patrick.net

Nonsensical analysis. The virus is supposed to spread so that folks can develop herd immunity. We know that deaths in Sweden are primarily amongst the sick, elderly population. The virus is not going away, Shall we all shelter in place forever?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kimberly-clarks-tissue-sales-surge-114531000.html

Tissue sales help Kimberly-Clark beat quarterly results

Kimberly-Clark Corp said on Wednesday sales of tissue and toilet paper rose 13% in the first quarter as consumers stocked up in preparation for the coronavirus pandemic, helping the company beat Wall Street estimates for profit and sales.

The company, however, suspended its forecast for the year citing uncertainties caused by the health crisis that has killed at least 177,000 people globally, including over 45,000 in the United States.

Kimberly-Clark makes several pulp-based products, such as Cottonelle toilet paper, Kleenex facial tissue and Kotex feminine hygiene products, a majority of which, were in high demand as consumers stocked up before the lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus.

Volumes increased 14% in its consumer tissue segment with sales of $1.7 billion, the company said. Sales in the personal care business, that includes diapers and feminine hygiene products, rose 6% to $2.4 billion.

"We increased investments in our business and our market positions remain broadly healthy," Chief Executive Officer Mike Hsu said in a statement.

The company's shares rose 2% to $142 in trading before the bell.

Procter & Gamble Co , which also makes Pampers diapers and Charmin toilet papers, said it had seen a rise in demand for cleaning products including detergents and dish soaps as consumers stayed at home and did their laundry and dishes more often.

As demand rose, several supermarkets have limited purchases per customer and reduced hours as they struggle to stock up shelves.

Organic sales of Kimberly-Clark's consumer products, which exclude effects of currency fluctuations and acquisitions, rose 11% in North America.

"A combination of increased consumer demand for our products and strong execution by our teams is reflected in our first quarter results," Hsu said.

Total net sales for the three-months ended March 31 rose about 8% to $5.01 billion. Analysts were expecting sales of $4.89 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned $2.13 per share, well above market estimate of $1.98.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swedish-coronavirus-no-lockdown-model-proves-lethal-by-hans-bergstrom-2020-04

Doesn't seem like such a good idea so far...

Nonsense. COVID-19 primarily affects the sick elderly population. Protecting this population, but not by shutting down the entire economy, is sensible. Unlike with the flu, immunity to which was developed at an earlier age when a functional immune system existed in this population, as with everything else, the immune system turns to crap with age, and so a novel pathogen wreaks havoc in the elderly population. Subtract out these fatalities, and COVID-19 is as deadly as the flu, and even less so for children.

COVID-19 will always be with us. We cannot shut down the economy forever. We do not do this with the flu, which killed 80,000 primarily elderly Americans in 2017.

Thanks for the link.

elliemae says

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swedish-coronavirus-no-lockdown-model-proves-lethal-by-hans-bergstrom-2020-04

Doesn't seem like such a good idea so far...

But it still doesn't negate this part of the article:

Now that COVID-19 is running rampant through nursing homes and other communities, the Swedish government has had to backpedal. Others who may be tempted by the “Swedish model” should understand that a defining feature of it is a higher death toll.

I don't like death. I may come across as an ass here from time to time. But this situation is known. We can try our best to prevent sickness to those most at risk, but our current model is devastating in other realms of life. Not just economically. It's nature, I'm not sure why humans think we can control it.

willywonka says

We do not do this with the flu, which killed 80,000 primarily elderly Americans in 2017.

Many of whom were vaccinated.... This is a manufactured crisis at this point and I'm still trying to figure out the reason why.

WookieMan says

Many of whom were vaccinated.... This is a manufactured crisis at this point and I'm still trying to figure out the reason why.

Follow the money. Large, incompetent companies were bailed out.

WookieMan says

Many of whom were vaccinated.... This is a manufactured crisis at this point and I'm still trying to figure out the reason why.

