Patterico's Pontifications

3/12/2020

Gavin Newsom: We Should Curtail Large Gatherings — Except for Disneyland, Theaters, and Casinos [UPDATE – Sanders Gets in on the Act]

Filed under: General — JVW @ 12:30 pm



[guest post by JVW]

In our daily Coronavirus round-up:

Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday evening announced that California public health officials have determined that gatherings of more than 250 people should be postponed or canceled across the state until at least the end of March.

“Changing our actions for a short period of time will save the life of one or more people you know,” Newsom said in a statement. “That’s the choice before us. Each of us has extraordinary power to slow the spread of this disease. Not holding that concert or community event can have cascading effects — saving dozens of lives and preserving critical healthcare resources that your family may need a month from now. The people in our lives who are most at risk — seniors and those with underlying health conditions — are depending on all of us to make the right choice.”

Smaller events must be limited to no more than 250 people and can only take place if organizers can implement social distancing of six feet per person and gatherings of people who are at higher risk for severe illness from coronavirus should be limited to no more than 10 people and also follow the social-distancing guidelines, the statement said.

According to the state’s updated policy, a gathering is now defined as “any event or convening that brings together people in a single room or single space at the same time, such as an auditorium, stadium, arena, large conference room, meeting hall, cafeteria or any other indoor or outdoor space” and applies to “all nonessential professional, social and community gatherings regardless of their sponsor.”

Pretty ordinary in comparison with what other affected areas are doing, right? But then the kicker which arrived in the last hour or so:

Disneyland and other large theme parks will not required to comply with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order against large gatherings to counter the spread of COVID-19.

Newsom said California public health officials issued an updated policy saying “non-essential” gatherings such as sporting events, concerts and conferences should be postponed or canceled until at least the end of March.

At a news conference Thursday, Gavin said Disneyland and other large theme parks, theaters and casinos are exempted from his order against gatherings of 250 people or more due to coronavirus due to the “complexity of their unique circumstances”, but discussions remain ongoing.

I gave President Trump a hard time last night for his awful and misleading speech to the American people, so it’s only fair that I also point out how mealy-mouthed and mercenary the exemption for major entertainment industries sounds. Looks like it’s a race to the bottom in terms of effective messaging during this crisis.

UPDATE: Senator Bernard Sanders decided to climb fully aboard the Beclownment Train by suggesting that we need to prepare for World War II levels of deaths here in the U.S. Just a reminder that we lost over 400,000 men in that war and had another two-thirds of a million wounded. Naturally he proposed single-payer health care as the answer for keeping us safe. He is just a nasty old Marxist and a wretched human being.

– JVW

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I certainly don’t favor single-payer health care, but I have to say that Bernard Sanders is probably right about World War II levels of death. I heard one Johns Hopkins expert yesterday posit the possibility of 800,000 deaths over the next year as not being unrealistic, and another today say that 480,000 deaths in the next three to seven months is a conservative estimate, with 96 million cases and 48 million hospitalizations. This includes people in their 40s and 50s and not “just” older people.

133 Responses to “Gavin Newsom: We Should Curtail Large Gatherings — Except for Disneyland, Theaters, and Casinos [UPDATE – Sanders Gets in on the Act]”

  1. I can’t wait to read about how Sonny Cuomo in New York leverages the Kung Flu to benefit his favorite donors.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  2. This is sad and weak leadership by Newsom.

    Time123 (353edd)

  3. What about baseball games? The season begins before the end of March.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  4. I understand Newsom doesn’t want to torpedo California’s economy, but this seems inconsistent.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  5. It’s very inconsistent and weakens his message. One saving grace might be that people will voluntarily pull back.

    Time123 (b4d075)

  6. How does the governor propose to enforce this? What if some big wedding reception had 300 people attending — will the police be called in to break up the crowd?

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  7. MLB has cancelled the remainder of Spring Training and postponed its opening day by 2 weeks (from March 26 to presumably April 9 to April 13). Good on them for using Lent as a guidepost.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  8. @Dana, In the comments thread at 12:31, DCSCA wrote that “MLB delays opening day by a few weeks; NHL suspends season; Cuomo limits Broadway shows to audiences of 500 or less.”

    Everybody is taking the most optimistic point of view that the disease will only be around for a few weeks, or maybe till September. The only thing that can end this is antivirals.

    It will be increasingly impossible to write anything about the year 2220 without mentioning Covid-19.

    It is fast becoming the main candidate for TIME Magazine’s top news story of 2020 and will be Disease of the Year.

    Beating out the winner of the Presidential election and wars.

    Sammy Finkelman (a738e8)

  9. The entertainment industry is f***ed and my friends who work in it are tearing their hair out about going broke — everything is *rightly* being cancelled or postponed but if you make money as a sound tech, what do you do now?

    This set of exceptions is absurd from a public health perspective. EVERYTHING involving a large crowd should be closed, immediately, for at least three weeks.

    aphrael (971fba)

  10. Gavin Knew Sum, amiright?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  11. We Should Curtail Large Gatherings — Except for Disneyland, Theaters, and Casinos

    … Reaganomics. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  12. Th goals set by the Paris Climate Agreement will be met by the end of this month.

    Sammy Finkelman (a738e8)

  13. The entertainment industry is f***ed and my friends who work in it are tearing their hair out about going broke — everything is *rightly* being cancelled or postponed but if you make money as a sound tech, what do you do now?

