Patterico's Pontifications

4/16/2020

White House Releases Guidelines For “Opening Up America Again”

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:35 pm



[guest post by Dana]

The White House released their plan to open up America. President Trump said today that some states could even start reopening “literally tomorrow.”:

Trump’s plan to re-open the American economy after a near-total shutdown consists of three graduated phases.

In a call with governors, state leaders were instructed that they could move through the guidelines at their own pace and that the guidelines are not formal orders from the federal government, according to a person familiar with the call.

“Encouraging developments have put us in a very strong position to finalize guidelines for states on reopening the country,” Trump said earlier Thursday, as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic neared 30,000 Wednesday evening.

While Trump and his task force pointed to areas of the country with fewer cases, the government’s top expert on infectious diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, absent from the Wednesday briefing, told ABC News anchor David Muir on “World News Tonight” to expect a slow rollout dictated by local authorities — one that’s heavily dependent on that community’s ability to test, provide medical care and do contact tracing.

It’s a good thing these are non-binding guidelines. It’s also good to see that Trump resisted the urge to exercise his total authority(!) and left it up to the state governors to set the pace for reopening. After all, who better to know what will best fit their state’s needs, and the pace at which to proceed. It also seems that Trump listened to Dr.Fauci’s caution from last week when he said that a one-size-fits-all plan wasn’t going to work: “You’re going to call your own shots,” Mr. Trump said in a telephone call on Thursday with the governors, according to an audio recording provided to The New York Times. “You’re going to be calling the shots.”

I’m just going to post the guideline’s Gating Criteria. It seems like a pretty tall order on it’s own. These benchmarks must be satisfied before moving into Phase One:

SYMPTOMS: Downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) reported within a 14-day period AND Downward trajectory of covid-like syndromic cases reported within a 14-day period

CASES: Downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period OR Downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period (flat or increasing volume of tests)

HOSPITALS: Treat all patients without crisis care AND Robust testing program in place for at-risk healthcare workers, including emerging antibody testing

–Dana

232 Responses to “White House Releases Guidelines For “Opening Up America Again””

  1. Hello.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. And Trump said some states could open up tomorrow…after announcing these guidelines.

    Why would you assume he understood the words he just read? I mean really, duh.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  3. Rob, Gryph and Dana of KY hardest hit…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  4. Considering some states are still free and others are reopening May 1st, this is a start. People need to see an end.

    BTW, when did we suspend habeas corpus and declare martial law? This question is in response to those who think the government can force a shelter at home and mandatory quarantine on people who haven’t tested positive for anything other than bad thoughts.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  5. Am I correct in understanding that the development and issuance of these guidelines is the “most difficult decision” of Mr. Trump’s life>

    It’s a good thing he has about 200 industry leaders assisting him in this monumental effort.

    John B Boddie (678895)

  6. I understood what he read. The waterboy will sit on the bench and won’t claim that he’s the quarterback until after his team has won the game. Which, honestly, is the most he is capable of and I give him credit for realizing it.

    nk (1d9030)

  7. Yep, that sounds like what everyone has been saying from the start. I’m glad Trump didn’t find it necessary to object.

    Nic (896fdf)

  8. BTW, when did we suspend habeas corpus and declare martial law? This question is in response to those who think the government can force a shelter at home and mandatory quarantine on people who haven’t tested positive for anything other than bad thoughts.

    I’m sure that’s a rhetorical question, but……

    Quarantine and Isolation Authorities in States Affected by COVID-19
    ……So what powers do these states have to order compulsory quarantine of infected or exposed persons? Below, we provide a review of relevant state law authorizing quarantine or isolation. The summaries for each state and inhabited U.S. territory are listed in alphabetical order.
    …..
    A list of relevant statutory authority for all states is also available on the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) website. The NCSL also provides the following definitions for quarantine and isolation:

    Quarantine: Compulsory separation, including restriction of movement, of people who potentially have been exposed to a contagious disease, until it can be determined whether they have become sick or no longer pose a risk to others. This determination could be made, for example, based on the time elapsed from their potential exposure.

    Isolation: Separation of people known or suspected (via signs, symptoms or laboratory criteria) to be infected with a contagious disease from those who are not sick to prevent them from transmitting the disease to others.
    ……

    RipMurdock (94a8a0)

  9. Meat processing plants are closing due to covid-19 outbreaks. Beef shortfalls may follow.
    The coronavirus has sickened workers and forced slowdowns and closures of some of the country’s biggest meat processing plants, reducing production by as much as 25 percent, industry officials say, and sparking fears of a further round of hoarding.
    Several of the country’s largest beef-packing companies have announced plant closures.
    Before the coronavirus hit, about 660,000 beef cattle were being processed each week at plants across the United States, according to John Bormann, program sales manager for JBS, the American subsidiary of the world’s largest processor of fresh beef and pork.

