Offside Chat Archives (2014-2021)

Jessica Gonzalez said:In the US, about 55,000 people pass away annually, and since we have roughly 330 million residents (give or take, let's round it), I guess that means there's a baseline chance of about 1.3-1.4% of dying in any given year, even without considering things like Corona. It might take a lot more time to get solid statistics for Corona, much like how we still don't have exact numbers for H1N1—just general ranges. But assuming a baseline of around 1.35%, I wonder how people have lived with that until now? Are we even really aware of that number? And since death rates tend to rise due to an aging population and shifting demographics, maybe that baseline percentage will continue to climb for a while. Naturally, just like with Corona, the risk increases as you get older. For young people, it’s definitely much lower than 1.35%, whereas for the elderly, it's likely higher.

Jessica Gonzalez said:You don't need to be a statistician or a doctor to look at the data from the Census Bureau. I'm not really getting into how dangerous Corona is or isn't—it’ll probably take quite a while before we have definitive stats on that. I’m just saying that, by default, the baseline risk of death seems to be in the same ballpark as what people are saying about Corona. For an average person in America, the default mortality risk isn't like, one in a thousand, whereas they say Corona is around 3.5 percent. The default is probably over 1.3 percent, and while it's hard to pin down the exact stats for Corona, it seems to be heading toward that 1 percent mark. So, when you head to the grocery store to grab something to eat, maybe we should think about what exactly we're afraid of. In my own company over the last two years, three people passed away between the ages of 30 and 50, and it wasn't because of a virus. There are deaths and serious illnesses in my family too, so I personally don't feel like this virus is the primary issue. America generally deals with high male mortality rates due to stress and lifestyle-related diseases. If an unprecedented panic is being declared, then I guess it’s no wonder people are acting panicky. The virus itself might not be the main problem; it emerged from nature, just like we did, and our species has lived alongside viruses since the beginning. Maybe the real issue is people and how they react. So many "ad hoc" decisions have been made in such a record-breaking short timeframe, and I suppose in time, we'll have to weigh all the pros and cons.

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I honestly think some level of quarantine and basic caution is necessary if we want to keep infection rates down and, by extension, keep the death toll from climbing. There’s a massive difference between a million people getting sick and just a hundred people getting sick when you factor in a 1% mortality rate. If I catch Corona, I probably won't die, but I could easily pass it on to ten other people—so, wouldn't it be better to just not spread it to anyone at all?

The second issue is that this kind of precaution should really be about solidarity with one another, rather than some desperate, panicked scramble because everyone is terrified the virus is going to catch up to us. Honestly, screw your hoarding of toilet paper and canned tuna.

Jessica Gonzalez is such an anti-vaxxer. She managed to pull three random numbers out of thin air, claiming we all have a 1.5 percent chance of dropping dead this year, and she’s actually trying to build some grand philosophy around that premise.

Can someone please give people some actual facts?

Much like Cristiano, myself and others like us are pulling in $100 million annually, averaging about a million each. It makes one wonder, doesn't it—how does anyone actually end up poor?

I’m not losing sleep over that tiny one-and-a-half percent chance of dying. What actually keeps me up at night? There's a solid 50% chance I'll get laid off, and a 100% certainty that finding a new job won't be easy. On top of that, there's a 100% guarantee that people I actually care about will lose their jobs too.

That 1.5% figure is strictly for the panic merchants.

brightpilot6 said:Jessica Gonzalez is such an anti-vaxxer. She managed to pull three random numbers out of thin air, claiming we all have a 1.5 percent chance of dropping dead this year, and she’s actually trying to build some grand philosophy around that premise.

Can someone please give people some actual facts?

The 1.5% chance of dying isn't what keeps me up at night. What actually worries me is the 50% chance I might lose my job, and the 100% certainty that I won't be able to find another one. On top of that, there's a 100% chance that people I actually care about will get laid off too.

