Coronavirus

[Investor20]

For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died.

 

Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind

 

I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work?

 

Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is.

 

It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere.

 

The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the

underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that.

 

Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it.

 

Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste.

 

I posted earlier.  But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation.

 

You can check that.  I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence.

 

Germany supposedly tested a lot.  But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million.

 

You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. 

 

And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million .

 

Japan did not have lockdown.  They are cold, crowded and old people.  No one wants to talk about Japan. 

 

Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. 

 

Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths?

[Guest Schwab711]

For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died.

 

Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind

 

I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work?

 

Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is.

 

It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere.

 

The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the

underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that.

 

Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it.

 

Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste.

 

I posted earlier.  But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation.

 

You can check that.  I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence.

 

Germany supposedly tested a lot.  But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million.

 

You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. 

 

And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million .

 

Japan did not have lockdown.  They are cold, crowded and old people.  No one wants to talk about Japan. 

 

Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. 

 

Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths?

 

It's a trivial amount of money, experts are saying it will help with health outcomes, and it seems like it would help with consumer confidence in the US since there's infighting. Who cares if it's testing per se. Make enough masks to send every household several a month. Maybe some idea I can't imagine.

 

You seem focused on a specific solution that will definitely work. I obviously do not know that solution. Experts suggest testing/masks will help so I support it. I know they don't actually know for sure. Similar to Fed injections, efficiency/best solution is not necessarily important. It's about reversing the decline in confidence.

 

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/493722-us-needs-to-conduct-20-million-coronavirus-tests-per-day-to-fully-open

 

20m tests/day is not possible in the near-term. Current capacity is something like low-to-mid millions/month right now (manufacturing/procuring, testing, and processing). I'm trying to be realistic with a ballpark number. I don't know exact capacity. I don't know what's possible. I'm just trying to be realistic with my guesses.

[Cigarbutt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

It's an op-ed, but it has a useful discussion of how at home pulse oximeters (easy to find) can help avoid bad outcomes from an unusual Covid-19 symptom.  My apologies if it has already been posted.

It's an interesting idea (oxygen measure as an indicator) but there are fundamental conceptual issues with the application (not the place to discuss that). Wearable (watches) devices are getting there but there are potential problems with sensitivity and specificity.

-----

The following is likely to be irrelevant for 99.9% so skip.

i've transposed the underlying physiology to investments because it fits well with margin of safety. The % oxygen saturation (to oxygen pressure) curve is not a straight line. Long story short, at high %, the curve is relatively flat and below 90% the curve becomes vertical. In real life (breathing people), a decreasing saturation may not look like anything much but once at a certain stage, things can go downhill very rapidly. People with CV who develop disproportionate inflammatory responses in their lungs (final common pathway to ARDS) may be a reflection of that. Companies that flirt with financial distress (knowingly or not) often show this pattern (exponential rise in cost of capital at certain stages and firm survival issues). This is also reflected in underfunded pension plans when non-linear changes can be introduced when plans have 90% and below funded levels.

 

An unfortunate feature may be that people put emphasis on prevention at the wrong place in a way because it may be that CV people who don't do well already have the vulnerabilities (immunity, comorbidities etc) and what you do once the virus elects residence may have little effectiveness (at this point anyways). Somehow this connects with something i read yesterday (from somebody whose tactics are despicable but whose gut instincts tend to be well grounded): "How did the world's financial markets miss the slowest-moving black swan in history?". From a humble perspective, it may be because there is an unusual number of zombie companies living on cheap borrowed time and it is as if the Surgeon General Reserve had suspended the use of oxymetry altogether.

I hate to say it but many are on the edge of the curve and may end up behind the ball.

---) Back to the virus

[orthopa]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-21/autopsies-reveal-first-confirmed-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-occurred-in-bay-area-in-early-february?mod=article_inline

 

There have been growing concerns that the new coronavirus has been in California longer than experts first believed.

 

Dr. Jeff Smith, a physician who is the chief executive of Santa Clara County government, said earlier this month that data collected by the CDC, local health departments and others suggest it was “a lot longer than we first believed” — most likely since “back in December.”

 

“This wasn’t recognized because we were having a severe flu season,” Smith said in an interview. “Symptoms are very much like the flu. If you got a mild case of COVID, you didn’t really notice. You didn’t even go to the doctor. The doctor maybe didn’t even do it because they presumed it was the flu.”

