. Is it people like me or was it the international community? Is it China, Europe, or the US? On one hand, you say the virus travels on its own and politics do not matter than you blame Trump.

Do you realize what a narcissistic, egotistical fuck you have to be to claim that YOU know what would have stopped this virus?

On the one hand, you say that laws are worthless if they are not enforced. Yet, you propose the whole international community follow a law passed by whom? And enforced by whom?

Of course, it is no surprise to me that a liberal dumb ass like you claims to have complete knowledge about the virus and blames people who like Trump. Yes, we are the problem when it comes to the virus. Then tell me please why New York, a Democrat stronghold, has more deaths than any other state by a mile? How was that the fault of people like me? Here is why, dumbass. Because your dumb ass liberal governor, the one who showed "real leadership", ordered infected nursing homes residents to not be isolated in Covid only nursing homes. THAT was the single dumbest political decision made with regards to lives, and the numbers back it up!

If you actually get your news from medical journals and not MSDNC and the NYT, you would see there is controversy even about how the virus is spread. This is from JAMA:

All told, current understanding about SARS-CoV-2 transmission is still limited. There are no perfect experimental data proving or disproving droplet vs aerosol-based transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The balance of evidence, however, seems inconsistent with aerosol-based transmission of SARS-CoV-2 particularly in well-ventilated spaces. What this means in practice is that keeping 6-feet apart from other people and wearing medical masks, high-quality cloth masks, or face shields when it is not possible to be 6-feet apart (for both source control and respiratory protection) should be adequate to minimize the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (in addition to frequent hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, and optimizing indoor ventilation).

To be sure, there are rarely absolutes in biological systems, people produce both droplets and aerosols, transmission may take place along a spectrum, and even medical masks likely provide some protection against aerosols. 6,10 It is impossible to conclude that aerosol-based transmission never occurs and it is perfectly understandable that many prefer to err on the side of caution, particularly in health care settings when caring for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. However, the balance of currently available evidence suggests that long-range aerosol-based transmission is not the dominant mode of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

And here is a rebuttal to that POV:

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934837

The reason why the virus is surging and will continue to surge in the US, is because the US stopped trying to stop the virus in May. Instead the US, at the urging of Trump and his herd of sycophants, declared we had to open everything up to save the economy.

Show me one expert who was 100% right on the virus and who Trump should have listened to. No one was 100% right. The experts do not even agree on how the virus is transmitted.

Colombia will not be open to international flights on September 1.

Whatever, dumb ass. The ban did no good anyway. The data looks bad, but the ban did no good whatsoever. It is a political decision.

The economic impact of allowing international travel will be offset by costs at least 5 times as high, not to mention the added strain on testing capacity.

It is amazing when you pull stats like this out of your ass and think that is respectable.

As I've told you before, except you lack the spine to reply to my posts, the continued travel restrictions have very little to do with controlling the spread in each country.

Right, the travel bans are in place to destroy the world economy.

The continued travel bans are to allow each country to allocate resources where they are needed. Why put 200 people at every international airport in Colombia, taking temperatures, testing for COVID-19, interviewing every inbound passenger, establishing quarantine requirements and turning back any suspected carriers, just so a few brainless, nutless, semen swallowers like you can come and play?

What color is the sky in your world? Do you know how many people in Colombia are twiddling their thumbs right now?

You are not being a very good liberal socialist pig when you go against globalism.

Columbia might be open to international flights December 1, but I wouldn't be buying any non-transferable tickets.

Oh, I see after the election. Yeah, assholes like you want to totally destroy the world economy to get Trump out of office. Thanks for confirming it.

[Nounce]

The fact that New York, the site of the worst outbreak in the US, has been more effective than any other state at controlling the outbreak shows how well they handled it, and continue to handle it.

Do you think they handle it effectively from the very beginning before March or after certain time? That to me is an important distinction. If it is the later, then it means they failed before and they have learned their lesson to do better. Just like lots of people need to experience it to learn the lesson and in this case, it is costly.

[JjBee62]

Exactly right, Nounce, however there is a bigger picture. "If you had to summarize our approach, it's really poor federal leadership disorganization and denial," said Andy Slavitt, who ran Medicare and Medicaid from 2015 to 2017.

The NYT point is that if we had just listened to guys like Andy Slavitt all would be well right?

Who the fuck is Andy Slavitt? He is an Obama appointee who asked Congress to give him $50 billion to take on Covid and was turned down.

