Posts by restlesssurfer97

ruggedjackal46 said:It’s honestly a waste of breath telling people not to touch their faces now that restlesssurfer97 is back on the forum 🤦

🤣🤣

Look, I’m basically your cure for times like this, because honestly, the longer you keep your hands clamped over your face, the less absolute nonsense you're gonna end up posting on here🤣🤣

Matthew Young35 said:Well, I have an even better idea then.
Why don't we just have the government hire everyone who gets laid off? That way, everyone stays employed.

Sure, we could do that, or we could just have people rotate shifts—you know, one group works for six months, then the next group takes over for six months. And during those six months they aren't working, they just head down to the unemployment office. We could just write it into the law so that anyone who puts in six months of work is legally entitled to six full months of pay from the unemployment office, because under the current laws, that's obviously not how things work.

See? You change one single law and everything is fixed.

ESPN is gonna absolutely lose their minds with joy when they switch back to their usual nonsense and see that we've actually cracked the code.

Ashley Bailey6 said:https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/ves...nav_id=1669595

That's just how it is.

If Dinamo had actually faced those "bats," maybe Italy wouldn't be in such a mess right now.

There’s definitely some logic to it, since the Chinese picked up the virus from bats in the first place.

It’s almost kind of endearing how SS doesn't seem to grasp the whole public versus private sector dynamic, especially since it's coming from him 😂😂

Just handing out pink slips isn't the answer here, we really need to figure out a way to stop them from having to lay people off in the first place 🤣🤣 🤣

Michelle Palmer6 said:Actually, I don't think the issue is blindly following orders—it's that some of those orders are just bad! It makes zero sense to me why shops are closing at 5:00 PM. Most people who still work don't get off until 3:00 or 4:00 PM. So, anyone planning to run errands is forced to rush into stores during that tiny one or two-hour window, and everyone ends up swarming the same big-box retailers like Walmart or Target to stock up.

Well, Iceland is actually hit harder by the epidemic in relative terms than we are, and they didn't start seeing cases any later than we did, so I don't see them having a massive advantage here. What they're doing is brilliant from a scientific and epidemiological standpoint, but the real question is what the actual real-world cost-benefit ratio looks like.
At the rate they're going, how long do you think it'll take them to test their entire small population? They haven't even hit 10% yet, so we're looking at at least a month and a half. How are they going to protect the people they haven't tested yet, or those who tested negative but might actually be infected in the early incubation stage? They'll need general measures—which they should be implementing anyway—like self-isolation. They'll get some results, sure, but that kind of approach is hard to translate to larger populations.

That’s not the same thing; that's a major strawman argument.
I'm not saying testing isn't important or that we shouldn't do more of it, but there still needs to be some level of selection, alongside general measures designed to prevent or significantly slow the spread independent of testing.

And it’s true! We absolutely should, and honestly, they have stepped up significantly compared to when this first kicked off. But we still need much better selection. In my opinion, the priority has to be screening people whose actual jobs force them into constant contact with the public—people who just can't stop working even in these situations. I'm talking about medical staff, police officers, firefighters, and even the ladies working at the local grocery stores...

Look, it’s simple math—the less you test, the fewer sick people you find. 😉

And no, you didn't disagree with the Pope in that last paragraph, you disagreed with me. ☕

Michelle Palmer6 said:I noticed you skipped over most of my points, but that’s alright. I don't think there's a single "correct" number for how many tests we should run; it likely needs to be significantly higher than it is now, but finding that limit is tricky. Testing will almost certainly ramp up because, until now, it was mostly based on epidemiological history. Now that we're dealing with horizontal transmission, that old method is basically useless. It isn't just about the financial cost, either. Just like we try not to overwhelm our hospitals and healthcare system, we also have to avoid clogging up our testing capacity—meaning the machines, the facilities, the trained staff, and the reagents—with tests that have a high probability of coming back negative. Doing that would drastically increase wait times for those who are most vulnerable. That is why these general population measures are being taken: to stop the spread of undiagnosed cases while buying enough time to identify the positive ones.
How much do you think Iceland will actually gain from this non-selective testing?