    This week there probably will be around 500,000 head processed at U.S. plants still in operation. That’s 25 percent less beef being produced.

    Some of the slowdown is because of facility closures. Two of the seven largest U.S. facilities — those with the capacity to process 5,000 beef cattle daily — are closed because of the pandemic.
    Absenteeism, fewer employees and spreading out those remaining employees to maintain social distance are all also contributing to the slow down.

    JBS USA first closed its Souderton, Pa., beef plant April 7 and then shuttered its Greeley, Colo., beef facility after at least 50 of its 6,000 plant employees tested positive. All have been urged to self-quarantine.
    The industry says we have enough food. Here’s why some store shelves are empty anyway.

    National Beef Packing Co. announced Monday the closure of its Tama, Iowa, facility. And Cargill shuttered production at its Hazleton, Pa., ground beef and pork processing plant, and then reduced production at one of Canada’s biggest beef-packing plants after dozens of workers became infected.
    ………

    RipMurdock (94a8a0)

  10. RipMurdock,

    Read my state. Doesn’t say anything about quarantining people for attending a church event only those exposed to the virus.

    So your information is useless.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  11. Typical pointy-haired boss move. After making it VERY clear that “I am in charge!” he issues some guidelines that anyone with 3-digit IQ could have come up with (but Trump did not write), makes some things optional and sends it off to the governors to “implement.”

    The result is the same as the governors were going to do, but now it’s “Trump’s plan.” If it works, Trump takes credit, if it fails, the governors screwed up.

    Probably got the idea from Dogbert Scott Adams.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  12. I also dont see where it says statutory law superceded the Constitution.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  13. Gilead’s new drug’s success in treating Covid-19 patients will allow this to work. Better than a vaccine since mutations don’t affect it, and here, now and tested.

    I just wish my friend who died had gone to that Chicago hospital instead of the one she chose. Then again, she was pretty desperate.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  14. “ BTW, when did we suspend habeas corpus?”

    NJRob

    You should definitely file a habeas petition with your local federal district court, explaining how your governor has instructed you to stay at home except for essential business. Please let us know how the court responds, too.

    Leviticus (f1c829)

  15. A Chicago hospital treating severe Covid-19 patients with Gilead Sciences’ antiviral medicine remdesivir in a closely watched clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, with nearly all patients discharged in less than a week, STAT has learned.

    Remdesivir was one of the first medicines identified as having the potential to impact SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in lab tests. The entire world has been waiting for results from Gilead’s clinical trials, and positive results would likely lead to fast approvals by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies. If safe and effective, it could become the first approved treatment against the disease.

    The University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with Covid-19 into Gilead’s two Phase 3 clinical trials. Of those people, 113 had severe disease. All the patients have been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.

    “The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great. We’ve only had two patients perish,” said Kathleen Mullane, the University of Chicago infectious disease specialist overseeing the remdesivir studies for the hospital.

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/early-peek-at-data-on-gilead-coronavirus-drug-suggests-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  16. I also dont see where it says statutory law superceded the Constitution.

    I see no claim from you over what constitutional right, specify the article or amendment, that is being abridged. Just a general meme level understanding of what the constitution actually says.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  17. “BTW, when did we suspend habeas corpus?”

    The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it

    It’s a living constitution, right? Well, this is LIKE an invasion and the public safety MAY require it. So, maybe they can take NJRob and toss him into a dungeon and lie about it. Is that what he says they’re doing?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  18. Kidding … kidding.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  19. Memo to Captain Tow Line:

    How do you re-open America? The same way NASA powered-up a Command Module 50 years ago.

    Idiot.

    “Come on, I want whatever you guys got on the power-up procedures. We’ve got to get something up to these guys… I don’t want the want the whole damn bible, just give me a couple of chapters. We’ve got to give these guys something… Goddamnit! I don’t want another estimate! I want the procedures! Now!” – Gene Kranz [Ed Harris] ‘Apollo 13’ 1995

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  20. Read my state. Doesn’t say anything about quarantining people for attending a church event only those exposed to the virus. So your information is useless.

    Some people can’t read. Jeebus…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  21. My remarks are based upon the governor who claims anyone attending church service must quarantine for 14 days and used license plates to do so.

