@[Joseph Cox](user:127658), @[Gary Anderson](user:4798), you've done a lot of research on this topic. What's your take?

Lot's to digest here DRM. First of all, you are right about politicians and I don't trust them. Though I trust Trump even less since politicians at least try to avoid being caught in a lie. Trump doesn't even care. Some other thoughts on what you wrote...

I haven't followed other public health concerns such as foot and mouth disease. It's possible the threat was greatly exaggerated - it wasn't big news in the US like COVID-19. Though I supposed it's possible that that there were so few deaths specifically because they culled so much livestock. I have friends who say "look, infections are down, we didn't have to close everything down and social distance. But they seem to be too stupid to realize that infections decreased specifically because we eliminated/reduced the opportunity for the infection to spread.

I also saw that report about changing the classification of deaths. I found that odd - we should have a consistent method for classifying what is a COVID-19 related death, and what isn't. Instead it seems to vary county by county, state by state. So I agree that is troubling. But you can't take an example of one 35 year old who was wrongly classified (and since corrected), and say that as a result, a large number of the 80,000+ people who died didn't really die of COVID-19. There are likely many more people who DID die from COVID-19 but weren't reported as dying from other causes. People who were never tested so were not classified as such. We know that in China there was a lot of pressure to list alternative causes of death to hide the true number of deaths. We also now know that some people died of COVID-19 in the US before the first official reported infections.

Also, an argument could be made that COVID-19 complicated this person's situation and perhaps he wouldn't have died of alcohol poisoning had he not been infected. Or perhaps he would have ultimately died of COVID-19, had he never had alcohol.

Lastly, it's not just deaths that we have to worry about. Numerous people are having strokes/paralysis or blood clotting which require amputation. These people live, but their quality of live is severally and permanently negatively impacted.

Agreed. First of all, no one knows what the mortality rate is. So to arbitrarily claim that it's a exactly 1% is disingenuous. Plus the real threat is not the people who will be killed by COVID-19 no matter what. The danger is that the hospitals will be overwhelmed. Then countless people who should NOT have died, will. It's all about flattening the curve. Had people not taken such great care to social distance, the death toll would be far higher (as if nearly 100k dead in teh US alone isn't enough).

I don't understand why people need to politicize the pandemic. COVID-19 doesn't choose sides, it kills all. Though I'm curious to know what @[DRM](user:130312) thinks.

Caution is most definitely my watchword at the moment. Still too much uncertainty out there. And I think the US COVID-19 response has been a mess. I think it's quite possible things will get far worse if the country starts opening up too quickly.

True, I definitely think that there’s gonna be another downturn and hopefully #gold and #silver will shoot up with all the QE caused inflation

Thanks for the link. Personally I think these protesters are nuts. I understand that some want to take the risk of getting sick because they need the paycheck. But no reason why they still can't try to be responsible and be social distance. Too many of these protesters don't wear masks and are literally pressed against each other. What's the point of getting the right too work, if you get too sick to go to work?!

You didn't include a link, DRM.

470%??? Holy Moly.

Agreed.

No debate. Ask Japan desperately trying for last 10yrs to raise rates. Can't be done. Once u decide as they did some 10yrs to drop rates to 0 no going back not with $300t as in T of debt out there (not including $500t in derivatives debt) not happening unless one wants thing to implode.