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/santa-clara-county-officials-identify-additional-covid-19-deaths-2020-04-22?mod=home-page

 

he local medical examiner collected samples during autopsies performed on people who died on Feb. 6, Feb. 17, and March 6 that later tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

 

 

If COVID was in California earlier then expected it was in NYC earlier then expected. Both get tons of international flights. That being said community spread was happening undetected. Was it the stay at home order that poured gas on the fire in NYC?

 

Initial business closure was on March 16th, schools closed on March 18th, Shelter in place March 22nd. Peak hospital usage April 8-10th so 21-23 days after kids forced to stay home. Are there a lot of multi generational homes in NYC? Was the gas on the fire bringing everyone together and locking them up in close contact for days on end? People of color would seem to be more likely to live in a multi generational situations. Is this why they are more hard hit in addition to comorbidities?

 

Italy had some of the strictest stay at home orders started on March 9th and 30% of Italians live in multi generational homes

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/family-is-italys-great-strength-coronavirus-made-it-deadly-11585058566

 

Italy has a ton of multi generational homes

 

Wouldn't that be a pisser if the stay at home orders had just the opposite effects in NYC, Italy and Spain?

 

[Liberty]

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493879-texas-lt-governor-on-reopening-state-there-are-more-important-things

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/21/georgia-leads-race-become-americas-no-1-death-destination/

 

"There are more important things than living"!

 

I'll believe him right after he offers his own life for the economy.

[Gregmal]

For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died.

 

Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind

 

I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work?

 

Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is.

 

It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere.

 

The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the

underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that.

 

Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it.

 

Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste.

 

I posted earlier.  But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation.

 

You can check that.  I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence.

 

Germany supposedly tested a lot.  But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million.

 

You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. 

 

And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million .

 

Japan did not have lockdown.  They are cold, crowded and old people.  No one wants to talk about Japan. 

 

Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. 

 

Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths?

 

It's a trivial amount of money, experts are saying it will help with health outcomes, and it seems like it would help with consumer confidence in the US since there's infighting. Who cares if it's testing per se. Make enough masks to send every household several a month. Maybe some idea I can't imagine.

 

You seem focused on a specific solution that will definitely work. I obviously do not know that solution. Experts suggest testing/masks will help so I support it. I know they don't actually know for sure. Similar to Fed injections, efficiency/best solution is not necessarily important. It's about reversing the decline in confidence.

 

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/493722-us-needs-to-conduct-20-million-coronavirus-tests-per-day-to-fully-open

 

20m tests/day is not possible in the near-term. Current capacity is something like low-to-mid millions/month right now (manufacturing/procuring, testing, and processing). I'm trying to be realistic with a ballpark number. I don't know exact capacity. I don't know what's possible. I'm just trying to be realistic with my guesses.

 

Someone from NYC can go upstate but the living dynamics alone, make it much harder to spread. Thats largely the problem with places like NY. Every decision is made selfishly considering only the people who live in the 5 boroughs, whereas 95% of the state is much more comparable to Nebraska than NYC. You can make the case cases for California and even Texas to a degree. Most folks I know who are in the city take the subways. Everyone outside the city drives their cars. That right there, outside of hanging out in a hospital, eliminates possibly the biggest spread risk. City restaurants are significantly more prone to being capacity packed. Outside of there city, even the best ones, typically dont have the same type of traffic.

 

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

[DooDiligence]

 

Somehow this connects with something i read yesterday (from somebody whose tactics are despicable but whose gut instincts tend to be well grounded): "How did the world's financial markets miss the slowest-moving black swan in history?". From a humble perspective, it may be because there is an unusual number of zombie companies living on cheap borrowed time and it is as if the Surgeon General Reserve had suspended the use of oxymetry altogether.

 

I hate to say it but many are on the edge of the curve and may end up behind the ball.

---) Back to the virus

 

Disbelief, apathy, misinformation, hubris,

all of the above & then some?

 

---

 

Hopelessly passing your time in the grassland away

Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air

You better watch out

There may be dogs about

I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen

Things are not what they seem

 

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real

Meek and obedient you follow the leader

Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel

What a surprise

 

Have you heard the news?

The dogs are dead

You better stay home

And do as you're told

Get out of the road if you want to grow old

[Guest Schwab711]

For the 320 million who don’t have it, well, most, might as well. The panic and fear is far greater and crippling short term in economic respects than the toll on the 1m who tested positive and 40k or whatever who died.

