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Massachusetts coronavirus numbers seem to be going in the right direction, but we're still likely to hit 5,000 deaths tomorrow

If you scroll through today's Massachusetts Covid-19 numbers, you'll see a chart showing that daily hospitalization numbers for people with the virus has been going down since April 26.

Daily deaths are going down as well - 139 reported today, compared to the peak of 193 on April 24, and, while there's not a chart for it, the number of ICU beds required for the sickest of Covid-19 patients, has been going down as well.

And yet, you'll also notice that, as of today, a total of 4,979 Massachusetts residents have died from coronavirus infection, out of 77,793 confirmed cases. It's such an abstract number, but as both Gov. Baker and Mayor Walsh keep reminding us, those are real people, with real families and friends, who have died over less than 2 1/2 months. Remember them as the state begins to re-open.

In Boston, we've had 11,047 confirmed cases and 525 residents die from the virus, according to the latest figures from the Boston Public Health Commission.

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Comments

The average age of MA Covid death is 82 and healthy people under age 60 have miniscule risk of death. These vital statistics should be on page 1 of the report, not buried on page 11. We know that the hospitals are largely vacant and laying off yet the city is essentially closed until Labor Day. Let's stop the fearmongering and join the other 49 states in restoring sanity.

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But some of us do, and I can wear a goddamn hat until I can get a haircut if it means keeping them around a little longer

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After age 70ish, even minor injuries are a death sentence. For example, my grandmother at age 75 broke her leg falling from a stepladder, had several surgeries, and was in terminal decline until her death several years later. This was with excellent medical care; she could afford full time live-in nurses. She explicitly stated her wish to be dead for about 5 years, and one day it happened.

And yet, my 75yo father who dealt with all this crap still cleans his gutters on a ladder.

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She explicitly stated her wish to be dead for about 5 years,

Nice thing to wish for, but I'm afraid the condition usually lasts quite a bit longer than that.

(Sorry, serious topic, but my inner copy editor couldn't resist; no disrespect intended.)

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Grifter columnist from Florida gets boner because grifter in chief mentions him.

Old people are dying and old people die anyway is one hell of a political spin.

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Old people are dying and old people die anyway is one hell of a political spin.

I don't know if I'm in the "at-risk" group, but I'm old enough to remember when Republicans called themselves the "pro-life" party.

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Fish wants my buddies Moms and Dads dead.

Man with Rod In Hand thinks his Freedums are being compromised.

I can wait a few more weeks for this to tone down more. Apparently 'Muricans can't find enough people overseas to kill so they are suggesting we go after our own. Besides real men have put their ships into port to save their crews lives over the objection of fake men who lead from the armchair.

Seek help.

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"Healthy" is an interesting term here. You may not know anyone with heart disease, diabetes, asthma, or congestive heart failure. You may be prepared to die, unmourned, before you get to that age, or if you gain enough wait to be classified as "obese." A lot of us either are, or care about, people who are in high-risk groups for this.

People like my mother, who is in good health for her age--but her age is itself a risk factor. The normal life expectancy for a healthy 89-year-old where she lives is another few years, not negative seven.

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Fish, you clearly don't care about the "Greatest Generation" and all the WWII vets, cause this is finishing them off, ditto for Korean War vets, VN vets, etc. Very unpatriotic don't you think?

You also don't seem to understand that viruses mutate. Every time a new person is infected, there's a chance for the virus to change a little, most of those changes are harmless, but there's always a chance we get a new version that affects children, professional athletes or wingnuts such as yourself, are you willing to play russian roulette with the future of professional athletes? That's how we got this virus in the first place, a mutation of a previous version. Ergo, lets not transmit it so much, cuts down on the number of chances it has to turn into something worse. READ THIS PART AGAIN, IT IS IMPORTANT!

I wish you and your mother continued good health, my mom is in her '80's too, if doing what we're doing means my kids get a few more years with her, well worth it, if you'd think about it, I bet you'd do the same for your yours, so pulleeeze stop beating this "freedom and liberty" drum, do the patriotic thing, stay home, wear a mask if you go out. Keep stuff shut down a little longer.

[for the rest of you, I apologize for any hyperbole or use of logical fallacy in the preceding, common sense and reason have proven ineffective in cases like this]

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While I agree that we still need to ride this out safely for some time more, we should be careful about the “stay home” rhetoric. Over 50% of chemo treatments nationally have been skipped, biopsies have plummet to diagnose cancer, and the UN is predicting 125MM people will drop into extreme poverty globally from these lockdowns.
Extreme poverty will lead to far greater deaths, and the amount of People who die of cancer, that could have been saved, will increase.
Being too over the top in telling people to stay in lockdown and scaring people to go out, will just trade death causes, and potentially not save lives at all.

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Statistics and sources, please:

Being too over the top in telling people to stay in lockdown and scaring people to go out, will just trade death causes, and potentially not save lives at all.

You say "tone the rhetoric down" and then you claim that stay at home orders (Note: this isn't a lockdown, dear) will kill as many people?

That is inflammatory rhetoric right there.

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Over 50% of chemo treatments nationally have been skipped, biopsies have plummet to diagnose cancer

I'm sure you have a source you can cite for this. My only information is from people I know personally, who have continued chemo, had biopsies and had cancer surgery.

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I'm sure the mall can do without your manly presence maintaining law and order for a few more weeks.

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Fish, go away. You aren't helping.

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join the other 49 states in restoring sanity

So are you just completely ignoring any kind of national news, or...

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You claim to be a retired cop.

Yet you want older people to die, and public service people to die for your convenience.

Cops are dying from this, too - as are people the age you claim to be.