    Yeah, that’s a really bad situation. I heard Mark Cuban say yesterday that he wants to help ensure that workers in the Dallas Maverick’s home arena are taken care of during the period where games are cancelled, so hopefully all of the teams in all of the leagues will work to make this happen.

    I was talking to a guy I know over the weekend who is semi-retired and subsidizes his income by umpiring baseball games on the side, and he’s pretty concerned about this ability to pay rent and meet his other obligations during any kind of work stoppage. He makes about $500/week umpiring during the season, which really helps him stretch out his income during the offseason.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  14. 9. aphrael (971fba) — 3/12/2020 @ 12:59 pm

    but if you make money as a sound tech, what do you do now?

    Collect unemployment insurance and they might not even require you to look for a new job.

    They might also get Andrew Yang’s $1,000 this year or at least a one time payment

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-case-for-a-big-coronavirus-stimulus-11583448500

    President Trump has floated the idea of a payroll-tax cut, but this has significant drawbacks. It would be too slow and dispersed to substantially stimulate the economy, as households would receive only a modest benefit every pay period. The distributional effects are worrisome as well: A one-year payroll tax cut of 2% of income would provide up to a $5,508 tax cut to a high-income couple, only $500 to a single parent getting by on $25,000 a year, and nothing for a worker placed on leave without pay. This isn’t the fairest or most efficient way to increase aggregate demand.

    Instead, Congress should pass a simple one-time payment of $1,000 to every adult who is a U.S. citizen or a taxpaying U.S. resident, and $500 to every child who meets the same criteria. This is similar to, but somewhat more generous than, what President Bush did in 2008. Back then, electronic deposits were made available within three months. Some consumers might spend the money right away to meet rent if they lose their regular paycheck; others might have stronger balance sheets and spend the money at whatever uncertain date the virus is contained.

    The law should also specify that the payments would continue in 2021 and beyond if the unemployment rate rises to 5.5% and remains there or higher. Hopefully this will not happen, but if it does, the money will be needed.

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/12/business/dont-bailout-airlines-coronavirus-stimulus-plan-should-include-1000-every-american/

    Harvard professor Jason Furman, who was a top economic adviser for Barack Obama, has a plan for that, spelling it out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week. The idea reportedly is making the rounds on Capitol Hill this week.

    The concept is Andrew Yang-esque: Dispense $1,000 for every adult who is a US citizen or tax-paying resident, and $500 for every child who meets the same criteria. If the unemployment rate rises next year and beyond, Uncle Sam would send out another installment.

    If it seems too broad of a stroke, it is by design ― to get money quickly to people who can least afford missing a paycheck. Making people jump through hoops would delay the infusion of funds…

    …Furman’s stimulus idea is not without precedent. When the US economy needed propping up in 2008, George W. Bush enacted a similar measure that provided up to $600 in stimulus checks for individuals and up to $1,200 for married couples. Bush also issued tax rebates in 2001 that allowed up to $300 for individuals and as much as $600 for households.

    Sammy Finkelman (a738e8)

  15. Everybody is taking the most optimistic point of view that the disease will only be around for a few weeks, or maybe till September. The only thing that can end this is antivirals.

    It will be increasingly impossible to write anything about the year 2220 without mentioning Covid-19.

    Man, you are one major downer pessimist.

    Make America Ordered Again (23f793)

  16. We Should Curtail Large Gatherings — Except for Disneyland, Theaters, and Casinos

    I don’t think many people will be showing up there anyway. I realize this is CA but it seems like even there you’ve got a plurality of people with some common sense.

    frosty (f27e97)

  17. I don’t think many people will be showing up there anyway.

    You’ve got a point. Maybe everyone can be made happy if the Coachella Festival is moved over to the Morongo Springs Casino in nearby Cabazon.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  18. Well, if you don’t catch coronovirus in Disneyland, you can maybe get measles.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/disneyland-measles.html

    Sammy Finkelman (a738e8)

  19. Corporate establishment democrats in action! This why bernie sanders had to be stopped at all cost. James carville.

    corona virus (f7a4d2)

  20. I think Frosty is right. But when the head of the local event is looking at taking a loss or taking public health risk…hey, Disney is open.

    Time123 (b4d075)

  21. Note to the trolls — not spammers — who are posting here. You picked a really dumb time to troll considering how all comments are going into moderation. Not only will your submission not be published, but your fake email address and IP will go to the permanent block list.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  22. This also from Newsom’s presser:

    The state has an estimated 8,000 tests available but they don’t have all the required components, which the federal government needs to send, Newsom said. More than 1,000 tests have been conducted.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  23. UPDATE: Senator Bernard Sanders decided to climb fully aboard the Beclownment Train by suggesting that we need to prepare for World War II levels of deaths here in the U.S. Just a reminder that we lost over 400,000 men in that war and had another two-thirds of a million wounded. Naturally he proposed single-payer health care as the answer for keeping us safe. He is just a nasty old Marxist and a wretched human being.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  24. Disneyland and California Adventure are closing anyway.

    Munroe (dd6b64)

  25. I am tending toward taking this very seriously. Sam Harris, for example, had some healthy friends very badly affected, if my FB friend’s post is correct: five friends of his went to Italy and all contracted coronavirus, two of whom are in the hospital, one on a respirator, the other in a medically induced coma.

