Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

What is truly terrifying is that seemingly intelligent people still continue to defend this sorry excuse for a human being

 

Look, he has never even seen them on TV, so how much expertise could they possibly have?

 

Hopefully an antibody test isn't far behind

 

Worse than that is cruise ships that fly foreign flags to avoid US taxes and regs

 

Trump says he's considering short-term quarantine of New York, New Jersey, parts of Connecticut - CNNPolitics

Unbelievable. If you're gonna quarantine, then quarantine, don't give a friggin advanced warning! Now millions are gonna flee the tri-state area ahead of a potential quarantine. SMH.

 

Only after the doctor they kidnapped eliminated his access to the virus did they go to plan B.

 

No, no. It was Dr. Peters. The Army of the 12 Monkeys wasn’t involved.

Twelve Monkeys / 12 Monkeys (1995) : Plot Ending Explained

 

24 hours later 18%

CLOSED CASES
169,443
Cases which had an outcome:
139,540 (82%)
Recovered / Discharged

29,903 (18%)
Deaths

 

Powerful stuff

 

I believe I saw Dr. Oz comment on this last night that they are already beginning antibody testing in NY as of yesterday, to get clinical trials going. Don't know much about this Dr. only that he's on TV a lot

 

Boy, this post sure aged well...

 

Another problem that's slowing down our national response. So many unfilled federal positions and so much inexperience in the ones that are fill. 80 percent of the senior positions in the White House below the cabinet level have turned over during this administration.

Job Vacancies and Inexperience Mar Federal Response to Coronavirus

 

He has already moved on to say that we were taken by surprise. Which means that we are all surprised when we ignore data based projections that turn out to be true. Just bear in mind that his post was the Trump right wing mantra at the time. And, we reached where we are now in spite of the measures so vigorously opposed by this poster. This is what happens when you make decisions based on ignorance or lie about what is going to happen. You are truly surprised because of incompetence or stupidity, or you try to lie your way out or the earlier lie. Either way, Trump is not fit to lead. This poster needs to explain the basis for his earlier falsehoods. Including why he rejected the data he was shown repeatedly. But he will not. Maybe he is guilty of believing Trump. But, when you still follow the company line, the motive is different. But truth isn’t part of that motivation.

 

To those predictions (not to your @tilly 's comment), people need to consider how the tens to hundreds of millions predicted regarding infections is highly likely to occur over the next few years. To reach some herd immunity, experts put it around 60% of the population, which isn't anywhere close to full herd immunity but enough to have a noticeable effect in limiting the spread. If or when we reach this, we will have likely witnessed millions of Covid-19 related deaths.

This of course is taking into account the extreme measures we are now taking. However, what changes with these measures beyond the numbers is the timeline. Had we not taken any measures at all, it's almost 100% certain that the spread of this virus would be of such staggering proportions and such quickness that we'd reach into the tens of millions, even hundreds of millions far sooner than a year or two, completely crushing our ability to fight it. This would mean not only being widespread across the nation but extremely high prevalence of infection in nearly every community. In a word, calamitous.

Anyone predicting only a 1,000 deaths or cases (both wrong already) or that this will turn quickly just doesn't grasp the full magnitude of what we're facing right freaking now. Heck, as a non-epidemiologist I can't claim to fully grasp it either. But I have enough training and experience in science and the statistical models that produce the harrowing projections to completely accept the ominous destructive potential of this virus, again, not forgetting that we currently lack any prophylactics, vaccines, antivirals, or herd immunity that makes this such a society-altering danger.

 

One hope is that by slowing spread, we increase the likelihood of weaker strains surviving. It is a genetics issue related to selection, which favor viruses that don’t kill the host. A biologist or virologist can explain it better than me. And there is the hope too that the disease spread is currently higher than we know. Let’s hope the researchers at Oxford are right.

 

His chief of staff is a Gator, only a few years out of law school (Cornell) he was the acting general counsel for DHS, now he is their chief of staff. Either he is amazingly awesome, or DHS is struggling.

 

Well said. Important considerations that haven't been discussed enough.

 

One thing is clear: without testing everyone and doing so repeatedly, we are operating in ignorance and that would have cost far less than $2 trillion.

 

Operating in ignorance--some of it willful on the political side of things.

Hopefully this leads to more reforms regarding pandemic preparedness. It's clear that we cannot wait for a new pandemic to reach our shores before coming up with tests and that we have to have a system in place capable of putting into action widespread testing. We are all in effect running around blind because we don't know and the enemy is faiap invisible.