Westerly

Get out of here with your logical reasoning and all that shit. Everyone knows it's no big deal and it's just the flu. until they get it and end up in the ICU that is. I still see most DZs are taking few real precautions. For many people, the hard way is the only way.

Yes there are some risks to a phase 3 trial, but they are low enough that the FDA feels comfortable releasing it to tens of thousands of people. You have to pretty damn almost sure about its safety to issue a vaccine to 30,000+ people. Regarding your scenario, I dont buy into that because the type of people who are going to go bar hopping in the first place are exactly the same type of people who think that Covid is fake news bullshit that's part of a political conspiracy and they think vaccines cause autism and should be avoided at all costs. The type of person willing to take an experimental vaccine is the type of person who's cautious about avoiding infection (hints the motivation to take an experimental vaccine in the first place) and informed and intelligent enough to know that what they are taking, even if highly effective, will never be a cure or a complete prevention. They should be smart enough to know it only reduces, but not eliminates, ones risk. So put simply, I think your scenario is unrealistically extreme because the type of people who would fit into the demographic of those who would partake in your scenario are the literal perfect example of the exact type of person who would never get vaccinated against Covid let alone take an experimental vaccine.

The alternative is 1,000 people per day continue to die and who knows how many several thousand per day have life-altering permanent damage. I'd say at this point it's a matter of speed over quality. There is virtually no chance that a rushed vaccine will cause more damage than the thousands that continue to die every single day that we wait. The risk/ reward benefit on this one falls squarely on the benefit outweighing the risk (substantially). The vaccines are already in phase 3 which means the FDA has already cleared them as being safe. So worst case scenario, they just dont work which that by itself is unlikely as vaccines that flat out dont work rarely make it to stage 3 in the first place. At this point I see no reason why they shouldent make the stage 3 vaccines freely available for anyone who wants one. No one is forcing you to take one so if you dont think it will work, just dont take it. I'll happily take the risk that the shot I am getting might not work over the firm certainty that eventual infection is a complete inevitability without a vaccine.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/94-percent-covid19-deaths-not-caused-by-something-else.html Go back to watching Fox News some more. Also, everyone has a preexisting condition. 40% of Americans have hypertension and 65% are overweight with 33% having prediabetes.

Well that's expected. I dont know why people continuously expect for profit corporations to do the right thing. That is not what they are here for. Companies are designed for only one thing--to make money. Rarely does doing the right thing and doing the profitable thing go hand in hand. Anyone who ever expects any company to do the moral thing is going to find themselves with unrelenting disappointment. Companies, corporations and businesses are the literal last place anyone should be looking to when looking for morals. Drop zones are no different. There are a huge number of DZs out there that continuously take shortcuts on safety for profits, who break employment laws by paying their employees under illegal 1099 status to avoid having to pay benefits and taxes and who to date still do not have any real COVID protections in place. Why? Because they dont care about their employees or customers. They are there to make money and nothing else. Just because the DZO seems like a cool guy and the DZ is a good place to jump at doesent mean they actually care about you in any respect.

It's easy to blame everything on the boss, but the reality is most of the blame is much further down the pole. What about the 50 governors out there? Sure some are doing okay, but many, if not most, are not. The mayors of each and every town in America? Any mayor in any town has the authority to enact closures, restrictions, ect. How many actually are? And what about the individual people? Do you really need the president to tell you what precautions to take? Are you not intelligent enough to determine how to avoid getting infected on your own (apparently not for most people)? There is enough blame to go around for everyone and I'd argue the chief cause of this issue is ignorance, laziness, and lack of compassion. People who are not intelligent enough to conduct research on a matter to learn the scientific facts, people who are too lazy to care, people who are so self-centered that they cannot be even slightly inconvenienced even at the risk of another person's life. Ultimately, they are most to blame.

