May 22, 2020

"I tested positively toward negative... meaning I tested negative... but that's a way of saying it — positively toward the negative...."



A funny locution. Who among us has never found it a little hard to remember that "negative" is good?



Anyway, if you let that Trump video keep going, you'll see his answer to the question what he thinks of that study — from Columbia University disease modelers — that said "If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak" (NYT). He was ready to go with an answer to that one.

54 comments:

wendybar said...

Well, at least he didn't say THIS (this morning!!) “You’ve got more questions?” Biden replied. “Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Tell me that if Trump said that, that it would be okay!!!

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/22/joe-biden-breakfast-club-interview-274490

Lurker21 said...

But is he absolutely positive he tested negative?

Lurker21 said...

"So I turn left here?"

"Right."

"Left or right? Don't say 'right' for God's sake! Say 'affirmative' or 'negative'!"

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Scott Adams was prodded into one of his fabulous profanity jags by a similar story. “Stop bayoneting the wounded; we did the best we could; nobody knew anything” etc. I tend to agree.

Also, half of deaths in nursing homes. This cannot be repeated enough. How would lockdowns and social distancing (oh how I loathe that phrase) no matter when implemented help them?

Sydney said...

Key sentence in that New York Times article you linked:
All models are only estimates, and it is impossible to know for certain the exact number of people who would have died.

Sebastian said...

"If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak"

The vast majority was never at any risk of dying, so "social distancing" made no difference to them and should always have been focused on isolating the vulnerable.

Which general lockdowns complicated, by forcing generations closer together, and which specific policies worsened, such as sending sick people to nursing homes.

Owen said...

“He was ready to go...”. At the end of the clip he was ready to load the journalists in the NASA space launch next week. “...Get rid of you guys for a while.”

Unknown said...

Trump is right that it's a political hit job. It seems part of Columbia's mission is to rid the world of conservative thinking. It's people devote their lives to leftie ideals and require same from the school's leaders, faculty and students.

Jonathan Lavine is a trustee who also heads Crimson Lion which is a private 'philanthropical' family entity that devotes most of its resources to supporting leftie politicians and organizations.

He was also a 'board member' of that fake company with the nonexistent office at the California address that was involved in the Clinton Wikileaks scandal.

It isn't hard to imagine the school is infected with TDS in every aspect of its existence.

Jupiter said...

If Eve hadn't eaten that apple, no one would have died from corona.

h said...

I hope everyone can see how bad and illegitimate these kinds of criticisms of Trump policy are. Perhaps there are legitimate criticisms, but they are not like this: "We now know that another policy would have had a better outcome." I now know that I could have won a superbowl bet in January by betting on KC. Does that mean that (with the benefit of this knowledge) I will never again make a bet sports bet?

Jersey Fled said...

The magnificent bastard.

He's playing with them.

Birches said...

He was enjoying himself, wasn't he?

JRoberts said...

I can relate on a very personal level.

When I was young (pre-teen), my Mom had cancer surgery and I would get confused when family friends would ask me about her biopsy results. I would occasionally indicate positive, as in good news, and people would freak out.

The fact that I remember that in such detail more than 50 years later is representative of how traumatic that period was in my life.

narciso said...

the new York murderhouses would still be operating, right,

Bay Area Guy said...

The tests are .....less than desirable. Depends on which type of test you take!

PCR test? Positive - You may have the virus. No symptoms? It may be a false positive. Negative result? Great! But it may be a false negative, the test is not sensitive enough.

Antibody test? Positive -- good news! You have already had the virus. No symptoms? Great news - you have already cleared the virus, and are immune from it, even though, you didn't know it. Did you know that? Negative result? I'm sorry, Sir, you may be at risk for getting virus, because you don't have antibodies.

Mass testing and tracing is a fucking joke. Better to stick to presence or absence of symptoms.

And, as I always conclude, open up, and let 'em work!

narciso said...

there were 12,395 deaths in nursing homes across five states, but lets focus on masks in the open,

Lucien said...

After all the previous models turned out to be proved wrong, something had to be done.

The answer, a model making predictions about things that didn’t happen: utterly unfalsifiable — you can’t do better Science than that!

Michael K said...

The serious issue is whether the hostility of the media will alienate the majority of the US population or not. So far we have a group of Karens around here that eat this stuff up. How big a share of the population agree with them ?

traditionalguy said...

Trump thinks Playing Word Games are better than playing War Games. That’s why the CIA hates him so much. Than they find out he has beaten them at both.

Big Mike said...

Are they willing to let some skeptical mathematicians examine their algorithms, assumptions, and data?

