Yote 53

Ivy League is thinking BIGTIME here. They are filling the XFL void and having football in the spring. This has nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with massive ratings for spring football. Just kidding.

So basically we're back to the virus being about as deadly as the flu. IMO, the only numbers that count are hospitalizations and deaths. The more positive tests without health issues the better because that simply means the virus is not as deadly. That's a good thing, people. I hope those lines tracking positive cases and deaths continue to diverge at a rapid rate. Set the COVID pandemic aside, what happened the last two nights in NYC was a sh*tshow embarrassment (pretty much the entire last month+ has been a circus). The F-ing looney bin whacks are taking over the country and the Democrat run city governments are doing nothing to restore order. In fact, they are appeasing the mob by defunding police departments and slashing budgets. It is Democrats doing this and Democrat "leaders" like AOC are calling for more cuts to the PD. Normal people are watching this circus and will in no way vote for the Democrats even though many of us believe Trump is an embarrassment. You won't see us put up Trump yard signs or slapping on bumper stickers because we don't want to have our property vandalized. We won't answer a poll saying we'll vote for Trump because being outed as a Trump voter is just not worth the harassment. What will happen is like what happened last time, we'll go to the polls where it is private, hold our noses, and vote for Trump again because the alternative is a party that has been hijacked by whack jobs. Hopefully by 2024 we've come to our senses and a new Populist party is formed of people from the center of both the Democratic and Republican parties and we can get rid of the whackos on both fringes.

Going back to that Jets article, I started to laugh at this quote: "Have you ever gone to Toronto and watched a Leafs game one night and a Raptors game the next? Same building, totally different beast in terms of how much entertainment drives the NBA. "Hockey is saying we've got a million corporate tickets sold and we don't really care as much." I don't think it's a hockey does not care issue. When you go to a hockey game the game is the entertainment, the game is the product. I read those quotes as an indictment of the NBA's product. When you go to an NBA game the clubs know the actual product is boring so they are forced to keep you entertained with a bunch of gimmicky crap to make it an "experience". Now tell me, which game has the problem here? Hockey or basketball? ETA: Oh, and if Winnipeg is "soft" because 1,500 tickets are available the day of the game on the secondary market, you know, tickets that have already been sold, then how freaking soft is Florida and Arizona? If there is concern for Winnipeg then there should be an absolute 5-alarm fire level of concern for those other two franchises because those buildings are EMPTY.

If only cancer was as contagious as the Wuhan Flu we would have cured it by now. So when we are done finding a vaccine for this virus let's keep the pedal down and cure cancer too.

Way off the rails at this point but is therapeutic and full of information, both good and bad, but informative. A thread like this is probably necessary in a time like this. People need to vent, share, inform, just need to feel like you're doing something.

This maybe explains my illness a few weeks back. My 3 old runs a fever of 103 one evening so we take him to urgent care. They say he tests positive for influenza A but by the next day he is 100% recovered (isn't that stuff supposed ot hang around for about 5 days?) and I am staying home from work with him that day in expectation that he has the flu. I proceed to get sick, but it was like nothing I had experienced before. Nothing respiratory but I felt severely "off". Every time I took his temp that day (which was about every hour) I would take my temp. His temp had returned to normal, mine was a severely low temp, like registering 93.5 degrees temp at times and ranged from 93.5 to 96 for a couple of days (which I looked up and 93.5 body temp is on the verge of hypothermia), then back to normal. I was like, huh, that was weird, my entire body was cold to the touch yet I didn't feel cold, chills, no body aches, and I was totally functional. It was really strange.

Don't make excuses for the ChiComs. They are not our friends. Hopefully this incident wakes us up to that realization and we move our supply and manufacturing to other areas of the world, and the most critical functions like medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, or anything that effects our national security we bring back home. We'd never depend on another country for our food supply, why do we depend on other countries for medical supplies?

Yes, viruses happen. It's everything else in my post that is the issue. The lying, coverup, lack of information, lack of sharing information.

Chinese misinformation campaign meant to cause discord and distrust in the USA and to shift the blame from where it lies, China. If we take one thing from this it's that China cannot be trusted and we have got to stop doing business with them. They lied about the outbreak, lied about the numbers, did not contain it, and now are still not forthcoming with information that we could use to stop it here. We need to cut China off.

Safe to say all graduations will be cancelled. U of M already cancelled theirs. More HS and colleges will follow.

Would need to see the stats on what ages the patients are and how many of them have underlying conditions.