    That said, this point is made in the first two minutes of this video: “CORONAVIRUS: THE PHARMA PANDEMIC,” I would be surprised if COVID-19 isn’t now evolving into less deadly strains, which is often the case with viruses (since they spread better if it doesn’t kill you, but leaves you well enough to get out and about spreading it).

    https://youtu.be/TieuTQDhFm0

    The Chinese death rate seems to have lowered and apparently people were originally dying in the street from respiratory stress, now, not as much. Testing rate variance and awareness of the symptoms with people seeking care faster are probably factors, but so may be the virulence of the strains most people are catching.

    And if 70% of it is, per the source Del cited, the more virulent strain and 30% the less virulent, well the more virulent strain would be tested for more often, so the less virulent strain is probably that much more common in reality.

    ONE advantage in avoiding infection even if you will eventually get it, for as long as possible, is aside from not overwhelming medical life support resources all at once, you’re more likely to catch a less-virulent strain.

    Make America Ordered Again (23f793)

  26. Disneyland and California Adventure are closing anyway.

    Making it all the more inexplicable why they would have been singled out for not having to follow the requirements that were imposed upon other events.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  27. The NCAA has made it official: no winter and spring championships, including the NCAA Basketball Tournaments.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  28. Naturally he proposed single-payer health care as the answer for keeping us safe. He is just a nasty old Marxist and a wretched human being.

    But right.

    ________

    Disneyland to close March 14.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  29. NCAA March Madness Tourney suspended.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  30. How Kud-low can you go, Snowman; trickle down = pissed on: free market in free fall; 10% Dow drop; biggest percentage market decline since Reaganomics crash collapsed in October, 1987.

    “Wellll…” – Dead Ronald Reagan

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  31. PGA Tour won’t allow fans for foreseeable future due to coronavirus – CNBC 3/12/20

    Masters fate uncertain.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  32. Newsome should have required the closing of Casinos and parks too. We have recent experience of how theme parts contribute to disease outbreaks from the measles problem a few years ago.

    Nic (896fdf)

  33. ‘Beclowning Train’ has lead engineer w/a ‘loco’-motive:

    JoeyBee, in his doing political presser slamming Trump on coronavirus, says this:

    ‘Avoid handshakes and hugs.”

    Hugs.

    No kidding– he said that. Seriously.

    He’s an idiot.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  34. Make America Ordered Again (23f793) — 3/12/2020 @ 2:03 pm

    Geez, dude, I knew that you alt-right bois were BIG on conspiracy crap, but that takes it.

    Stay outta dem’ chem-trails…!!!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  35. https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-nyc-covid19-restrictions

    March 12, 2020 5:15 p.m.

    ….The mayor said he expected the city could have 1,000 cases by next week. He said 20 percent could require hospitalization.

    [No way. That’s not the rate of hospitalizaton till now, and the number of cases is way too high Testing mist give you that, but it wouldn;;t give you hospitalizations.]

    …Of the roughly 305,000 city workers, 35,000 are working remotely, 70,000 are working on a staggered schedule….

    ….As an indication of growing public alarm, on Thursday a series of false messages began spreading rapidly in chain text messages and on social media that suggested the city would implement containment measures such as shutting down public transit, blocking roads, and implementing quarantine zones across the five boroughs by this weekends. They were attributed to sources in the NYPD and FDNY….

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  36. 22. JVW (54fd0b) — 3/12/2020 @ 1:58 pm

    UPDATE: Senator Bernard Sanders decided to climb fully aboard the Beclownment Train by suggesting that we need to prepare for World War II levels of deaths here in the U.S.

    No, but transatlantic travel for civilians is getting back to World War II restructions.

    Just a reminder that we lost over 400,000 men in that war and had another two-thirds of a million wounded. Naturally he proposed single-payer health care as the answer for keeping us safe.

    The problems change, but the solution remains eternal, because it is solution for all time..

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  37. Stay outta dem’ chem-trails…!!!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 3/12/2020 @ 3:29 pm

    What are you talking about? Do you have anything other than ad hominems? Do you have an argument? Which part of this do you disagree with and why:

    I am tending toward taking this very seriously. Sam Harris, for example, had some healthy friends very badly affected, if my FB friend’s post is correct: five friends of his went to Italy and all contracted coronavirus, two of whom are in the hospital, one on a respirator, the other in a medically induced coma.

    That said, this point is made in the first two minutes of this video: “CORONAVIRUS: THE PHARMA PANDEMIC,” I would be surprised if COVID-19 isn’t now evolving into less deadly strains, which is often the case with viruses (since they spread better if it doesn’t kill you, but leaves you well enough to get out and about spreading it).

    https://youtu.be/TieuTQDhFm0

    The Chinese death rate seems to have lowered and apparently people were originally dying in the street from respiratory [dis]stress, now, not as much. Testing rate variance and awareness of the symptoms with people seeking care faster are probably factors, but so may be the virulence of the strains most people are catching.

    And if 70% of it is, per the source Del cited, the more virulent strain and 30% the less virulent, well the more virulent strain would be tested for more often, so the less virulent strain is probably that much more common in reality.

    ONE advantage in avoiding infection even if you will eventually get it, for as long as possible, is aside from not overwhelming medical life support resources all at once, you’re more likely to catch a less-virulent strain.

    Do you think there will only and always be one strain or something? What is your actual point?

