This man runs a major US university.
“We need to learn to dance with the pandemic rather than being fearful of it,” West Virginia president Gordon Gee said. “We have moved from ‘The Hammer,’ which I call where we just locked everything down, to what I call ‘The Dance.'”
Which goes to show you can get pretty far in life if you have the ability to raise lots of money.
Get The Picture 
And even if he was inelegant in how he said it, how is anything he said wrong?
We have hospitals counting any death where someone is infected as a covid-19 death even if the virus had nothing to do with their death because they get extra funding for every covid-19 death they deal with. We literally can’t trust the death numbers.
And then the fatality rate itself has been grossly over-inflated by the lack of early antibody testing. We’ve now come to know millions of people had this virus and didn’t even know it. Meaning they survived. We’ve narrowed down the people who are most at risk, which are the elderly, those with respiratory and cardiac issues, and those with diabetes. Healthy people under the age of 60 have little to worry about this virus.
What we know today is this is a highly contagious, yet not fatal, virus. Yes, it can give you respiratory issues if you contract it, but guess what? So can the flu and pneumonia.
It is time we stop listening to politicians who are using this as an excuse to gather more power unto themselves in some of the most brazenly unconstitutional ways possible (the Oregon governor should go to jail for her latest unlawful order) and start listening to the data. And the fact is, there are other strains of coronavirus that have no vaccine, so this strain may never have a vaccine. People who keep shifting the goalposts from “flatten the curve” to “weeks with less infections” to “wait until a vaccine” are full of shit.
Anyone telling you we shouldn’t cautiously reopen our society is full of shit. We must stop living in fear. Universities included. Now that doesn’t mean cram 90K people into a stadium, but it means it’s time to cautiously do what e can to get back to work and get back to life.
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Man, who are you listening to and/or reading? Any and all infectious disease and epidemiology experts I’ve heard/seen have all said in the US, overall, we are definitely UNDER-counting actual number of deaths.
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Chaser…
And your “universities included” comment is a perfect example of a casual comment that betrays ignorance.
How, exactly, do you propose that universities “cautiously re-open” to your liking? My neighbor is a university professor and he says he doesn’t think they can open for in-person instruction this fall because of FACULTY concerns. Has nothing to do with the students. The faculty is signaling a good many will refuse to teach in-person. Soooo… what do you do? Fire them?
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You give them the option. But the fact remains, this has stupidly become a political issue, and we all know where the majority of “academics” butter their idiot ideological bread. They’re going to embrace fear because they’re overly emotional ideologues regardless.
As to the answer to the other question:
We’ve seen PA have to change their fatality count. https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/spl/pennsylvania-death-count-changes-confusion-coroanvirus-20200423.html
Dr. Schwartz’s directive, which instructs doctors to assume covid-19 is the primary cause of death when patients are infected, has led to issues like that. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf
Then we know that while states like CA and MN only count lab-verified covid-19 cases as cause of death, NY is counting every probable as cause of death, which artificially inflates the numbers. This was verified by a doctor as Johns Hopkins. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/
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Man, who are you listening to and what are you reading? Your own comments show how the pandemic is being politicized – and now in ways to undermine science and to suppress the death toll. Your take on Georgia football is usually informative, interesting and entertaining – on the pandemic and the death toll in the U.S. – you have are being purposefully ignorant and uninformed.
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I don’t have a particular ideology more than describing myself as a liberal. As the Dems are no longer liberal, it’s no longer the party for me. I didn’t vote for Trump or Kemp and will not vote for Trump or Kemp. Neither did I vote for Hillary or Abrams.
Now that is out of the way, the data shows us this virus is not nearly as deadly as we were led to believe. More positive antibody tests and more positive tests overall prove this. People had this thing late last year and didn’t even know it. This virus can be fatal for people who are elderly and with certain predispositions. We can reopen our society with precautions AND take care of those people.
Reticence to doing so has become political and it’s all about fear, it’s all about emotion. I’m thinking logically. Doing so leads me to believe that yes, if a state like NY is reporting all probably covid-19 deaths as covid-19 deaths without lab verification, they’re doing it for the money. It’s an educated guess, but as with most everything, including having a CFB season this year, it’s always about the money.
As it is with reopening the economy. We were told, by many people in the far left-leaning media and even some commenters here, that Georgia would have dead piled high in the streets for cautiously reopening the economy. The governor was called no better than a mass murderer in the media. A prominent UGA alum embarrassed herself writing in The Atlantic that Kemp was practicing human sacrifice. All of these fear mongers ignored every bit of data that has told us exactly what I had said above. Where are the media and the commenters to admit they were wrong and apologize? They won’t. They can’t. It doesn’t fit their narrative.
