Coronavirus

[Gregmal]

"The Unique U.S. Failure to Control the Virus

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/us/united-states-failure-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

A couple of notable quotes:

 

First, the United States faced longstanding challenges in confronting a major pandemic. It is a large country at the nexus of the global economy, with a tradition of prioritizing individualism over government restrictions. That tradition is one reason the United States suffers from an unequal health care system that has long produced worse medical outcomes — including higher infant mortality and diabetes rates and lower life expectancy — than in most other rich countries.

 

“As an American, I think there is a lot of good to be said about our libertarian tradition,” Dr. Jared Baeten, an epidemiologist and vice dean at the University of Washington School of Public Health, said. “But this is the consequence — we don’t succeed as well as a collective.”

The second major theme is one that public health experts often find uncomfortable to discuss because many try to steer clear of partisan politics. But many agree that the poor results in the United States stem in substantial measure from the performance of the Trump administration.

 

In no other high-income country — and in only a few countries, period — have political leaders departed from expert advice as frequently and significantly as the Trump administration. President Trump has said the virus was not serious; predicted it would disappear; spent weeks questioning the need for masks; encouraged states to reopen even with large and growing caseloads; and promoted medical disinformation.

Already, the American death toll is of a different order of magnitude than in most other countries. With only 4 percent of the world’s population, the United States has accounted for 22 percent of coronavirus deaths. Canada, a rich country that neighbors the United States, has a per capita death rate about half as large. And these gaps may worsen in coming weeks, given the lag between new cases and deaths.

 

Early in the pandemic, Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist and former Obama administration official, proposed what he called the first rule of virus economics: “The best way to fix the economy is to get control of the virus,” he said. Until the virus was under control, many people would be afraid to resume normal life and the economy would not function normally.

In large parts of the United States, officials chose to reopen before medical experts thought it wise, in an attempt to put people back to work and spark the economy. Instead, the United States sparked a huge new virus outbreak — and the economy did not seem to benefit.

 

“Politicians are not in control,” Mr. Goolsbee said. “They got all the illness and still didn’t fix their economies.”

 

The situation is different in the European Union and other regions that have had more success reducing new virus cases. Their economies have begun showing some promising signs, albeit tentative ones. In Germany, retail sales and industrial production have risen, and the most recent unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. In the United States, it was 11.1 percent.

But there is one way — in addition to the scale of the continuing outbreaks and deaths — that the United States stands apart: In no other high-income country have the messages from political leaders been nearly so mixed and confusing.

 

These messages, in turn, have been amplified by television stations and websites friendly to the Republican Party, especially Fox News and the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates almost 200 local stations. To anybody listening to the country’s politicians or watching these television stations, it would have been difficult to know how to respond to the virus.

 

Mr. Trump’s comments, in particular, have regularly contradicted the views of scientists and medical experts.

 

Many experts now say that the most disappointing part of the country’s failure is that the outcome was avoidable.

When countries and cities have heeded these lessons, they have rapidly reduced the spread of the virus and been able to move back, gingerly, toward normal life. In South Korea, fans have been able to attend baseball games in recent weeks. In Denmark, Italy and other parts of Europe, children have returned to school.

 

In the United States, the virus continues to overwhelm daily life.

 

“This isn’t actually rocket science,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who ran the New York City health department and the C.D.C. for a combined 15 years. “We know what to do, and we’re not doing it.”

 

NJ has 1793 deaths/million

NY has 1687 deaths/million

 

Texas has 280 deaths/million

Florida has 361 deaths/million

 

Are you saying NY & NJ listened to Trump and Texas & Florida did not listen to Trump?

 

IF you go by deaths per million, the top 10 states are

New Jersey, New York, Massachussetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Louisiana, District of Columbia, Michigan, Illinois, Missisippi.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

Exactly. There's certain areas where politics plays a bigger part than others, and theres many where its just a convenient narrative. Any idea why, say, NYC, despite a rather negligible number of new daily COVID cases(for months now) has seen such muted recovery and virtually no uptick in many areas? Yet, say Georgia and Florida, despite basically experiencing similar daily case # as NY/NJ did during their peaks...continue to hold up better?

[Read the Footnotes]

 

Submitted with respect and a firm commitment to USD-invest during the restructuring.

 

This 'episode' (IMHO and depending how you define 'success') required coordination, collaboration and cooperation. Some people question the value of orchestra conductors. After all, it's the free market that produces virtuosos. A center and balanced medium looked at this:

https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/11/27/165677915/do-orchestras-really-need-conductors

Conductors and especially talented maestros can make a difference but of course there's the issue of control..