Yes, the flu vaccine is not very effective in the elderly, unfortunately. Pushing on a string.

rd6B says

Follow the money. Large, incompetent companies were bailed out.

For sure they were bailed out. I'm still convinced this is bigger/higher than that though. The numbers don't add up. The reaction doesn't compute with the virus and what it's doing. This really is indisputable at this point. We're halfway to a deadly flu season without a vaccine. So what? Mathematically we have more unhealthy people that would die from these types of things. Who cares? It's a new virus, but it's 24/7 on the news. Commercials are now all Covid-19. It's fucked up.

Kimberly-Clark Corp said on Wednesday sales of tissue and toilet paper rose 13% in the first quarter as consumers stocked up in preparation for the coronavirus pandemic, helping the company beat Wall Street estimates for profit and sales.

Wow, so toilet paper manufacturing is one of those industries that did not go down the shitter..........

https://spectator.us/forget-china-mad-lululemon-art-director/

Virus.

Airborne.

Hospitals not overwhelmed.

~60% deaths of a bad flu season (yes, going higher).

"Experts" on new virus tank economy.

The left blames one person... why is that?

WTF does this have to do with masks and PPE?

It's kind of fun watching people sink into the quicksand. They're at the chin right about now. Hopefully the last turd thrown at the wall doesn't destroy us.

Tim Aurora says

It’s certainly fair game to highlight that the president played down the emerging crisis for weeks.

I'm not defending Trumps dishonesty when I say the following in fact I think you know it's one of the things I find most repulsive about him.

But having said that, I think the reason he lied about the situation was a combination of delusional thinking combined with a desire to not freak the stock market out, which was tanking. He sees the stock market as a score card on his Presidency, so he was more than willing to lie or exaggerate if it might mitigate the ensuing crash.

A more cynical person might say that he was talking it up to give his friends more time to sell, that is at those last stages where the lies were the most absurd.

The whole "I knew it was a pandemic all along, is the kind of thing that will go in to the history books as representative of his Presidency and his personality.

Note: I'm not paying for WAPO right now. So I can't read that, but I take it the democrats made a misleading ad.

It seems as if this will need to be judged over the entire course of the the virus, months/years, pre-vaccine. Whether this method of dealing with the pandemic was the right or wrong decision remains to be seen. There are lots of factors that will need to be considered, not the least universal healthcare and a nanny state. So there may not be direct comparisons to many other countries. None the less "the Swedish method" may be of great value in determining the best way to cope with other future pandemics.

rdm says

It seems as if this will need to be judged over the entire course of the the virus, months/years, pre-vaccine.

This will most certainly happen and you are correct. But (pun intended) the reaction almost certainly has been batshit crazy. The half dead people that avoid this round are getting it the next round and dying. And then they'll get vaccinated and more half dead people will die because flu style vaccines aren't that effective. We have a new flu strain now. We slowed the initial onslaught that "may" have overwhelmed hospitals. We know we can handle it. Time to get over the media hyped fear of something we cannot control.

WookieMan says

We have a new flu strain now.

To be clear, we have a new "cold" (SARS) strain. This is a long game, for sure...

EBGuy says

To be clear, we have a new "cold" (SARS) strain

Correct. I have been brainwashed by Trump to call it the flu. I'm his little puppet. Even though I think he's getting shit advice and maybe harmful advice on purpose and has kind of botched this in my opinion.

It is really hard to not compare it to the flu though. We've had less deaths than a bad flu year without a vaccine. What is the big deal? We've likely had less flu deaths now because of this as well. I still struggle to wrap my head around WTF is going on right now. Nothing adds up.

WookieMan says

It is really hard to not compare it to the flu though. We've had less deaths than a bad flu year without a vaccine. What is the big deal? We've likely had less flu deaths now because of this as well. I still struggle to wrap my head around WTF is going on right now. Nothing adds up.