 

Please specifically state what would cause you to change your mind

 

I dont know. If things turned out anywhere remotely near all the doom and gloom projections(projections of course that now are denied or revised/edited/deleted and were never committed to with hard numbers anywhere) posted here 4-6 weeks ago? We all love our elders, but Im sorry...shutting down the entire country because the 60+ population with underlying symptoms carries greater risk is doing significantly more damage than just proposing stay at home orders for those most at risk. As some have pointed out, it didn't need to cost $2T a month to approach this rationally. Tell me why we're shutting down business in Oneonta, NY and telling 25 year olds they cant work?

 

Because someone from NYC goes to Oneonta to avoid lockdown conditions because they felt healthy and were in the epicenter. Because the large majority of 60+ year olds have a pre-existing condition. Letting millions of them die (ignoring the obvious issues with that) will destroy the life insurance industry and cause a domino effect. There's no pain-free option and there never was. It's not going to cost $2T every month because we have loans and grants of that amount one month. We have enough fear mongering and unnecessary panic as is.

 

It's pointless to have rolling shutdowns if you allow travel. If you don't allow travel then the economy is already taking a big hit everywhere.

 

The resistance to the lockdowns doesn't have much common sense support. Over the last month, major trade countries and manufacturing countries were shutdown, travel was heavily restricted ex-US, and people were self-quarantining in greater numbers. There was (and still is) no government response to improve testing capacity to renew confidence. The lockdown didn't cause the economic response, the lack of confidence and foreign lockdowns did. The closing of service businesses was just visible icing on the cake. Opening service businesses doesn't fix the

underlying problem. I don't get how people don't see that.

 

Without testing, air travel and large events are not coming back any time soon. If federal leadership defiantly threatens states, it will lead to exceedingly risky behavior by 50% of the population and overly cautious behavior by the rest due to a lack of trust. It will exasterbate our economic problems. It's frustrating those that complain about the economic pain don't see that no one is happy about it.

 

Shutdowns shouldn't be indefinite if it's not clear. It's frustrating we shut down for a month and accomplished nothing during that time because of federal resistance. For $25b/mth, we could've sparked US manufacturing and conducted 100's of millions of tests a month. Instead we are fighting again. Fighting still. It's such a waste.

 

I posted earlier.  But if you go to worldometer and check tests/million population vs deaths/million population, there is no correlation.

 

You can check that.  I requested in this group before to show evidence that higher testing leads to lower deaths and I am always given an opinion but no evidence.

 

Germany supposedly tested a lot.  But they tested 20629/million (Worldometer), or 2% of their population till date and got 61 deaths/million.

 

You are talking about testing atleast 30% of population a week or something. 

 

And Japan with only 985 tests/million (0.1% of their population) or about 100K tests in total till date got very low 2 deaths per million .

 

Japan did not have lockdown.  They are cold, crowded and old people.  No one wants to talk about Japan. 

 

Infact its a taboo to talk about Japan. 

 

Can you please talk about evidence that tests relate to less deaths?

 

It's a trivial amount of money, experts are saying it will help with health outcomes, and it seems like it would help with consumer confidence in the US since there's infighting. Who cares if it's testing per se. Make enough masks to send every household several a month. Maybe some idea I can't imagine.

 

You seem focused on a specific solution that will definitely work. I obviously do not know that solution. Experts suggest testing/masks will help so I support it. I know they don't actually know for sure. Similar to Fed injections, efficiency/best solution is not necessarily important. It's about reversing the decline in confidence.

 

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/493722-us-needs-to-conduct-20-million-coronavirus-tests-per-day-to-fully-open

 

20m tests/day is not possible in the near-term. Current capacity is something like low-to-mid millions/month right now (manufacturing/procuring, testing, and processing). I'm trying to be realistic with a ballpark number. I don't know exact capacity. I don't know what's possible. I'm just trying to be realistic with my guesses.

 

Someone from NYC can go upstate but the living dynamics alone, make it much harder to spread. Thats largely the problem with places like NY. Every decision is made selfishly considering only the people who live in the 5 boroughs, whereas 95% of the state is much more comparable to Nebraska than NYC. You can make the case cases for California and even Texas to a degree. Most folks I know who are in the city take the subways. Everyone outside the city drives their cars. That right there, outside of hanging out in a hospital, eliminates possibly the biggest spread risk. City restaurants are significantly more prone to being capacity packed. Outside of there city, even the best ones, typically dont have the same type of traffic.

