Coronavirus COVID-19 Thread

[AntiSqueaker]

It's not that "anything Trump done would have been a failure". I would have welcomed a swift response by Trump on COVID-19.


Instead we got:

Jan. 21: The first case of the coronavirus is confirmed in the United States, in Seattle.

Jan. 22: Trump makes his first comments about the coronavirus, saying he is not concerned about a pandemic: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. … It’s going to be just fine.” Which is not exactly fair considered the CDC had already internally put out memos stating that it was possible to develop into a global pandemic, but whatever, trying to keep people calm, I get it.

Jan. 29: The White House announces the formation of a coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Pence.

Feb. 19: Trump says: “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.”

Feb. 21: The White House coronavirus task force conducts a mock response to a pandemic and concludes that mass social distancing will be needed, per the Times.

Feb. 23: Italy begins to see evidence of a major outbreak in the Lombardy region.

Feb. 26: Trump says, “When you have 15 people — and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero — that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Feb. 27: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who had received briefings on the threat, tells a private luncheon that the coronavirus is “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history” and “is probably more akin to the 1918 [influenza] pandemic,” in which 50 million or more people died worldwide. My senator yall! Selling off millions in stock before the market crashed using insider info, what a guy.

Feb. 28: Trump says: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
March 10: Trump says: “Just stay calm. It will go away.”

March 6: Trump visits the CDC laboratories and calls the pandemic “an unforeseen problem”. “What a problem,” he says. “Came out of nowhere.” (month and a half ago...)

March 9: Trump says that they (CDC and Coronavirus task force) have tested "one million" people that week and would have performed 4 million tests per week afterwards. That week the CDC tested 4000 people. 4 0 0 0.

March 11: The White House suspends travel from most European countries, as the WHO declares a global pandemic.

March 11: Trump says, “I think we’re going to get through it very well.”

March 13: Trump declares a national emergency. Says there will be a google site going up about COVID-19 related stuff, which no one at Google knew anything about. Trump famously denies all responsibility for slowness of testing.

March 16: Trump for the first time publicly reflects on the gravity of he situation. Asked about his repeated comments saying the situation was “under control,” he says: “If you’re talking about the virus, no, that’s not under control for any place in the world. … I was talking about what we’re doing is under control, but I’m not talking about the virus.”

Meanwhile my county still doesn't have enough tests and unless you're immuno-compromised or over 65 they literally will not test you even if you have symptoms.

This is on top of the fact that the Federal government is making states bid on PPE for hospitals (because Kushner said that states can't use the federal stockpile! "It's ours!"), unless they're seizing them like a drug bust. It's gotten so bad that some states are using tactics that are straight out of a smugglers playbook such as arranging secret charter flights for 3M masks.

The fact that you refuse to do some critical thinking and research, or acknowledge that unbiased facts point out that the US has one of the worst Coronavirus responses speaks volumes.



I could go on but all this is fake news and deep state actors anyway, so why bother?

 

[Radegast74]

I would expect the President to show some leadership. Instead, what we are getting is his typical "Heads I win, tails you lose" strategy...

He knows the popular thing is to open every thing wide open, so he sends out idiotic tweets about "Liberate this state", and when something goes wrong, he is going to blame the governor / say they didn't follow his recommendations.

 

[Sirus7264]

welp this got real ugly real fast how about........we just stop the political discussion and get back to the facts. Covid-19 exists and we need to be careful so that maybe one day this will not still be affecting our future generations. pointing fingers and saying you suck doesnt solve problems. we should be working together to try to discuss ways we can protect each other, the facts about the situation, and numbers affecting different areas of the world and how they are handling things that have caused a big decrease. no more team red and team blue leave politics out.

 

[Aramsolari]

welp this got real ugly real fast how about........we just stop the political discussion and get back to the facts. Covid-19 exists and we need to be careful so that maybe one day this will not still be affecting our future generations. pointing fingers and saying you suck doesnt solve problems. we should be working together to try to discuss ways we can protect each other, the facts about the situation, and numbers affecting different areas of the world and how they are handling things that have caused a big decrease. no more team red and team blue leave politics out.

Actually it's still fairly civil, you should have seen this thread dozens of pages ago.

The sad truth is that this whole Covid19 business has transformed from what was originally a health issue into a political one. Many governments all over the World (not just in the US) are basing their Covid19 response on political considerations rather than strictly science/medicine. The unfortunate side effect is that this thread has also taken a political bent. I'm alright with it though as long as folks here remain mature and respectful.