That 1.5%? That’s just noise for the panic merchants.

brightpilot6 said:Jessica Gonzalez is such an anti-vaxxer. She managed to pull three random numbers out of thin air, claiming we all have a 1.5 percent chance of dropping dead this year, and she’s actually trying to build some grand philosophy around that premise.

Can someone please give people some actual facts?

I’ll give ZZ one thing.
The best way to throw out a "1%" figure is when you don't have any real data yet. GQ is usually a smart guy, but look at how he could spin it:
Say there are 100,000 infections, 1% die, and 99% recover. Sure, then you can say, "See, it's just 1%."

But if you've got 200,000 infected, 20,000 recovered, and 2,000 dead, you can't talk about a death percentage yet. You won't know the true impact of those deaths until you see what happens to the other 180,000, or whether they end up facing long-term consequences.

You can't just downplay it like it's nothing. I mean, take the people who survived Chernobyl—are they counted in the immediate death statistics? Of course not, because they died 10, 20, or 30 years later.

Talking stats when nobody actually knows what's going on with this virus—other than the fact that it's spreading like wildfire—is pointless. I’ve already posted this in another thread, but the entire Scientific Community agrees this is a massive deal. This isn't comparable to the flu or anything else; it's much worse. Governments are essentially nuking their entire economies, but hey, hundreds of these guys love to play the relativist. They act like it's not serious because the mortality rate looks low. Whatever you think about it, I'm telling you, world leaders and heads of research institutes are better informed than the rest of us mortals. Everyone agrees: "It's dangerous, stay calm, but it's not harmless." We know they always use careful language to prevent a total meltdown, which usually means things are even worse than they're letting on.

There's no need to panic and hoard toilet paper, but there's also no reason to brush this off.

And the absolute best argument is: "Well, older people are dying, but they were going to die anyway."
I'm sure when your parents or grandparents pass away, you'll just tell them, "Who cares, you were going to die eventually," or if someone dies in a car wreck, you'll say, "Whatever, they were driving an eight-hour shift in a truck, they had a high chance of dying regardless."

Alright, I guess I'll finally weigh in and sign off on this too. Jessica Gonzalez grabbed some statistical data that's completely irrelevant and spun an entire narrative out of it. Like, look, within those 1.3 or whatever number of posts, you've got people who just pass away from natural causes, not because of a disease you could easily prevent by simply not coughing in everyone's face. The mortality rate for Corona is 30 times higher than your standard flu. Plus, the strain on the healthcare system is massive because people actually need intensive care to recover, unlike the regular flu where you usually don't.

The truth is somewhere in the middle—the reality is this virus spreads at an insane rate and is incredibly hard to contain. At the same time, people are dying, and those numbers will only climb as hospitals get slammed and folks can't get the care they actually need.

But then there's the other side of things—it’s definitely not harmless to gut an entire sector that accounts for a massive chunk of the GDP and employs over 10% of the workforce here in the States. Forcing a huge number of restaurants and bars to shut down means businesses folding and people losing their jobs. Eventually, you end up with a mountain of unemployed people who are still just as vulnerable to the virus.

In my view, it's a dangerous move lacking real support, which could lead to a total disaster. Then again, the fact is that plenty of people actually want this, which is why the decision was made way easier than it should have been... and that's not just happening here in America.

Did anyone catch the match?

NEPAL B DIVISION

Soccer - Aug 18

Madhyapur YA - Nayabast YC

Offering 1.50 on the visitors feels like a gift.

Paul Martinez73 said:I’ll give ZZ one thing.
The best way to throw out a "1%" figure is when you don't have any real data yet. GQ is usually a smart guy, but look at how he could spin it:
Say there are 100,000 infections, 1% die, and 99% recover. Sure, then you can say, "See, it's just 1%."

But if you've got 200,000 infected, 20,000 recovered, and 2,000 dead, you can't talk about a death percentage yet. You won't know the true impact of those deaths until you see what happens to the other 180,000, or whether they end up facing long-term consequences.