 

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

I'm in WNY. You don't have to convince me the state is run for NYC 8). I thought the post was referring to broader lockdowns. NY could certainly be and have been more nuanced. Part of the issue for NY is how government is structured. A lot of local government money comes from the state. State needs to declare emergency to get federal money. These declarations result in more centralized government, that screws non-NYC. All that is not to take away from the fact that it could've been more nuanced. I wish NY wasn't structured such that every county is dependent on the state, even in normal times.

 

I read something on GA that I think fits a similar dynamic. The theory is that GA is opening early because they are running out of money, tax rates are constitutionally capped, and they need people working (more tax $ coming in) and people off UE (no emergency means less claims). As brutal as that policy may seem, I can understand making it as leader of a state with a cap on tax rates. They may need to raise rates but it's not a quick change. Folks can argue it's a problem of their own making, but it's a real and present problem so blaming folks doesn't change the fact that decisions need to be made. GA (and many other states) are in a tough spot.

 

PA is another state that probably has ~6 months left on the UE fund if employment doesn't bounce back soon. I'm sure there's many others. Current stimulus is definitely assuming business rebounds by the end of July (bonus UE and PPP money has been used by then). All that's left on 8/1 is non-forgivable loans to corporations and states.

[arcube]

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.

[Castanza]

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/

 

An interesting ruling which I'm sure we will begin to see (if not already mentioned) in the news.

 

 

[Pelagic]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html

 

It's an op-ed, but it has a useful discussion of how at home pulse oximeters (easy to find) can help avoid bad outcomes from an unusual Covid-19 symptom.  My apologies if it has already been posted.

 

Samsung phones have a built in pulse oximeter, in the health section under "stress". There are a couple apps available for iPhones that work as well. They're not perfect and won't have the accuracy of a true oximeter but they will give you a ballpark estimate. Some users who've compared them side by side have said they're quite accurate although I think it comes down to the individual user as the sensor on the phone is quite sensitive to things like the temperature of your fingers and any sweat on them. Either way, they're an easy way for people with symptoms to monitor themselves and if they note a change to seek care.

 

Of course oximeters themselves aren't very expensive, just hard to find or get delivered these days.

[Castanza]

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.

 

It's not a cop out. Its called the 10th Amendment. States are to be in charge of heath and public safety. It's the same reason why we have State police and not Federal police in every state. All states (as far as I'm aware) have constitutions that outline public health and safety actions. Here is PA I was talking with a friend who works in the capital. They informed me there is a literally a room with hundreds of binders that have step by step action plans for every conceivable situation.  Federal funding and aid does not come until states declare emergency. Many states did not declare emergency for a long time. Now this could be because a lack of leadership and awareness being made from the federal level. At the end of the day decisions and actions were taken and at some point we will have to look back and see what was done and not done correctly. Plenty of blame to go around.

 

Don't get me wrong. There is plenty of blame to go around and the federal actions were piss poor. But the states and even local officials are also to be held accountable. Greg is not wrong about this. Lack of PPE and precautions taken at state hospitals should equally scrutinized alongside the federal response.

 

Supreme court has rules in the past that during extraordinary times the federal govt can step in and temporarily violate the BoR such as 4th amendment. But they were clear that these violations MUST be temporary and within scope of the objective. So all the extra "pork" we are seeing in these Bills is largely unconstitutional. Alongside this, DT actually does have the authority to temporarily lock down the nation from a federal level. Clearly that's supposed to be with discretion, and probably would be handled alongside what States are already implementing.

[Guest cherzeca]

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/

 

An interesting ruling which I'm sure we will begin to see (if not already mentioned) in the news.

 

in the federalism push/pull between state police power and the vast delegation of power to the federal govt (the commerce clause is almost limitless), any controversy will be resolved politically imo.  dont worry about scotus for this beef.  trump does not want to own covid response, except to take credit where the federal govt has provided aid...and there has been a huge federal response. but trump will be more than happy to let the state governors execute the covid response, letting the michigan gov take the heat when she gets a little stalinesque, and taking credit for when things get better.  I certainly expect trump to throw out the first ball in the baseball return.

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.