 

In related news:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/317018/one-three-americans-not-covid-vaccine.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication

A fascinating aspect is that there may a parallel in the partisan divide for the by-mail or in-person voting preference.

Today i'm lsitening to If Today Was Your Last Day and it's a great song.

https://medium.com/@erikrittenberry/the-american-life-is-killing-you-9e7e68135f4a

Great article and good points.

 

The NPR segment reminds me of a story about a bird.

 

A man walks in to a pet store looking to buy a bird and he sees a rather plain looking bird in a cage that is selling for $1,000. The customer asks "what's so special about this bird?"

 

The shopkeeper answers, "This bird can sing all of the Mozart operas perfectly."

 

The customer moves to the next bird in a cage with a $5,000 sign on it. "And this one," he asks.

 

"Well this is a very special bird" the shopkeeper answers. "This bird can sing any of the most difficult arias you can think of".

 

The customer is very impressed and moves to the third cage with a $20,000 sign on it a a bird facing away from him that he can't get a good look at. "What can this bird sing?" He asks.

 

The shopkeeper answers, "as far as I can tell he can't sing anything, but the other birds call him Maestro."

 

All jokes aside, Cigarbutt makes a good point. I have known a lot of famous musicians and have known quite a few who played in major orchestras. The truth is, if you're  BS, an expert knows it immediately. If they think you're BS, they won't respect you and if they don't respect you, they all end up taking their cues from the person they do respect, so maybe the follow the first violinist and ignore the supposed conductor. In a more contemporary setting the same thing happens when the band ignores purported leader of the group and instead follows whoever they do respect such as the drummer or guitarist who becomes the de facto leader.

 

The same thing is happening in the USA right now when people ignore Trump and the Trump administration and look to leadership from Fauci, Bill Gates, local leaders, or even random people who have shown better leadership.

 

Unfortunately. some are also taking direction from crackpots, conspiracy theorists and very biased sources. My guess is that fewer people would do so if they trusted Trump and if Trump encouraged trust in expertise. The lack of trust is also certainly a contributing factor in the reluctance to take a vaccine once available as reported in the gallup link Cigarbutt provided.

[LC]

NJ has 1793 deaths/million

NY has 1687 deaths/million

 

Texas has 280 deaths/million

Florida has 361 deaths/million

 

Are you saying NY & NJ listened to Trump and Texas & Florida did not listen to Trump?

 

IF you go by deaths per million, the top 10 states are

New Jersey, New York, Massachussetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Louisiana, District of Columbia, Michigan, Illinois, Missisippi.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

Congratulations, you have exhibited exactly why one needs to use data to inform and derive knowledge, rather than blindly follow.

[LC]

Looks like there was some abnormal excess mortality in Portugal & Spain, based on Euromomo. However these statistics lag by aprox 2 weeks. Recent reports indicate COVID severity is falling: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/portugal-reports-no-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-march-idUSKCN24Z1VB

 

Curious where you've seen 'severity falling?' Awesome news if so.

 

I'd read that it was unlikely for this virus to mutate/change too quickly (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7)

 

I meant "severity is falling" in regards to Portugal, as corroborated by this post:

https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/coronavirus/msg425878/#msg425878

 

No comment on the virus's severity, I am certainly not qualified to opine on that.

[Casey]

Looks like there was some abnormal excess mortality in Portugal & Spain, based on Euromomo. However these statistics lag by aprox 2 weeks. Recent reports indicate COVID severity is falling: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/portugal-reports-no-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-march-idUSKCN24Z1VB

 

Curious where you've seen 'severity falling?' Awesome news if so.

 

I'd read that it was unlikely for this virus to mutate/change too quickly (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7)

 

I meant "severity is falling" in regards to Portugal, as corroborated by this post:

https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/coronavirus/msg425878/#msg425878

 

No comment on the virus's severity, I am certainly not qualified to opine on that.

 

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks. I have been following things less closely recently. I do expect "severity" goes down in some sense - as we continue to figure out what works for treatments and hopefully get some vaccines going at some point

[John Hjorth]

Looks like there was some abnormal excess mortality in Portugal & Spain, based on Euromomo. However these statistics lag by aprox 2 weeks. Recent reports indicate COVID severity is falling: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/portugal-reports-no-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-march-idUSKCN24Z1VB

 

Curious where you've seen 'severity falling?' Awesome news if so.