You believe what you want to believe. I’ll believe the data. Millions of people with antibodies. A much lower fatality rate than reported. No more dangerous than the flu to healthy people under the age of 60.
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, 04 March 1933
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FDR ain’t played corona, Paawwwllll
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Brilliant.
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It’s a great quote and applicable to many situations, just not this one. I wonder if FDR would agree that we only had to fear “FEAR” if we had an unknown number of invisible Japanese and Germans living amongst us able to strike repeatedly and with impunity. Oh, and we also have no way of slowing their attacks, short of staying home and keeping our distance from one another.
The country would be so better off if we had an FDR in office. A man intimately experienced with contagious disease. A do you really believe we have “a leadership of frankness and of vigor” ?
I’m all for a measured restarting of our economy, one lead by logic and reason, not hope and a prayer.
We need leadership that leads. One that plans intelligently and with reason and logic. Is that what we have?
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Well Trbodawg, your sarcasm is noted. And wrong, because the quote perfectly applies to this situation in which media and politicians are complicit in lying to us about the severity of this virus for over a month. And your response, which is nothing if fearful, betrays you. But that’s the way it goes. This invisible enemy you so fear has killed less people than pneumonia this year. It doesn’t kill healthy people under 60. It just doesn’t in any kind of statistically significant way. Anyone telling otherwise is a liar.
Taking precautions is what has been done. Were you one of the people crying about overrun hospitals and people dying in droves in Georgia three and a half weeks ago? I bet you were.
Maybe if you take a moment and admit you were wrong and deal with your irrational fear, you yourself can take steps to living life with precautions in a way that makes sense.
Or you can cloak yourself in sarcasm and fear. Your choice.
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Oh, and dummy… the quote was about economic fear caused by the Depression, which makes it even more apropos and correct.
Read the date again. 04 March 1933. From his first Inaugural Address. Stupid people routinely mix this up with his “Date that will live in infamy” address to Congress the day after Pearl Harbor. So your analogy, about Germans and Japanese, is 100% wrong.
Don’t argue with a man who actually knows history son. You’re gonna lose every time.
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Absolutely. You are correct, I did mix up my quotes. My reading comprehension definitely needs work. My gut reaction was to the use of the word “fear” – I don’t fear corona, I’m relatively young (57) and in good health. I do worry about the ability of our health care system to handle a pandemic. I’m confident you are not arguing that corona isn’t a pandemic.
You would lose that bet – You don’t know me and I don’t know you. Perhaps I am being stupid and a dummy – I am attempting an online conversation with a stranger. One day soon we can meet at a tailgate and talk about really important things, like Newman’s Heisman potential.
I understand the comfort that comes from comparing the covid-19 to the flu, but they are not the same. That you continue to conflate the two is telling.
Perhaps I’m wrong to want to restart more carefully and with better testing/tracking. No sarcasm here – I do, sincerely hope I am wrong, because, if I’m right there are lot more people sick or dead.
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Man, your reading comprehension really does need some work. I conflate covid-19 with the flu (and pnuemonia) when it comes to the fatality rate among healthy people under the age of 60. In no other way do I conflate it. And you’re partially right. It is nothing like those two. Their fatality rates are HIGHER.
Now, it completely flips when it comes to the fatality rates for the elderly and people with respiratory and cardiac issues, and diabetes. Then covid-19 is far worse.
So again… you’re wrong. And also, don’t try to flip this on me as being some big old meanie for calling you a dummy. You aren’t just some guy trying to have a polite conversation. Your sarcasm (and condescension) was noted. I replied with far less passive aggression. I don’t like passive aggressive people. So I’m not one.
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In fairness, FDR did have experience rounding up potentially dangerous Americans and locking them up in camp, whether they expressed any signs of being dangerous or not.
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I personally have been contacted by an acquaintance asking what legal remedies her family has. Her 98 year old grandmother passed away in her sleep living with the woman who contacted me’s mother. The coroner’s office reported the death as natural causes. Posthumously, it was learned that the grandmother was positive for coronavirus. According to the person contacting me, the woman’s mother said that the grandmother had not been sick and had not had a cough, breathing issues, or anything. The official death certificate listed COVID-19 as the cause of death when they got it. The family absolutely does not want the grandmother counted as a COVID-19 death.
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And yet you live in a state where state public officials were caught 3 times in a week “accidentally” misstating numbers in artificially low ways, and your post manages to ignore that. Huh.
There is room for a ton of different and fair perspectives on this virus and public policy response, across a pretty wide political spectrum. It remains an evolving situation where what we don’t know still vastly exceeds what we do.