    I figured it might be too subtle for some.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  22. Given what is happening in New York, I think they should have left churches alone and closed the subway and bus system instead.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  23. Kevin,

    Don’t be surprised if they use that exact reasoning.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  24. Probably would’ve been smarter. Allow people to be crowded into a moving sardine can, butnfine and quarantine people who sit in their own cars.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  25. Still waiting for someone to explain to me how standing in line for an hour waiting to get into Costco is fine, but sitting in a spaced pew at church is a crime and must be prevented.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  26. Or using a park is criminal.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  27. My remarks are based upon the governor who claims anyone attending church service must quarantine for 14 days and used license plates to do so.

    So, you don’t know what actually happened. They arrested all of them, barred the church doors, and refused entry for everyone…right, that’s what happened, right? Christianity was banned, Judaism is shut down, Confucianism, all purged.

    For Paul Harvey fans…the rest of the story.

    FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Thousands of Kentucky churches and places of worship followed the guidelines this past weekend and canceled in-person services. However, Gov. Andy Beshear says a few did not.

    “I know we have way more than 5,000 churches in Kentucky. I know we have way more,” Beshear said. “We believe there were about seven that did an in-person service (Sunday).”

    The governor says the people who attended those services will now need to quarantine themselves for 14 days.

    “It’s the only way that their decision doesn’t potentially kill somebody they don’t even know that did not make that decision,” said Beshear.

    State Police recorded license plates of those who attended to ensure that the state knows who needs to obey the quarantine order.

    “We just need to know who they are to send them the letter to ask them to do the right thing,” Beshear explained. “They’re not being charged with anything at this time. We just have to have an address.”

    How will the quarantine be enforced? The governor doesn’t believe drastic steps, like ankle monitors, are necessary. He’s hopeful that positive peer pressure will encourage those who need to quarantine to do the right thing.

    “I don’t think we’re going to have to have any type of ankle monitors,” said Beshear. “We don’t need any of that. We just need people to do the right thing. (Easter) is about doing the right thing.”

    They’re getting letters…that say theyshould quarantine, letters.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  28. So, after all of the drama earlier this week about his “total authority”, Trump does a Gilda Radner impression–“Never mind.”

    norcal (a5428a)

  29. 22. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/16/2020 @ 8:28 pm

    Given what is happening in New York, I think they should have left churches alone and closed the subway and bus system instead.

    Then how do the hospital workers, for one thing, get to their jobs?

    These shutdowns are somewhat practical.

    For the same airline crews are exempted from 14 day quarantines and travel bans.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  30. 28. norcal (a5428a) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:10 pm

    Trump does a Gilda Radner impression–“Never mind.”

    That’s precisely what he avoided doing.

    That’s what this whole statement was all about.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  31. Sammy, what I meant was that Trump is singing a different tune now than he was earlier this week. On Monday, it was all about how he had “total authority”, and would call the shots about re-opening the country. Now (maybe after someone told him that he doesn’t have “total authority”) he’s acknowledging that it is up to the governors.

    norcal (a5428a)

  32. It’s unsettling how adept China is at controlling and brainwashing 1.4 billion people.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/china-coronavirus-censorship.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

    norcal (a5428a)

  33. I think there’s some role for the federal government between “total power” and punting. Maybe.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  34. Then how do the hospital workers, for one thing, get to their jobs?

    They drive? They walk? They Uber? Nearly anything is healthier than a crowded subway.

    The hospital can pay for a taxi, and they can wear their glvoes and mask while they ride.

    The rest of the country sees the pictures of the jammed subway cars and thinks “What a bunch of morons!” and they aren’t wrong. Nobody, but nobody wonders why the contagion is so widespread. SIXTY PERCENT of all US cases are in the greater NYC area.

    And they are worried about people in the park?! I have no sympathy.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  35. I think there’s some role for the federal government between “total power” and punting. Maybe.

    Put down the bong, Klink.

    Dave (1bb933)

  36. norcal (a5428a) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:28 pm

    . Now (maybe after someone told him that he doesn’t have “total authority”) he’s acknowledging that it is up to the governors.

    But he;s claiming he decided that the governors’ consent is needed.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  37. The hospital could pay for a taxi (and go broke sooner) They might have to pay $40 one way for some.

    But subways and buses are also needed for caregivers. Even grocery shopping. People live in one place, and go to other places via mass transit. They don’t have cars.

    They’re encouraging only essential people should use the subways and buses. Ridership was down 87%, now 95% – and they didn’t cut service too much.

    And now – masks.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  38. They don’t have cars.

    No Uber in NYC? Hard to believe. I KNOW they have taxis.