    Make America Ordered Again (23f793)

  38. My actual point is that you pointed to and embedded a FULL-TILT nutter conspiracy video as a source authority, alt-right boi. And that’s NOT ad hominem. Learn to use the flucking term correctly.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  39. Rags,

    These guys dish it out, day after day, and then the second they are held to account, they are amazingly thin skinned about how mean the world is. This is how Trump’s lack of character has affected our country. Leadership matters. People think it’s naive to play by one’s own rules. They absorbed the most nutty version of what the alt-right said of Obama, and then decided to actually behave that way.

    The only thing that makes it less depressing is that half our trolls are the same single weirdo furiously typing away.

    Dustin (9c58b3)

  40. Wuhan China had a high level of air pollution (something continued during the early days of the epidemic when the rumor was that crematoria burning bodies) and half the men in China smoke.

    And that produces worse outcomes.

    But nobody has got good figures except what can be deduced from careful examination of probably reliable facts, or from consistencies and inconsistencies.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  41. Ragspierre and Make America Ordered Again —

    Please tone it down or else I won’t bother to fish your comments out of moderation.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  42. What did I say that was aggressive to him, JVW? Shouldn’t you only be taking to him on this?

    [I’m a basketball referee here, MAOA. I’m not going to figure out who took the first cheap shot; I just see the two of you sniping at each other and I’m asking you both to knock it off. – JVW]

    Make America Ordered Again (23f793)

  43. UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I certainly don’t favor single-payer health care, but I have to say that Bernard Sanders is probably right about World War II levels of death. I heard one Johns Hopkins expert yesterday posit the possibility of 800,000 deaths over the next year as not being unrealistic, and another today say that 480,000 deaths in the next three to seven months is a conservative estimate, with 96 million cases and 48 million hospitalizations. This includes people in their 40s and 50s and not “just” older people.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  44. What’s more, this isn’t going to be over in two weeks, or even two months.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  45. I heard one Johns Hopkins expert yesterday posit the possibility of 800,000 deaths over the next year as not being unrealistic, and another today say that 480,000 deaths in the next three to seven months is a conservative estimate, with 96 million cases and 48 million hospitalizations.

    In America alone, or worldwide?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  46. Combat deaths worldwide in WWII were around 25 million, and overall deaths including disease, famine, civilians, genocide, etc. were upwards of 80 million. I think that Comrade Candidate needs to be careful when making these sorts of comparisons.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  47. In America alone, or worldwide?

    Both experts were talking about the U.S.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  48. JVW, he’s talking about in America. Statistics like these are based on assumptions like 20% of people eventually being infected with a 1% mortality rate.

    Nathan (5efffe)

  49. I didn’t take any shots.

    Make America Ordered Again (23f793)

  50. Combat deaths worldwide in WWII were around 25 million, and overall deaths including disease, famine, civilians, genocide, etc. were upwards of 80 million. I think that Comrade Candidate needs to be careful when making these sorts of comparisons.

    There are seven billion people in the world, roughly. The Johns Hopkins expert I heard estimated 30-50% of the U.S. would catch the virus in the next 12-18 months, and said the upper bound for the mortality rate is .6%. Assume the same is true for the world. My liberal arts math says 1/3 of that 7 billion is 2.3 billion. .6% of that is around 14 million people. Make it 50% contracting the disease instead of a 1/3 and it’s 21 million. I have no idea how this will actually play out but the numbers are going to be very, very, very large even if it’s 1/100 of one of those scenarios.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  51. Worldwide, hundreds of thousands dead sounds realistic, but this is the information age, and a lot of people will make good decisions when their families are at stake. Washing hands and distancing will really help. Techniques for treating the disease will certainly improve in the USA. I definitely don’t know for sure, but I think the USA will see a problem for a while, but it will get better medically just in time for the economic damage to really set in.

    Dustin (9c58b3)

  52. Patterico — in the worst case, i’m expecting it to be over by midsummer because by then R0 will have fallen because there’s nobody left to infect.

    aphrael (971fba)

  53. but it will get better medically just in time for the economic damage to really set in.

    That’s already happening. The stock market is a leading indicator.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  54. I agree though that people will pay more attention to the advice from experts (hand-washing, distancing from others, avoiding large groups, etc.) and that will help mitigate the problem. It’s hard to set a timeframe for that though. It seems to me that it’s probably a good idea for cities, at least, to go on lock-downs (soft lock-downs, at least), sooner rather than later. Since we are fairly certain far more people are infected than what we know (because of a lack of testing), more people are vulnerable to exposure.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  55. Arsenal manager tests positive. EPL still going ahead with games this weekend. Insane.

    Munroe (dd6b64)

  56. Some perspective…

    “ From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 DEATHS (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus.”

    We’ll soon see how this plays out. Hopefully the panic will have been way overblown.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  57. In January I predicted 140 million with 0.5% fatality rate.

    South Korea has shown that you can do better – drive-up tests are a key component, then masks and social distancing. We’re… not doing that. Plus FB folks are not smart (though they’re starting to think something might be bad about COVID-19.)

    This is a problem where we might have to change our ways for the bulk of a year and we’d end up in a bad, but not catastrophic situation. Or… not.

    If you’ve ever played Plague, it goes like this: starts as a little problem, but the geometric rise is ungood.