And a big chunk of that $50 billion was going to go to unneeded ventilators to boot.

But let us be a little objective here. Have I blamed JJBee or Paulie for the outbreak? No but JJBee blamed me. Similarly, has anyone blamed Cuomo for the outbreak? No, but Trump has been blamed. Fox News has been blamed but not the NY Times right?

What I think is that the government's approach had very little to do with the virus spreading. Sure, you can do contract tracing, frequent testing, targeted isolation, and it helps, but what pisses me off is the experts take on things. Everywhere the virus has calmed down it is due to the sound advice of experts. Everywhere it is raging, the people are non-compliant and stupid. Come on!

There may be people who know more about this virus than others, but nobody is a fucking expert on this virus. We are all learning. Show me one person who has been 100% right about everything. They do not exist.

When I said Colombia would be open with 99% certainty in July, that was based on the shape of the viral curve. That is why parts of the USA opened up. They were looking at the same data I was, and the virus surged instead of falling like it always had in the past. Why did that happen? I don't know, but Paulie and JJBee know as well as the NY Times. It was not due to a mutation or environmental conditions. No, it was due to stupid Trump and the stupid Republican governors. Give me a break!

Why has the virus been surging in Colombia and Peru when it has burned itself out in Europe? Tell the truth. Don't tell me the academic blowhards make a well reasoned case when they got everything wrong. No one knows why the virus is surging in South America, and no one can say what the best course of action is.

What seems to be lost in this discussion is no one said in March the virus would be eliminated. We were just going to flatten the curve, slow the speed at which the cases were spreading so we would not have to make decisions on who got treatment and who did not, and those life and death decisions never happened. However, the viral cases went way down in Europe and Asia, and many thought the same thing would happen in the Americas, and it didn't.

This whole discussion was supposed to be about when Colombia will be opening. Instead it was a mud fight about supposed experts. Colombia did everything the experts wanted, and the disease raged on anyway and now we have to listen to excuses from the experts who were wrong instead of them being honest and saying they do not know.

What I can say is that I do not think banning international travel is worth doing when the virus is already spreading domestically, so the decision to open up is going to be based more on politics than science.

The real reason Colombia should open up is the last reason the president will give. "I am opening up our airports again because let's be honest, I was wrong for banning international travel because that ban didn't do a fucking thing to slow down the virus here in Colombia.

If you want to discuss the things I have written, you chicken shit dingleberry farmer, quote my posts. This is how debate works. Of course you can't do that because then you won't be able to twist everything to fit your rampant psychosis.

I didn't blame you. I blamed people like you. Whining like someone took away your Anal Dominator 3000 "we have to save the economy."

The reason why the virus is surging and will continue to surge in the US, is because the US stopped trying to stop the virus in May. Instead the US, at the urging of Trump and his herd of sycophants, declared we had to open everything up to save the economy.

It takes 12 weeks to wipe out an outbreak of COVID-19. That's 12 weeks of shutdown, 12 weeks of social distancing, 12 weeks of doing everything possible to stop the spread. The US did 8 weeks. Now we're entering virgin territory. We have a virus which is everywhere and we're treating it like it doesn't exist. Nobody has any idea where it's going to end, because nobody has done any modeling based on doing absolutely nothing.

Colombia will not be open to international flights on September 1. I understand that a hooker told you that it will be open September 1, but I'm pretty sure she's not the hooker who is in charge.

Columbia might be open to international flights December 1, but I wouldn't be buying any non-transferable tickets.

You keep lying, time and time again, about what I have said, yet you absolutely fucking refuse to respond to my post where I said it. Grow a set of balls, or have your sugar daddy buy you a set so you can pretend to have testicles.

For the fourth time:

If international travel had been severely restricted in January, combined with aggressive testing and contact tracing, the virus could have been contained in China. This is exactly what was done to contain the Ebola virus. It's exactly what China did to control the spread of the virus in China, on an international scale.

You see viruses are simple little things. They don't own cars, or planes. They don't have tiny little jetpacks that allow them to flit about like the Motherfucking Jetsons. They have to rely upon infected hosts to take them places. Just like the syphilis which has completely destroyed your brain cells, the coronavirus can't move around the world without outside help.