Didn’t think so.

Iman said...

I see nothing but garbage people at the NYT.

Fernandinande said...

But is he absolutely positive he tested negative?

That's the hydrogen ion talking to the electron.

brylun said...

How many fewer nursing home deaths in NY, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc., if Cuomo, Whitmer, Evers, didn't issue directives ordering nursing homes to accept COVID positive persons?

See Cuomo's March 25 directive from the NYS Department of Health, for example.

Many more than a faulty Columbia study based on unprovable assumptions...

Birches said...

Holy crap, Wendybar, that clip wasn't even the worst quote. "They’re the folks [who], as they say it my way, ‘Brung me to the dance.’ That’s how I get elected every single time. Come on man, give me a little break here. This is where I come from.”

That's as bad as the fake Southern accent by Hillary. Wow. Trump team must wonder how they've gotten so lucky.

Xmas said...

Shutting down one week earlier...

Here is the Mayor of NYC on March 10th.

On March 10th, New York state had 140-ish confirmed cases.

Fernandinande said...

Funny - cuz it's stupid - NYT headline:

"Humans and other species have a gene mutation that lets them digest alcohol. In other species, it’s missing." (h/t D.Barry)

The NYT, well, award-winning freelance journalist Rachel Nuwer, called a moose an elk (the Swedish word), then called a different moose a moose in the next sentence.

Then the award-winning journalist said ethanol is the "key ingredient in alcohol".

Then this award-winning freelance reader stopped reading.

Fritz said...

Lucien said...
After all the previous models turned out to be proved wrong, something had to be done.

The answer, a model making predictions about things that didn’t happen: utterly unfalsifiable — you can’t do better Science than that!


all models are wrong, but some are useful

Big Mike said...

@Lurker21, back when I was a teenager (sixty years ago) we were visiting an uncle’s farm. Dad and I were in our car heading off to the nearest town for some long-forgotten reason, with my cousin in the shotgun seat giving Dad directions. At one crossroads he said “Right here you turn left.” Dad almost spun the car. It became a standing family joke.

Yancey Ward said...

Sigh......journalists and the Left really do believe arm-chair quarterbacking is a respected practice with normal people. All of the evidence suggests that the only thing week-earlier mandated shut downs would have accomplished is to have time-shifted the pandemic's course one week forward in time, and probably not even that. In other words, there is no evidence the shut downs had a positive effect at all, and massive negative effects now and in the future.

hombre said...

‘ "If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak" (NYT). He was ready to go with an answer to that one.’

Here’s an answer, “If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass on a rock. Next question.”

Bill Peschel said...

And if Govs. Wolf and Cuomo hadn't sent Wuhan Virus patients back to their nursing homes, we wouldn't have 8,000 dead, right?

Besides, didn't the models say that we'd have 2.2 million dead? Shouldn't Trump be given credit for saving millions of lives?

Bay Area Guy said...

@hombre,

‘ "If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak" (NYT). He was ready to go with an answer to that one.’

Here’s an answer, “If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass on a rock. Next question.”


Heh!

The beauty of the NYT retrospective from -- 2 months ago -- is that we can actually review what folks were saying at the time. When Trump banned travel to/from China on 1/31/20, the Left called him xenophobic.

On March 9, Fauci was saying healthy folks without symptoms, should go on cruises, if they want to.

Was Biden calling for the country to shut down, before the infamous Imperial College bullshit modeling on March 16? I don't think so, Jack!

The NYT just sucks.

Owen said...

Lucien @ 9:12: “ After all the previous models turned out to be proved wrong, something had to be done.

The answer, a model making predictions about things that didn’t happen: utterly unfalsifiable — you can’t do better Science than that!”

Excellent.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Another confirmation today that 90% of people who “get” WUFLU don’t spread it, 80% are asymptomatic. Normal flu spreads at close to 1:1 ratio not 10:1.

Hey Skipper said...

Under that scenario, about 54,000 fewer people would have died by early May.

Hmmm. Since they are making stuff up, why stop at May 3rd?

In any realistic world, social distancing measures are only capable of limiting rate of spread, not extent.

Since no one died as a consequence of useful but unavailable medical care because the rate of Mao Tse Lung infections exceeded system capacity, everyone of those 54,000 people would have died in any event.

Assuming, of course, that every realistic world includes housing MTL patients in nursing homes.

Temujin said...

from Columbia University disease modelers — that said "If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak" (NYT)

Except that the data coming in from around the world show this to be bullshit. Like so much of what was fact just a few weeks ago, this needs to be revised. The shutdown is not the key, as we have seen, both in Europe and in the US, those who opened up are seeing drops in actual percentages, while those still under wrap are not. As Andrew Cuomo noted as of late: " it's 'shocking' most new coronavirus hospitalizations are people who ... most new coronavirus cases were people who stayed at home ... “This is a surprise."