With regard to the history of this thread, there have been individuals who have posted articles and expressed views that are either inaccurate, xenophobic or flat out dangerous. I give them the benefit of the doubt and trust that their views are affected by passion. That said, I've taken it on myself to be as civil as possible and refute such views with logic and accurate data. Fortunately, I'm not the only one and I'm glad to see other members stepping up. As my partner is on the medical front lines, I see it as my duty to refute misinformation about this pandemic wherever it is. Hell I've even done that with my family members.

I need to stress that only through Science, TRUST in our scientific experts, and maintaining a collective level head will we prevail. Isolation and xenophobia must not march in parallel with this pandemic. Covid19 doesn't care whether your Rich or Poor...White or Black...Conservative or Liberal. It doesn't care about National borders. It doesn't sleep nor does it tire. It is not good nor is it evil...It is a virus.

Diseases have been defeated in the past. Measles, Small Pox, and Polio are some of the ailments that have plagued us in the past. We've defeated those ills through science, and international cooperation. We need to get back to that global cooperation again. People distrust the WHO (and with some good reason) but it's through the WHO that we eradicated small pox and nearly polio as well. It's because of WHO that many poorer parts of the World have basic health care. I get that people aren't happy with their performance vis a vis Covid19 but what about the organization's past success stories? We shouldm't dismantle it, we need to reform it. The simple truth is that the WHO is one of the few organizations we have that brings countries together in order to share medical expertise. In a pandemic that's vital.

When it comes to diseases, no country is an island. We either work together or we fall together.

 

[August]

I think the takeaway from all of this is if we make disease response a political decision rather than scientific, we’re doomed.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Nothing I say will change your mind... and nothing you say will change my mind.

You can change my mind, it happened once before in this thread.

I didn't know about the specifics of the beginnings of the contagion, some of it is still unconfirmed however my mind was changed from being open and accepting i didn't know, to being sure that there were initial delays of China reporting the issue to the WHO. This was done by irrefutable evidence being presented and corroborated by multiple reports from news and journals, not just one and not just opinion pieces.

I read independent reports had evidence and cited their sources and were peer reviewed for accuracy, verified and accepted as fact. I can't question that.

That's how to change my mind - find facts and show them to me so I can learn them too. That's why sometimes I'm so keen to learn where you found out some information. I really do want to see it too, and I don't want to have any questions arise from it. An opinion piece always raises more questions than it answers, that's no good even it's eventually found to be correct.

So, other than just agreeing with you, what is the criteria that would lead to your mind being changed?

 

[Radegast74]

I think the takeaway from all of this is if we make disease response a political decision rather than scientific, we’re doomed.

Well, the "really interesting" thing is that one group seems to think they can make this a political issue that will unite their base, and at the same time drive away other voters / make people more disinterested in voting, and thus secure a path to winning the next election.

Bizarre, I know, but if you are trying to rally people to do something about actively fighting the disease, you are screwed. However, if you sit on your ass, pander to people's basest instincts & drives ("you wanna go out and have a beer at a bar tonight? You should be able to!") and tweet about it, you seem to have more traction.

Sadly, it isn't about what you are doing right now, it appears to be all about managing the media and the message.

 

[Bambooza]

You can change my mind, it happened once before in this thread.

I didn't know about the specifics of the beginnings of the contagion, some of it is still unconfirmed however my mind was changed from being open and accepting i didn't know, to being sure that there were initial delays of China reporting the issue to the WHO. This was done by irrefutable evidence being presented and corroborated by multiple reports from news and journals, not just one and not just opinion pieces.

I read independent reports had evidence and cited their sources and were peer reviewed for accuracy, verified and accepted as fact. I can't question that.

While you can be comfortable that it's been reviewed and somewhat verified I would always strongly suggest you don't accept it blindly as fact. Mistakes are made as well as fudged data due to budget risks, combined with the review process is often done by those who are supporting the same data with the same risks to their own funding and no funding for an independent retesting of the data. Dissidence to the published papers is often stifled for years due to the review process and who the gatekeepers are those who initially published the paper the new paper is attempting to disprove. We would like to think that those doing research will be more interested in letting the truth be known than their own ego and financial gains but its generally not the case. It takes generally 15 years for corrections and they typically are not met with the same fanfare as the initial false narrative. The good part is over time our base of knowledge grows and self corrects. The bad news is oftentimes policies are put in place on false information and are never changed. The best we can do is review the papers and look for the dissidence and see if they have any validity to their arguments. After all one has to look no further then the current debate over if the Brontosaurus truly ever existed or not. (https://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166665795/forget-extinct-the-brontosaurus-never-even-existed) and now (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brontosaurus-is-back1/) While the baring of the outcome has little impacted its just an easy example and who doesn't like Dino's.