I hear ya. I'm going to start another thread on this issue.
But to be clear, the major points of entry on the Left Coast were shutdown pretty quickly and haven't reopened. We've been sheltering for over a month now.
NYC is dense (and expensive) so that may be the combination that sparked their catastrophic cascade. And also, the subways may have been a vector of transmission and distribution, though there have been criticisms of that paper (PDF).

It's funny Obama's administration "handed Trump's team detailed pandemic response plans" but didn't think to stockpile supplies? Or maybe put into place long-term plans to insource manufacturing of critical pandemic supplies? Or tighten security at the southern border so we can know who is coming and going?

Sounds like a combination of fake news and selectively picking "facts." Among all the western countries, Trump was very early in shutting down flights from Wuhan — against the wishes of the WHO and to outcries of racism from the fake-news media. He was far out ahead of Pelosi and De Blasio, for example.

Approaching with LOGIC and rational is far from ignoring. Especially with the demotard and libotard owned media he is playing and beating like unwanted red headed stepchildren at every turn....

CCP is asshoe.
We need to throw out of office their American conspirators and hound them into the dustbin of history.

logic says

It's amazing how Trump can do no wrong.

Trump can never do any wrong Because the scumbag crazy commie stupid Liberals are doing all of the wrong doing for him.

If they would just sit their crooked corrupt asses down and shut the fuck up. Then they would know Trump succeeds at everything he does.
And IF and that's a very rare fucking "IF" let me tell ya! If he does fail or screw up, we can then have the clarity of blame, fault and reason.
We don't need CNN and the But Hurt TDS society narrating Trump's wrong doing. It's just fucking crass, so shut up and stop it.

Because... Well... Quite frankly they aren't even qualified to make that distinction. Trump has proved he could cure cancer, and the Democrat lawmakers would outlaw the procedure.

Facts would be nice. Fiction based left opinion, not so much.

logic says

Funnier still is that Trump had three years to do all those things you say Obama didn't do.

Or maybe there were no plans? Or maybe the plans were so impractical that Obama, too, decided to ignore them. Or maybe the entire article is just part of the never-ending smear campaign.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-stockholm-could-see-herd-immunity-in-weeks.html

I wish Trump had kept right on ignoring the advisors who wanted him to shut everything down. Looks like Sweden did exactly that and has wound up coming through this Covid crisis without all the economic pain and social unrest and not even as many deaths as the good old USA.

For decades the Left has been pointing to Sweden as a model for the US. Will they keep this sentiment now that their pet pandemic has been exposed for the hoax it is?

Interestingly, Dr. Fauci predicted in 2019 that the USA WOULD HAVE TO FACE A PANDEMIC SHORTLY!
And it was he that authorized the $3.5 million dollar stipend to the Wuhan lab in 2015 for Corona Virus research that was BANNED in the USA.
Seems super fishy.

Shaman says

I wish Trump had kept right on ignoring the advisors who wanted him to shut everything down. Looks like Sweden did exactly that and has wound up coming through this Covid crisis without all the economic pain and social unrest and not even as many deaths as the good old USA.

That's a good point. The problem is we'll never know which is better because we can't really try them both out. Sweden isn't exactly the same as the USA, so it's difficult to compare and get more than just a hint what would have happened here.

One thing's for sure: With so many different options and so many different unknowns, everybody can cherry-pick to exalt or denigrate any given action.

Green energy is huge money, and all huge money has rich assholes behind it secretly manipulating it for profit.

Those fucks are pushing for laws forcing their product, instead of letting people choose freely.

ThreeBays says

1) It was done so as not to overwhelm hospitals, since nobody knew where the curve will actually peak. With less isolation we would have peaked higher. Recall it's not only the base fatality rate that's the issue, but also the # of people that need hospitalization or they'll die as well.

2) Maximal suppression was used to reduce the number of cases so that testing & contact-tracing can be viable.

