Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Mike and I went to college together. We started playing Fantasy Baseball in the mid 80’s. Mike kept score by hand in a ten team twice a week head to head league we invented. Thank goodness for the internet or Mike might never have found time to find a wife.

 

they have been all to happy to cash the check all these years though and enjoy the tremendous economic benefit of having the base there

 

No, I think everybody with a double digit IQ has figured that out. Why do you think he threatened to sue any school or college that released his grades or test scores?

 

is there a actual website out there that shows the number of tests done a day and the number of positive/negative results so we can see what is really going on, I know it would most likely be a day behind, but it would help to see if progress is being made.

 

God bless state and local officials lest this would have been far worse. Great reporting by one of the country's great newspapers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/03/29/coronavirus-local-officials-response/

 

Used to live there. They definitely benefit from it even if they refuse to acknowledge as much. That being said, they have a massive influx of tourism dollars from the Japanese.

 

really fantastic read.

 

NY's 2nd count was entered late, we actually ended the day with 912 deaths

 

Here’s a comparison that might help explain why social distancing matters.

54 people died in Louisiana yesterday. Louisiana is our 25th most populated state.

Only ten countries lost more citizens to the virus yesterday than Louisiana.

Mardi Gras and all the massive social interaction associated with it are likely the key variable pushing Louisiana’s case count.

We just have to keep stepping down levels from Mardi Gras to understand what we need to do.

Shut down beaches and other places still seeing large congregations of people.

No more congregations in church.

Work at home if you’re not essential.

And on, and on...

California is our largest state and has been the most proactive with stay at home. Louisiana has lost more people than a state with 8 times more people.

This is why we’re train wrecking our economy and piling on debt to mitigate the impact of spiking joblessness. The answer in the near term is massively reducing social interaction. It’s getting PPE and other resources to medical and associated first responders as fast as possible before they are overrun. It’s testing.

The long term it’s testing, vaccine and treatment.

I know there is no “news” in what I wrote above. I just think sometimes how we look at things helps to wrap our head around a concept.

I think the debate might mostly be over after yesterday’s press briefing.

Our leadership finally leveled with the American people. Now we have to hope people actually listened and that more people start changing behaviors.

 

It’s all a test in decency. Imagine if the leader of Guam said this..I don’t want the numbers to go up. I don’t want them to double from one ship that’s not our fault b

 

White House Economists Warned in 2019 a Pandemic Could Devastate America

More evidence of warnings being dismissed by this administration

 

I’m not going to be overly critical of being prepared. No one from either party had us prepared. However our reaction after knowing it was a problem has been incompetent... other than some informed Congressmen getting out of the market and the GOP downplaying the dangers there was no activity early enough.

 

Covid-19 vaccine in 18 months? Experts are skeptical. - CNN

I found this article extremely enlightening. It answered some of the lingering questions I had about the barriers to getting a vaccine quickly. Apologies if it's been posted before.

Highlights:

• 18 months is extremely optimistic. The rotavirus vaccine took 26 years (smaller need)
• US will help fund production of vaccines prior to approval so we can immediately distribute. Seems smart.
• Describes historical examples when bad (rushed?) vaccines had some pretty nasty side-effects.
• Touches on messenger RNA vaccine approach which has never been approved but is very promising.

 

Perhaps it is helpful to put this Virus in a timeline to understand why the US is faring so poorly relative to other countries in dealing with this crisis. Our results in cases and deaths cause me to be mostly very negative about how our country has handled this crisis. I do not know of a single factual instance where our Government was out front in handling this virus?

Testing
- Jan 22 - Trump “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
- A week after a Jan. 27 meeting, South Korea’s CDC approved one company’s diagnostic test. Another company soon followed. By the end of February, South Korea was making headlines around the world for its drive-through screening centers and ability to test thousands of people daily.
- Feb. 2: Trump “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine.”
- Feb. 25: Trump “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
- As of March 18: About 60,000 tests have been run by public and private labs in a country of 330 million, federal officials said Tuesday. Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus

Testing is really the key - you cannot fight, or even flatten the curve, without data. The US was and still is behind the curve. The other option is blunt force social isolation (like China did). Unfortunately, you have to take the virus seriously and have a totally coordinated response across all levels of government. That obviously works better in a place like China but Japan/Australia are democracies with far better results. Our results (cases/deaths) look like we handled this with the organizational aplomb.... of Italy.

Social Distancing
- Feb. 26:Trump “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” Feb. 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”
And conspiracy theorists, including Trump and posters on here, politicized this issue, harming rational reaction.
- March 9: Trump “The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation.”

So, we didn't test. Then we didn't socially isolate quickly or effectively. Actually, some of our leaders downplayed the danger, thus increasing harm. At least we are the richest country in the world with the best medical facilities, right? Well, not when you didn't prepare.... at all. This is not just a Trump issue (many past presidents are at fault). Why America ran out of protective masks — and what can be done about it

- 2018 - Trump disbands National Security Council Pandemic Response team. Not a single expert scientist in is early meetings on the pandemic. The Trump administration’s botched coronavirus response was years in the making
- Feb. 28: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
- April 1 - Cities, Governors and medical professionals say we still lack necessary resources (masks, protective gear, ventilators). Medical professionals and first responders will die for this lack of preparedness.

Here we are, today. More deaths than China, a much poorer, densely populated country of smokers with crazy air pollution, and we have more deaths. Not only that, but we are still not testing and still lack resources. Why was bailing out airlines a $50B emergency but producing testing kits and resources not as much? Why is aiding wall street worth trillions but our government was squabbling on who is liable for increased mask production in an $8.3B spending bill? (Squabble over mask shortage erupts as coronavirus spreads)

Our federal government was utterly unprepared and has shown a stunning lack of leadership ("I don't know who disbanded the Pandemic team"). Just a week ago the comment was "we will be back to work by Easter" - despite knowing the scientific predictions AND understanding the risk of worsening spread such comments could have on lives. This is just a continuation of the deadly politicization and misinformation combined with having wholly unqualified people preparing and leading on this issue.

I hope people think more about what really happened here with the lies, flip-flopping, lack of qualified experts, absence of coordination, and disdain for risk.

 

Well Trump went to his buddy Putin for help today apparently.
Russia is sending us emergency supplies.

 

#embassasing

 

Somehow Russia is going to come out on top with this.

Thinking their oil stance is to get sanctions lifted

 

Good news. According to Fox celebrities the growth in deaths is media manipulation. I feel better.


Diamond & Silk claim number of COVID-19 cases inflated to hurt Trump