In my opinion, what is definitely being undertested is medical personnel. This goes regardless of whether they have been exposed to clearly positive patients or not. Since so many cases are asymptomatic or show very mild symptoms, people can be infectious and spreading the virus without even knowing it. Meanwhile, they can't and shouldn't stop working or coming into contact with the most vulnerable groups in society, even with activity levels dialed down to a minimum.

I didn't ignore you, I just didn't want to write a damn novel, so I focused on the part that was actually bothering me.

You can't seriously ask me what benefit America will get from mass testing. Aside from suppressing the epidemic—basically making sure it doesn't flare up faster than everywhere else—we'll end up with much more precise data on all those unknowns regarding the virus, which is the real issue here since the virus itself is still a mystery, right?

I get what you're getting at, and I agree, America isn't here to run non-selective testing, build complex models, conduct scientific studies, and invent solutions; America is here to put out the fire, mitigate the damage as best it can, and wait for a solution to come from elsewhere.

And I mentioned that in another post: mass testing should really be part of the strategy for whoever eventually provides the actual answer and solution to this mess.

As for the argument that we'd waste resources on "unimportant cases" and drain the capacity needed to fight critical cases, well, the critics of this panic have the exact same argument; they're saying the focus has completely shifted away from the mountain of serious cases just to deal with something like the flu, whose true mortality rate hasn't even been settled yet.

Basically, we're in agreement on the fact that America needs to be testing a lot more.

Look, the lack of testing here in America is definitely going to lead to a higher number of infections and a delayed peak in this whole crisis, which just pushes back the recovery too. You don't even have to be a genius to see that's how it works.

The Italians messed up on several levels, and one of their biggest blunders was failing to test people early enough; I heard about a guy there who sat in a hospital bed for five days, infecting about ten doctors and nurses before anyone actually bothered to test him.
We can't really let that kind of thing happen here anymore, but honestly, we still aren't grasping just how vital massive testing numbers are.

Test, test, and test more.

The Canadians had a bit of a slow reaction at first—though people were making jokes everywhere, much like they were here—but then they really pulled themselves together, and you can see the results now. We had an excellent initial response, but since then, we've just been lagging behind. If we end up surpassing them in terms of total infected cases, which is totally possible, will that finally prove anything to anyone?

How on earth could that not have happened in Korea? Without any quarantine, things just exploded and then got slammed back down. And don't even get me started on those other couple of examples where nothing even flared up because everything stayed totally under control.

You guys really need to stop acting like quarantine is some kind of permanent rule carved in stone.

ps. according to the latest health study out of China, the transmissibility of Corona is actually 2.5, not 'about ten people,' and it actually drops down to 1.5 as the temperature rises....

Medical Association: We aren't testing enough for Corona! This needs to ramp up

I mean, if they end up claiming they don't have enough tests, that’s going to be a massive fail on their part. There’s been more than a month to get production scaled up or just buy them from overseas, which honestly should have been the entire focus for the task force from day one.

Basically, right now they're only testing people whose acute respiratory symptoms can't be explained by anything else, or patients who traveled to—or were in close contact with someone from—a place that had widespread local transmission within the last 14 days.

So the plan is just lock everyone in their houses, ban people from going out, and then only test them if they fit these super specific criteria? It's honestly embarrassing.