A surprise to Cuomo and apparently to Columbia. Look, there is much to be learned yet. We are gaining new data every day. And things that were an absolute a couple of weeks ago are not so any longer. The only consistent thing through this entire mess is that the models have been wildly wrong. Not just a bit off. But wildly wrong.

At what point will we take the models as something to consider, but nothing more than that? They are NOT the actual.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

"If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak"

First...pure speculation. Guessing. Wishful thinking.

Second. The Federal Government can give guidelines and strongly suggest. The writer just wishes that Trump had become a dictator so he could bitch about that too. Thump didn't and thwarted his little raisin heart.

The powers of the Constitution defer to the States for anything that isn't expressly specified to the Federal Government. Micro managing the daily activities of every citizen in the United States is not one of those powers. This is why Trump gave that back to the States. Let them do the micro managing according to the individual needs and demographic composition of their own States.

Throwing this back at the States was a good logistical move and a great political one at the same time. Now we see which Governors, Mayors are effective and which ones have been at best abysmal and at worst shown their true dictatorial nazi-at-heart natures.

Richard said...

We were told that the purpose of lockdown was to flatten the curve, not to save lives. Now, we are told that lockdown can prevent people from dying. If we accept this premise, then it will be necessary to continue lockdown until a vaccine is developed.

Lurker21 said...

You got to posivitate the negative,
Accentivate the negatory,
Latch on to the affirmatory.
Don't mess with Mr. Intermedially.

Charlie Eklund said...

We’re going to go left, right? You got that straight?

wendybar said...

“I’m prepared to say that I have a record over 40 years, and that I’m going to beat Joe Biden”- Joe Biden 5/22/20


Good luck Progressives, You're going to need it.

exhelodrvr1 said...

This started as a huge unknown, so you need to look at who has reacted better over time. As more has been learned about the virus, who has done better - Trump, or the Democrats/media? Seems pretty clear that Trump has. The attitude towards China, travel ban, border closures, getting the ventilators, military field hospitals and hospital ships - all handled better by Trump than by the opposition

Matt Sablan said...

Considering that when Trump instituted a travel ban, he was called racist for it, would anyone have gone along with earlier federal calls for social distancing?

rcocean said...

If only Cuomo and the NJ/Mass/Michigan Governors had acted earlier 25,000 people could have been saved. That's where almost 50% of the total CV-19 deaths have occurred.

Has the NYT/WaPo asked them that question? Of course not. And where was Pelosi/Schumer/Biden in march 2020? Demanding a lockdown? Nope. they were having a party in Chinatown.

Bay Area Guy said...

Headline: "Lockdown Delays Cost at Least 36,000 Lives, Data Show"

Sorry, that's not "data." That's bullshit modeling. The same type of bullshit modeling that the climate hoaxers use to tell us the world is ending in 12 years. "Cept, this time, they are going back in time. It's like the medical equivalent of "1619"

It is embarrassing for the Columbia to publish this, it is embarrassing for the NYT to breathlessly report about it.

Achilles said...

"If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak" (NYT)


This obvious hackery points to the truth of "scientific" models.

They are merely meant to guide the public along the path that the globalists want. They are bullshit. They are almost always completely wrong.

Look at the track record of the models on COVID-19.

Look at the track record of the models on global warming.

Look at the track record on the models on the economy.

They are always wrong. Every single time.

Leftists build assumptions into the models. They know the assumptions have never been correct but they use them anyway because the goal of the models is not to be correct.

Their goal is to obtain power for the statist globalist cause.

Drago said...

Has Christopher Wray re-hired Christopher Steele to generate a new hoax dossier for 2020 yet?

pchuck1966 said...

That sounds like the same number of people who needlessly died when Cuomo (D) and Murphy (D) allowed infected people into the nursing homes in New York and New Jersey.

Big Mike said...

@Achilles (12:13), not to mention the mathematical model Robbie Mook used to drive Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Big Mike said...

@Achilles (12:13), not to mention the mathematical model Robbie Mook used to drive Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Hey Skipper said...

Bay Area Guy said...
Headline: "Lockdown Delays Cost at Least 36,000 Lives, Data Show"

Sorry, that's not "data." That's bullshit modeling.


Good catch.

Spaceman said...

Would have saved thousands if he had gone ahead and closed the borders between New York and New Jersey and the rest of the nation, too.

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