We knew that you were delusional, but I'm not betting that you would be cheering on the deaths of elderly if you were elderly.

This is a pretty clear hint that you are not who you claim to be - as if the whole social security number matches state of birth thing and the passport stamp for a domestic flight to a US only airport weren't enough.

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FISH, please provide the name of the elderly relative you’re willing to kill. Just their first name is fine. Whose life will you end so you can go to Costco?

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I've spent more money there than usual, in part, because they are very firm about keeping everybody safe! They did social distancing before it was required. They required masks before the state did. They have employees enforcing the rules and letting people know when they don't get it.

Of course, following the rules is for "those" people in fishy's book - because it becomes an excuse for summary execution. Not for white middle aged males.

I swear to dog that if I see a MAGA mask meltdown in a store I'm going to take off my shoes and shirt and join in - that ain't gonna be pretty.

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The average age of death is high due to the fact that the elderly can't handle the amount of damage the virus does to the body. Combined with the fact that the virus is highly transmissible and has infected numerous nursing homes, elder care facilities, and convalescence homes in the state, this leads to a heavy toll on the statistics. But 80 year olds aren't running around in the street passing the virus to each other.

Additionally, the hospitalizations are far more linear by age. We're sending 40-60 year olds to the hospital, but they're able to recover. You claim hospitals are empty, but that's BECAUSE we're taking active steps to prevent people from passing the virus around. The result is lower hospitalizations. You want us to "restore sanity" but that would increase hospitalizations because we have no way, as a whole, of containing outbreaks through testing.

We all want more normalcy again. But we had to suspend normalcy for a lot of very good reasons. We needed to learn about how the disease was impacting things like age groups. We might now be able to speak to that, but that was only one reason. We needed to prevent the hospitals from being overrun between bed count and lack of gear. For now, that's working, but we're still lacking enough gear. If we spike the volume by rushing back to normalcy, we won't have enough beds. So, we need to "restore sanity" without unraveling the past 2 months of work by immediately infecting everyone in the process. Lastly, we suspended things to get a plan in place to increase testing so when someone does get sick, we can hopefully quarantine anyone who would likely be passing the virus around. But the federal government has completely botched this and it's critical to avoiding the hospital problem. We gave them two months to produce tons of tests, and instead they did nothing and we're nowhere near the necessary quantity.

So, FISH. You want normalcy? Maybe you should be asking why we can't test everyone that comes in contact with someone who tests positive so we can send those people back home while the rest of us try to get back to normalcy. Because that will save lives, save hospitals, and allow things to get moving again.

Instead, we live in a world where that didn't happen. So, now it's 2 months later, and we're going to fake it instead. If someone gets sick, we're going to presume they have the virus. We're going to presume everyone they had prolonged contact with has the virus. We're going to have to take more active measures to assume everyone has the virus up front because we can't test to be sure. We have to figure out how to keep things like restaurants at minimal capacity while simultaneously meeting their bottom line. They had one job for the past two months and they did fuck-all about it so now we have to completely figure out how to give you your "restored sanity" without just ending up in the same situation we'd have been in 2 months ago had we not all stayed home.

You'd be getting your normalcy faster and easier if the federal government had just done its job. So, if you don't like how slow and shitty restarting everything is, your problem isn't with the Governor...or the fact that only old people are dying. It's that the plan was clear and Trump and his cronies did absolutely fuck-all about it.

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...multiple likes here. Well done.

Responses like this expose Fish for the bad-faith actor that he is. He will not respond. He will not engage. He will simply continue to lie and gaslight.

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It's that the plan was clear and Trump and his cronies did absolutely fuck-all about it.

This is worth a read:

https://pressthink.org/2020/05/the-plan-is-to-have-no-plan/

The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible— by telling the governors they’re in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by “flooding the zone with shit,” Steve Bannon’s phrase for overwhelming the system with disinformation, distraction, and denial, which boosts what economists call “search costs” for reliable intelligence.

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It's truly amazing how the Republican Party has become a death cult, with just a few exceptions (Baker, Hogan, DeWine).

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Remember when they had their Underooos in a twist over the "Obamacare Death Panels"? Hypocrisy thy name is Koch!

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They've hitched their wagon to a con man and must defend the most irrational, indefensible positions because they can't admit that they were willingly duped. Judges, abortion, 2nd Amendment is GOPorn. For a guy that bangs porn stars and has no core beliefs, except in himself, this was easy. In 2010-2011 Trump assessed his political future by asking himself which party is more susceptible to manipulation. We know the answer and the fakers willing to flush every principal of conservatism down the drain to save their perceived power.

Maga's are blind to the grifters monetizing all things conservative. These movement "conservatives" literally sell everything they can to these willing rubes, happy to separate them from their money for our (except for you, you and them) "freedom".

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Would encourage its members not to wear masks.

If 80% of Americans Wore Masks, COVID-19 Infections Would Plummet, New Study Says.

A death cult that says: Screw you, I don't care if you get sick, since, as we know, the main point of masks is not to protect the wearer, but to protect people around him if the wearer has the virus but doesn't know it.

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Sorry, Fishy.
We might be able to restore sanity in November, but odds are overwhelmingly in favor of one dysfunctional major party establishment's candidate winning or the other dysfunctional major party establishment's candidate winning.

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There are many degrees of misery between health and death. Just because you don't literally die of Covid doesn't mean you're in for a good time.

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fuck you.
a work colleague died at 42, healthy, ran the Marathon a few times. 6 of my friends had parents die, they were all under the age of 70. and a healthy 40 year old was on oxygen for over two weeks and he’s still not 100% and gets short of breath every day.
again, fuck you

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