 

I'd read that it was unlikely for this virus to mutate/change too quickly (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7)

 

I meant "severity is falling" in regards to Portugal, as corroborated by this post:

https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/coronavirus/msg425878/#msg425878

 

No comment on the virus's severity, I am certainly not qualified to opine on that.

 

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks. I have been following things less closely recently. I do expect "severity" goes down in some sense - as we continue to figure out what works for treatments and hopefully get some vaccines going at some point

 

Interesting exchange between LC & Casey,

 

Now, please stop mentioning Denmark [in this topic] as one of the primary examples of "good pandemic counter measures" [simply because, it ain't [any longer]] :

 

1. Hot spot in Danish Crown meat processing plant in Ringsted, located about 50 km [or so] SW of Copenhagen, [spekulatius has posted about something similar going on in Germany recently], &

2. Things have started to go haywire [Corona-related] within the last few days in the second-largest city in Denmark : Aarhus. [in Jutland].

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

To me, it's just "Dunning-Kruger in second power". People are just so unbelievable stupid in their behavior.

 

[cwericb]

Latest I heard from Portugal is that there is a problem in Lisbon, but the rest of the country is not bad. This from my sister who has a second home in Portugal and has just returned to Canada and is finishing up her 14 day isolation.

[Liberty]

 

Per CDC and @nytimes we have lost over 200,000 Americans above normal in just over 4 months.

 

The large majority were preventable by simply adopting what the majority of countries do.

[Liberty]

Bill Gates interview:

 

https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-tests-are-completely-garbage/

 

There’s three time periods, all of which have disappointments. There is 2015 until this particular pandemic hit. If we had built up the diagnostic, therapeutic, and vaccine platforms, and if we’d done the simulations to understand what the key steps were, we’d be dramatically better off. Then there’s the time period of the first few months of the pandemic, when the US actually made it harder for the commercial testing companies to get their tests approved, the CDC had this very low volume test that didn’t work at first, and they weren’t letting people test. The travel ban came too late, and it was too narrow to do anything. Then, after the first few months, eventually we figured out about masks, and that leadership is important.

 

...

 

The White House didn’t allow the CDC to do its job after March. There was a window where they were engaged, but then the White House didn’t let them do that. So the variance between the US and other countries isn’t that first period, it’s the subsequent period where the messages—the opening up, the leadership on masks, those things—are not the CDC’s fault. They said not to open back up; they said that leadership has to be a model of face mask usage. I think they have done a good job since April, but we haven’t had the benefit of it.

 

...

 

The irony is that this is a president who is a vaccine skeptic. Every meeting I have with him he is like, “Hey, I don’t know about vaccines, and you have to meet with this guy Robert Kennedy Jr. who hates vaccines and spreads crazy stuff about them.” ...

 

He, Roger Stone, Laura Ingraham. They do it in this kind of way: “I’ve heard lots of people say X, Y, Z.” That’s kind of Trumpish plausible deniability. Anyway, there was a meeting where Francis Collins, Tony Fauci, and I had to [attend], and they had no data about anything. When we would say, “But wait a minute, that’s not real data,” they’d say, “Look, Trump told you you have to sit and listen, so just shut up and listen anyway.” So it’s a bit ironic that the president is now trying to have some benefit from a vaccine.

[Spekulatius]

Also this:

But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.

 

Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.

 

Why don’t we just do that?

 

Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.

 

FWIW, the speed of testing seems to vary a lot from state to state. In MA, my wife went to a testing station and got the results back in less than 24h. There are also  CVS rapid test stations around that are even quicker.

[Liberty]

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2025203

 

“ Successful Elimination of Covid-19 Transmission in New Zealand”

[Liberty]

Also this:

But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.

 

Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.

 

Why don’t we just do that?

 

Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.

 

FWIW, the speed of testing seems to vary a lot from state to state. In MA, my wife went to a testing station and got the results back in less than 24h. There are also  CVS rapid test stations around that are even quicker.

 

Yeah, it's a mess because there's no federal leadership and resources to help places that fall behind or get the right incentives and guidelines uniformly. I'm hearing about a lot of places where it takes 10-14 days to get a result. By the time you get a "negative" result, you've had time to get infected, and you think you're negative (oh, I'm feeling bad, but it can't be COVID..) so you're even more dangerous because you may not quarantine even when feeling some symptoms..

[John Hjorth]

Also this:

But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.

 

Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.

 

Why don’t we just do that?

 

Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.

 

FWIW, the speed of testing seems to vary a lot from state to state. In MA, my wife went to a testing station and got the results back in less than 24h. There are also  CVS rapid test stations around that are even quicker.