That's how to change my mind - find facts and show them to me so I can learn them too. That's why sometimes I'm so keen to learn where you found out some information. I really do want to see it too, and I don't want to have any questions arise from it. An opinion piece always raises more questions than it answers, that's no good even when it's correct.

So, other than just agreeing with you, what is the criteria that would lead to your mind being changed?

Well, the "really interesting" thing is that one group seems to think they can make this a political issue that will unite their base, and at the same time drive away other voters / make people more disinterested in voting, and thus secure a path to winning the next election.

Bizarre, I know, but if you are trying to rally people to do something about actively fighting the disease, you are screwed. However, if you sit on your ass, pander to people's basest instincts & drives ("you wanna go out and have a beer at a bar tonight? You should be able to!") and tweet about it, you seem to have more traction.

Sadly, it isn't about what you are doing right now, it appears to be all about managing the media and the message.

It has always been a political issue. The question has always been how many lives do we think we might be able to save and at what cost. To this day we still do not know if any of our enacted policies have any baring on saving lives. Have we saved any more lives or are we simply dragging out the timespan that they would die in? Would it have been better to just front-load the suck and get it over with quickly and then move on? I know we want to be like Australia and New Zeland but they are in a unique situation due to their isolation and lack of migratory birds from the Northern Hemisphere. The other unknown is if they have truly stopped it or will it just come back due to its long delay between infection and the development of symptoms. This long delay is why even if China did the right thing, even if WHO did the right thing there was no containing this virus. It was going to get out and it was going to spread. Until we get a vaccine people are going to die from it. Even after we get a vaccine people are going to die from it.

The question we may never know is if our actions did anything to help protect those most at risk, and at what costs did we put upon ourselves in our attempt to protect them? At what point does the cost become too much? At what point does the needs of the many outweigh the lives of the few? In fact, we can look forward to the upcoming global economic depression and history has shown this level of economic depression has lead to many wars and famine which will cost us significantly more then what we have currently lost to SARS-CoV-2.

So yes it's always been political as our actions here and now will have a profound impact on our future. While many have been impacted by the loss of a loved one many more have had their lives stripped away. Even in those countries with economic protections, the people will soon be feeling the economic burden as something has to give to cover the huge losses by loss of services, increase taxes and inflation.

It's very political and we really need to be looking towards our future and how are we as countries and as members of a global economy going to recover. And what could we have done differently to not lead to this point.

 

[Montoya]

I gotta say something to @ColdDog here which we can all agree upon!

ColdDog, I know it seems everybody is teamed up against you, but there is at least a solid 45% of the population that share your opinions.

We don't have to agree, but it is important to history that these discussions happen.

Thank you for your patience.

 

[Montoya]

So, other than just agreeing with you, what is the criteria that would lead to your mind being changed?

If I may make a suggestion, and this comes from years of dealing with these situations in my own family.

When it comes to American politics, instead of trying to prove one side wrong, try find common ground instead.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

UK numbers for today Wednesday 6th of May:

Total confirmed 201,101 with 6,111 new, total dead 30,076 with 649 new.

Todays current status is the UK having reached 30k fatalities. The outlook, is, of course a 30k in SC.

Coronavirus: UK becomes first country in Europe to pass 30,000 deaths

The UK records a further 649 deaths, taking the total number of coronavirus deaths to 30,076.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

If I may make a suggestion, and this comes from years of dealing with these situations in my own family.

When it comes to American politics, instead of trying to prove one side wrong, try find common ground instead.

That may well be a truism for all politics across the world.

I'll try just to stick to the facts, although I believe during the course of this thread I may have said that at least twice now.

 

[Aramsolari]

If I may make a suggestion, and this comes from years of dealing with these situations in my own family.

When it comes to American politics, instead of trying to prove one side wrong, try find common ground instead.