But this computer-screen world where entire swaths of medical professionals are blaming every death on Covid 19 and risking jail via Medicare/Medicaid billing fraud is laughably stupid. Sandy Hook denier level stupid.
My wife is a CFO for two medical operations and conferences regularly with others as they work through all the new federal and state guidance. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
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Except, again, that the directive from the CDC gives them cover. The Dr. from Johns Hopkins said NY is doing exactly that. It differs from state to state. Some wait for lab verified results. Some don’t and label all deaths where a patient is infected as covid-19 deaths. It’s literally happening. Ignore it if you want. It’s your right.
If you read the entirety of the AJC report on the “misstating” of the infection numbers in Georgia, you’d see it only had to do with one grouping of numbers, and the AJC begrudgingly admitted in one of those paragraph 19 fact dumps that the numbers in Georgia have gone down every week since the governor reopened the economy.
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TRUTH. Finally.
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“We have hospitals counting any death where someone is infected as a covid-19 death even if the virus had nothing to do with their death because they get extra funding for every covid-19 death they deal with. We literally can’t trust the death numbers.”
I hear this constantly but haven’t seen any kind of proof that it’s true. Not being confrontational, mind you, I would love to see something factual that care facilities we milking this.
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Man, people spewing such nonsense must not have seen all the charts produced over the last four months comparing:
number of total deaths recorded
number of total attributed to COVID19
number of total deaths in same period historically
This has been done over and over again for (western/industrialized) countries, including US, which are thought to have reliable historical figures, and (without exception) the data indicated every county is under-counting.
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Please see my response above. It’s different state to state, but NY is verified as doing just that.
So maybe take it down a notch, Chachi. Realize that things aren’t always what they seem.
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“The coronavirus relief legislation created a 20% premium, or add-on, for COVID-19 Medicare patients.
There have been no public reports that hospitals are exaggerating COVID-19 numbers to receive higher Medicare payments.
Jensen didn’t explicitly make that claim. He simply suggested there is an “avenue” to do so now that “plausible” COVID-19, not just laboratory-confirmed, cases can be greenlighted for Medicare payment and eligible for the 20% add-on allowed under the relief act.”
Corch, this is from the USA Today article you linked. The CDC article didn’t mention compensation at all.
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This is true, airhead snuggle boy has no clue of what he speaks. Just another sheep being led to slaughter by the media and dims. This is certainly not the first cases of death listed improperly by medical examiners and hospitals but it is the first I know that has put a bounty on misrepresenting death to get a “bonus”. And naive jared swallows the BS willingly.
There is a bonus if it is listed with COVID-19 as the cause of death, and, I have heard, there is a substantial increase if the patient that died had used a ventilator. I think the additional money was also paid by the government but not positive (just not sure why the large bonus if there is a ventilator involved. Some additional costs but the amount is way above legit costs.) Lot of stinky going on every where but who would that surprise? Tons of cash floating around and, as usual, not many eyes on where it is going or why. Just a few more miles of debt to bury the future “citizens under.
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You used “I heard” and “I think” in your response yet called Jared naïve.
Show me, Mac, where there is evidence that care facilities are taking advantage of or misrepresenting what is allowed in the billing of care for Covid-19 patients and victims? On a scale of national importance, to qualify. Not some doc in the box or hospice hotbed gleaned from an internet search…
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US Deaths in April 2019…x amount..
US Deaths in April 2020…x amount..
I would believe the difference to be Covid deaths..who has the numbers?
GA numbers would be interesting too.
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Sounds like an excellent way to quantify.
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This isn’t exactly what you are asking but it does give a percentage of expected deaths year to date.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
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Pneumonia holding its own.
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Looking at the graph there was a spike for 6 weeks or so end of April through the first two weeks of may? Which at that point is incomplete data due to processing time. I’ll take that CDC chart as a good barometer, when the COVID spike reaches the normal line it’s time to get back to business as usual.
Thanks $boysbrew….
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What I find interesting is the state by state break down, really only 5 states (6 if you include NYC as a state by itself) with elevated expected % of deaths. I don’t consider 102% to be elevated.
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Very telling, IMHO
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You find it interesting that states that we are not yet infected were aggressive in shutting down and the thing that the shutting down was meant to prevent did not happen? I agree!
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Not really that but I would have thought most if not all states to be at or over 100%, how is North Carolina at 58% of expected deaths for the year.
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Hospitals get an additional $13,000. From Medicare if the cause of death is noted as Covid19.
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Because the costs associated with more intricate preparation, handling, and treatment of covid patients are much greater.
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last sentence should be country, not county….