Everyone, except for you, knows this. Even you have acknowledged it when you praised Trump for shutting down flights from China. Remember that? Of course everyone, except for you, realizes that if they can't fly direct from China to the US, they can fly to Europe and then fly to the US. Which means instead of LA getting all the infected passengers, without any testing requirements, without any quarantine or contact tracing, they all ended up in NYC and NJ.

As I've told you before, except you lack the spine to reply to my posts, the continued travel restrictions have very little to do with controlling the spread in each country. The continued travel bans are to allow each country to allocate resources where they are needed. Why put 200 people at every international airport in Colombia, taking temperatures, testing for COVID-19, interviewing every inbound passenger, establishing quarantine requirements and turning back any suspected carriers, just so a few brainless, nutless, semen swallowers like you can come and play? Why spend the money and manpower making certain none of the inbound passengers violate quarantine? Why add that burden to the other efforts to stop the spread? The economic impact of allowing international travel will be offset by costs at least 5 times as high, not to mention the added strain on testing capacity.

Colombia will not be business as usual September 1. When Colombia does open up for international flights, there will be restrictions on flights from any countries that have not managed to control the spread of the virus.

You can cry, whine, *****, lie and complain all you want and it's not going to change. No matter how many straw men, non sequiturs, arguments from ignorance, slippery slopes, moving goalposts, hasty generalizations, post hoc ergo propter hoc, begging the claim, circular reasoning, ad hominem, ad populum, or red herring fallacies you throw out, it's not going to change the facts.

Get daddy to buy you a pacifier and suck on that until the bans are lifted and you can go back to sucking Colombian dick.

[JjBee62]

I see you still can't figure out how to properly quote. It's amazing the number of ways you manage to make yourself look like an idiot. But, I guess you have to play to your strength.

Uh, wait a second. I am going after the notion that Trump is being picked on for not following expert advice when the experts often have not had a clue. Peru followed all the advice the experts gave and had lousy results. You and JJBee are the ones all over the map.

No. Peru didn't follow all the advice the experts gave. The government of Peru issued guidance based upon the experts advice. As was clearly explained in the Yale study, those guidelines were not adhered to by a significant segment of the population. The same has been true in Colombia.

You see, passing a law, or suggesting behavior isn't like waving a magic wand. It doesn't do anything, unless the people follow the law. Just last month Indiana made it illegal to have a cellphone in your hand while driving. I am, every day, in a unique position to see whether or not drivers have a cellphone in their hand. Want to guess how effective the law has been at getting people to put down the phone while driving?

This is from today in the NY Times, "Health officials initially gave confusing advice around wearing masks in public. " First thing the NY Times says is that "experts" gave out bad advice about masks. I have said if there is evidence they may work, they should be used. The downside IMO is limited. JJBee and you were dead wrong then about everything being clear from the get go not me. Your line about "by extension" is just you lying. I never said I was against masks. I said the experts did not know what they were talking about. You two lost on this point.

You threw a 3 year old temper tantrum when you were told you had to wear a mask to enter a store. You whined, bitched and cried about it like a fucking baby. Seriously. Like a fucking baby. Too late to change your story on that point.

"Experts. " There was no confusion from experts. The confusion was that a lot of brainless fuckweasels like yourself can't tell an expert from an enema. You actually get it completely wrong every time. The more shit someone is spewing, the more of an expert you think they are. The experts at the beginning said "stay home", "don't hoard masks", "keep your distance" and "you don't need N95 masks to go to Walmart. " Your"experts said "masks cause oxygen deprivation", "masks don't work" and "masks are unconstitutional. ".

Peru and Colombia are absolute proof that generalized quarantines do not work. There is nothing else to talk about with that. Quarantining people who are not sick and have not been exposed to the virus is as boneheaded a concept as I have seen. You have lost here as well.

You are absolute proof that it's possible to have an effective IQ under 20. There was no generalized quarantine in Colombia or Peru. Quarantines were ordered. Compliance is another story. Several board members have reported several times on both El Centro and Santa Fe. Did they report that both places were empty? No. They didn't. In fact some reports stated there were more people than before the quarantine.

For those who have large Facebook friend lists, they've seen posts every night showing parties going on. I've had girls I talk to in cities from Cucuta to Armenia tell me that it's mostly been business as usual.

Social distancing IS a waste of time when it comes to the spread of the virus. It is a ruse to trace people to get their contact information because you need people to be six feet apart so the GPS on their phone can tell them apart. That data is being used right now: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/analysis-data-15m-phones-shows-some-americans-are-gathering-pre-n1229636.