 

The Trump playbook works brilliantly on the intended audience. No surprises here. The burden of lockdown/vents/testing/etc falls to the states (even tho FDA/CDC are fed agencies and don't you dare go to S Korea for tests, but ask my son in law for permission if you want vents) while the benefits of opening up go to Trump.

 

No downside, only upsides for Trump. Have yet to hear any of his supporters cast any criticisms about his response. The worst he gets from them is "it's out of his hands and there was nothing he could have done anyway".

 

Asymmetry!

[orthopa]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-21/autopsies-reveal-first-confirmed-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-occurred-in-bay-area-in-early-february?mod=article_inline

 

There have been growing concerns that the new coronavirus has been in California longer than experts first believed.

 

Dr. Jeff Smith, a physician who is the chief executive of Santa Clara County government, said earlier this month that data collected by the CDC, local health departments and others suggest it was “a lot longer than we first believed” — most likely since “back in December.”

 

“This wasn’t recognized because we were having a severe flu season,” Smith said in an interview. “Symptoms are very much like the flu. If you got a mild case of COVID, you didn’t really notice. You didn’t even go to the doctor. The doctor maybe didn’t even do it because they presumed it was the flu.”

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/santa-clara-county-officials-identify-additional-covid-19-deaths-2020-04-22?mod=home-page

 

he local medical examiner collected samples during autopsies performed on people who died on Feb. 6, Feb. 17, and March 6 that later tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

 

 

If COVID was in California earlier then expected it was in NYC earlier then expected. Both get tons of international flights. That being said community spread was happening undetected. Was it the stay at home order that poured gas on the fire in NYC?

 

Initial business closure was on March 16th, schools closed on March 18th, Shelter in place March 22nd. Peak hospital usage April 8-10th so 21-23 days after kids forced to stay home. Are there a lot of multi generational homes in NYC? Was the gas on the fire bringing everyone together and locking them up in close contact for days on end? People of color would seem to be more likely to live in a multi generational situations. Is this why they are more hard hit in addition to comorbidities?

 

Italy had some of the strictest stay at home orders started on March 9th and 30% of Italians live in multi generational homes

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/family-is-italys-great-strength-coronavirus-made-it-deadly-11585058566

 

Italy has a ton of multi generational homes

 

Wouldn't that be a pisser if the stay at home orders had just the opposite effects in NYC, Italy and Spain?

 

To piggy back on this Cuomo was just on and said hospitalizations are still troubling high. With all of the pictures online of NYC barren and a stay at home order for over a month how can the hospitalization rate/positive rate be so high? With a state lock down for over a month where are all of these infections coming from if not within in Shelter in place family/groups? 

 

People have to socially distance in public and wear masks. The subway is still running but so that could be a source.

 

Where are all of these continued infections coming from? This looks like Italy/Spain with its stubbornly high numbers.

[pocoapoco]

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.

 

Trust has been lost.

The scientists got on their soap box, pointed to their models, and made their predictions of doom and gloom.  Nowhere in the 1-2million death model stated “If we shelter in place” then we will see the outcome that we have seen (empty hospitals, death toll 10-20 times less than expected).  They are definitely saying that now, but it feels like an after-the-fact revision.  And now there is a doubling down .... it will be later.

I live in a community with 450,000 people. We’ve been shut down for 6 weeks.  We’ve had 3 deaths ... a prisoner, a homeless person, an elderly person, all with extremely bad health prior.  The hospitals are empty and the community is getting obliterated.

Greg is right that New York is a special case as is anywhere with a high population density or public transportation.  To apply a one size fits all model is like when homeland security gave funding to small towns in the Midwest to fight terrorism.

 

Rather than accept that the models were flawed, or even just need to be revised, updated and more nuanced, it seems the scientific community and media is still doubling down on the terror and denying any error.  The problem with this is that they are squandering the little trust left.  You only get one shot at this.  It’s like the boy who cried wolf.  As more time passes and the predictions and models and hysteria stay diverged from reality, people lose faith in those leaders and in the models.  Then, when they are right later, and say no really now it’s gonna happen .... no one will listen. Once we open up, if there’s a new alarm bell, people will shrug and say “well you say that before.”

 

This happened in my community where there were fires that threatened our area and people were forced to relocate from their homes for 2 months, through the Christmas holiday.  After people had moved back into their homes there was a fresh threat reported of mudslide danger.  There was mandatory evacuation again. Barely a quarter of people left.