It's so damn difficult though. My partner had a falling out with one of her brothers who's a big Trump supporter (They're all from rural Oregon). She's pissed that Trump was limiting PPE exports for awhile even though our economies are so intertwined. He couldn't understand that many of the Canadians who buy PPE in Canada also work in the US in fields like health care...That the PPE manufactured in the US often use Canadian sub components and raw materials. His attitude is very much America First, everyone else be damned. When she pulls out articles in support of her views, he pulls out stuff from Fox or worse...OANN. Between the two of them, there isn't any common ground when it comes to politics. Her mother has similar views as well. I remember her saying once that she trusts Trump more than the media. The concept of the fourth estate and having the press keep politicians accountable is alien to her. When the whole 'Bleachgate' thing happened, she blamed the whole thing on 'actors' or people trying to make the President look bad.

I told my partner it's best not to talk to her brother about politics. I've long given up on my end and when I see him we just talk about guns, video games, and movies. We get along just fine.

 

[Thalstan]

No matter who would have been president during this time,,,Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, or Trump, had they been in power during the past 15 years or so, the party not in power would have attacked them for whatever they did or did not do.

had they implemented measures early and it not impacted the US much, then they would have "killed the economy for no good reason", too late and you have what is going on now.

we also need to remember that the federal government has very limited powers when it comes to what the states do. Much of that the federal government can do is only through the power of the purse. Do this, or lose funds coming from the federal government. In truth, the governors of the various states were the ones that needed to act. Don’t get me wrong, the federal government could have put enormous pressure on the states, plus put some additional restrictions on people coming into and out of the US...so long as an activist judge did not block it like so many have against presidents of both parties before...but ultimately, it would be the responsibility of the individual governors.

however, once it got into the US air transport system, even as just a passenger or crew passing through an airport, with people flying all over the country, it was too late. an asymptomatic individual could pass it on to hundreds of people at a time. Just waiting in the queue to go through security, a flight attendant could pass it on to multiple hundreds a day, that person goes to Disney, six flags, the beach, etc and on the last day of their week or two week vacation, touches a shaded rail....how many thousands could get it just that day...and it can last days on that rail. The person working in the news stand can also pass it along.

it’s very easy to blame someone in hindsight, “they should have known”. The fact of the matter is, the people in charge made the best choices they felt they could make at the time, with the information they had. I also don’t think any recent president would have been any more successful. Maybe a better statesperson, but ultimately, a similar result would have occurred because shutting down the airlines would not have happened under any of them.

 

[ColdDog]

University of Washington (Washington State) model. This model has proven to be one of the most accurate for the US.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Explore forecasts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospital resource use.

covid19.healthdata.org

Driver 1: Daily temperature
Driver 2: Percentage of populations living in highly dense areas
Driver 3: COVID-19 testing per capita
Driver 4: Changes in human mobility and its relationship to social distancing policies

Based on our updated model and latest available data, a projected 134,475 cumulative COVID-19 deaths (estimate range of 95,092 to 242,890) could occur in the US through August.

COVID-19 policy briefings | Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Read summaries of the latest results for 230+ locations, including WHO regions, national, and subnational locations.

www.healthdata.org

 

[Montoya]

When the whole 'Bleachgate' thing happened, she blamed the whole thing on 'actors' or people trying to make the President look bad.

I told my partner it's best not to talk to her brother about politics. I've long given up on my end and when I see him we just talk about guns, video games, and movies. We get along just fine.

Wow, exact same thing with my wife and her sister in California!

She plays here the actual clip where he says:

"Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" Trump asked his experts at the briefing, adding: "It sounds interesting to me, so we'll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That's pretty powerful."

Her response was that he was just joking, passing the blame onto her for not understand his humor. Or if its not that then the media are just making him look bad because they dont like him. Its never acceptance that he fucked up, always excuses.

 

[Montoya]

Geez, the meat industry got hit hard here:

 

[ColdDog]

I'll try just to stick to the facts, although I believe during the course of this thread I may have said that at least twice now.

Me too, although I have been trying vary hard to keep everything neutral. No matter how you cut it, politics is going to come into the equation. I see you as a friend, just like @Montoya, we just have political differences that has always been evident through the past 5 years I have been here, and that is ok, we can have fun and drink beer. Math and science remain constant but we need to look at the whole picture, science, political, and social, because they are not independent of each other. The arena of politics and social integration is a rats nest and always has been because it is so subjective.

 

[Montoya]

Here is something very interesting that many people may miss.

When you look at US total numbers, they include the NYC area which has been the major hotspot.

But what does the chart of new cases look like for the rest of America if you remove the NY numbers?

Well, its not declining yet!!!

 

[Montoya]

Needs repeating because I keep hearing the opposite several times a day from armchair experts: