Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Imagine what strength and unity we'd display if we had to, oh, go to war with China.

I get wanting to open things up.  I don't get wanting to open things up and refusing to wear a mask.

We wore masks in 1918 while we were winning a world war.  And nobody bitched about a mask being an infringement of civil rights.  And nobody called mask-wearers cucks or cowards.  Amazing that we could do that.

Now we refuse to wear masks because--why?--and we are withdrawing in defeat from Afghanistan, having been beaten by a band of terrorists out of the 11th century.

Do you have a source for that Bwarb?  I'm not challenging you, I'd just like to see the information because I'm a history teacher.

I haven't investigated the 1918-19 flu in any depth.  But all the pictures I've seen of people responding to it show everyone in masks.  Cops. Civilians.  Medical people.  Major league baseball players (in the spring of 1919 when Phase II hit).

Do you have a source for that Bwarb?  I'm not challenging you, I'd just like to see the information because I'm a history teacher.

I haven't investigated the 1918-19 flu in any depth.  But all the pictures I've seen of people responding to it show everyone in masks.  Cops. Civilians.  Medical people.  Major league baseball players (in the spring of 1919 when Phase II hit).

This was the one I was originally thinking of: https://www.businessinsider.com/people-vintage-mask-ads-spanish-flu-1918-pandemic-2020-5#the-spanish-flu-outbreak-coincided-with-world-war-l-male-soldiers-returning-home-from-europe-dispersed-to-their-home-states-and-stations-spreading-the-disease-in-the-process-3

Here's another just found via the googles...

https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-resistance

I'm not sure how prevalent this was, of course. It's possible that it was only a small minority which refused. 

Good take on multiple models: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/covid-forecasts/

A key aspect is basically all of the models assume continued social distancing practices, and all are predicting a much lower average death rate than what we're seeing now between now and May 30, the end of their predictions. The midpoint projections range between 93K by May 30 and 111K by May 30.

That means that given ~25 days between now and then, and current deaths at ~72K, a range of ~840 average daily deaths on the low midpoint and ~1560 average daily deaths for the high midpoint.

Right now the worldometers has implemented a 7-day moving average curve on their web site which peaked on Apr 20 at 2208 deaths/day and has slowly declined, with May 4 showing 1858 deaths/day. This will be of course a lagging measure of actual death rate with a 7-day lag, but due to weekly and daily variation you really need some smoothing.

Given that states are starting to open up (whether officially in some cases or by people simply flouting restrictions or increasing movement in places like CA), I suspect that we're not going to see a sharp decline during the month of May, and actual deaths by May 30 will be >111K. That's my prediction.

Because I believe in accountability, I will point out that I predicted total deaths by May 30 of >111K, and the actual number was about 105.5K.

As Cincy pointed out, the models were updated and suggest a midpoint estimate of 117K by June 13 with high value of 123K. 

Looking at the 7-day moving average, the last week plateaued at 1K/day. With 106K now and basically 12 days to go, we'll hit that 117K if nothing changes positive or negative. So this will be a good time to watch whether the plateau in deaths was a pause in a decline, a flattening, or a reversal of trend (towards increasing rates). 

This was the one I was originally thinking of: https://www.businessinsider.com/people-vintage-mask-ads-spanish-flu-1918-pandemic-2020-5#the-spanish-flu-outbreak-coincided-with-world-war-l-male-soldiers-returning-home-from-europe-dispersed-to-their-home-states-and-stations-spreading-the-disease-in-the-process-3

Here's another just found via the googles...

https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-resistance

I'm not sure how prevalent this was, of course. It's possible that it was only a small minority which refused.

Thanks!

I didn't think that the Business Insider article made your point very well (in fact, the article is sort of a muddle), but the History.com item does.

Enforcement weakened after the war was over, and that's understandable.  The need to keep young men healthy so that they could go fight in France was over.
I think I've read that the U.S. armed forces lost as many men to the flu as they did through battle deaths.

Right, because doing that would be insane.  If for no other reason than if you removed everything from a WalMart that was produced in China, it'd look like a mini-mart.

I should have posted a "semi-irony" emoji after my comment about going to war with China.  I don't think we'd be unified in going to war against invading aliens, much less Chinese.

especially if they voted democrat