You wouldn't want Denzel Washington flying the plane like in "Flight"?
Great movie if you haven't seen it.

Data says otherwise. For example, here's the NYC data - scroll to the bottom of the page for the mortality rate by age:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

These Las Vegas reports are from poker player and 2+2 contributor John Mehaffey.

10/20 no limit at Venetian And 20/40 stud at South Point. All three rooms are 5 handed and packed and Golden Nugget opens tomorrow morning.

Wow, who is out there playing stud?!

Also, do they really have a 2/3 in between the 1/2 and 2/5? That would be new.

YES they did!

Those bastards gave people the freedom to start their own businesses which in turn made badass s#@t I cant stop eating. Therefore got fat, so yes, I blame the government because without all these tasty treats I would never have been tempted

just popped in to give you some lulz for the phrase "flu bro's"

Correct. The algorithm sent out typical mailers. After it went out, Plaza decided to double the ones to locals.

I'm sure that's the regular Bellagio players organizing their game elsewhere.

As Jimmy Kimmel commented in his monologue last night, it's straddling the line between regular roulette and the Russian kind.

Just based on overhearing their conversations from adjacent tables at Bellagio in the past, I would never have imagined those guys willing to play 5 handed. Crazy times indeed..

Masks and shields are mainly to prevent the wearer from passing on an illness by reducing of the respiratory expulsion range. Masks and shields do provide some level of protection for the wearer but as you noted the consumer grade equipment is are nowhere near 100% effective.

Same reason a surgeon wears a mask, more to protect the patient from the surgeons respiratory outflow than the secondary protection level of protecting a surgeon from bodily fluids squirting out of the patient.

You are seeing the beginning of the social ending of the pandemic crisis. The fear of the virus ends and fatalism and/or fearlessness takes over. The NY Times explains it much better. You may need to sign up for a free account to read the article on the NTimes site..

NY Times article - How pandemics end both medically (rarely) and socially.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/h...c-history.html

or same article someone posted on their site w/o need to register.

https://gregoryricks.com/how-pandemics-end/

These are all good questions. And I agree about the “token” nature of many re-opening policies. This is why I get frustrated about how specific some of the policies are in general, and in particular with regard to poker. The policies themselves seem to be pretty haphazard and have little to do with the answer to your questions.

As to the mass shootings analogy , I don’t think it quite fits. Less than 100 people die each year from mass shootings in the US. Most years, that’s similar to the numbers of people who die from lighting strikes. And similar numbers of unarmed people are fatally killed by police each year. All of these are examples of “really slow” killers, but clearly society has different levels of acceptance of them.

I think what is lost in all the back and forth of "we need to do more to combat COVID-19" and "we need to stop doing so much" is the concept of defining the problem and coming up with potential solutions which do not cause significant further harm. Neither one of these things has been done very well with COVID-19.

I think you are conflating regulation with taxation. There is really only one primary reason anything is regulated… to protect people from things which are not under their control. You do see some regulation with regard to alcohol, tobacco and drugs. But virtually all regulations in this realm have to do with preventing a person using these substances from inflicting harm on others or unwittingly inflicting harm on themselves. In fact, we are seeing a push for less, not more, regulation when it comes to things like drugs.

I don’t see a case to be made that being unhealthy inflicts direct harm to others and there is a very weak argument to be made that living an unhealthy lifestyle (at least when it comes to food) is beyond somebody’s control. Hence you do not see much regulation with regard these sorts of lifestyle choices.

You do see taxation, though, with increasing regularity. This is the tool that governments use to engineer behavior when they lack the legal or moral authority to do otherwise. Specifically when it comes to things like soft-drink taxes, I think there is conflicting evidence about how effective they are. People seem to find a way to get their sugar fix one way or another. And the problem really comes down to the fact that there are potentially a lot of factors that go into obesity… from caloric intake, lack of physical activity, stress, genetics, etc. Which of these is most important? I don’t think anyone can tell you definitively. So implementing policies which represent a nominal effort to affect one factor is just asking for trouble. Those policies are likely to prove ineffective or, worse yet, have unintended negative consequences. And taxes have negative consequences by definition. So who is to say that sugar taxes represent an overall good?