    JRM (c80289)

  58. Granted it’s easy for me because i’m currently unemployed, but I’m basically not leaving the house, and when I do I’m wearing gloves so that any surface i touch i’m only touching with gloves, and I expect this to be true for weeks. :{

    aphrael (971fba)

  59. Arsenal manager tests positive. EPL still going ahead with games this weekend. Insane.

    Things are so fluid right now that I would expect the EPL to announce tomorrow that they are cancelling games for an undetermined time.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  60. This is good news. Hopefully it will catch on in the state and there will be more of these opening. Especially considering California’s large populaton:

    Kaiser Permanente medical facilities in Northern California are planning to open drive-up coronavirus testing for members who meet the criteria for a test, the health care nonprofit announced Wednesday.

    The locations will enable Kaiser to safely test patients who may have COVID-19 while protectiing its own staff and minimizing potential exposure in the greater community, Kaiser said.

    Patients who meet the Centers for Disease Control criteria for a test will receive a doctor’s order and an appointment to arrive for testing at one of the specially-equipped testing sites, Kaiser said. Medical staff will take necessary swabs for COVID-19, Flu and respiratory virus (RSV) testing while the patient remains in their car.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  61. aphrael you ever hear of mplace? Worth a google. I don’t know your situation, but I am a big fan of telecommuting. I’ve never worked a job where it was even remotely practical. In fact, I seem to find myself in a jail, an ER, or a drab courtroom, over and over, and those are some of the best places to get sick. Maybe one positive of this disease will be employers developing better ways to manage remote work, which would cure traffic, housing problems, perhaps some other ails.

    Dustin (9c58b3)

  62. This person (Mihai Andrei) assumes it is a superflu with a high R0 to get numbers:

    https://www.zmescience.com/other/pieces/coronavirus-vs-influenza-in-six-simple-charts

    https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/coronavirus-vs-influenza-21022020

    He was working on the basis of a case mortality rate for the coronovirus that is 200 times that of the flu, which he puts at 2 per hundred thousand.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4c3a1)

  63. “Updated on 3/12/2020. Now reflects an update on containment vs. mitigation strategies. Translations at the bottom. This article has received 7 million views in the last 24h.
    With everything that’s happening about the Coronavirus, it might be very hard to make a decision of what to do today. Should you wait for more information? Do something today? What?
    Here’s what I’m going to cover in this article, with lots of charts, data and models with plenty of sources:
    How many cases of coronavirus will there be in your area?
    What will happen when these cases materialize?
    What should you do?
    When?
    When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:
    The coronavirus is coming to you.
    It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
    It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
    When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
    Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
    Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
    They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
    The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
    That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
    As a politician, community leader or business leader, you have the power and the responsibility to prevent this.
    You might have fears today: What if I overreact? Will people laugh at me? Will they be angry at me? Will I look stupid? Won’t it be better to wait for others to take steps first? Will I hurt the economy too much?
    But in 2–4 weeks, when the entire world is in lockdown, when the few precious days of social distancing you will have enabled will have saved lives, people won’t criticize you anymore: They will thank you for making the right decision.”

    https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  64. The LDS church…some of the meetingest people on the planet…have cancelled ALL meetings world-wide until further notice.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  65. Gave my last lecture of the Winter Quarter today. I told the students attendance was optional, and still had well over half of the usual number show up (it’s a physics majors class, so they are supposed to be interested in the material…).

    Web-based final exam on Tuesday.

    Spring quarter will be taught entirely online.

    90% of my research was done by teleconferencing even before the virus.

    I may not set foot on campus again for months…

    Dave (1bb933)

  66. Things are so fluid right now that I would expect the EPL to announce tomorrow that they are cancelling games for an undetermined time.

    Some games have been cancelled already, the League will meet tomorrow morning to decide about further cancellations. Meanwhile BoJo is making noises about banning all sports events.

    Kishnevi (e85727)

  67. This strain of a coronavirus isn’t the bubonic plague. People will get sick, some will pass– but so will the virus and eventual containment will require a vaccine– a year off. To be sure it’s necessary to apply some common sense in modifying day-to-day life but there’s also the concern of allowing irrational emotions and basic fear to overtake good judgement– something only a fool would look to from Wall Street or Washington in 2020. Trump is no FDR; neither is Biden nor any of the other weenies feeding America’s pundits and talking heads with anxious prattle. Television- particularly cable TV news- is fueling that fear and seasoning it w/partisan politics.

    This is not our media’s finest hour.

    “It was the TV.” -Nurse Diesel [Cloris Leachman]’High Anxiety’ 1977

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  68. I may not set foot on campus again for months…

    My daughter was told today she will completing her spring semester at home. She had found a great friend group and was happier than she had been in as long as I can remember. I am crushed.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  69. I heard one Johns Hopkins expert yesterday posit the possibility of 800,000 deaths over the next year as not being unrealistic, and another today say that 480,000 deaths in the next three to seven months is a conservative estimate, with 96 million cases and 48 million hospitalizations. This includes people in their 40s and 50s and not “just” older people.

    The flu kills almost as many Americans each and every year — even with the vaccine. THIS year, it’s going to be a race between 2 grim reapers for the same potential victims.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  70. Can she continue to work with her friends?

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  71. Oops. Editing error. The flu kills that many world wide, not just Americans. It’s unclear what group Patterico’s expert was speaking of.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  72. > She had found a great friend group and was happier than she had been in as long as I can remember. I am crushed.

    I am sorry for your daughter.