Michelle Palmer6 said:I don't know, I’m certainly no expert on this subject. But even if I were, who exactly are we talking about mass-testing? At what cost, and what is the actual payoff? Look at what they're doing in Iceland right now—they are practically screening the entire population because they have the resources to do it and a relatively small population to manage, so they're doing it primarily for scientific reasons. Currently, they’ve tested four times more people per million inhabitants than they have in South Korea. The results? Only 1% (specifically 0.89%) of the general population tested was positive—meaning people without any symptoms or specific indications for testing. That’s barely 48 additional people on top of the 409 who were already known cases. So, what does that actually achieve? Okay, sure, you isolate those individuals. But let’s be real: testing takes time, even with the best technology and the strongest will. A small portion of that remaining 99% might actually be false negatives because they are in the very early stages of incubation. Are you just going to let all those people walk around freely? By then, they’ll start developing symptoms and potentially pick up the virus from people who haven't been tested yet and are acting as asymptomatic spreaders. In the end, you're still left with nothing but general population-wide measures.
It’s not just the Icelanders, either! In a similar study conducted in a specific region of Italy—which happens to be one of the hardest-hit countries in the world right now—they actually saw something even higher, around 3%.

A huge number of people only develop mild symptoms that feel just like a common cold. Should we really be testing everyone who shows up with a sniffle? Let’s face it—the classic cold hasn't gone anywhere, and we're right in the middle of allergy season, which produces practically identical symptoms. Sure, if you tested that entire group, you’d probably find a higher percentage of people positive for COVID-19. That’s true. But at what cost? Attempting that level of mass testing in a place like Iceland over such a short window would create a massive logistical nightmare. And then what? What do you actually do with the results? If they test positive, they go into self-isolation—which is basically just following whatever mandates or general measures are already in place. If they test negative, can you even trust the result? Not really, because they could easily pick up the virus somewhere else since horizontal transmission has already kicked in. So, what’s the plan then? Do you want to test them all over again in ten days once they start coughing harder? You’ll have burned through a mountain of cash to test them once, only to end up testing a huge chunk of them again. And where does that leave us? Back to quarantine, which just means returning to more general restrictions anyway. It feels like a loop!

So, should we be testing close contacts or those further out? Honestly, that’s where you see the biggest red flags for testing needs, and there was definitely a breakdown in how the spread was being identified early on. But let me ask you this: what happens if you test everyone? You'll end up with a mountain of negative results. And even among those who test positive, most will be asymptomatic or just dealing with mild symptoms. They’d end up getting the exact same treatment anyway—forced isolation for at least 14 days, or who knows, maybe being sent to a makeshift recovery ward in the Arena! We simply cannot afford to clog up the hospitals with asymptomatic people or folks who just have a common cold; that would lead to an immediate total collapse of the system. The only thing that might actually get better follow-up is the tracking, but even then, I worry we might be paying for it by failing to identify the truly serious cases.

That’s a fair point, really. Everything has its own set of pros and cons, so you can't just give a simple yes or no answer to this. Sure, plenty of people would jump at the chance to get tested if they had just grabbed a bite to eat on a Sunday afternoon, but we simply have to prioritize certain patients. Even if you claim that cost isn't an issue—and let's be honest, it always is, not just for us—we still run into massive hurdles. We're talking about the sheer strain on humanity, the supply chain issues with testing materials, the logistical nightmare of isolating everyone who shows up for a test, and the absolute burnout our healthcare workers are facing right now. In the end, most people would likely walk away with exactly what they’d get anyway: either nothing at all, or the same general restrictions we're seeing everywhere else.

Right now, even with the relatively strict testing regimen we have in place, our positivity rate is sitting at about 10-11%. And keep in mind, some of those numbers include people who have been tested multiple times. What do you guys think? Is that sample size too small? Are we not testing enough? Or is this actually sufficient?

It’s absurdly low.

The cost you mentioned earlier shouldn't be an excuse at all, because honestly, we're paying a much, much higher price right now.

I completely missed mentioning Iceland, and man, hats off to them, I think they're doing an incredible job based on what you wrote here.
They’re a unique case—isolated, small population—so it's probably hard to build a universal strategy for every other country based solely on how they handle things, but there will definitely be useful data to come from it. And I'm pretty sure they'll deal with less damage than everyone else.

You really have to look at everything in context, and the context here is just catastrophic; the reality is that hundreds of millions of people are being shoved into quarantine instead of actually being tested.
This is just putting out fires without doing any actual preparation for the next fire that's bound to show up, and if we don't make some quality preparations now, then we're all just going to end up back in quarantine again. It's just a bad strategy.