 

Yeah, it's a mess because there's no federal leadership and resources to help places that fall behind or get the right incentives and guidelines uniformly. I'm hearing about a lot of places where it takes 10-14 days to get a result. By the time you get a "negative" result, you've had time to get infected, and you think you're negative (oh, I'm feeling bad, but it can't be COVID..) so you're even more dangerous because you may not quarantine even when feeling some symptoms..

 

Pretty amazing read, to say the least.

 

Everything can be turned into a "problem", if one wants to [in the in casu situation]. *Shaking head* [Are those citizens awaiting their test outcomes not aware about what to do while waiting for test results?]

[Gregmal]

Well, when we excuse protests because "theyre protesting", this is the other side...

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-claims-members-golf-005822741.html

 

 

These people are hardly protesters, but theyre also not using BLM as an excuse to have this decades Woodstock moment...nevertheless, you make excuses for when/where the rules should be followed, you get blatant cases like this, where people just say "fuck you, I get to do it to"...

[StubbleJumper]

Also this:

But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.

 

Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.

 

Why don’t we just do that?

 

Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.

 

FWIW, the speed of testing seems to vary a lot from state to state. In MA, my wife went to a testing station and got the results back in less than 24h. There are also  CVS rapid test stations around that are even quicker.

 

Yeah, it's a mess because there's no federal leadership and resources to help places that fall behind or get the right incentives and guidelines uniformly. I'm hearing about a lot of places where it takes 10-14 days to get a result. By the time you get a "negative" result, you've had time to get infected, and you think you're negative (oh, I'm feeling bad, but it can't be COVID..) so you're even more dangerous because you may not quarantine even when feeling some symptoms..

 

Pretty amazing read, to say the least.

 

Everything can be turned into a "problem", if one wants to [in the in casu situation]. *Shaking head* [Are those citizens awaiting their test outcomes not aware about what to do while waiting for test results?]

 

 

Not only are they seemingly unaware of what to do, the level of government that presumably has the authority to order them to self-isolate apparently has chosen to not impose that measure.  So, apparently the state governments have no responsibility in this.  Maybe I need to read the US constitution again?

 

SJ

[Cigarbutt]

Also this:

But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.

Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.

Why don’t we just do that?

Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.

FWIW, the speed of testing seems to vary a lot from state to state. In MA, my wife went to a testing station and got the results back in less than 24h. There are also  CVS rapid test stations around that are even quicker.

Yeah, it's a mess because there's no federal leadership and resources to help places that fall behind or get the right incentives and guidelines uniformly. I'm hearing about a lot of places where it takes 10-14 days to get a result. By the time you get a "negative" result, you've had time to get infected, and you think you're negative (oh, I'm feeling bad, but it can't be COVID..) so you're even more dangerous because you may not quarantine even when feeling some symptoms..

Pretty amazing read, to say the least.

Everything can be turned into a "problem", if one wants to [in the in casu situation]. *Shaking head* [Are those citizens awaiting their test outcomes not aware about what to do while waiting for test results?]

Not only are they seemingly unaware of what to do, the level of government that presumably has the authority to order them to self-isolate apparently has chosen to not impose that measure.  So, apparently the state governments have no responsibility in this.  Maybe I need to read the US constitution again?

SJ

Some comments on the 'speed of testing' and The Art of War perspective (protracted and uncoordinated campaigns will tend to drain resources).

In a way, too many and not enough tests have been done. How possible? The number of tests done is impressive but, to this point, has lagged the community spread and recently the number of tests has been going down before a significant decrease in test positivity, which is very unusual and very hard to explain from a tactical point of view at the population level.

The 'strategy' has been to increase the supply of tests (no focus on the turnaround time, ie time to get the test back for practical efficiency) in a context of excessive demand preceding the rising supply.

https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-increases-medicare-payment-high-production-coronavirus-lab-tests-0#:~:text=Medicare%20will%20pay%20laboratories%20for,the%20spread%20of%20COVID%2D19.

A very inconvenient outcome is that the strain imposed on production (more units produced) has resulted in a poorer delivery of timely results because of the strain on resources (limited supply of chemicals, machine, personnel etc).

Normally, in any typical company, this would reach the Board of Directors' level.