Nah, I think it's fair that if the young and healthy in this country are getting their lives so disrupted it's only fair those who are in high risk categories change their lifestyle too. Those 10-19 years old have a .2% death rate according to the numbers out of China, yet their state tournaments were cancelled and schools closed. Could have held the games with no fans, still closed. Those kids had their high school dreams stripped from them, probably have their proms and graduations cancelled too, yet they are at very low risk. Yes, I understand they can still be carriers but how about this, just stay away from the old and at risk. 18 year olds hanging out together isn't the problem, it's an 18 year old giving it to an 80 year old. Best way to prevent this is for the old people to stay home. People who are over 70 are, for the most part, retired and financially secure. They are in a much better position in their lives to go through a quarantine as opposed to a 23 year old waitress (.2% mortality rate) who is trying to make ends meet, yet it's her business that is shut down. She won't be able to pay her rent yet we have old folks still out wandering around. They should be publicly criticized for doing so. Maybe they'll change their behavior then and by you shaming them, you just saved their life. Of course, if you don't feel well you should obviously stay home. How is that different than any other time? It's not okay to be out spreading a cold or the flu either. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lamvo/coronavirus-death-rates-age-charts-us-china

Ding, ding, ding. Just like the body overreacting to fight off a virus and killing itself we are reacting in such a way that we may win the fight against the virus but we'll end up damaging our economy and our way of life to the point it might take a decade to recover. The elderly and those with underlying conditions are the people most at risk they should be quarantined immediately. That's the immediate action we should be taking. It's time to publicly shame any elderly person you see roaming around in public. Just yesterday I witnessed an old couple at a diner after going to church having their Sunday breakfast, wheat toast. Are you effing kidding me? You're 70+ years old and you're going out for wheat toast? Meanwhile, high school kids are getting their activities cancelled, schools are getting closed, the young and healthy in this country are sacrificing so old people won't die and old people are going out for toast? I've got a 99.6% survival rate according to the statistics but my 401k and our economic future are going into the toilet in an effort to save the lives of those at risk, yet they ignore the shutdowns and go out for toast. Unbelievable.

I think they are just saying this to make them feel better about the situation before finally saying no can do.

Terrible idea by the NCAA to give a redo year for winter sports. Think about hockey for a second, how many times do we hear about players getting delayed entry to college and sent back to Juniors? Now multiple that by the hundreds. How about all those players who are aging out this season who now all of the sudden do not have a spot on the team because seniors get another year of eligibility. Now think about the ripple effects of this going back 4 years worth of recruiting classes. Talk about kids now in high school getting f--ked out of a chance to play college hockey because there are players several years older than them still in college using up that last year of eligibility. All this for players who have already completed 95+% of the season. Hell, many teams seasons were effectively over as they had already been eliminated from conference tournaments and had no chance at the NCAAs. Just one incredibly stupid idea after another being made in this world lately. The whole world has gone insane.

Also, just learned the governor of South Dakota has cancelled school statewide for next week. As of now there will be hockey on TV. South Dakota HS tournament is on Midco this weekend. This might be the last live hockey you watch this season, so if you are hard up for some puck...

Nah, hit the casino. What could go wrong? Yes, the casinos are still open but my 5 year old daughter's swim class is cancelled, as is her dance class. My nephew's entire baseball season has been cancelled. Isn't it ironic that youth activities are being cancelled left and right when kids are at low risk but the casinos are still open so the slot jockeys on oxygen can get their fix?

The only people who need to be tested are health care workers, the elderly, and those with underlying health conditions. If you are young (under 50) and healthy and are taking up a test kit, crowding the ER, or otherwise taking up the health systems time and resources you are an a$$hole and part of the problem. Stay home, self quarantine, ride the illness out. If things start getting worse for you then seek help, otherwise use some common sense and don't be a strain on the system. Oh, and the media lies, they are a bunch of liars that push their narrative and it has been that way for a couple decades now. The Trump administration, they lie too. So did the Obama administration, do did the Bush administration, so did the Clinton administration, etc., etc. It's all a game of gotcha and spin, and that folks is the F'ing problem, we can't believe any of them. Rant over.

This virus is serious and I'm not saying it shouldn't be taken seriously. But if we just overreacted and tanked the world economy over something that turns out to be not that bad in retrospect what happens the next time there is a serious, serious pandemic. It's the Boy Who Cried Wolf story.

I realize this is the hockey thread but this goes waaaaaayyyyy beyond sports. Just got a call from my brother, Des Moines Public Schools shutting everything down for 17 days. Not one confirmed case of coronavirus in Polk County. That's 17 days of parents getting pulled out of the workforce to take care of their kids. Other cities will follow. Productivity is going to grind to a standstill. I thought Dow 17,000 was a joke, at this point I hope it stops there. We are heading for a massive recession.

Just transferred $5k more into my brokerage account. Cash ready to buy. This is going to happen and the market is going to drop another 20% as panic on Main Street starts to settle in. I'm buying at that point. "Potter isn't selling. Potter's buying! And why? Because we're panicky and he's not."

There's a lot of truth to this. Airlines are going to bankrupt like crazy. There will be a domino effect of companies falling.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I am watching Amazon's stock price and am probably going to jump on it if it approaches 1200. This is an opportunity to buy and hold long term right now. ETA: 1200 is about 40% off of AMZN high of about 2100 a month ago.

The point is that Obama did not panic and shut everything down in 2009 during the swine flu. The reaction we are having today might be more damaging than the virus itself. Yes, we got through the 1930's, but how many people suffered through poverty? How many died as a result of that poverty? I'm not saying coronavirus is not dangerous or that we shouldn't be concerned. I'm just saying that we need to think real hard about the actions we're taking to combat it and how the ramifications of those choices might be worse than doing nothing at all.

At this point I am more worried about a recession the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1930's. The stock market fell 24.8% in 1929. We're down 24% from highs last month right now with no end to the panic in sight. Our economy might not recover from this.