Testing & contact-tracing is likely the game changer here. The R spread is still pretty high (0.9) with the lockdown in NY. Reopening the economy will quickly push it over 1.0 and restart the epidemic. If contact tracing can identify even 25% of cases, that's enoiugh to let us get to R 1.3 and still have a dropping curve.

Those over-simplified calculations make two erroneous assumptions:

1. The virus is genetically stable and not mutating (which is not the case for an RNA virus, which the Corona Virus is);

2. The entire population is naive (in epidemiology, it means people having never been exposed to the virus or the immune system has entirely forgotten the virus), and will become naive again the moment after being tested positive (i.e. the virus never triggers any immunal response or memory). Otherwise, the R number quickly drops towards zero as the entire population gets exposed to it quickly!

BTW, the focus on making R less than 1 through lock-down is a little like the old Stalinistic saying: one death is tragedy, but a million deaths is only a statistic. R<1 doesn't mean individuals don't get infected or get severely ill or even dying; it just means the total number of getting sick at the same time is lower, which is a meaningless statistic in terms of how many people die from it eventually . . . and outright dangerous when facing a rapidly mutating virus if the time line is stretched out!

As mutations take place, if the society is locked down whereas the hospitals are not, the most deadly mutations getting higher probability of spreading (getting extra opportunity to spread when they land the human in hospitals then spread to other people there) than the less deadly mutations (that leave people healthy therefore locked down), the lock-down of society prevents people from early exposure to small quantities of new mutations and instead force them to face more deadly mutations for the first time at high viral load at hospitals or at homes with hospital workers (i.e. for an entire night instead of short casual exposure in normal social settings). That makes the lock-down policy (while not locking down hospitals) a homicidal policy.

Not that I trust the Swiss to rule against Global NGO bodies like the WHO and NIH who have derided the combination, even though their opinion is a direct conflict of interest for their agenda.
But the Swiss are going to do a 450 trial. Hopefully they will be fair and forthcoming with the groups at different progression of the virus.
As the Doctors who have treated them in the field have described. For the most part it's been successful before people are at the point they need incubation or ventilators.
It breaks their Fever and they turn around within 4 hours. These Doctors patients weren't all 350lb diabetic patients with an ear inflection.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/swiss-pharm-co-wins-fda-approval-start-hydroxychloroquine-clinical-trials-u-s/?ff_source=Twitter&ff_medium=PostTopSharingButtons&ff_campaign=websitesharingbuttons

logic says

Did you bother to click on the links to the supporting articles? It's not hard.

When it looks like dog shit ;) You can pretty much count on it w/o opening it and taking a smell by just reading the dog shit you wrote.

jazz_music says

TRUMP READY TO PROFIT FROM HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

Trying to profit from hydroxychloroquine is like trying to make a profit off from aspirin or ibuprofen. It's a generic drug. Unless there's a cartel made (which is possible today, DOJ doesn't do its job or enforce the law with regard to cartels today) there's no way to make a profit off from investment in a generic drug.

It's like investing in Charmin knowing that soon, there's going to be a toilet paper shortage.

jazz_music says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/counties-where-hannity-viewers-outnumber-tucker-carlsons-have-had-more-covid-19-deaths-study-finds/ar-BB130iVe

Right, because corporate "news" is credible. Let's see... http://www.msn.com:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-instead-of-no-collusion-trump-now-seems-to-be-saying-so-what-if-i-did/ar-AAHJKSe

It's propaganda at worst, mindless entertainment at best, but it's not information.

Oh and this:

jazz_music says

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/us/politics/hannity-limbaugh-trump-coronavirus.html

Find that weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq yet?

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html

Anything that is called "mainstream news" in the United States is propaganda or just pure made up BS, and has been for 20 years solid. Stop quoting them unless you have an actual source that can be shown to have a credible track record.