 

In a related way, in order to 'solve' the demand-supply mismatch, top people (in the cacophony) have suggested the use of "pooled testing" (FDA recently approved). On paper, this is a great idea. It is a well established practice under some scenarios. Let's say you have 100 samples to test. Instead of testing 100 samples individually, you can pool some samples and if you can achieve a negative result for some pools, you end up doing less tests and obtain the same end result at the individual level. There is some concern about dilution and loss of test sensitivity but this can be worked out. Also, using interesting math, it is even possible to develop an efficient overlapping pools method in order to maximize efficient output productivity. The outcome of this method however (a lot of money is going in this direction now) depends on the pool size (the bigger pool the better) but the pool size, itself, is highly conditional on disease prevalence (level of community spread). For CV, it could be very effective with a 1% positivity rate but the method loses its effectiveness as the % goes up and, around 5 to 10% prevalence, it's possible that doing pooled testing results in about the same number of tests or even more with a significant impact on end consumer productivity (companies don't mind as long as more tests are done and more money per test is allocated).

The whole thing is very puzzling.

[LC]

A novel use of sewage testing to track coronavirus density:

 

[DooDiligence]

Lemann steps up in Brasil.

 

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-brazil/brazilian-billionaire-lemann-leads-initiative-to-build-covid-19-vaccine-factory-idUKKCN2533AY

[Liberty]

https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/10/winter-is-coming-as-flu-season-nears-americas-window-of-opportunity-to-beat-back-covid-19-is-narrowing/

 

To put that in perspective, at this rate the U.S. is racking up more cases in a week than Britain has accumulated since the start of the pandemic.

[Gregmal]

Governor jackass in NJ continues his daily pressers. Its become clear that any success he had handling this originally, has been totally overshadowed by the selfish, "look at me" parade he continues to embark on. Yea, keep talking about how low the rates are and how great it is going, while suffocating your residents and still refusing to let businesses open. Keep sending in the police to arrest gym owners... and having state trooper drive-by's every half hour to harass every bar and restaurant....What a clown show.

 

Says Murphy....

“Believe me, I want to get to gyms, I want to get to indoor dining, I want to get to theaters,” Murphy said. “But we can’t do it if we think we’re gonna have a likelihood of killing people.”

 

Oh dont worry Goldman banker turned politician....you and Cuomo already set records for killing people....

 

Still waiting on all the hospitals going over capacity in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Texas as well. Two more weeks I guess?

[LC]

Still waiting on all the hospitals going over capacity in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Texas as well. Two more weeks I guess?

 

How right you are!

 

10,000 or so (I just eyeballed it) people died from COVID in Az & Tx over the past few weeks.

 

Morgue capacity is probably more necessary at this point.

[Gregmal]

Still waiting on all the hospitals going over capacity in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Texas as well. Two more weeks I guess?

 

How right you are!

 

10,000 or so (I just eyeballed it) people died from COVID in Az & Tx over the past few weeks.

 

Morgue capacity is probably more necessary at this point.

 

Indeed. Worse than NY for all them dumb red states didnt exactly play out. In fact, FL, GA, AZ, and TX have less deaths combined, than just NY. The relevant question right now for NY/NJ and those states....if you won't allow businesses to open in counties seeing less than 100 cases PER WEEK, well, when will they be able to open? And if you are forcing them shut(yea imagine that? A filthy rich Goldman banker putting mom and pop shops out of biz in order to bolster his political ambitions?) why do you continue to charge them property taxes? And at the "corporate rate" at that? Disgusting.

[LC]

In fact, FL, GA, AZ, and TX have less deaths combined, than just NY.

 

Not in the past few weeks!

 

Otherwise, you'll get no argument from me about how bad New Jersey is. In fact as a New Yorker, I'd be happy to contribute a few lines if you'd like...shall we start with the smell?  ;D

[Gregmal]

In fact, FL, GA, AZ, and TX have less deaths combined, than just NY.

 

Not in the past few weeks!

 

Otherwise, you'll get no argument from me about how bad New Jersey is. In fact as a New Yorker, I'd be happy to contribute a few lines if you'd like...shall we start with the smell?  ;D

 

Sure, not in the past few weeks. As has been said, they "ate their vegetables"... assuming you consider remdesivir a vegetable. Record vegetables eaten in March/April. 8-10% death rates...hardly the model. And now those that didnt die, are at the mercy of "I'll let you know when you can get on with your lives, but not anytime soon"....from Murphy and Cuomo...

[Spekulatius]

Well, when we excuse protests because "theyre protesting", this is the other side...

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-claims-members-golf-005822741.html

 

 

These people are hardly protesters, but theyre also not using BLM as an excuse to have this decades Woodstock moment...nevertheless, you make excuses for when/where the rules should be followed, you get blatant cases like this, where people just say "fuck you, I get to do it to"...

 

They may ust get it to themselves first, like Herman Cain did for the cause. These golf club members skew older, unlike the protesters.