    The point is that they are not changing their behavior when everyone else is. The way this played out in NYC isn’t just happenstance. And if they are THAT dependent on public transit that 10,000 have to die that otherwise wouldn’t have, maybe mass transit isn’t such a good idea.

    California will likely end this first wave with about 1600 deaths, or 4 per 100K residents.

    New York state is looking at about 75 deaths per 100K residents by August, and CT, MA and RI will have worse statistics still, largely due to escaping NYC residents. New Jersey will be badly hit, too, with about 50 deaths/100K expected.

    And yet, they will not stop riding the subway and roust people out of church. Bitter clingers, indeed.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  39. I think there’s some role for the federal government between “total power” and punting. Maybe.

    Klink, I suspect that no matter what he did, you’d find a problem.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  40. California will likely end this first wave with about 1600 deaths, or 4 per 100K residents.

    Germany is currently at 4.3 per 100K.

    The USA as a whole (9.4 per 100K) is more than twice Germany.

    Interactive graph

    Dave (1bb933)

  41. Dr. Fauci was asked by a goofball about tinder. He said you have to take responsibility for the risks you take these days. That’s not endorsing using it. He just knows he can’t control that kind of thing, and anything he says will be twisted.

    It’s tiresome how every press interaction is lined with traps and gotchas.

    Dustin (c56600)

  42. The rest of the country sees the pictures of the jammed subway cars and thinks “What a bunch of morons!” and they aren’t wrong.

    Post a recent picture of a “jammed subway car”, Kevin. The only ones I’ve seen showed a few people in an entire car, with ample spacing. I’m calling BS on your “sardine cans” hyperbole.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  43. For the unfortunate illiterate among us from New Jersey…

    To stop the spread of disease among individuals, New Jersey law gives the Department of Health and local boards of health the power to “[m]aintain and enforce proper and sufficient quarantine, wherever deemed necessary.” These bodies can also declare when a disease has become epidemic and “[r]emove any person infected with a communicable disease to a suitable place, if in [their] judgment removal is necessary and can be accomplished without any undue risk to the person infected.” If the governor declares a public health emergency, the state Department of Health assumes the supervision of local authorities and the goal is to ensure a “uniform exercise” of public health powers in the state.

    Oddly enough, New Jersey law omits special mention of churches, but it does seem to cover the waterfront.

    It also would permit state authorities to take you into custody and remove you to a suitable place for quarantine or isolation.

    You could, of course, file for a writ a habeas corpus or other procedure under the New Jersey laws. Or just clinch your fists and shout at a cloud.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  44. These seem like decent guidelines. It’s good that the federal government is starting to provide at least a little tangible leadership on opening the economy. These ad-hoc state collective (East coast, west coast and great lakes+KY) didn’t seems like a good idea.

    Time123 (797615)

  45. The NYT website has a blurb on the MTA’s financial woes today that says ridership is down 95% on MTA subway and commuter lines.

    Dave (1bb933)

  46. It’s difficult to get testing scaled up and in mass production. We hear that a lot. But if testing is a necessity to safely reopen the economy, why isn’t the federal government making it an absolute priority? If they have, I have not seen it. They seem to be passing the burden on to individual states.

    Bill Gates. He has been warning about this type of pandemic for years. There is a guy who has experience with both large scale production and virus studies. Couldn’t we put him in charge of this effort? He has the exact connections, power and ability that we need to get it done. If anyone can.

    noel (4d3313)

  47. I went to the NYT site to look at the data trends. there are several areas that are getting close to a downward trajectory. (really good presentation on the data BTW)

    I think the tracing provisions are going to be the harder ones to accomplish, especially for Rural areas. States like Montana might need some help just due to scale.

    Urban centers with Mass transit will have different problems.

    Ability to quickly set up safe and efficients creening and testing sites for symptomatic individuals and trace contacts of COVID+results

    Ability to test Syndromic/ILI-indicated persons for COVID and trace contacts of COVID+ results

    Ensure sentinel surveillance sites are screening for asymptomatic cases and contacts for COVID+ results are traced (sites operate at locations that serve older individuals, lower-income Americans, racial minorities, and Native Americans

    Time123 (b0628d)

  48. It’s difficult to get testing scaled up and in mass production. We hear that a lot. But if testing is a necessity to safely reopen the economy, why isn’t the federal government making it an absolute priority?