Here's the working paper that msn cited:

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_202044.pdf

Go read it, and try to come to the same conclusions msn did and keep in mind it's a "working paper" and check their sources, and ignore anything that is a "source" from mainstream news, and not a journal that's gone through peer review.

jazz_music says

richwicks says

Anything that is called "mainstream news" in the United States is propaganda

Except Fox, Limbaugh, Breibart, etc?

If so, I live on a completely differently planet

No, ALL of it is propaganda.

Find that weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq that Fox news was promoting back in 2002? We couldn't wait for the final proof to come in the form of a mushroom cloud - RIGHT?

At worst, it's propaganda, at best, it's mindless bullshit, but there is no information at all from "mainstream news" or what Wikipedia calls "reliable sources".

The United States doesn't have an actual news media system, and hasn't for 20 years - at least.

If you want to know what is going on, talk to people in other nations (everybody has the Internet, but remember they can be just as uniformed as you are, so keep your mouth shut and just listen, be polite by telling them what you've been told - don't present it as absolute fact because it isn't) or you can pay for it and you will pay a decent price for up to date actual information, not a $100 a year for a subscription, it will be thousands.

You can also spend years finding out who isn't full of crap, but it's tedious and time consuming, because there are a ton of propagandists, outright lunatics, and outright liars getting their 15 seconds of fame. Some people just want to tell you the truth, but you will NEVER see them in a "reliable source". "Anonymous source" means they were just made up, "expert" - check who they are on the board of directors of - often experts are just ex-generals. It's not a problem of finding out who to trust, it's finding out who not to trust, and that's the vast majority.

You are still in the delusion "duh left" opposes "duh right". They are controlled by the same group, they tell different stories, but they both lie. The left and the right are both pro war. Can't leave Syria they claim - but why not? What is the mission there? What's the mission in Afghanistan? We are still at war there, what is the objective? Nobody in all of the corporate "news" media tells you - you are wasting your time listening to them.

richwicks says

flag

What the fuck is this?

when we proposed making things in the US, Obama said, those jobs aren't coming back

Hi @richwicks

Some people abuse the flag system. Trying to remove their permission to use it.

Sorry about that.

Patrick says

Hi @richwicks

Some people abuse the flag system. Trying to remove their permission to use it.

Sorry about that.

At least notify the poster as to who "flagged" it.

You want to know how to correct this? Mark a post as flagged, and allow the reader to see it if they engage in an action - at least let them know it's a flagged post and who flagged it - but let them see it if they chose. Let them decide if they want to ignore flags of the user. You have a guy talking about hookers and sex dolls here FFS. I generally keep to politics and I'm generally polite and explain my position.

I'm being censored, not being "flagged". Who flagged me? What dishonest censor flagged me?

logic says

Did you bother to click on the links to the supporting articles? It's not hard.

There are links upon links of bull shit regarding this "pandemic" that are provably wrong. Just let us know the narrative you believe is religion and we can move on from these senseless comments and posts. Groundhog Day was not a good movie...

jazz_music says

richwicks says

You are still in the delusion "duh left" opposes "duh right". They are controlled by the same group, they tell different stories, but they both lie.

I’m not the subject and you don’t discern the difference between sources/targets of lies and conspiracy from those who are competing for ratings and verifiably stopping short of making shit up every day.

We've done this a while now. You are the OP. People are going to attack and fight your opinion if they disagree. By default you are the topic when you post this:

jazz_music says

Laura Ingraham called Hydroxycholoquine the Lazarus pill --then believers die in Droves.

TRUMP READY TO PROFIT FROM HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/04/07/donald-trump-gets-millions-of-hydroxychloroquine-pills-from-india/

Time to love the truth buddy ...

OR DIE NOW.

What do you expect the reaction to be?? It's a forum. It's generally A or B. Agree or disagree for the most part. You had a user disagree with you and I didn't see a single personal remark in his comment. Do you come here expecting everyone to agree with your vision of the world? That's not realistic. I've had my views changed on many topics here, from people that it would appear I dislike. Have an open mind.