You can't just downplay it like it's nothing. I mean, take the people who survived Chernobyl—are they counted in the immediate death statistics? Of course not, because they died 10, 20, or 30 years later.

Talking stats when nobody actually knows what's going on with this virus—other than the fact that it's spreading like wildfire—is pointless. I’ve already posted this in another thread, but the entire Scientific Community agrees this is a massive deal. This isn't comparable to the flu or anything else; it's much worse. Governments are essentially nuking their entire economies, but hey, hundreds of these guys love to play the relativist. They act like it's not serious because the mortality rate looks low. Whatever you think about it, I'm telling you, world leaders and heads of research institutes are better informed than the rest of us mortals. Everyone agrees: "It's dangerous, stay calm, but it's not harmless." We know they always use careful language to prevent a total meltdown, which usually means things are even worse than they're letting on.

There's no need to panic and hoard toilet paper, but there's also no reason to brush this off.

And the absolute best argument is: "Well, older people are dying, but they were going to die anyway."
I'm sure when your parents or grandparents pass away, you'll just tell them, "Who cares, you were going to die eventually," or if someone dies in a car wreck, you'll say, "Whatever, they were driving an eight-hour shift in a truck, they had a high chance of dying regardless."

Coronavirus Cases:
198,737
Deaths:
7,989
Recovered:
82,779

I suppose the biggest issue here is just how little we actually know about this virus.

wiredfalcon2 said:Alright, I guess I'll finally weigh in and sign off on this too. Jessica Gonzalez grabbed some statistical data that's completely irrelevant and spun an entire narrative out of it. Like, look, within those 1.3 or whatever number of posts, you've got people who just pass away from natural causes, not because of a disease you could easily prevent by simply not coughing in everyone's face. The mortality rate for Corona is 30 times higher than your standard flu. Plus, the strain on the healthcare system is massive because people actually need intensive care to recover, unlike the regular flu where you usually don't.

Drop a link for this.

ruggedjackal46 said:I honestly think some level of quarantine and basic caution is necessary if we want to keep infection rates down and, by extension, keep the death toll from climbing. There’s a massive difference between a million people getting sick and just a hundred people getting sick when you factor in a 1% mortality rate. If I catch Corona, I probably won't die, but I could easily pass it on to ten other people—so, wouldn't it be better to just not spread it to anyone at all?

The second issue is that this kind of precaution should really be about solidarity with one another, rather than some desperate, panicked scramble because everyone is terrified the virus is going to catch up to us. Honestly, screw your hoarding of toilet paper and canned tuna.

If the virus doesn't just disappear on its own, everyone is going to get hit. At best, we can take measures to keep the healthcare system from collapsing while we wait for a cure.

But these rules where bars have to close while the subways are running perfectly fine seem pretty pointless to me. You can't go to a bar, yet everyone who was hanging out in that bar is allowed to crowd onto a subway together. I guess it doesn't make much sense.

I’m trying to look at the big picture here. Okay, so right now we're all stuck in this weird isolation phase, but let’s just dream for a second—imagine the absolute best-case scenario where we kick off June without any more Corona. We, the Americans, and pretty much all of Europe.

Then August rolls around, tourists start flooding back in—people from all over, even Singaporeans—and boom, here comes Corona again. What then? Are we just looking at another round of this whole mess?

Seriously, those damn Chinese people and their constant feeding habits.

wiredfalcon2 said:Alright, I guess I'll finally weigh in and sign off on this too. Jessica Gonzalez grabbed some statistical data that's completely irrelevant and spun an entire narrative out of it. Like, look, within those 1.3 or whatever number of posts, you've got people who just pass away from natural causes, not because of a disease you could easily prevent by simply not coughing in everyone's face. The mortality rate for Corona is 30 times higher than your standard flu. Plus, the strain on the healthcare system is massive because people actually need intensive care to recover, unlike the regular flu where you usually don't.