    Because they’ve been bad at this. It’s one of the more justified examples of Trumps failures on this.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  49. Trump knew it was going to be a serious pandemic in January. Xi Jinping told him the truth. He and his toadies kept it secret. Why, you ask? Because there were at least 20 Republicans in the Senate who would have voted to remove the mother-figure on February 5 rather than have him in charge when the virus hit the United States.

    nk (1d9030)

  50. Trump knew it was going to be a serious pandemic in January. Xi Jinping told him the truth. He and his toadies kept it secret. Why, you ask? Because there were at least 20 Republicans in the Senate who would have voted to remove the mother-figure on February 5 rather than have him in charge when the virus hit the United States.

    I think you’re supposed to work the letter ‘Q’ in there somehow.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  51. 51. nk (1d9030) — 4/17/2020 @ 5:54 am

    Trump knew it was going to be a serious pandemic in January. Xi Jinping told him the truth.

    That’s a silly theory, even if it uses Trump’s own words (“I knew” – or his praise of Xi about Jan 24) for that.

    They thought it would be controlled and stopped like SARS and MERS was. And maybe a few times they did. But SARS2 (Covid-19) is very insidious. Symptoms serious enough for someone to go to a doctor usually don’t show up until nearly two weeks after exposure.

    CF this article about why they didn’t cancel Mardi Gras in New Orleans

    Mardi Gras was held on Tuesday, February 25, at a time when there were only 15 known and confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the country.Their whole worry was about visitors bringing it (and somebody probably did.)

    When did the firsst case come to their attention?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-new-orleans-mardi-gras.html

    A few days later, on March 9, the first presumptive coronavirus patient in Louisiana was identified in New Orleans — a resident of nearby Jefferson Parish who was in a city hospital. Reports began surfacing of people in other states, including Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee, who had been to Mardi Gras and were testing positive for the virus.

    Two weeks. From Tuesday February 25 to Tuesday, March 9.

    One week later:

    By March 16, three people had died from complications of Covid-19 in Louisiana and there were 136 confirmed cases in the state. Gov. John Bel Edwards ordered the closures of bars, gyms, and cinemas, and limited restaurants to takeout and delivery service.

    After four more weeks:

    Over the next several weeks, the virus continued its unabated spread across Louisiana.

    By Monday, state officials had reported more than 10,500 coronavirus cases in Orleans Parish and the adjacent suburb of Jefferson Parish. Across the state, at least 840 residents infected with the coronavirus have died.

    New Orleans is now one of the largest hot spots, with one of the nation’s highest death rates

    There’s no way a re-opening is going work so long as this is circulating. If you turn the clock back to late February/early March, you’ll just get it exploding all over again. There;s negligible herd immunity. And the coronavirus test has an 18% minimum false negative rate. They need another test.

    Nobody knows how it spreads, except that the vast majority of infected people probably don’t infect anyone.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  52. Raspierre Delecto cannot read and is still gaslighting the crowd. I specifically stated it only applies to infected people and not to people punished for dating to attend church service.

    You have serious issues with reading comprehension and telling the truth.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  53. Daring to attend*

    Ahh I wish I was on my computer since I dont have to read his posts with the blocking tool.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  54. Sammy, check out link in my earlier comment. I think you’d like the data presentations there.

    Has anyone seen a US heat map of infection animated over time?

    Time123 (b0628d)

  55. N.J. Admin. Code Section 8:57–1.11 fills in some of the details surrounding quarantine and isolation procedures but still gives broad discretion to health authorities. Section (a) provides that when the department or local health officer receives a report of a communicable disease, the department or officer will “establish such isolation or quarantine measures as medically and epidemiologically necessary to prevent or control the spread of the disease” by written order. Section (c) applies to quarantining or isolating individuals; it states that the department or officer may “isolate or quarantine any person who has been exposed to a communicable disease as medically or epidemiologically necessary to prevent the spread of the disease” by written order, though the period of the restriction may “not exceed the period of incubation of the disease.”

    There’s no limit in the law to “infected”. See?

    Who is “gaslighting” and being dishonest? You told everyone you’d read the NJ law. Either that was a lie or you are being veery careful about your patent failuressssssss to comprehend.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  56. Herd immunity is an insane concept. Without universal vaccination, it means that all of the people who were susceptible to the disease got it and recovered or died. Eugenics. Is that what we want here now? Let everybody get the virus, let up to 10% die, let us accept a 10% infant death rate, and the stock market won’t have to worry about it anymore?

    nk (1d9030)

  57. NJRob it does look like it applies to people ‘exposed to’ the disease.

    Time123 (797615)

  58. It has always applied to people exposed to the disease. Like forever. The families of tuberculosis patients, would be quarantined along with them, and for some time after the patient had been shipped off to the sanatorium.

