To help put things in perspective:
COVID-19 has killed more Americans in the last 4 months than all the wars combined in the last 75 years.
The current death rate for males 35 to 65 due to COVID-19 is higher than the death rate for all other causes of death combined.
The US death rate for people that have tested positive for COVID-19 is over 5.5%.
One factor contributing to the polarization seen in the preceding Covid comments, and indeed everywhere, is probably the fact the pandemic has been reported, viewed and treated as a one-size-fits-all situation. We are now months into this nationwide crisis, disaster, whatever you call it. Economy trashed, life everywhere disrupted. And of course, the media (until they turned to the fresher & more entertaining protest stories) feeding the nation dramatic but curiously vague stories of overflowing hospitals with bodies lying in the hallways and stacked in cargo containers, frantic medical personnel heroically improvising ventilators out of duct tape and garden hoses, deaths in unprecedented numbers with exponential increases reportedly inevitable, and endless clips of politicians and experts of all stripes issuing seemingly off-the-cuff decrees that change daily.
And yet - - As an already job-free retiree living in our - what? - call it a suburb of the suburbs area north of LA, it’s difficult to relate to or to reconcile this flood of doom & disaster pouring out of every media source with what our eyes and personal experience tell us. No one I know, including extended family and friends across the country as well as local, has contracted the virus, nor have they mentioned that any of THEIR friends have contracted it. In our three adjoining zip codes, population a bit over 60,000, as of today there have been 100 known cases and, as far as I can determine, zero deaths. I think it’s understandable that the presumably huge nationwide population group that shares our general experience may have a different “take” on what has happened and continues to happen.
There are many EAA chapters around the country who are organizing their own flyins during the week of Airventure. Is this a protest? Perhaps. I’ve already been to one flyin already this year. Did we stay 6 ft apart? Mostly but there a fair number of people who were shaking hands with old friends. Did everyone contract Covid-19 from this gathering? Nope and all of us are still alive.
Because we are pilots, we might assume that Covid-19 death reporting is as good as aviation accident data. This is far from the truth. Aviation accident reporting is very precise when compared to the death count data reported to the CDC. Death count data is actually fairly haphazard since it is reported by individual physicians. The recent guidelines have resulted in just about every death being coded as a Covid-19 death.
you can ignore my “blathering” but I bet 50% of his readership agrees with what I said. But we are the type that rarely jump into social media arguments. (And this will be my last post in this one!)
That’s definitely the way to support - they must be sitting on a ton of stuff that they ordered and paid for months ago.
“For those who are protesting, it’s their right to do so, as in it’s illegal to stop them from doing it, and with the proper precautions it can be done.“
My point exactly.
Of course it’s their legal right to protest. Go. Protest all you want.
But apparently, given some news sources and political ideologies: I have no right to go to church. I have no right to go to work to provide food and shelter for my family.
I have no right to gather in my backyard with like minded individuals(unless of course these like minded individuals are there to “protest”.)
I receive most of my household supplies via Amazon and other on-line sources. I still, and will for some time, practice social distancing. That’s my decision. Not anyone else’s.
But to champion one group who will not practice social distancing, and in the same breath chastise another for wanting to go to work or gather, just like the protestors, is not only disingenuous, but evil.
“Rights for me, but not for thee”
The “propaganda”, is supporting protest as a legal right(which it is), and then vilifying those who want to provide for their families by going to work.
If I want to block off a 6 block section of a city, camp out for days on end with hundreds, maybe thousands of other individuals, not practicing social distancing mind you, so long as I’m protesting, I will be championed by the media.
If I want to gather with maybe a hundred individuals once a week for an hour to worship, I will be vilified by that same media.
How in the world does COVID know that I’m going to get a haircut or, that I’m going to the barbershop to burn it down? If I get a haircut and then burn down the barber shop, will COVID pass me by? Will the media support me in the burning down of the barber shop, only to disavow me after it learns that I received a haircut?
That’s a good idea, thanks. Can anyone spell “Father’s Day Gifts”? (Female pilots too, but father’s day is next week).
You’ve cherry picked the death rate data.
If both sexes and all ages are included, COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death in the US behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. But the fact that it stands on the podium at all should be a cause for concern since it was unknown six months ago.
I am with Russ, and agree that we should use our aviation-honed decision-making skills to respond to this pandemic with facts and reason. That means physical distancing, lots of hand-washing, and not making this trip to KOSH.
Deaths are reported to CDC by county and state health officials. You’re right that reporting guidelines have been recently expanded to include deaths of individuals who exhibited COVID-19 etiology but whose bodies were released without testing for SARS-CoV2 DNA or antibodies. The change was made to address systemic under counting of COVID mortality.