Yes but the majority of congregations that do happen dont need to happen. For example, we dont "need" any skydiving operations to be in progress at the moment. There is no legitimate reason why we need to squeeze 21 people in an airplane that normally seats 8 just for entertainment purposes, and then do that like 5x a day every weekend for fun. Preventing unnecessary gatherings from occurring in the first place is a much superior solution than saying 'we'll just wear a mask and that will make it okay'. Especially when that doesent even exist in the first place. We still are barely even at 50% mask compliance in some regions. In other areas it's more like 0%. The other issue is we still dont have anyone making real masks that can actually prevent the victim from getting infected. There is one company out of the UK that started making some, but they cannot meet demand. We have a literal global demand for masks that can legitimately protect the wearer--like fully--from getting infected and few are really trying to meet the demand even though the technology to make a mask that can legitimately protect the wearer fully does exist and could easily be scaled to an affordable and compact design that the public can use. That would be our best holdover until a vaccine is developed. With that type of mask, you could be in close contact with others and not need to worry about getting infected.

The reason why Germany has a much lower death rate is not just masks. It's masks + social distancing + no massive gatherings + personal responsibility + informed and educated citizens + unified, country-wide oversight and direction + a lot of other stuff that they are doing right. Masks are only a piece. They are not the solution in itself. It's several factors at work that allow them to be successful where we are not.

I hear him make the claim that tuck tabs can lead to hard openings in the PIA video. I asked Mirage about that and they said they have made tens of thousands of rigs with tuck tabs and they said they disagree that tuck tabs cause hard openings.

haah get haahha let me make sure I got this right. You're a freaking steller CPA who understands how math, statistics and insurance all works, but somehow you cant figure out how to get a quote on an insurance premium and do a bit of shopping around? Also, as a professional CPA, your first thought to obtain professional advice on your job is to go to a skydiving forum on the Internet and ask a bunch of unqualified randos for professional advice? Freaking steller. Please spray me down with your resume some more. Clearly you work in the best of circles.

You only need to add skydiving to the policy if you want coverage in a skydiving accident. If you're fine with no coverage for skydiving but coverage for everything else, there is no need to add it to the policy. Considering the likeness of death while skydiving relative to the additional cost, basic math and statistics would show it's not in your favor to add the coverage.

Well with 40% of cases being asymptomatic, I'd argue we do need to put everyone on community supervision. This is not about 'trusting' people to do the right thing and get tested and self-isolate if they are getting sick (which many people wont do BTW). This is about tracking the virus which is impossible if millions are getting infected and they dont even know it. I've had several people I know who tested positive only because they were required to do so for one reason or another. They dident even know they had it. That means they would have gone to work, gone out, ect and infected people without even knowing. That's one of the main reasons why the virus is spreading so aggressively. It's not hordes of sick people going out and saying fuck it. It's people who dont know they have it going out and spreading it around.

Well most people with real jobs need to submit for drug testing at work. In most cases, your choices are submit for the test or find an entirely different industry to work in. That isint any real choice, so in short they are required to do it. Considering it's literately relevant to national security and national health, yea I'd say it's an acceptable inconvenience and some other countries are already doing this anyway.

It's not just lack of leadership. The finger points 360 degrees in this issue. Everyone from the highest to the lowest on the totem pole is to blame. There are still way too many people out there who do not and will not ever take the matter seriously until the time in which they catch it and end up in the ICU. That's when they will take it seriously. Worse, some people are hardly effected by the virus which only reinforces others' ideas that it's all bullshit. "I had a friend who was infected and he dident even know it!". But yes, the leaders up top arnt exactly setting the standard here either. Then again, there is always another side to it. Exactly how long can we afford to live in our houses and keep businesses closed? What's the end game with this strategy? Just stay at home until...forever? Until a vaccine comes out and everyone gets it? The correct solution would have been to hit it hard from the beginning like the other countries did, but we're way past that now and real solutions are now exceedingly limited. One thing that would help would be nationally controlled random testing based on SSN. The US tests 0.25% of the entire population per day at random. If you get called up, you have 24 hours to report by law. That would at least help with tracking immensely.

You mean like exactly what we have already been doing for the last two months? No one is doing jack for social distancing or much of anything anymore. At most, some people are wearing a mask which is only marginally effective in itself. The fact that just about every DZ in America is open, which is not even remotely a social-distancing-friendly activity, kind of supports my argument. At this point, most Americans have adopted the attitude of 'it is what it is' and they have decided to take their chances with luck. Beyond that they dont want to be bothered with Covid-anything. Remember the whole 'flatten the curve' thing? Well the current daily infection rates are higher than the highest 7-day average during that time of the virus, but I havent heard of anyone even mention that phrase anymore. Most have just given up at this point and decided to return to normal life.

