jimsorgi

Of course it’s semantics. Same as anything that says Kelly's salary at ND was $2m. That’s the whole point. “Kelly’s full salary at Notre Dame, a private school, was unknown but was believed to be more than $5 million per year.” https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-brian-kelly-notre-dame-lsu-20211130-g76kaisw5fb75ayxvo4dydcimi-story.html?outputType=amp ND is extremely tight-lipped about the finances of its athletic department but that number is more consistent with what I know from people in and around the university (not that anyone told me an exact number - but a general range).

His base salary is $400k. They rest of it is supplemental income in exchange for media events, name/image/likeness, etc. The point is that universities often characterize coaching salaries in different ways and the fact that a tax filing said Kelly’s salary at ND was $2m means nothing.

All the first article tells you is how much ND characterized as base salary for Kelly, and the second article tells you even less. The fact that Kelly’s salary at LSU is $400k should tell you how valuable that information is.

That’s not an accurate number for Kelly’s compensation at ND.

You realize that there have been studies using HCQ to prevent infection as well as very early in infection, right? And those studies showed no effective results? But sure, let’s go with random anecdotal evidence from surely reliable newspapers because it fits with the narrative we want to believe.

Gilead would certainly love for Remdesivir to become the go-to treatment, but no other pharmaceutical company would, and I don’t think Gilead has quite this strong a domination of every university researcher in the world. Besides, by that logic, wouldn’t they skew the dexamethasone studies? That drug - cheap and easily available - has performed very well in COVID studies.

There are tons of empirical studies publicly a available on the effectiveness of HCQ. Why in the world do we exclusively listen to the one or two studies that happen to get picked up or the anecdotal stories of some YouTube doctor? By the way, if you do this (and you should for yourself!), you’ll likely find that the research consensus is “there’s insufficient evidence that HCQ is effective, but better randomized studies are required to be sure.”

I think that’s a sensationalist statement (who comprises “they” and what leads to your determination that there are “targets”?), and particular context of the Portland situation does not exist at other federal courthouses.

Curious - what’s the basis for that?

For sure - this is why it’s good to hold back from overreact to these “we showed in a lab that it appears to slow down viral replication” or even “Phase I trials showed promising results” stories.

Very much depends on the vaccine manufacturer - there’s no one vaccine approach thus far, so we have a mix of modifications to existing vaccines, new versions similar to approved vaccines, and completely new vaccines. (This is an oversimplification, but you get the point).

Or they knew it on July 13th and it took time to process the data (and/or confirm via a test). That’s been happening since Day 1 - Indiana has been very transparent about it.

It’s an interesting story that’s worth noting, but they haven’t even started testing out the theory. I don’t know that this is national headline news (there are literally hundreds of trials like this that are ongoing). Now, show efficacy in human trials and we’re in a different place. All that being said, the innovations that are developing to treat the virus post-infection are pretty impressive. Vaccine aside, that’s going to make a very positive impact.

Some states report testing numbers in batches. There’s nothing odd or suspicious about that - but that’s also why it’s better to look at 7-day averages; there’s significant day-to-day noise.

Brozinni (in Southport, and in Nashville): go for the pepperoni breadsticks. Only sad part is the Nashville location replaced Harvest Moon - was a big fan of theirs.

450 North and Zwanzigz both have excellent pizza and excellent beer, in my opinion. Definitely worth picking up.

This type of sensationalism is so counterproductive.

Or basic math. It’s incredible that no one involved in that clip pointed out the error.

Yep. And there are other cases like this, obviously. But that doesn’t imply that we have a systemic data issue.

But that cuts both ways, since if it truly a health department or coroner issuing it, “hospital finances” (as weak as that is) goes out the window. The thing about conspiracy theories is we can always find outliers to support them.

That’s a false equivalence though, right? Simply because someone said “x” we have to treat it as if it’s true? Scott and Scott’s friend have no knowledge of the entirety of the pandemic; why would I say “well, one person said they didn’t think a death was related to covid and doctors thought it might be therefore we should invalidate all covid data because all doctors lie?” My friend says Michael Jordan is actually a lizard person. That explains why he struggles to connect emotionally to people. Why wouldn’t you choose you believe him? Obviously, the answer is that we look to the information we actually have (not just “I heard someone say this”). There are huge amounts of information supporting the true extent of the pandemic, and extremely minimal evidence - primarily isolated anecdotes - suggesting it is exaggerated to some unspecified degree. Besides, none of this answers the basic question: why would doctors lie about it?

Of course there will be doctors that do things that are unethical. But that’s missing the point. Is it reasonable to think that sufficiently large numbers of doctors (thousands) are lying on death certificates despite minimal (to the extent that they are really immaterial) short-term institutional financial benefits, significant medium to long term institutional financial harm, and zero personal financial benefit that the covid numbers are materially artificially inflated? To me, that answer is a resounding “no.” I have no doubt that if we did a deep dive into every single death we’d find a few that didn’t line up - but an extremely small and immaterial percent. I also have no doubt that there have been deaths related to covid that weren’t captured for various reasons.

Thanks for the good summary. Hospitals are experiencing major financial struggles due to covid. They have zero interest in artificially inflating the pandemic.

Those stories are pretty exaggerated, I think. The vast, vast majority of deaths related to covid are confirmed via a positive test. Yes, some of those people would have died anyway (and covid was merely a contributing cause), but that’s a relatively small group. Besides, hospitals will also get significant insurance money for taking care of anything. There’s not a huge financial incentive to label it covid. Oh, and hospitals make far more money on elective procedures, which decrease significantly when infections are high. So there’s a huge monetary incentive for hospitals to downplay the pandemic. But, at the end of the day, main reason: doctors are generally going to do what they think the right thing to do is, not jump through hoops to please administrators.

Some great classic noir holds up well: The Third Man The Maltese Falcon Double Indemnity