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Well, regardless of the ongoing virus debate, I think we can all agree the Gee is a blithering idiot. He was an idiot at aOSU and he’s an older idiot at WVU. If Orvil Redenbacker was alive, he should sue Gee for making bow ties look stupid.
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He’d have to get in line behind Ledbetter.
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Given all the training videos I’ve seen of athletes out at camps and working with QBs/Receivers, I’m not sure how worried the players really are. I realize there is a difference between camps and lining up hip to hip, and tackling people, but looks like they are already assuming part of the risk now.
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Given that there hasn’t been a single case in the entire world of an otherwise healthy young person dying from Covid-19 I can certainly understand why college athletes would not be worried about it.
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Oh yes, wasn’t a comment on whether they should or should not be, just that they don’t seem to be.
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Dr. Strangegee: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pandemic
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At the risk of defending Gordon Gee (ugh), cause the way he said it was asinine, but I believe he’s referring to this interesting essay from mid-March:
View at Medium.com
The dance is simply adjusting public health policy as necessary to balance between keeping the virus growth rate in check and keeping down social and economic costs of closing. I think it’s a well-written article that realistically describes what needs to happen. However, I’m not really sure Gee actually understands it from the stuff he’s saying, and I’m not convinced Gee or the other leaders in college football have the will to proactively shut things back down if it appears that virus is getting out of hand. If it’s a dance, after all, you have to be willing to take a step back.
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Which was promoted by everyone on the left back when the goalposts were where they should have remained.
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Come on man, Georgia hadn’t even hit all the goalposts mentioned in the article when things re-opened. When things opened back up, we were probably at or just past the peak of the curve, particularly on hospitalizations and deaths, which means the state didn’t meet the federal guidelines for opening. And there’s still not enough testing to make positives meaningful. Contact tracing wasn’t going (and it’s still only in its early stages now) when the lockdown was lifted. Tests weren’t available for everyone when the lockdown was lifted. There’s no official criteria by the state for shutting things back down, as far as I can tell. We’re still fighting to get people to wear masks in public. There’s little official support for having workers quarantine themselves when infected. As the article mentions, all these things are supposed to be figured out while in lockdown mode, and they weren’t.
I’m not advocating for shutting down for an extended time and don’t think most rational people are either, but I would’ve liked to see the state wait at least one more week before opening, and most of all show some real leadership and a plan to accomplish these goals. Instead we’re stumbling our way making it up as we go along. If we are forced to shut down again if things get out of control, it will be economically catastrophic, and could be avoided if we actually took precautions seriously. I’m afraid too many people are like Gordon Gee and talk about the Dance without actually doing it.
By the way, hospitalizations are on the rise again, two weeks after opening up. If they keep rising, then we’ll actually get to see if the leadership is actually willing to do the Dance, or just wait until it’s out of control and we have to do something drastic again.
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Well, if you can raise monies performing “the dance”…good for you.,…not that there is anything wrong with that…
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As I have said before here, I live in The Villages Florida average age 68+. There have been no bed shortages and most of the deaths have happen in a state prison in Sumter County. They did close the rec centers and pools but they never closed the golf courses. If you are a healthy person it might make you sick but it’s not going to kill you. I wear a mask because I’m 73 years old and I’m not taking any chances except for going out to eat. The restaurants that are open resemble hospitals, the servers are masked and the smell of hand sanitizer is in the air. They are limiting the seating now to 25% but beginning June 1st they are going to 50%. If you are afraid stay home, if not wear a mask. Hell, if the Tech guys could go to a ball game in 1918 with just a mask on the current crowd that really wants to see the game should be ok. Spanish Flu killed hundreds of thousands of US citizens but the games went on.
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“Spanish Flu killed hundreds of thousands of US citizens but the games went on.”
By all means, let’s try to match or better yet, exceed, the death rate of the Spanish Flu. Hell, we recovered from that, amiright?
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Your fear-mongering (and lack of historical knowledge as noted above) is literally anti-data and anti-science.
You were lied to. The virus is not nearly as deadly as you fear. Hospitals are not being overrun anywhere but New York because their idiot governor and mayor made the situation there so much worse than it needed to be. In fact, frontline workers are being furloughed.
Jesus man, you are wrong. How can’t you see that?
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Just heard today that Wellstar Health System is furloughing 4.4% of its employees and cutting the hours and pay of another 7.6% of its workforce due to ridiculously low numbers of patients that drastically fell in the last 8 weeks.
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Montgomery AL of is out of ICU beds. Is that also because NY governor?