Jeblo 🤦

You're over 30, aren't you? Because man, what kind of massive slump are you even going through 🤣🤣

Honestly, it’s probably for the best that goats have no clue what’s going on, because if they actually followed social distancing rules, Paul Martinez73 would be absolutely nothing these days 😂

There is a massive difference between making a recommendation and actually mandating one, so maybe try doing a quick search on that sometime. This guy is honestly laughing in the face of reality when he claims everyone in Asia wears masks, and I mean, what am I even supposed to say to that?
Basically, why am I even bothering to spread the word here, because some other idiot is just going to jump in and claim that people in India don't wear them either.
I didn't even say "Asia" as a whole, I specifically meant the countries that have been the most successful at fighting this virus, which would be Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan.
Literally every single person there wears a mask, and even the local government mandates it.
And then you have this clown laughing at me, so I really have to wonder who I'm even wasting my breath on. 🤦He’d probably just laugh if I mentioned that in Singapore they hand out massive fines for littering gum on public surfaces—well, except they don't actually hand out fines because nobody ever litters gum in the first place.

Other countries in Asia also recommend wearing masks, too; remember how the Thai Minister of Health had that famous racist outburst recently where he tweeted that all those dirty white people should just be kicked out of Thailand because they refuse to wear masks?
And let's be real, Thailand definitely isn't in the same league as Taiwan, Singapore, or Japan.

But seriously, why am I explaining myself to a moron? He thinks it's all a joke. If he saw an Asian person wearing a mask in his tiny little hometown, he’d probably fall on the floor laughing. It's a good thing Asians haven't moved into those backwoods areas yet; it's probably for the best they didn't run fiber optic cables all the way out there.

Man, you really are just straight-up clueless, and honestly, I was only half-joking when I said you were an idiot 🤦

Paul Martinez73 said:What are you even sucking on $33 for? ☕
Didn't you just sit here crying about wanting a perm? Go back to sobbing somewhere else, serious topics clearly aren't for you.

🙂🙂🙂

Watching a user face their own sheer stupidity head-on is honestly like music to my ears. 😂😂

Instead of crawling back into your little hole, you're out here providing us with all this new entertainment, and honestly, I really appreciate it.

brightpilot6 said:My initial gut reaction was exactly the same—that we need to be testing everyone, everywhere—but once I sat with the thought for a moment, I started seeing the lack of efficiency in such a broad approach.

There are three main reasons for my hesitation.

First off, if we are talking about mass testing, who exactly are we targeting? Just pulling random people off the street in a major city like New York? Who would even have the logistical capacity to manage that scale?

Second, how often would these tests occur? If I test positive today, fine, but what happens if I test negative today and catch it tomorrow right after my turn has passed?

Third, and perhaps most importantly, I can already picture the behavior of a group that has been randomly tested and comes back negative. "Hey Razbu, come over for a drink, grab the crew, let's celebrate!"

1. From a mathematical standpoint, you’d need to assemble a whole squad of mathematicians and data scientists to build out a proper model, which is a serious undertaking.
2. And no matter how often it needs to happen—again, following the model—whether it's today or repeating it in five days, I honestly have no clue.

So basically, you develop a model and just hammer away at it, doing 10,000, 15,000, maybe even 50,000 tests a day, whatever is possible. Once an infected person is identified, they immediately go into isolation and everyone they've been in contact with for the last 10 days gets tested too.

That is a massive operation that requires serious logistical preparation.

I'm not talking about America specifically—the US probably isn't going to lead the charge on anything like this anyway—I'm talking about a universal strategy.
I mean a global approach.

I don't know exactly how this specific test works, whether it picks up antibodies or just the virus itself, but we should definitely include antibody testing to see how many people might have already cruised through it without even knowing.