    We also saw it with Ebola. A doctor or nurse would get off a plane from Central Africa and would go into quarantine and observation for a month. I miss Obama.

    nk (1d9030)

  59. Time123,

    yes it does. And where is the exposure to those attending church? You still need an infected patient to quarantine. Or are you alleging that presumed exposure (by simply going to a “prohibited place”) counts?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  60. That’s common sense. But it’s not what we are seeing where we are quarantining perfectly healthy people and fining them and threatening them with jail.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  61. Show us in the the law where it says authorities have to prove exposure to an “infected patient”.

    Now your craw-fishing.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  62. But it’s not what we are seeing where we are quarantining perfectly healthy people and fining them and threatening them with jail.

    That crystal ball you have should be made available to the authorities, since that’s the only way in hell you can KNOW that people are “perfectly healthy”.

    This is another in your series if ASSumptions, like “arbitrary”.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  63. 56. Time123 (b0628d) — 4/17/2020 @ 6:32 am

    Sammy, check out link in my earlier comment. I think you’d like the data presentations there.

    It’s a litttle hard to follow, although you do see hot spots.

    Here’s New York today.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/new-york-coronavirus-cases.html

    As of 8:24 am

    TOTAL CASES: 222,284
    DEATHS: 12,192

    Has anyone seen a US heat map of infection animated over time?

    I haven;t lookdd for it but I just found a collection:

    https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/maps-visuals

    This one can show you a time lapse map but it is just for the continental United States:

    https://uscovid-19map.org

    They’ve also got a separate one for Alaska and for Hawaii.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  64. This is pretty sobering:

    Covid vs. US Daily Average Cause of Death Over the past month and a half

    https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1712761/
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  65. Time123,

    see what I’m dealing with here?

    Guilty until proven innocent is now the belief of some people just because they think they can never be wrong. The Constitution doesn’t matter to them, due process doesn’t matter to them, just thinking they won a debate, that’s what matters.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  66. I see the CDC seems to have quietly abandoned the idea of picking up the disease from touching surfaces as a significant factor:

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html

    COVID-19 is thought to spread mainly through close contact from person-to-person in respiratory droplets from someone who is infected. People who are infected often have symptoms of illness. Some people without symptoms may be able to spread virus.

    COVID-19 is a new disease and we are still learning about how it spreads and the severity of illness it causes.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person.

    Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).

    Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.

    These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.

    Some recent studies have suggested that COVID-19 may be spread by people who are not showing symptoms.

    It’s not entirely only by breathing it in (and the wording can include touching)

    I read about a woman in North Carolina who was quarantined for three weeks and got sick, and she attributed it to woman who later tested positive who brought her groceries and she touched the grocery bags.

    Thy’re still sticking to the 6 feet but that’s an arbitrary figure. It’s probably a curve with a long tail..

    And they’re still telling people to wash their hands often, even though the reason for it seems to have mainly disappeared and may be gone in the future:

    It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus.

    Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub. Also, routinely clean frequently touched surfaces.

    Soap and water? Wha about detergent!

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  67. Guilty until proven innocent is now the belief of some people just because they think they can never be wrong. The Constitution doesn’t matter to them, due process doesn’t matter to them, just thinking they won a debate, that’s what matters.

    That’s several more lies. If your position is strong, you don’t need the lies. Try being 1) correct and 2) truthful.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  68. 66. This leaves other causes of deaths unchanged.

    And it probably counts only official Covid-19 deaths, leaving a lot of excess deaths off the bar graph. The excess deaths is more than the Covid-19 deaths there n all probability.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  69. There is no reason to believe that the government is attributing the deaths any more competently than it has done anything else in this crisis.

    nk (1d9030)

  70. Soap and water? Wha about detergent!

    Anything that breaks up lipids (grease, fat, oil), Sammy. The coronavirus has a lipid shell. The only reason to eschew detergent for hand washing is that it will dry your skin. You want to use it on your clothes, dishes, and hard surfaces.

    nk (1d9030)

  71. I saw three stories about people who got very sick, two of doctors early on and were cured. I’ll get into the points I picked up later. They all got special treatment or attention, even though in the first case his friends had to argue with the hospital.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/magazine/first-coronavirus-patient-new-jersey.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-doctor-kirkland-padgett.html

    The next one, about the sister of actor Matthew Broderick, I saw a long paragraph in The Week of april 17.Since everything in The Week comes from somewhere else (like the pre-Great Depression Literary Digest, I found the original article from New York magazine.

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/coronavirus-janet-broderick-recounts-near-death-experience.html

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  72. nk (1d9030) — 4/17/2020 @ 7:33 am

    The only reason to eschew detergent for hand washing is that it will dry your skin. You want to use it on your clothes, dishes, and hard surfaces.