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Yes, you found one place where my generalized statement doesn’t apply. YOU get a gold star. You missed Albany, GA, which is closer, so that’s on you. Now do the hundreds of hospitals around the country that sit empty, Mr. Gotcha Man. 🙄
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Well, you said anywhere. And i named one. Then you named another. So at least 2 examples from your wrongly worded generalized statement. So that’s on you.
And we already knew about Albany, because it’s literally been a national hotspot for a month. Montgomery is spiking in a similar fashion just at a later time. We will likely see other areas do the same in the next month.
But fuck those people in AL, right? You need your hair cut.
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If you think that’s what I’m saying, you like trbodawg have severe reading comprehension issues. I suggest a remedial English course. It could help.
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Should I be concerned I attend two different Universities when Gee was the president?
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At least this post further confirms for everyone that loves this blog that Corch Irvin Meyers is a pompous A-hole…
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When people can’t make a rational, logical argument in support of their belief / point, they stoop to the ad hominem attack or strawman argument.
Looks like Raphael picked option A. I’m sure option B will be soon to follow.
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Well said…
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Glad to hear that the CDC has reversed course on contracting the virus from surface contact. Of course, it is still a good idea to wash hands and disinfect high touch surfaces, but hearing that it now appears that the virus doesn’t transmit easily from touching surfaces is good news.
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They back track constantly..
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I cannot fathom the ignorance it takes to call learning through experimentation and experience backtracking.
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It only took a few States opening up for them to figure this out..millions will die, no maybe not..don’t wear a mask, maybe wear a mask…what’s next?
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What ignorance. The millions dead guidance was what would happen if people did not socially distance, if groups were not stopped from gathering. Takes a real genius to complain about both the cost and the benefit of the thing that actually happened.
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The original Imperial College “do nothing” estimate was 2.2 M and reduced to 1 million if we pursue the “mitigation” approach that we are currently under.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/03/modeling-study-suggests-18-months-covid-19-social-distancing-much
A more recent UW study also has a potential high over 1M
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/statistician-argues-covid-19-numbers-hint-staggering-number-deaths-ahead/
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Corch I have never enjoyed reading comments, facts actually, any more than I have today! I am 100% in your camp regarding the “hype”.
Here’s to getting normalcy back, and thank you sir for your insight!
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I’ll be the first to admit we still don’t know everything, which is why the economies and society of each state and region need to open with precaution and safety. And as someone else mentioned, there may be areas where they need to shut down again. However, they do need to open. We cannot cause the destruction of our way of life for a virus that has a fatality rate lower than pneumonia. We just can’t.
What has pissed me off the most are the media and politicians who have knowingly sowed fear in the face of the actual data and actual science and are now doing so for ideological reasons. It’s more on the Left than the Fox News bros, but even Trump has done this when he condemned Kemp for CAUTIOUSLY reopening the state. Again, I didn’t vote for the guy and will not, but Kemp was right. Everyone else was wrong. And yet the media still won’t admit it. It pisses me off.
In all sincerity, it was Amanda Mull’s disgusting hit piece in The Atlantic that set me out to learn as much as I possibly could about what was actually going on, as it was one of the worst examples of the kind of “journavism” out there right now. And she’s a Dawg. Maybe that’s why it pissed me off. She was taught better than that.
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All that was needed to create the panic was a team of statisticians.
All that is needed to end it is a team of honest statisticians.
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Will somebody please give me Covid AND shoot me in the head.
I come here to get away from this horseshit and read about something I enjoy – college football. Greg McGarity’s efforts to ruin that aside. He hasn’t yet.
Thanks for taking away my last small joy in life. ***holes.
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I mean, it’s kinda what’s going on in the world, and also, you literally clicked on one of the Senator’s articles that you had to have known was going to be about covid-19… so that’s on you, my man.
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Simply the news media has divided us into our own persona via 247 UF to where I don’t listen and don’t wanna learn. I have my opinion and yours is wrong just #ftmf to each other of what should be a common bond of UGA football.
To much TV turn that shit off and chill there is a better not bitter life out there.
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As was stated above, the hammer and the dance was a medium article from 3/19 that almost everybody endorsed back when this was about flattening they curve. What changed ?
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They realized it wasn’t nearly as bad as they originally believed, but didn’t want to give up that sweet, sweet unconstitutional power (politicians) or the fear porn ratings gold (cable news), so they kept lying to us for a month and began moving the goal posts from flattening the curve to weeks without more infections to WE MUST HAVE A VACCINE!!!
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“Everybody” reads Medium?
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Every snarky Statist was citing Medium left and right in March.
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… i remember now, it was Vox that cited the Hammer and the Dance. Isn’t Vox one of your Bibles ?
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