Mark …one ability/skill that ANY Consummate, Safe, ‘Professional’ Aviator needs is Objective ‘Critical-Thinking’. The desire to gather as much data/information available, assess/analyze that information and utilize it to enable the most accurate conclusions which will facilitate the best course(s) of action.
‘WWll’ (only) Total Civilian and Military Deaths: 418,500
Considering the woefully inadequate ‘testing’ available at present, the 2.1 million (so far) recorded number of infections is most probably VERY low. But, even utilizing that ‘Number’ for now, and the ‘reported’ Number of Deaths to date, which, considering that any ‘death’ is usually noted fairly quickly, investigated, recorded and reported with dispatch …making it reasonable to assume that ‘Reported’ number is fairly accurate … 115,000 …utilizing some basic ‘High-School’ Arithmetic, gives us a death-to infection rate of just under.055%.
That’s 1/2 of 1 percent …NOT "5.5%!
And …(world-over) reports would seem to indicate that 50-60% of that figure (unfortunately) fall to those of us who are in the 70+ year old age groups.
The Hyperbole, “Chicken-Little(ing)” that has been and still continues over something that has such serious implications is astounding!
even more so the ‘mindless’ callous way in which our fellow citizens continue to propagate all those wild forecasts and stats
We …the ‘Human’ Race …has indeed a Long -Way-to- Go.
B.D. in the interest of accuracy, the official case fatality rate–not the infection rate–is 5.4 percent. There have been 118,279 covid-19 deaths in 2,182,540. in other words, the lower number is 5.4 percent of the higher number.
The infection fatality rate remains a guess, but the lower bound is thought to be 0.5 percent and the higher bound 1.2 percent, these based on several seroprevalence studies. Data from other countries shows a similar range of IFRs.
Actually, those lists would have very little in common. The Divide is quite real.
Remember the 1890s Unilateral Nuclear Freeze movement? Today, it’s Abolish the Police. Same ignorant Leftist Utopian nonsense, from the same morons - who somehow KNOW what’s best for me.
CovidVenture 2020?
B.D., it seems that you need to learn "basic ‘High School’ Arithmetic. 115,000 deaths to 2,100,000 infections is 5.5%, not .055%…
Let’s hope the AirVenture Protest doesn’t get mis-understood as a right-wing (or is it left-wing?) fascist (or is it communist?) protest and the U.S. Military doesn’t use tear gas, nightsticks and rubber bullets on these defenseless, peacefully protesting pilots and their delicate airplanes, most of whom are just making their own statement on the UNFAIRNESS and DISAPPOINTMENT of not being able to go to their annual airplane show, and the order to ‘Dominate the runways and taxiways with compassion’ is never given…
Whew, being Dominated at KOSH, an entirely new concept for a fly-in. Sounds a bit interesting though, no?
Guess I’ll pass on this brainless - but legal and peaceful - protest.
And the madness continues…
I still don’t get exactly what is being “protested” against. Disapproval that EAA wasn’t provided enough time to get the grounds ready for the show in time because of local lock-down rules? Or is it disapproval that EAA didn’t attempt to put on a majorly-scaled back show (that probably would have cost them more than just canceling all together)?
There’s no doubt that it’s a big disappointment that there will be no Airventure this year. But there’s nothing unfair or unjust about it. And you know that if there was an outbreak of covid at the show that EAA would be sued for it.
Response to this pandemic seems to follow the “Hot Stove” theory. Those who have accidentally touched a hot stove, their family members, and the treating physicians, and their friends, all understand a stove is hot and shouldn’t be touched.
Then there’s another group that have heard the news that stoves are hot and shouldn’t be touched, but have never seen a stove, tend to believe they’re not really that hot, and are going out of their way to touch a hot stove anyway.
Since this is an open forum, It seems reasonable that the FAA would be reading these posts and probably drawing these conclusions:
- Anti-Authority (“It’s my right! Don’t you tell me I can’t go!”)
- Invulnerability (“Only old/fat/diabetics will die - it won’t bother me!”)
- Resignation (“Everybody’s gonna die some day!”)
Given that the pilots planning on a protest-flight to Oshkosh have publicly self-identified with some (or all) of the Five Hazardous Attitudes in Aviation, all the FAA needs to do is send some field agents to Wittman Field during that week and ramp-check every plane that shows up. They’d bag their yearly quota of violators in one fell swoop.
Hmm, maybe the easiest way to squash this protest is for the FAA to announce they’re showing up.