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What I Got Out of the Ricochet Zoom Session with Rob, Peter, and Dr. Savage
I was online Friday afternoon for the conversation with Dr. Savage. I wasn’t expecting to be able to, as I was supposed to be at work. Well, everyone got sent home at 7 a.m., so I was able to log on. (I go to work at 6 a.m.)
Thanks to Mr. Blue Yeti for working the boards; he did a yeoman’s job. The main thing I got out of the conversation was that, in my opinion, Rob Long appeared to be in a state of full-blown panic. He looked rumpled, and was speaking a mile a minute throughout the whole thing. Peter, on the other hand, was calm and collected, even if he was in his “pajama top” under his jacket. The Zoom format worked well and made me feel like I was back at work (we have been having multiple Zoom meetings, as most of our people are working from home).
Rico members asked good questions, and Dr. Savage gave as good answers as he could, given the lack of knowledge for most of us. I got to see what some of the members look like (Here’s looking at you, @Instugator!) and hear voices of those without cameras. I was “outed,” since the box where my face would have been contained my real name and not my Ricochet handle. Not that anyone noticed or cared.
Those who bought Zoom stock at or close to its IPO this year have been amply rewarded — their business is really benefiting from the coronavirus epidemic.
I’d participate in another one, if we have one, as long as I’m available.
Published in General
I listened in for a while. Rob seemed to be in the same mode he’s been in for the last few podcasts: “crash the economy as long as it saves a few lives.”
Regarding having bought ZOOM stock, you got that right!
If I were a Senator and thus legally exempted from insider trading laws, and had picked up the intel on COVID-19 at a confidential briefing, I’d have been tweeting my broker before the meeting broke!
Assuming I’d known what ZOOM was. (I know now. The Brown-Eyed Beauty explained it to me in simple terms. Our kids use it. It’s part of the Interwebs, right?)
As near as I can figure, there are two sets of experts. One is saying that we need to shut everything down, and one is saying that we’re way overreacting. How is a layman supposed to react?
I had to be at a different zoom meeting for my day job for the first 2/3 of it, so I was logged in but without sound or video.
My wife was on the whole time. From another room of the house.
So that’s three zoom session running simultaneously. Unless my son, home from college, was running a fourth upstairs.
Zoom really has become quite ubiquitous.
I just called in and really enjoyed the exchange. I wasn’t surprised by Rob’s excitement, since he often seems in that mode. Although it was a bit frustrating when he interrupted Dr. Savage. Thank you all for putting this together.
I liked the call. Sorry for hogging the questioning, if anyone thought that I was talking too much.
I greatly appreciate what Dr. Savage said, but I was not satisfied with his responses to my cross-examination. I do not think that it is feasible to perform testing at the levels he suggested — which would require tens or hundreds of millions of tests. As of 2 days ago, South Korea had performed about 270,000 tests (source here), over the past 2 months, and everyone is singing their praises. How are we going to be able to perform testing at a rate 1,000 times greater than South Korea?
The same source says that Italy performed 138,000 tests, so South Korea has only done twice as many tests as Italy. It’s not clear why this makes such a big difference, which leads me to doubt that South Korea’s measures actually explain its favorable numbers.
In any event, I don’t see how testing is going to help much, even if we could magically come up with a way to test tens of millions of people. Remember that Dr. Savage told us that the test only shows whether you currently have the disease, not whether you had it and recovered, so we would need to test people over and over again.
Exactly!
The whole concept of being an “expert” has gone down the tubes. We had Consitutional “experts” tell us Trump was guilty, others telling us he committed no crime. We had scientists say there is man-made climate change, and scientists that say otherwise. Dare I say it, I’ll bet there are PhD mathemeticians out there who would testify under oath that two plus two equals five.
Personally, I’m skeptical of anything that appears to be an over-reaction. Take man-made climate change. The fervor and shrill screams from the left about how we’re killing the planet, as well as demanding the death penalty for “climate change deniers” is a prime example. The “cures” they call for would basically eliminate capitalism and promote heavy-handed socialism (their real goal).
This is a serious epidemic, but so is the annual flu. Heck, we even refer to “flu season”, as if it were a sport.
Keep calm and carry on.
The scientific premise (premise #1)
…is firmly believed by those of our politicians–governors, mayors, bureaucrats of the administrative state, the President–who are using their scientific beliefs to exercise newly acquired, extraordinary powers of interference with private life. These are the concrete powers of the police state, in a country known just weeks ago for the freedom of its residents. The power to place masses of people under what amounts to house arrest without due process, and to deprive them of their livelihood.