But it's not that much of a gamble. These vaccines are not just random jello mystery shots you found in the fridge from last week's party. They have already been tested on around a thousand people so far and proven to be effective in the short term. Some of these vaccines are developing antibodies that are 4x more concentrated than people who had the actual virus. So I'd agree if it was a mystery guess it would be too much of a risk. But it's not a guess at all. As far as people going back to normal too soon, have you actually gone outside recently? No one is doing jack for protective measures. Half the country isint even wearing a mask. We're at normal. We have been back to normal for a long time already. Not many people are taking the virus very seriously anymore and those who are taking it seriously probably will continue to do so regardless if a vaccine comes out or not. In any case, it's common knowledge that vaccines are not guarantees. Anyone who has ever had the flu shot and still gotten sick knows this. They reduce, not eliminate, risk. The type of person who is not smart enough to already know this is the type of person who probably thinks Covid is all BS fake news anyway and so them getting a vaccine wont change much as they never changed their behaviors in the first place.

Yea, because the government has done such an exceedingly exemplary job managing Covid in the USA. Thanks for reminding me how good we're doing.

Again, it's a means test here. Will releasing the vaccine early save more lives than it will take? I think the answer is a resounding yes. No matter what currently unknown effects may be present with the vaccine at this point, they are minor enough that the damage caused by continuing to not have a vaccine is far more damaging to national health than using an experimental vaccine ever will be.

Yes, but the alternative is a firm guarantee of at least another 200,000 deaths by Covid over the next 365 days until the vaccine comes out. So which is more dangerous, guaranteed deaths by Covid or some small risk of damage from a vaccine that's already cleared by the FDA to begin trials in groups of tens of thousands anyway? I think the answer is pretty clear. The FDA wouldent let this drug go out to tens of thousands of people if they thought there was any serious risk.

While the Russian vaccine might be bullshit, the general premise of what they are doing is not and the USA should follow suit. Hear me out. The FDA has three phases for clinical trials. Phases 1 and 2 are largely about safety. Phase 3 is about effectiveness (mostly). There are a few US vaccines currently in phase three. Because they are in phase 3, the FDA has already declared them safe. They are just trying to figure out effectiveness. So why not bypass phase 3 entirely and just offer it to anyone who wants it? Worst case it doesent work, in which you mostly just wasted money. But if it does work (and so far phases 1 and 2 show them to be effective) we could save 200,000+ deaths that will inevitably occur between now and when it is due to come out at the end of next year. Even if the vaccine did cause harm to some people under specific conditions that phases 1 and 2 dident catch, what will cause more harm, the vaccine that's proven mostly safe or COVID that will continue to kill thousands per day until this vaccine is rolled out in full? Seems like an easy answer to me. The pros of waiting do not exceed the cons even if it means rushing the trials.

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Well the most dangerous part of skydiving isint skydiving anymore. It's catching COVID at the DZ.

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Those wait times are common. They always have been. In my state, the wait time has always been upwards of a week. Everyone I know who got a test had to wait several days for the result, and that's if they could even get a test at all. Often the lines are on the order of hundreds of cars long, people show up at like 5 AM and still they find out there wernt enough tests to go around so they dont get tested. This is common. Delays upward of a week for results are common. Contract tracing doesent exist at all in most areas. It exists on paper, but not to any extent in real life. Same issue with unemployment. There are people who filed for UI back in March who still havent been paid. UI offices dont return calls or emails--ever--and people can never get in touch with someone, even after several hundred call attempts. Of course the offices are closed too. Some people havent even gotten their $1200 payment yet. These examples are not the rare one in 500 or something. This is more like it happens to most people-level common. The testing sucks, the delays are so long there is little point in even getting tested in the first place, UI is so hard to file for many people just flat-out cant get it at all. Quarantine laws between states are so loosely enforced that basically everyone ignores them. Contract tracing hardly exists at all in the USA and if it does exist, by the time someone is contacted they would have been infected weeks ago anyway. All the programs that are supposedly in place to help dont really offer much of any help for most people.

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