I think I wrote something similar in another thread, so I'm basically repeating myself, but doing it this way wouldn't just stop the spread faster, it would actually give us an accurate mortality rate, which is huge. We’d know exactly how many people have recovered, and based on those numbers, we could calculate the real threat of a second wave and prepare for it much more effectively. Things like medication supplies (since certain combinations of drugs are already looking promising for treatment) or the amount of vaccine needed if one is found... we could build a serious strategy for the next 6 to 18 months based on a massive, rich database of info.

Is it complicated and expensive? Of course it is, but if we can lock people in their houses and endure billions of dollars in economic losses, we can certainly pull together a high-quality strategy based on mass testing.

ps. South Koreans have the most convincing record for testing per million people, and they were the fastest at shutting down the epidemic.
pps. I also read somewhere that a tiny little town in Italy tested almost everyone, kept repeating the tests, and they haven't had a single new case in days.

Do you guys at least agree that massive, widespread testing really ought to be one of the top priorities in this whole fight, regardless of how much the bill actually comes to?
And if you aren't on board with that, what's your reasoning?

Paul Martinez73 said:So, apparently some soccer players just dropped 500,000€ to help out with COVID-19 and the Earthquake.
The little guy makes enough daily to cover $167, so if we assume everyone chipped in about 25,000€, our average Joe basically handed over a third of his daily pay...
Talk about pure patriotism, right? I guess I’ll just go ahead and donate $33 so I can brag about it on Twitter and wait for the applause...

Anyway, Sime donated 62,000€ to Zadar Hospital, while Unknown sent money to Livno 🤷

500 $0.00 So, if you do the math on that 365 figure, we're looking at roughly 182 million bucks, which translates to about 24.4 million euros if you're tracking it that way.

Forget about all those numbers, man, that’s way too much math for you anyway, so you might as well just go ahead and send over those funds instead. $33.

Hugo, let me know if you actually have the inside scoop on this, but is it true they’re still only cranking out just 200 tests a day?

Noah Perez2 said:I harbor no delusions regarding whether you seek my input or if you all intend to; rather, I am simply using a direct reality check to shatter your illusion that you have any authority to decide what can or cannot be challenged within your own posts.☕

Under the premise of democracy—and I would venture to say Western civilization itself—the protection of the individual and a humanistic approach should be the absolute priority.
If I am merely an "emotional wreck," then by that logic, every major government in the world operates under the exact same flawed reasoning.

Or is it just a special agenda in America to force the economy onto its knees? From what I see in Europe, things are moving along fine, tourism is thriving, and so on.

The idea of allowing a few thousand people to perish via natural selection does not align with liberal democracies; that is the hallmark of totalitarian agendas that utilize eugenics to eliminate the "unfit" or employ various cultural revolutions to manage population surpluses. In this instance, they aren't using brute force, but rather the spread of a pandemic.

If you weren't busy taking sides with specific moderators in their battles against dissenting users, you would have been banned from this forum long ago for a post like that.

And feel free to keep singing your songs about communism and commissar decrees that supposedly dictate our basic freedoms.☕

What nonsense. This talk of five or six months is absurd. The lockdowns in China yielded results much sooner, and they will yield results wherever they are implemented. In my opinion, because of certain fools, the measures are becoming increasingly stringent; currently, they are excessive simply because of people like that.

Clearly, you consider yourself some sort of economic expert. It is as if we were living in the 19th century and everything was destined to collapse.

Boris Johnson was once a major proponent of herd immunity, yet he abandoned that stance overnight and imposed even stricter restrictions than we have here.
And what does he know? Some idiot standing on a street corner claims you can just walk around freely and that doing so will somehow make the nation immune to this previously unknown virus.

Besides, if you are actually employed, obtaining a pass should be a seamless process. I fail to see the basis for complaining about these procedures. 👍

By all means, choose your battles, but you won't do so at the expense of the community. As another gentleman so eloquently explained, everyone wants to enjoy their rights, but the moment social obligations arise, the whining begins.

Check out what this guy has to say about all of this:

🍿