 

The point is that the scientific community needs to update the models and provide more transparent predictions, region based, based on several courses of action, with confidence intervals.  Government needs to quickly react to local data and course correct where necessary  ... if you have high cases, the cost benefit of shutting down makes more sense than in places where you don’t.  And lastly people need to stop taking the moral high ground on everyone who points out the very real trade offs that we are making between life, poverty, economic despair, and destabilizing the health care system.  If anything, at the moment the fact that hospitals are firing doctors and nurses is working against the  original (but now forgotten) agenda to keep the hospitals from being overrun.

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.

 

Trust has been lost.

The scientists got on their soap box, pointed to their models, and made their predictions of doom and gloom.  Nowhere in the 1-2million death model stated “If we shelter in place” then we will see the outcome that we have seen (empty hospitals, death toll 10-20 times less than expected).  They are definitely saying that now, but it feels like an after-the-fact revision.  And now there is a doubling down .... it will be later.

 

 

You must have missed the whole "flatten the curve" thing being passed around by the scientists, doctors, and epidemiologists. It was pretty hard to miss.

 

Anyway, mission accomplished--flattening the curve allows some the luxury of now saying "see, we overreacted'.

[LC]

It's really incredible how federally coordinated testing could have addressed these issues and still is not being done.

[Gregmal]

I am not saying shutdowns weren't necessary in some places, but Trump put the responsibility to states, state governors largely overreacted and the ones who didn't the media did their best to shame into submission.

 

Perfect cop out. Now shift blame to the states.

 

Totally. And exactly whats deserved. A big city mayor or governor should be aware that the entire state is not simply where the largest congestion of peoples, and that the largest congestion of people is not necessarily indicative of the entire state. FL for instance, has been handled much different than NYC... and is not decimated.

[arcube]

A big city mayor or governor should be aware .....

 

Replace the big city mayor or governor with "The President of the World's largest economy could have done...(fill a thousand blanks).", maybe the picture will get clearer for you.

[arcube]

 

Trust has been lost.

The scientists got on their soap box, pointed to their models, and made their predictions of doom and gloom.  Nowhere in the 1-2million death model stated “If we shelter in place” then we will see the outcome that we have seen (empty hospitals, death toll 10-20 times less than expected).  They are definitely saying that now, but it feels like an after-the-fact revision.  And now there is a doubling down .... it will be later.

 

You blame the lack of trust developing on scientists and media when everyday your boy gets on his own soapboax and starts lying and yelling. Has no medical experience yet does not take medical community seriously. What is his record here as an executive. He may be winning but in the end the con game helps no one, not even his own supporters.

 

I live in a community with 450,000 people. We’ve been shut down for 6 weeks.  We’ve had 3 deaths ... a prisoner, a homeless person, an elderly person, all with extremely bad health prior.  The hospitals are empty and the community is getting obliterated.

Greg is right that New York is a special case as is anywhere with a high population density or public transportation.  To apply a one size fits all model is like when homeland security gave funding to small towns in the Midwest to fight terrorism.

 

So the community is getting obliterated because peoples lives were saved at a huge inconvenience?

 

Rather than accept that the models were flawed, or even just need to be revised, updated and more nuanced, it seems the scientific community and media is still doubling down on the terror and denying any error.  The problem with this is that they are squandering the little trust left.  You only get one shot at this.  It’s like the boy who cried wolf.  As more time passes and the predictions and models and hysteria stay diverged from reality, people lose faith in those leaders and in the models.  Then, when they are right later, and say no really now it’s gonna happen .... no one will listen. Once we open up, if there’s a new alarm bell, people will shrug and say “well you say that before.”

 

Wow you talk about admission. How about the Big Daddy admits he fked up on this royally! Playing the Cohen book, he will never admit to anything. How he thought the geometric progression will work in the reverse direction as long as he is blustering.

 

 

[KJP]

 

Trust has been lost.

The scientists got on their soap box, pointed to their models, and made their predictions of doom and gloom.  Nowhere in the 1-2million death model stated “If we shelter in place” then we will see the outcome that we have seen (empty hospitals, death toll 10-20 times less than expected).  They are definitely saying that now, but it feels like an after-the-fact revision.