I’m of the opinion that, unless some policy has some obvious or demonstrable positive benefit and little negative consequence, then its better to allow nature to take its course and leave the government out of it.

There is many years of data which shows that the “nominal” regulations put in place to lessen car-related deaths are effective. There is little reliable data which proves the “extreme” economic regulations put in place to lessen COVID deaths have been effective and to what extent. This is where the disconnect lies between your viewpoint and that of the “flu bro’s” as you call them. The car analogy only works if you say, in order to prevent car-related deaths governments are going to mandate people to drive only 1 day out of the week, or impose other similar severe restrictions. Do you advocate for that sort of intervention to prevent car deaths? One does not have to believe in conspiracy theories or media nonsense in order to hold two thoughts in their head at the same time… the COVID threat is real and what has been done to combat it is wrong.

Agreed about the concept of people making a subconscious if not outright conscious decision regarding trade-offs. As for the car analogy, the part I don’t think is germane is that no one (or almost no one) has every lobbied for the sorts of restrictions on them compared to the number who are lobbying for severe restrictions with regard to COVID. There is a big difference between governments telling people they need to do something which is a relatively minor inconvenience (like wearing a seatbelts or driving at a reasonable speed), and governments mandating people to stay home and not go out and live their lives or make a living to support themselves and their families.

I have seen this, too, though it’s certainly anecdotal. I find the people who are most at risk have been some of the most cavalier about it. Maybe its because, once you reach a certain age, fewer things really scare or bother you. Or maybe, having been around and through so many “things” over the years, these people are less susceptible to mass hysteria. If real, it’s definitely an interesting phenomenon.

Seatbelt use in the US is on the order of 90%. So while there are certainly “some” parents who take the “practice what I preach” approach on many things, including seat belt use, I don’t think one could characterize that number as “many”, at least relatively speaking. So not an apt analogy, IMO.

Anyhow, I didn’t see in any earlier posts, but is there actually any evidence that older people are less accepting of masks than younger folks? If that is true, and I am just speculating, I would imagine it has more to do with how uncomfortable they are, or perhaps some of the generational speculation above, than anything to do with bad parenting or hypocrisy.

That doesn’t make them wrong.

I don’t get the relevance of these examples. Virtually every normally-functioning, healthy human being has some level of fear of dying or being otherwise injured by some sort of “threat”. That is natural human self-preservation behavior. And the level to which you are afraid of these or any other things happening is your own business and should not really be up for moral judgement by anybody. The problem becomes when your own fear becomes advocacy and indeed insistence on public policy on the part of governments. Because now your own personal psychology, personality and preferences can effect lots of other people who do not have the same psychology, personality and preferences as you. This is the tricky part of governance. And it is why governments usually engage in “limited” action. If you think about what governments actually “do” to prevent pilot recklessness or food-service illness… its quite limited. This does not mean what they do is ineffective. It just means it is not so disruptive as to likely cause more problems than it tries to solve.

That is not at all what has been happening with COVID-19. The cure many governments have chosen has significant side-effects. And no one has been able to definitively show that the disease is worse than the selected cure’s side-effects.

I have lost a fair amount of faith in the CDC/NIH in general, and Fauci specifically, over the course of events, simply because of the number of times they have changed their tune and number of times the models they have followed have proven to be inaccurate. This does not mean these are bad or misguided people. It just means what they are trying to do (manage a pandemic) is really hard. I would have preferred them not coming out with definitive guidance which had drastic consequences unless they were certain about the underlying reality. If their prognostications and guidance led to little more than inconvenient things like mask-wearing and minor behavioral adaptations, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. But their leadership has led to massive economic upheaval. And we haven’t even really felt the brunt of this (yet) due to significant governmental expenditures. Those come with a price too. So all these doctors are brilliant well-meaning people. But I’m not sure doctors’ prescriptions are right for countries. They don't necessarily have the capacity to see the big picture.

As to the specifics of wearing standard masks, I have my personal doubts about their efficacy in real-life situations… namely being indoors and interacting with infected people showing no symptoms. But that being said, I think your comments sort of nail it on the head. We have been asked by people in positions of power and expertise to wear them, and it has become an expected normal behavior. But people’s acceptance of the recommendations and the public pressure to conform could significantly diminish if the reasons for wearing them become even less clear.


At least one study seems to think the face shields have merit:

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/2020...ent-to-covid#2

Take it with a grain of salt, though. I think, like so much else related to COVID-19, the reality is very much still unknown.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1269169419998990336

Obv since the Cosmo is open the coronavirus has been successfully wished away, there's no more risk of disease, and everybody can jump into the mosh pit like it's the Ozarks.

Not new, They had 2/3 before as well. It was a $200-600 buy in game when i played it in Jan.

DOW + 830 on Friday and not far from returning to record highs, I guess investors are betting on Covid not being much of a factor in the coming weeks. Will be interesting to see if cases spike in the U.S. after the protests and how severe they are.

Numbers in Italy, Spain and France have dropped significantly, the virus has pretty much been eliminated in China (if you believe their numbers) hopefully the same happens in the U.S.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gzesh View Post
I wear a mask in public places, following the advice of Dr Fauci, among others. I also think it is a courtesy to other members of the public.

akashenk
I have lost a fair amount of faith in the CDC/NIH in general, and Fauci specifically, over the course of events, simply because of the number of times they have changed their tune and number of times the models they have followed have proven to be inaccurate. This does not mean these are bad or misguided people. It just means what they are trying to do (manage a pandemic) is really hard. I would have preferred them not coming out with definitive guidance which had drastic consequences unless they were certain about the underlying reality. If their prognostications and guidance led to little more than inconvenient things like mask-wearing and minor behavioral adaptations, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. But their leadership has led to massive economic upheaval. And we haven’t even really felt the brunt of this (yet) due to significant governmental expenditures. Those come with a price too. So all these doctors are brilliant well-meaning people. But I’m not sure doctors’ prescriptions are right for countries. They don't necessarily have the capacity to see the big picture.

As to the specifics of wearing standard masks, I have my personal doubts about their efficacy in real-life situations… namely being indoors and interacting with infected people showing no symptoms. But that being said, I think your comments sort of nail it on the head. We have been asked by people in positions of power and expertise to wear them, and it has become an expected normal behavior. But people’s acceptance of the recommendations and the public pressure to conform could significantly diminish if the reasons for wearing them become even less clear.


Health experts are gonna be health experts. It's much less detrimental for their careers to overestimate the viruses impact and then have the virus no be as bad as they predicted. It's much more damaging to their careers for them to predict it won't be that bad, then have it become much more serious. So they will almost always leans towards being safe and leaning towards the worst case scenarios.

Thats just what health experts do, if it were up to them there would be no tackle football, it would be flag football. In baseball all players in the field would be wearing helmets and facemasks, etc. Everybody would wash their hands for 20 seconds before every eating anything. Which of course is not even feasible in most public settings.

In their perfect world we would have been wearing gloves and masks anytime going into a casino for the history of casinos. There are germs all over the place at table games.

It's up to people to listen to their opinions and make their own decisions using their advice as input. Not do exactly what they suggest, the world would suck.

In the case of the Corona virus it became the politicians, especially governors who had to make the toughest calls. Some were aggressive, some super conservative. Right now it looks like those who were conservative made the wrong call which will have dire effects on a lot of business and households. If the states that opened first and were aggressive are seeing the same type of virus outcomes as the states still closed (PA, NJ) then it's pretty clear who made the right and wrong choices.

NY Times Map of Hot Spots

The number of cases is rising in every state that was "aggressive," especially in the Deep South. NJ and PA, the number of new cases is falling.

Here's a June 5th Bloomberg article that quotes a reported investor call in which Golden Nugget owner Tilman Fertitta participated.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-bouncing-back

"Texas gaming mogul and restaurateur Tilman Fertitta told investors on a private call this week that the fear of traveling and going out to eat are hampering his casino and restaurants empire, with business down about 40% in its best-performing markets."

"His frustration with the slow pace of the recovery was evident during the call, according to people who took part in it.

'This is all bullsh*t,' Fertitta, who also owns the Golden Nugget casino chain, told investors..."

lol

This wouldn't fully explain the phenomenon, but I should think quite a lot of the police (and protestors) in NYC have already had the virus and are now immune, or known plenty of people that had it and didn't suffer too badly. (e.g. Police and protestors - who are mostly young - might feel "invulnerable", and largely will be, whether they've had the disease or not).
In States where the virus has not been prevalent (e.g. Nevada), the population possibly thinks "It's not prevalent round here. I don't know of anyone that has had it, so I must be relatively safe to go out on the streets."
Meanwhile, in hospitals and care homes, the nurses and care workers are still terrified by the disease, because they've seen first hand the devastation it can cause.
I don't know about "dropping like bricks", because the daily death toll hasn't fallen as fast in the US as it has in many European countries (the UK stands out like the US as a country with a slow decline in daily deaths) but I broadly agree with the quoted parapraph.
Actual cases are possibly increasing at the moment (the R number in the US as a whole is probably around 1 or just above, but much lower in some places), and higher levels of testing than before mean total confirmed cases will be higher in comparison to the confirmed positives at the start of the pandemic. Deaths meanwhile, are unlikely, imo, to go up anywhere near as rapidly as they did before. I think this is primarily due to a few main factors:
1. People who recognise their own vulnerabilities will be more cautious about fully re-entering the world than most people.
2. Similarly, vulnerable people in care homes will be shielded more than they used to be.
3. People that care about the groups mentioned above will continue to take personal measures (e.g. wearing masks, continued distancing) to protect them.

Another point is that the disease tends to kill old and vulnerable people remarkably quickly. Some of the younger, "healthier" victims can survive in hospital wards for weeks or even months before eventually dying. This leads the overall fatality graph to have a very sharp upward slope at the start (when hardly anyone took protective measures), but a slower return to zero (a smaller proportion of total cases actually die on any given day, and more people recover).

If the old/vulnerable people are properly protected, then the case numbers can go even higher than they were in March/April, without having similar numbers of deaths, as the vast majority of cases will be asymptomatic or non-life threatening. (This is basically the "herd immunity" strat that Sweden sort of implemented, except they didn't stop the virus getting into the care homes, so the death rate quickly got out of control).

If "opening up the country" is the general policy, it has to be coupled with protecting the vulnerable, but I have no way of knowing how well America is doing the latter. Seeing large gatherings on the streets in multiple cities, and videos with plenty of old people rushing into the casinos does not fill me with confidence. I mean, those casino-goers know that age is a risk factor, don't they? I can only assume that the pensioners that play slots just like to gamble... with their own lives. :/

I read that guy's PLO book.

I have been tracking the states that opened first pretty extensively and Georgia has not seen a drop at all in deaths and hospitalizations, using rolling 14 and 21 day averages since May 19 & 20. And seven day rolling averages since May 12.

Florida has seen decreases in both deaths and hospitalizations (they are at all time lows in both for 14 day and 21 day rolling averages). But the rate of decline has lessened considerably in the last 10 days as compared to the prior ten days.

In general the decline in deaths in NY NJ, and CT by 20% have occurred every 5 days or so pretty much since their peaks. In Florida it has taken about 10 days to decline 20% since their peak. And similarly with Georgia until two weeks ago it was about every 10 days.

So there is a tradeoff between deaths and economic health. NY, NJ, and CT have "conservatively" tried to drive the death rate down considerably from their peaks (NY is under 10% for 14 day avgs and 12% for 21 day avgs, while CT and NJ are at about 33% of their peak death rates. Meanwhile Florida and Georgia are at about 60% of their peak death rates).

The thing to consider is that for Florida and Georgia their peak death rates and their per capita death rates were considerably lower than CT, NJ, and NY. So they are deciding to live with the dying. If NY, NJ, and CT were to have reopened earlier or decided not to mitigate at all, the death rates would have been astronomical and hospitals would have been overrun.

The other thing to consider is that about a week prior to the governors shutting down their state's economies people had already started to self isolate and socially distance.

I had personally planned 2 trips for Foxwoods MegaStack tournaments in Mid March both of which I decided to forego at the urging of my wife (we both have vulnerabilities should we contract Covid and our children have asthma).