So you lose on this point as well when you indicated this collection is not going on.

Using GPS data to track people's movements does work. I cannot say that you lost the point totally on social distancing, but if you think you are safe being 6 feet away from someone who is infected with Covid at Walmart but unsafe at 4 feet, you are an idiot.

Using phone data by the way is legal by the way if it is anonymous. But if you think this data is anonymous as are your medical records, I have a bridge to sell you.

Bouncing around like a rubber ball again I see. I'm getting confused here. Is social distancing effective at stopping the spread of the virus, which is what you claimed for Texas? Or is social distancing not effective for stopping the spread of the virus which is what you claimed for New York and what you're claiming now. Does the virus call you up every day to find out whether or not social distancing is working that day?

Oh yes. It's all about tracking people's movements. Yep. Do you own stock in Alcoa? As often as you put on that tinfoil hat, it might be a good investment for you.

You do not get to make a statement from New Haven on how people in Peru behaved by declaration. Given how readily available cell phone data is with regards to location and compliance, why is it not being used to back up the claim of lack of compliance? I have asked you for this multiple times to back up this claim and you have not provided it. Now you are trying to prove a negative which means you lost.

"The administration's travel restrictions were insufficient. " Colombia and Peru are absolute proof that travel restrictions did nothing. You lost this point as well as does JJBee when he claimed an air travel ban would have stopped the virus.

No. On everything here. Just no. The claim of non-compliance for Peru has already been backed up multiple times. Your inability to understand simple English seems to prevent you from grasping it.

Once again, you duplicitous, cowardly, idiotic cock-nuzzling shit stick, pay attention:

In January, as I've said twice already, international travel restrictions, combined with aggressive testing and contact tracing, could have contained the virus in China. These things were not done. It's the same fucking thing that was done to contain Ebola. It's not too difficult of a concept to grasp.

As for Colombia and Peru, give it a fucking rest. Once a virus is among the population of a country, it won't disappear by banning international travel. The virus doesn't read the news and say "oh shit! They're shutting down international travel. We need to pack up and go to some country that's not stopping international travel. " It just blows my mind how incredibly fucking stupid you are.

And the NY Times echoes your bird brained Fox News angle. "And the president's public statements including claiming that the virus wasn't serious and would disappear regularly spread misinformation. " This is as arrogant as it gets. If only we had a different president, the virus would not have spread. That is completely devoid of scientific evidence.

Given that 90% of the people getting Covid in my area are minorities, I think the evidence of Fox News and Trump spreading misinformation as a cause for the virus is incredibly thin. I think if people were asked about what Trump said about the virus most people could not remember anything specific. I cannot say you lost this point but I can say the evidence is not there.

Although it's no longer necessary to point out that you're a brainless child with no understanding of anything remotely related to science, I'll state it again, in case anyone missed it.

It doesn't require a different President. It requires a President who follows common sense guidelines for infectious disease control. It requires a President who reads intelligence briefings and takes action based upon the advice of experts.

Doesn't matter at all who that President is, as long as he or she takes the appropriate action.

How many specific things Trump said about the virus do you want to hear?

Jan 22 - "It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine.

Feb 26 - "You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.

Mar 17 - "This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."

There are plenty of other gems out there, but this has to be my all-time favorite:

Apt 23 - "I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."

Nobody said that the cause of the spread of the virus is the horribly irresponsible information put out by Trump and Fox News. The cause of the spread of the virus is that it's a virus, that spreads. Because that's what viruses do. The criminally stupid misinformation spread by Fox and Trump has been counter-productive to stopping the spread of the virus.

But Paulie, here is the most disgusting thing about what you and JJBee have been spouting, and it is the NYT first point.

"The United States has a tradition of prioritizing individualism over government restrictions. ".

The NYT solution is completely debunked by Peru and Colombia, but it shows what THEIR agenda truly is. They want us all to cede control to the government.

As for me, government action on AIDS and the opioid crisis were unmitigated disasters. If you want to believe the experts totally know what they are talking about, have at it. You have convinced me of nothing outside of the fact that you two are in total lock step with the NYT and their desire to take away our individualism.

It makes me wonder why you guys bother going to Colombia at all.

Nobody is trying to take away your right to be a clueless ass clown. I fully support your right to prove your unparalleled stupidity as often as you desire.