    Detergent [TIDE powder dissolved in water] doesn’t leave my skin dry, and it rather quickly washes off but soap leaves my skin not feeling right.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  73. Time123,

    yes it does. And where is the exposure to those attending church? You still need an infected patient to quarantine. Or are you alleging that presumed exposure (by simply going to a “prohibited place”) counts?
    That’s common sense. But it’s not what we are seeing where we are quarantining perfectly healthy people and fining them and threatening them with jail.

    NJRob (4d595c) — 4/17/2020 @ 7:02 am

    This is a great point. What does ‘exposure’ mean? I don’t know what the legal standard is. But here’s how I see it.

    -If the state has reasonable grounds to believe that the measures people were taking were not effective or the disease is too dangerous (because people don’t stay in their car or we’re talking about something like small pox) than it’s mandating a quarantine seems reasonable.
    -If the state doesn’t have reasonable grounds than it’s probably not warranted.
    I’d also give the state some discretion based on how wide spread the concern is and requirements. When you have a few people that were exposed overseas you have more resources to understand risk than they do today.

    Access to testing is a really big problem because it would make it easier to draw these lines.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  74. Detergent [TIDE powder dissolved in water] doesn’t leave my skin dry, and it rather quickly washes off but soap leaves my skin not feeling right.

    It has to lather and do it for 20 seconds starting from when it lather is what they advise.

    nk (1d9030)

  75. What I do is use a liquid handsoap when I have been outside and a paper towel to dry my hands with; and my regular bar soap and cotton towel for when I had not left the house.

    nk (1d9030)

  76. Anyway … what I’m afraid is that what the politicos are calling the peak is the high plains and we’re going to be seeing the infection and death rates we have achieved for a long time yet. So stay alert.

    nk (1d9030)

  77. This info coming out of the testing of a Boston homeless shelter is pretty wild. 397 tested, 146 came back positive. 0 of the positive results showed any symptoms (no fever or cough).

    Xmas (eafb47)

  78. Guilty until proven innocent is now the belief of some people just because they think they can never be wrong.

    “Guilt” has nothing to do with being infected or at risk of transmitting the infection.

    The Constitution doesn’t matter to them, due process doesn’t matter to them, just thinking they won a debate, that’s what matters.

    Due process is that state and local governments wisely passed laws to allow protective action against highly infectious diseases. The fact that you disagree with a law doesn’t make it unconstitutional.

    You can vote the people who wrote and/or enforced the laws you don’t like out of office. Until then, they are the laws.

    It is wise for the authorities to err on the side of caution. This is a once-in-a-lifetime emergency in which the lives of your friends, relatives and neighbors are at stake. Try to think of someone other than yourself, and realize that you are making a sacrifice for the benefit of others (and others are doing the same for you).

    Health-care workers are literally risking their lives for all of us by going to work every day. Just like food, gasoline and other goods were rationed in wartime for the sake of the men on the frontlines, today we have to do everything we can to give the health care workers fewer cases to deal with and fewer viral bullets to dodge.

    Dave (1bb933)

  79. “ Guilty until proven innocent is now the belief of some people just because they think they can never be wrong.”

    It only matters if there is a D or an R after the name.

    Look at the difference in reporting on sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh and Biden.
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  80. “ Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.

    These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs”
    _

    I was confused a few weeks ago when the very same articles that said the virus could travel ‘27 feet’ also said it could ‘remain in the air for hours’.

    If it can remain in the air for hours and the air is moving (either through indoor air systems or outside breeze) then 27 feet is a meaningless value.
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  81. Look at the difference in reporting on sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh and Biden.

    The accusations against Kavanaugh were not reported as fact, and the absence of any corrobation was widely noted.

    The situation with Biden is a little different, wouldn’t you say? Or did I miss the televised senate hearings and confirmation votes for him?

    Dave (1bb933)

  82. Self-isolation humor-

    Put Your Pants on When You Get Your Mail, Police Remind Residents of Maryland Town
    Wearing pants has become optional for some people holed up indoors while obeying the stay-at-home order. A police department in a northern Maryland town is reminding residents that’s not an option when they go outside.

    The Taneytown Police Department left a message on its Facebook page Wednesday morning telling residents to put their pants on when they leave their homes.

    “Please remember to put pants on before leaving the house to check your mailbox. You know who you are. This is your final warning,” the post said.

    The post drew more than 600 comments and 4,000 shares within the day it was posted. Many responded with silly gifs, like one of Winnie the Pooh dancing, captioned “Life’s too short for pants.” Others said wearing underwear outside is legal and police should redirect their focus to more important matters.