I'm sorry, but if you take another look at my post, you'll see I wasn't getting into the weeds. I was just highlighting some basic stats regarding the death toll in America. That includes everyone—deaths from old age, various illnesses, accidents, homicides, suicides, and so on, including well-known viruses. It’s basically the national mortality rate, and unfortunately, the US is already struggling quite a bit with it, which is something I see happening right here in my own community. And yeah, looking at the nation as a whole, the risk factor is definitely higher than it is in Italy.

My point was more about how people are acting. Honestly, they're behaving like animals. We had our own Civil War not too long ago, and even then, we didn't see this kind of frantic hoarding in grocery stores. Global and national health organizations are doing their jobs, and I hope they're doing them well, but modern communication technology means ideas and behaviors spread incredibly fast—maybe even faster than the virus itself. People are spending thousands of dollars on meat, leaving hundreds of others potentially hungry.

Paul Sanders5 said:I’m trying to look at the big picture here. Okay, so right now we're all stuck in this weird isolation phase, but let’s just dream for a second—imagine the absolute best-case scenario where we kick off June without any more Corona. We, the Americans, and pretty much all of Europe.

Then August rolls around, tourists start flooding back in—people from all over, even Singaporeans—and boom, here comes Corona again. What then? Are we just looking at another round of this whole mess?

Seriously, those damn Chinese people and their constant feeding habits.

I suppose they’re planning on most of us getting infected over the next three months, but doing it under a "flattened curve" that won't crush the healthcare system. That way, new outbreaks become irrelevant.

Honestly, I don't know; nobody is talking about it, and I can't wrap my head around it myself. I'm just trying to make sense of it all. It would be much easier to stomach all this nonsense if someone could actually provide a projection like that. Otherwise, aren't we just destined to deal with the exact same mess every single autumn once the temperature drops?

- This illness is going to spread; we all know we can't simply stop it in its tracks. There are no borders or weapons that can halt this. Our only recourse is through our immune response—what you might call a natural process of public acclimation—which will stifle further transmission until the virus eventually burns itself out, he remarked, noting that collective immunity will inevitably strengthen as more people recover from COVID-19.

He further suggested that while epidemiological agencies lack the power to dictate the movement of the virus, they do have the capacity to manage mortality rates.

If that is the case, then what is the actual purpose of quarantines and shutting down every single business in sight? It seems quite clear to me: it serves no function other than bringing an entire continent to its knees through treasonous maneuvers that dismantle our own economy and destroy our entire social infrastructure.

Is Vučić really implementing a curfew with the military patrolling the streets from 8 PM to 7 AM, while simultaneously allowing shops to open for seniors between 4 and 7 in the morning when absolutely nobody else is out? I mean, what on earth is the logic there?

Vučić finally got what was coming to him 😁

Man, this part actually scares me. Just like that—boom—here come all these restrictions and bans

Paul Sanders5 said:I’m trying to look at the big picture here. Okay, so right now we're all stuck in this weird isolation phase, but let’s just dream for a second—imagine the absolute best-case scenario where we kick off June without any more Corona. We, the Americans, and pretty much all of Europe.

Then August rolls around, tourists start flooding back in—people from all over, even Singaporeans—and boom, here comes Corona again. What then? Are we just looking at another round of this whole mess?

Seriously, those damn Chinese people and their constant feeding habits.

Based on the data regarding recoveries and basically everyone else, once you get over it, you shouldn't be able to catch it again (I even stumbled upon some info saying you couldn't even spread it, though I'm skeptical about that part).

Following that logic, they'll likely need another 3 to 4 cycles of self-isolation or quarantine, but each one should get shorter and hit fewer people. Looking at the data out of China, they're predicting the first cycle will last about 8 weeks—though I'm assuming they didn't just copy China's timeline because things will definitely drag on longer here since people are idiots and won't follow the rules.

Unless the virus mutates, then we might actually be screwed.