Peru and Colombia have debunked nothing, because as had been reported from multiple sources, there was no effective lockdown in Peru and Colombia. You can lie about it as often as you want, but it changes nothing.

Wait a second. The government action on AIDS was an unmitigated disaster? But you've repeatedly said AIDS was a complete hoax which didn't happen at all. How can there have been disastrous action on something which, according to you, never even existed?

Take away your individualism? By telling you to put on a fucking mask? That's it? You're already such a fucking clone that not wearing a mask is the only bit of individualism you have left? How sad and pathetic is that? Here's a tip for you: Get someone to make you a mask that says"I'm not wearing a mask. " Boom! You've salvaged your individualism.

Again: Nobody else could be that stupid.

[Elvis 2008]

Maybe the experts are not experts in this instance. I see that both sides are just comparing failures.

Exactly right, Nounce, however there is a bigger picture. "If you had to summarize our approach, it's really poor federal leadership — disorganization and denial," said Andy Slavitt, who ran Medicare and Medicaid from 2015 to 2017.

The NYT point is that if we had just listened to guys like Andy Slavitt all would be well right?

Who the fuck is Andy Slavitt? He is an Obama appointee who asked Congress to give him $50 billion to take on Covid and was turned down.

And a big chunk of that $50 billion was going to go to unneeded ventilators to boot.

But let us be a little objective here. Have I blamed JJBee or Paulie for the outbreak? No but JJBee blamed me. Similarly, has anyone blamed Cuomo for the outbreak? No, but Trump has been blamed. Fox News has been blamed but not the NY Times right?

What I think is that the government's approach had very little to do with the virus spreading. Sure, you can do contract tracing, frequent testing, targeted isolation, and it helps, but what pisses me off is the experts take on things. Everywhere the virus has calmed down it is due to the sound advice of experts. Everywhere it is raging, the people are non-compliant and stupid. Come on!

There may be people who know more about this virus than others, but nobody is a fucking expert on this virus. We are all learning. Show me one person who has been 100% right about everything. They do not exist.

When I said Colombia would be open with 99% certainty in July, that was based on the shape of the viral curve. That is why parts of the USA opened up. They were looking at the same data I was, and the virus surged instead of falling like it always had in the past. Why did that happen? I don't know, but Paulie and JJBee know as well as the NY Times. It was not due to a mutation or environmental conditions. No, it was due to stupid Trump and the stupid Republican governors. Give me a break!

Why has the virus been surging in Colombia and Peru when it has burned itself out in Europe? Tell the truth. Don't tell me the academic blowhards make a well reasoned case when they got everything wrong. No one knows why the virus is surging in South America, and no one can say what the best course of action is.

What seems to be lost in this discussion is no one said in March the virus would be eliminated. We were just going to flatten the curve, slow the speed at which the cases were spreading so we would not have to make decisions on who got treatment and who did not, and those life and death decisions never happened. However, the viral cases went way down in Europe and Asia, and many thought the same thing would happen in the Americas, and it didn't.

This whole discussion was supposed to be about when Colombia will be opening. Instead it was a mud fight about supposed experts. Colombia did everything the experts wanted, and the disease raged on anyway and now we have to listen to excuses from the experts who were wrong instead of them being honest and saying they do not know.

What I can say is that I do not think banning international travel is worth doing when the virus is already spreading domestically, so the decision to open up is going to be based more on politics than science.

The real reason Colombia should open up is the last reason the president will give. "I am opening up our airports again because let's be honest, I was wrong for banning international travel because that ban didn't do a fucking thing to slow down the virus here in Colombia. "

The president is going to have to put up with the likes of JJBee and the NYT though that keep spouting the crap that if international travel was banned, the virus would not have spread.

Of course, this is not fair. If the president opens things up and the virus surges, he gets the blame. If he keeps it closed, the economy suffers, and he gets the blame, and it does not help that the number of viral cases is still exploding in Colombia.

His only option then, and it has been the same option that has been exercised in the USA, is to open up slowly and see what happens. Despite the surge of cases in Colombia, one of my chicas told me the September 1 open date is still a go. There is just going to be a small percentage of international flights coming in as opposed to what happened in the past. The goal is to open things totally back up again in November.

The difference is that I do not pretend to know what is going to happen next outside of this. If nothing happens, I doubt the president will get any credit for making a bold move. If there is a surge of cases, you can be assured that there will be a bunch of experts and political opponents proclaiming how stupid he is.

[JjBee62]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You lost me right there. New York has more deaths than anywhere else in the nation, and it is not even close. They have had 32,000 deaths. New Jersey is second at around 16,000, and no other state is even above 10,000, and these numbers are not in dispute.

Let me guess, Paulie, you and most other Republicans agree that New York is an example of getting things done.

If you are a Republican, I am Brad Pitt.

There was a time when I'd read something and think "nobody is that stupid. " Now I just laugh and think "Elvis can top that. " You never disappoint.

The effectiveness of any action or policy is measured by examining the change in the appropriate metrics. For example when a state passes a law requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets you examine injury and death statistics before and after the law went into effect. In this way you have a measure of the law's impact.

What you don't do, except this is exactly what you do, is look at the statistics 5 years before the law was passed and say "obviously the law didn't work. "

At its peak, on April 14, New York reported over 11,500 new cases. Today they reported less than 750. At its peak, on May 6, New York reported 231 deaths. Today they reported 3.

Let's see how well your logic applies elsewhere.

In 1990 the New England Patriots had a record of 1 win and 15 losses. Therefore, historically they are one of the worst teams in the NFL.

Let's try another one. In 1877 the price of gold was $21.25. Therefore, if you have any gold, you should sell it to anyone offering more than $25 per troy ounce. Take that money and run.

The fact that New York, the site of the worst outbreak in the US, has been more effective than any other state at controlling the outbreak shows how well they handled it, and continue to handle it.

Do you watch any type of auto racing? In your tiny little world of abject stupidity, it's only the starting order which matters, not who wins the race.

Nobody else could be that stupid.

[Nounce]

Uh, wait a second. I am going after the notion that Trump is being picked on for not following expert advice when the experts often have not had a clue. Peru followed all the advice the experts gave and had lousy results. You and JJBee are the ones all over the map.

Maybe the experts are not experts in this instance. I see that both sides are just comparing failures. Have you thought about changing approach by comparing failure to success? Vietnam is successful so far. How about using it or Korea to draw your conclusion?

[Elvis 2008]

And for the audience, remember where this all started? Elvis picked Peru in an attempt to prove that quarantines don't work, and by extension, that masks and social distancing are a waste of time. He claimed that Peru had strict quarantines but still had big troubles with the virus..

Uh, wait a second. I am going after the notion that Trump is being picked on for not following expert advice when the experts often have not had a clue. Peru followed all the advice the experts gave and had lousy results. You and JJBee are the ones all over the map.

This is from today in the NY Times, "Health officials initially gave confusing advice around wearing masks in public. " First thing the NY Times says is that "experts" gave out bad advice about masks. I have said if there is evidence they may work, they should be used. The downside IMO is limited. JJBee and you were dead wrong then about everything being clear from the get go not me. Your line about "by extension" is just you lying. I never said I was against masks. I said the experts did not know what they were talking about. You two lost on this point.

Peru and Colombia are absolute proof that generalized quarantines do not work. There is nothing else to talk about with that. Quarantining people who are not sick and have not been exposed to the virus is as boneheaded a concept as I have seen. You have lost here as well.

Social distancing IS a waste of time when it comes to the spread of the virus. It is a ruse to trace people to get their contact information because you need people to be six feet apart so the GPS on their phone can tell them apart. That data is being used right now: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...g-pre-n1229636.

So you lose on this point as well when you indicated this collection is not going on.

Using GPS data to track people's movements does work. I cannot say that you lost the point totally on social distancing, but if you think you are safe being 6 feet away from someone who is infected with Covid at Walmart but unsafe at 4 feet, you are an idiot.

Using phone data by the way is legal by the way if it is anonymous. But if you think this data is anonymous as are your medical records, I have a bridge to sell you.

There's no "data" that says the vast majority of the people of Peru obeyed the quarantine rules.

You do not get to make a statement from New Haven on how people in Peru behaved by declaration. Given how readily available cell phone data is with regards to location and compliance, why is it not being used to back up the claim of lack of compliance? I have asked you for this multiple times to back up this claim and you have not provided it. Now you are trying to prove a negative which means you lost.

"The administration's travel restrictions were insufficient. " Colombia and Peru are absolute proof that travel restrictions did nothing. You lost this point as well as does JJBee when he claimed an air travel ban would have stopped the virus.

And the NY Times echoes your bird brained Fox News angle. "And the president's public statements — including claiming that the virus wasn't serious and would disappear — regularly spread misinformation. " This is as arrogant as it gets. If only we had a different president, the virus would not have spread. That is completely devoid of scientific evidence.

Given that 90% of the people getting Covid in my area are minorities, I think the evidence of Fox News and Trump spreading misinformation as a cause for the virus is incredibly thin. I think if people were asked about what Trump said about the virus most people could not remember anything specific. I cannot say you lost this point but I can say the evidence is not there.

But Paulie, here is the most disgusting thing about what you and JJBee have been spouting, and it is the NYT first point.

"The United States has a tradition of prioritizing individualism over government restrictions. ".

The NYT solution is completely debunked by Peru and Colombia, but it shows what THEIR agenda truly is. They want us all to cede control to the government.

As for me, government action on AIDS and the opioid crisis were unmitigated disasters. If you want to believe the experts totally know what they are talking about, have at it. You have convinced me of nothing outside of the fact that you two are in total lock step with the NYT and their desire to take away our individualism.

It makes me wonder why you guys bother going to Colombia at all.

Then it was pointed out that quaratines are meaningless without compliance, and that there has in fact been plenty of non-compliance in Peru and in many other parts of South America as well. Since then he's been scrambling, flipping, flopping, lying, and weaving fallacies trying to get out from under the weight of this. But he stepped on his dick and it's too late to undo it. He just stepped on it again, but this time with size 10 football cleets when he mocked New York.

https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/...response-fails

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nat...244223757.html

https://thebogotapost.com/olis-big-t...-police/46904/

https://thebogotapost.com/strict-qua...-bogota/47133/

We can add to this primary source information from members of this forum who have reported it is "business as usual" in El Centro, Medellin.

And it's not just South America. There's plenty of non-compliance in my home state of Florida. I see it all the time in my city, and here's an article with support and quotes from the governor. And no, he's not a "Democrat. " LOL.

https://www.palmcoastobserver.com/ar...covid-19-spike

Wow okay. You have shown yourself as the "blowhard" extraordinaire in this forum day after day for months. What "data saying otherwise?" There's no "data" that says the vast majority of the people of Peru obeyed the quarantine rules. There's no "data" that says that they stayed home and did not crowd in markets and banks. There's no data that says large amounts of poor people didn't live in crowded housing, or give up on the quarantine and go out looking for work. There's no "data" that says the police were highly successful at enforcing quarantine measures. As I told you last time, put that back in your ass. It doesn't work. There's much more involved in studying these phenomenons than looking at per capita infection and death rates since the start of the pandemic. But your dimwitted mentality explains well why you dissed New York.

South America has a lot of poverty moron. LOL Crowded households, large volumes of day laborers, vagabonds, crowded markets, and weak law enforcement are all part of the terrain. So if I mention all the homeless glue sniffers laid out in rows on the sidewalks in El Centro then I'm just reciting BS "democrat" talking points? Truth tends to be inflexible regardless of deflections.

Public health officials in Latin America have no more control over compliance than the same in the US. My state Florida is swimming in non-compliance. Absent enforcement resources there isn't a lot that can be done about it. Yet another dimwitted statement from you.

You are a liar, but what else is new?

Huh? The "scientific method" has demonstrated how the disease spreads. Keeping distance is a huge help as are masks. Your resistance to these practices and attempts to discredit them is where all these discussions began.

Gotcha. So the social distancing directives in the states are all data collection scams so they can assert control over you. What about every other country in the world that calls for social distancing? What scam are they running? What about your "scientific method" that demonstrates how the disease is spread? You are delusional. That's the bottom line here.

I played hooky tonight but will likely check back again. But I'm done responding to ridiculous statements, extreme goal post shifts, strawmen and other fallacies. I've already gone way beyond the call of duty with that. A reasonable point that hasn't already been covered and I'll likely respond, time permitting.

Cheers gentlemen. Anyone following the discussion do read the links. It's as obvious as the nose on your face. Demographics and logistics in South America are doing a lot to facilitate the spread of Covid.

[Elvis 2008]

New York is an especially remarkable example of how to get things done.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You lost me right there. New York has more deaths than anywhere else in the nation, and it is not even close. They have had 32,000 deaths. New Jersey is second at around 16,000, and no other state is even above 10,000, and these numbers are not in dispute.

Let me guess, Paulie, you and most other Republicans agree that New York is an example of getting things done.

If you are a Republican, I am Brad Pitt.