I know that it is false, even though I’m not a doctor. To know it’s false only requires a basic education in science.
A more relevant scientific hypothesis (#2) might be
then there is a high level of confidence that the cause is COVID-19.
I think that’s probably true. But if any evidence has been presented on Ricochet to answer this question scientifically, I’ve never seen it. I wish someone would address this.
That isn’t to say I know it to be false. I just haven’t seen evidence presented of it on Ricochet, or in the news and commentary, with two exceptions.
One is a chart reprinted here that was presented by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, and produced by the University of Glasgow. It was shown only to support Wodarg’s answer to a different question:
The answer for at least the second population is premise #3: “it’s quite prevalent”, though the media and our leaders never mention this fact.
But if you read the Glasgow paper, you will find a hint of an answer to question #2 in their data.
There’s a chart showing how common it is to find more than one of the 11 viral agents they tested for in the sample.
It’s not very common.
What does that tell me? It hints that if you have the “flu” and test positive for COVID-19, then perhaps COVID-19 is likely the cause of your flu (influenza-like disease).
If they had tested for a lot of the known agents (rather than just 11) I guess it would greatly increase our confidence. But they didn’t.
A more compelling bit of evidence is the fact that flu vaccines work moderately well.
Now, that could be because they have broad effect, not because each year’s identified strains are really the cause of most of the flu.
But it is possible that it’s due to the fact that one or two strains of bug knock out all the other strains.
Oh, I wish I would have known about this call. Not because I’m so interested in the topic. I’m not. Like Randy, I’m pretty much of the opinion, if I’m constantly getting some very different advice from “experts” how am I really supposed know how to react. But more because I’d love to know some others here on Ricochet better. I’ve done one actual meet up with Susan Quinn, The Other Diane and their husbands, and had a really enjoyable time. I hope to get the opportunity to get to know others better. Real face-to-face meet-ups are always best but sometimes you got to make do.
Was the zoom call recorded and will it be posted for those of us who missed it?
Hmmmmm… I wonder if the powers that be could organize another Zoom meeting for members everywhere to join? Do it on a weekend and invite members and editors. @blueyeti?
We almost have that already… @ctlaw hosts an Audio Meetup every Monday evening.
This one was not recorded because some low-level Ricochet employee forgot to hit the record button. Rest assured, when we find that person, they will be dealt with in the harshest terms possible.
But we all thought this went really well and we will absolutely be doing more in the very near future. Watch for an announcement on the site.
P.S. I think many of you are misinterpreting Rob’s nervousness/giddyness at hosting a show in an entirely new format as panic. Having been in contact with him since the call, I can assure you he is not in panic mode. But don’t take my word for it:
Zoom is video too and AMU is on a weekday evening. I attended my first AMU the week after we joined. Since many places are insisting we stay home, a video virtual meetup would be cool and I think we should have one if it’s not too much trouble.
Yes, we can can and will do this. For a weekend call with the editors, it will have to be on Sunday as Bethany observes the Sabbath.
I have 2 kids. Been to the Doc-in-a-Box a couple of times this school year. Couple of times they had sore throats with fever or nausea. Each time the doc took a swab and we had the results in a few minutes.
Since I am quite sure they didn’t send for a courier to get a test from centralized warehouse, I kind of figure they had them on hand. Like plentiful.
So lets look at a more complicated (and expensive) device. The ubiquitous cell phone. There are 322M in the us and they are kept for an average of 30 months. Which means more that 10M cellphones are swapped out each month (on average). If that supply chain can supply enough of complicated materials to keep those manufacturers supplied, I am quite certain the bioscience industry can make enough Covid19 tests to keep the Docs in Boxes supplied. Bet the materials cost is less than double-digit cents too.
A high school friend recorded to facebook so I dont think I can link the video here. But she lives in South Korea and explained exactly how its going there, and that for the most part life goes on as normal.
No nationwide shut downs or panics. Limited seating in restaurants. Oh but everyone wears a mask left over from one of the previous epidemics.
She was shocked to learn that we have 0 masks at all available.
And like anything I looked up the answer on youtube.
So below is her video on how things are going in South Korea
Self-flagellation?
Then I guess I owe Rob an apology. I am sorry I misinterpreted his mood.
Looks like we have already hit 250,000 tests and production is ramping up, 50,000 tests administered Friday alone.
Source here