    This is going to suck all around.

    aphrael (971fba)

  73. Dr Fauci now puts the mortality rate from all infections at “about 1%.”

    And there’s this graph of cohort mortality from China:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4fa50417cc28cf1200597ea9486a309abb830627946cfa62a545e5299bfb709c.jpg?w=800&h=615

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  74. My daughter was told today she will completing her spring semester at home. She had found a great friend group and was happier than she had been in as long as I can remember. I am crushed.

    Yes, the social aspects this is putting on students are incalculable. My cousin’s daughter was set to graduate from a major state university this spring — I just saw a picture of her trying on her cap and gown — but now the odds are likely that no ceremony will take place. Over at Sports Illustrated, Pat Forde wrote a very good article on what senior athletes, including his own son, are going through having missed out on their final competitions likely of their entire athletic careers. And now high school seniors are starting to hear from college admissions offices, but they have no idea if there will even be an open campus to attend this fall.

    I’m sorry that your daughter’s life has been impacted like this. The kids deserve better.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  75. There are not nearly 48 million hospital beds in the USA. Less than 1 million actually. There were about 36 million hospital ADMISSIONS in 2018.

    https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  76. This is why a NHS system tends to be more efficient fielding these circumstances as they have an infrastructure in place w/less bureaucracy to fight when it comes to something as basic as access to testing- bureaucracies like CDC guidelines and necessary doctor notes, etc., – to deal with.

    Recall back in the day when living in the UK, the Brits had mobile NHS vans at the ready for easy access by citizens to ’distribute’ healthcare for routine care/screenings–sort of mobile clinics– that would be stationed around parks or in less affluent sections of London. It was quite impressive to witness– and it was reassuring to the general public, too, to see ‘action’ at work at street level.

    China finally managed to quash this mess after it spiked and ‘went viral’ — the speed w/which they set up ’emergency hospitals’ is quite impressive and reported cases are beginning to taper off but their methods were literally ‘dragonian’ given their government structure; everything from door to door examinations to scrubbing down an entire city. American society and commerce wouldn’t tolerate that kind of intrusion – even if was to ‘promote the general welfare.’ The ‘Chinese method’ would have the entire state of Washington in quarantine and New Rochelle hosed down door to door.

    The problem in the U.S. is clearly the distribution and access to the tests kits. And there has been some quality control issues as well w/incomplete or bad batches of kits getting out in haste. Remember the ’76 Swine Flu fiasco w/Ford?? Some of us do; similar issues and reactions– bad batches of vaccine getting out that made people sick and so on. In a rich country like the U.S., it’s the structure of the current healthcare system that’s poor.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  77. Harvey Mudd has pulled the plug, too, as of Friday. It seems to be a trend.

    https://www.hmc.edu/coronavirus-information/2020/03/11/march-11-harvey-mudd-college-courses-moving-online/

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  78. @78. Imagine– even w/the CCTV days of old– the mess and disruption on campuses w/o laptops and wifi. Cancelling these gatherings, even w/t inconvenience, seems an easier decision to make now– than back in the day.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  79. I heard one Johns Hopkins expert yesterday posit the possibility of 800,000 deaths over the next year as not being unrealistic, and another today say that 480,000 deaths in the next three to seven months is a conservative estimate, with 96 million cases and 48 million hospitalizations. This includes people in their 40s and 50s and not “just” older people.

    The flu kills almost as many Americans each and every year — even with the vaccine. THIS year, it’s going to be a race between 2 grim reapers for the same potential victims.

    That is false. Very false. It’s more than 10 times higher than the worst flu season in years.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  80. Oops. Editing error. The flu kills that many world wide, not just Americans. It’s unclear what group Patterico’s expert was speaking of.

    OK. Missed this.

    No, it’s not unclear. The experts, plural, were both talking about U.S. deaths.

    This is WAY worse than the flu, even if their estimates are off. It just is. You have to get past the propaganda that says it’s just like the flu. It is not.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  81. This is why a NHS system tends to be more efficient fielding these circumstances as they have an infrastructure in place.

    The UK has only 167.6 thousand hospital beds for 66 million people. That’s only 0.25% as opposed to the US’s 0.28%. Efficiency won’t help.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/473264/number-of-hospital-beds-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  82. This is why a NHS system tends to be more efficient fielding these circumstances as they have an infrastructure in place w/less bureaucracy to fight when it comes to something as basic as access to testing- bureaucracies like CDC guidelines and necessary doctor notes, etc., – to deal with.

    I’m not convinced that is the case. Look at what happened when we created the Department of Homeland Security and folded Border Patrol, ICE, FEMA, Customs, etc. underneath it. Are we really going to argue that making a massive bureaucracy improved much with respect to border security, customs, disaster management, etc.? Because I certainly don’t see it. Just because you combine smaller bureaucracies into one large bureaucracy, I don’t think it necessarily follows that anything gets streamlined.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  83. Put another way, the UK has one bed for every 400 people, the US has one bed for every 355 people.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  84. This is WAY worse than the flu, even if their estimates are off. It just is. You have to get past the propaganda that says it’s just like the flu. It is not.

    I should have posted the link I was working from, since it ALSO comes from Johns Hopkins.

    https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  85. The first line above is Patterico’s. Multitasking badly tonight.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  86. My daughter was told today she will completing her spring semester at home. She had found a great friend group and was happier than she had been in as long as I can remember. I am crushed.

    Oh, as a parent, I feel for you. And I’m sorry for your daughter. Hopfully the group will keep in contact with each other via social media, facetime, etc. It won’t be the same, of course, but it’s at least something. More than something, actually. It can keep them connected in a way that wouldn’t have been possible when we were that age. I suspect there’s going to be a lot of disappointment all around before this is all said and done.

    Dana (4fb37f)

  87. Would Argenbright Security have hired better screeners at the wages and benefits the TSA is paying? Would they be less efficient, or more? Certainly theft from baggage went up when TSA took over. It would have been rather more constitutional as well.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  88. And I’m sorry for your daughter.

    Indeed. In my case those 4 years away gave me an escape from a terribly controlling parent and allowed me to stand on my own. I doubt this is the issue with our host, but every young adult at this age needs that burst of freedom so that they can learn responsibility.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  89. Would Argenbright Security have hired better screeners at the wages and benefits the TSA is paying? Would they be less efficient, or more? Certainly theft from baggage went up when TSA took over.

    And of course even though the Bush Administration worked to limit TSA agents from fully unionizing, as soon as Obama and the Dems ran the show they were given far more collective bargaining power and they went from being very hard to fire for incompetence to being virtually impossible to fire for incompetence.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  90. She had found a great friend group and was happier than she had been in as long as I can remember. I am crushed.

    I’m so sorry to hear that.

    At least it’s much easier to stay in regular contact with distant friends (including seeing live images of them) than it was in our day.

    Dave (1bb933)

  91. Did you know that many airlines are not allowing ticket cancellations due to travel and event restrictions? They don’t seem to have heard of force majeure.

    I wonder how long they will remain this stupid.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  92. Did you know that many airlines are not allowing ticket cancellations due to travel and event restrictions?

    I know United announced a few days ago that you can make free changes to any ticket for a flight that departs before, I think, June 30. I presume you could cancel the ticket too, though my guess is that they would only give you credit on a future flight rather than refund your money.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  93. I wonder how long they will remain this stupid.

    They may not stay in business much longer regardless…

    Dave (1bb933)

  94. American wants to hit you with a $200 change fee if you booked before March 1. Which is kind of infuriating as it only penalizes those who booked without knowledge of this clusterfrack.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  95. No, it’s not unclear. The experts, plural, were both talking about U.S. deaths.

    It was unclear from your text and there was no link. Also unclear is how they expect to get 48 million people into 942,000 beds.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  96. Did you know that Friday is the 13th? Just sayin’

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  97. @83. I’m not convinced that is the case.

    I am. This isn’t theoretical w/our family and if you’d asked me before living– not visiting, but living as a year-round resident in the UK I’d probably have agreed w/you– but no more. The isn’t a politcal thing w/our family but a matter of experience. We’ve lived and dealt with both the U.S. system and the NHS system in the UK. The NHS better serves the citizenry better– and we benefited from it first hand. It can surprise or startle jaded Americans at first. But it works– and works well.

    @82. On the contrary, efficiency helps a great deal– particularly w/distributing healthcare literally at street level for walk-ins. Those ol’mobile NHS were amazing to see in action– and patronized by Brits. Lived it; experienced it.

    It works.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  98. The NHS mobile clinic/vans in the UK were really impressive sights and provided access to healthcare for the general population at street level both as a practical method of delivering general care– and a psychological comfort as well seeing the system working. Uncertainty and fear would likely be quelled across America if CDC mobile clinic vans existed in droves and drove to parks or post offices across the U.S. w/easy access to and administering tests. Given the U.S. system, it just won’t happen. So the fears and frustrations fester — sometimes bordering near panic.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  99. LA County is refusing to share any specific of any cases to municipal authorities, citing privacy concerns. This will of course make it impossible for the local authorities to take any effective action when a cluster of infected folks are detected (and you can damn well be sure that the county won’t do that either).

    Note that large homeless camps are a dandy place to incubate the virus, with people who are under-served by the medical community and not so great with self-care. But nobody will tell anybody where the problems are, or if they are. This is kind of like the privacy zealots who refused to let the FBI know what the CIA had on file on the 9/11 terrorists.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  100. How in heck can American tax payers trust our government? Years of politicians making deals with these commie pos has brought us to this. Which genius in government thought it was a good idea for our medical supplies to be made in communist china? Nixon was a fricking moron.

    mg (8cbc69)

  101. We should have rebuilt Mexico. They are Catholic.

    mg (8cbc69)

  102. I always wonder why you are here in terrible, backward America instead of advanced, super-duper GB or France.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  103. @81 Thank you. I don’t think this point can be made enough. No one wants to encourage panic but this is a very serious thing.

    Are some people stoking fear to make money or for political reasons? Yes. Are some downplaying it for the same reasons? Yes. People need to recognize both of those, see through them, and see this for what it is.

    frosty (f27e97)

  104. https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-president-trump-not-acting-like-populist-nationalist/#slide-1

    Well, Duh Donald is first and foremost a pathological narcissist, not a nationalist or poopulist.

    But he did bait the boobs!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  105. I think we’re all going to die – if we keep Trump in power. At least a million deaths – unless we get Joe Biden in office.

    Right now its 39 deaths. But I’ve been watching MSNBC and reading the WaPo, and they’ve never steered me wrong.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  106. People keep saying its “worse then the flu” when we don’t have a reliable death rate. Why? because people who got the Wuhan Flu and only had mild symptoms, didn’t go to the Doctor. That’s why the CDC gives an estimated rate. We hand the Ebola Flu in 2009 and it killed approximately 12,000.

    We’re now at 39 deaths. Repeating “This is going to be much worse” isn’t science – its rhetoric. But keep stocking up on toilet paper, because we’re all going to die! This hysteria reminds me of John McCain exclaiming that when Russia and Georgia had a border dispute he screeched “This is the most important and dangerous foreign policy crisis since WW II” . Now nobody remembers. People in 2022 will look back on this as the great Hysteria 2020.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  107. BTW, it doesn’t fill me with confidence, when our politically driven, DNC-media that was all “La-de-da” over the 2009 ebola flu, and is now having a nervous breakdown over the Wuhan flu. NPR was reporting breathlessly on the Italian “crisis” – i wonder how many dummies thought they were talking about the USA?

    rcocean (1a839e)

  108. That would signal a willingness to use subsidiarity and devolved authority to encourage innovation and expansion, which is sorely needed at this stage of the disease’s spread. The FDA will coordinate with a 24/7 hotline, Sherman reports, to facilitate testing, validation, or processing support.–HotAir

    And about time. When the dust settles, I wonder how many people central command and control will have killed in THIS instance.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  109. Well said, frosty.

    DRJ (15874d)

  110. After feeling besieged by enemies for three years, Mr. Trump and some of his advisers view so many issues through the lens of political warfare — assuming that criticism is all about point scoring — that it has become hard to see what is real and what is not, according to people around the president. Even when others with Mr. Trump’s best interests at heart disagree, they find it hard to penetrate what they see as the bubble around him.

    Thomas P. Bossert, a former homeland security adviser to Mr. Trump, has tried repeatedly in recent days to be patched through to the president or Vice President Mike Pence to warn them just how dire the coronavirus pandemic really is, only to be blocked by White House officials, according to two people familiar with the events. It left him to try to get the president’s — and the public’s — attention through newspaper op-ed articles, television appearances and Twitter messages like the one that panned Mr. Trump’s Europe travel ban as “poor use of time & energy.”…

    Among the advisers who share the president’s more jaundiced view is his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who considers the problem more about public psychology than a health reality, according to people who have spoken with him. Mr. Kushner has gotten more involved in the response in recent days, according to three White House advisers. A person close to Mr. Kushner said his views were being misinterpreted, and that he was focused on trying to find answers to the most immediate measures to mitigate the virus’s spread.

    Oh, goody. Yet another instance of Pres. Jared calling the shots.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  111. @108. “This is going to be much worse” isn’t correct. This *could* be much worse is correct. Look at Italy, look at Spain. The virus is exploding there and hospitals are full. We do not want that here. We are doing the correct things. School, church, MLB and NCAA closings and cancellations suck, but they are going to keep this thing from spreading.

    Success in containment is going to make it look like the extreme measures were unwarranted. If we keep it under 500 deaths, Trump/Hannity fans will say the MSM made a mountain out of a molehill to destroy the President. So be it, it’s better than more people dying. People are going to believe what they want to.

    JRH (52aed3)

  112. Italy has a health system that is not set up for emergencies. Too much is paid for directly for the government and governments like to save money. The people in charge are not afraid f being sued, losing their jobs or being sued, or getting pummeled (and maybe legislated against) by politicians.

    The UK is even worse shape, and now every winter they have a crisis – a crisis that gets a little bit worse every year.

    It take 10 to 20 years for single payer national health insurance to produce these results

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  113. Hows your dog, rags?

    mg (8cbc69)

  114. Mackey died last year. He’d had a good run of years and died at home in his sleep.

    Thanks for asking.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  115. My condolences, Ragspierre. In years past we have had discussions about mans best friend and I knew you loved that dog.

    mg (8cbc69)

  116. ‘Tis true, it is.

    How’s the granddaughter?

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  117. She is a 18 month old Warrior, Ragspierre. All finished with pre-op, everything is set for Monday.
    Thanks.

    mg (8cbc69)

  118. I wish your daughter all the best, mg. I can’t imagine how tough this is for you.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  119. Thank you, Kevin M. She has been the most incredible mother through this, just incredible.

    mg (8cbc69)

  120. Wanna know who’s going bust first in this? Travel insurance companies. Right now they are refusing to honor the policies, claiming that Covid-19 issues aren’t covered. They don’t have a lot of choice considering that they cannot possible pay every policyholder. And they are going to be made to pay.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  121. Dang, I’ve ended up on the S-list again! Tell me what I say!?!?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  122. There are exclusions in most insurance policies for acts of war.

    Make America Ordered Again (23f793)

  123. All finished with pre-op, everything is set for Monday.

    I hope everything goes exceptionally well for her.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  124. mg- great! It’ll go fine. Thoughts w/you.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  125. I found your comments in moderation, Haiku. I don’t know why they were there but I think it is related to the spam filter problem, not anything you said. Keep trying. I will watch for your comments and try to figure it out.

    DRJ (15874d)

  126. Thx, DRJ!

    [It sees you as spam. I will look around but try using a test name/email so I can see if it is reacting to your IP or your name/email address.]

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  127. For Haiku only: Be sure to delete your name and email, close your browser, and then use a test name/email when you come back. And do it on this thread, please, so I don’t miss it.

    DRJ (15874d)

  128. Testing 1 2 3…

    Rancida Tilapia (2601c0)

  129. Looks like it’s my IP

    I agree. I am so sorry this is happening. I need to think on this.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  130. Test

    Goofing on it (2601c0)

  131. This is a test

    Getting Testy (2601c0)


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