 

My understanding is that the 2 million potential death toll came from this Imperial College study:  https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

 

If you look on pages 6-7 of that study, you will see that the 2 million number is prefaced with the observation that is represents the unlikely scenario of no mitigation efforts at all.  If you go to page 10, you will find a discuss of the effect increasingly severe social restrictions up to a "complete lockdown."  Have you read this study?  If so, is it consistent with your description of it?

 

 

The point is that the scientific community needs to update the models and provide more transparent predictions, region based, based on several courses of action, with confidence intervals. 

 

The IHME does exactly that and has been updated several times.  It's available here:  https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

 

Have you looked at this model before?  If so, how does it not do what you say needs to be done?

 

 

[Gregmal]

A big city mayor or governor should be aware .....

 

Replace the big city mayor or governor with "The President of the World's largest economy could have done...(fill a thousand blanks).", maybe the picture will get clearer for you.

 

Ah, not really, Ive already stated, as have others, that theres plenty of blame to go around, including Trump. But nothing is ever enough for you guys because regardless of whats said, it somehow always leads back to nothing but a raging desire to bitch about Trump..... oh well.

 

If you dont understand WHY mayors and governors exist, and WHY they bear certain responsibilities, rather than the Federal government, then theres no point in having a discussion until you revisit 3rd grade social studies.

[arcube]

 

If you dont understand WHY mayors and governors exist, and WHY they bear certain responsibilities, rather than the Federal government, then theres no point in having a discussion until you revisit 3rd grade social studies.

 

Perfect bully move here..Fair enough, I will revisit Third Grade - what will you revisit?

 

Here is a tweet from your Governor.

 

"People will die if we get cocky about reopening. To those who are upset about our careful approach — don't blame your local official. Blame me."

 

 

 

 

[pocoapoco]

 

Trust has been lost.

The scientists got on their soap box, pointed to their models, and made their predictions of doom and gloom.  Nowhere in the 1-2million death model stated “If we shelter in place” then we will see the outcome that we have seen (empty hospitals, death toll 10-20 times less than expected).  They are definitely saying that now, but it feels like an after-the-fact revision.  And now there is a doubling down .... it will be later.

 

You blame the lack of trust developing on scientists and media when everyday your boy gets on his own soapboax and starts lying and yelling. Has no medical experience yet does not take medical community seriously. What is his record here as an executive. He may be winning but in the end the con game helps no one, not even his own supporters.

 

I live in a community with 450,000 people. We’ve been shut down for 6 weeks.  We’ve had 3 deaths ... a prisoner, a homeless person, an elderly person, all with extremely bad health prior.  The hospitals are empty and the community is getting obliterated.

Greg is right that New York is a special case as is anywhere with a high population density or public transportation.  To apply a one size fits all model is like when homeland security gave funding to small towns in the Midwest to fight terrorism.

 

So the community is getting obliterated because peoples lives were saved at a huge inconvenience?

 

Rather than accept that the models were flawed, or even just need to be revised, updated and more nuanced, it seems the scientific community and media is still doubling down on the terror and denying any error.  The problem with this is that they are squandering the little trust left.  You only get one shot at this.  It’s like the boy who cried wolf.  As more time passes and the predictions and models and hysteria stay diverged from reality, people lose faith in those leaders and in the models.  Then, when they are right later, and say no really now it’s gonna happen .... no one will listen. Once we open up, if there’s a new alarm bell, people will shrug and say “well you say that before.”

 

Wow you talk about admission. How about the Big Daddy admits he fked up on this royally! Playing the Cohen book, he will never admit to anything. How he thought the geometric progression will work in the reverse direction as long as he is blustering.

 

 

Not saying Trump is smart or has added value.  The political side

of this isn’t super interesting.

 

The trust thing is real. 

When it it widely declared that we are flattening the curve to keep hospitals from being overrun, and the hospitals are empty and firing people.... how do you not at that point update the model to relax social distancing.  You can change the narrative (“actually we aren’t worried about hospitals we just want to minimize total death count”) but then you have a trust issue because people can remember what the argument was from a couple months ago, the argument used to garner compliance and convince people to sacrifice their economic livelihood.  Maybe making that sacrifice for  a demographic they aren’t part of (elderly and ill) wasn’t sufficient motivation so the ante was upped by saying no this is everyone’s issue of the hospitals are fucked.  But here we are and if we try to change the argument now it just makes it seem like the old argument was manipulative. If we don’t change the argument then we should be relaxing social measuring in areas with minimal hospital resource usage. You sort of have to pick one.