    RipMurdock (94a8a0)

  83. Guilty until proven innocent is now the belief of some people just because they think they can never be wrong.

    The legal fiction of “presumptive innocence” is unique to the criminal law. There is no such idea in civil law or everyday life. We all are perfectly free to presume someone is NOT deserving of our vote sans a trial, for instance. We can each opine that DiFi blabbed state secrets to her Chinese driver…or not.

    Being ASKED by civil authorities to self-quarantine suggests no criminal act. Violating that request MAY, in which case full due process is afforded the accused. One may act as a true civil disobedient, in which case they are insisting that the law be applied to them.

    As an important aside, a wanton disregard of lawful orders CAN certainly invite civil liability. There will be some interesting litigation out of all of this. Negligence per se is a powerful civil law doctrine.

    Short of voting representatives out of office, we may lobby for a change in the laws. And good luck with that!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  84. The situation with Biden is a little different, wouldn’t you say? Or did I miss the televised senate hearings and confirmation votes for him?

    Yes, Biden will be the Democrat Party’s nominee for the highest office in the land. He should get the same amount of scrutiny at a minimum.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  85. Yes, Biden will be the Democrat Party’s nominee for the highest office in the land. He should get the same amount of scrutiny at a minimum.

    You’ll perhaps be kind enough to cite to the Constitution supporting that notion.

    Innit fortunate for Duh Donald that that standard was never applied to himself!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  86. I was confused a few weeks ago when the very same articles that said the virus could travel ‘27 feet’ also said it could ‘remain in the air for hours’.

    If it can remain in the air for hours and the air is moving (either through indoor air systems or outside breeze) then 27 feet is a meaningless value.

    I think there are two different things being discussed.

    “Droplets” reach terminal velocity and fall to the ground under the influence of gravity. They can’t travel very far, or stay in the air very long. This is the basis for the original “6 feet” rule.

    People also talk about “aerosolized” transmission, which happens when very microscopic droplets evaporate before they reach the ground, leaving the virus floating by itself in midair like a tiny speck of dust. When aerosolized, the virus can be whipped around by air currents and stay aloft for longer, meaning it can travel farther (under the right conditions).

    This article explains the difference in more detail.

    Dave (1bb933)

  87. @86 The problem at this point is that it doesn’t differentiate him from Trump. Unless you want to vote 3rd part you’re going to vote for someone that has been accused of sexual assault. Although only one of them was caught on tape bragging about it.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  88. NeverTrump ankle-biters, your man to teh rescue… https://twitter.com/jason_howerton/status/1250988349453672449

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  89. Oh no, King Trump is differing to the Governors. Of course, that doesn’t mean the hysterical MSM, democrats got Trump wrong. Of course not. No Trump has – according to them – back tracked and been beaten by them. LOL!

    Anyway, it will be interesting to see how long Calf, NY, Michagan, Ill, and Washington – all Deep blue states – keep closed while the rest of the USA opens up.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  90. All the “drama” about “total Authority’ was the usual Never trumper/dem/MSM hysteria. For the 1,234th Time they cried wolf and got it wrong. But its all part of their plan, so no matter how much they are wrong, they will keep doing it.

    Defeat Orange Man. That is their only principle.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  91. Look at the difference in reporting on sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh and Biden.

    You forget that #MeToo only got traction as a weapon against Republicans and principally Trump.

    nk (1d9030)

  92. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how long Calf, NY, Michagan, Ill, and Washington – all Deep blue states – keep closed while the rest of the USA opens up.

    But enough about your fever dreams…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  93. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how long Calf, NY, Michagan, Ill, and Washington – all Deep blue states – keep closed while the rest of the USA opens up.

    Yup. Trump knew what he was doing when he imported the virus. It was going to hit the blue states, with dense population centers, the hardest.

    nk (1d9030)

  94. As shown by their whitewash of Biden, the NYT and WaPo believe there are only two types of sexual harassment:

    1. True Charges against Republicans
    2. False charges against Democrats.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  95. All the “drama” about “total Authority’ was the usual Never trumper/dem/MSM hysteria.

    Trump bluffed, blustered, and folded. It’s what he always does. In America and in the world. Only the yellow dog Trumpablicans keep trotting at his heels with their tongues hanging out.

    nk (1d9030)

  96. Trump resisted the urge to exercise his total authority(!)

    Uh, Yeah…since all he was doing was using the Governor’s egos and political calculations against them by using that claim.

    Notice President Trump stopped using the argument that he has “Total Authority” about 1-second after the last of the mouthy Democrats started yapping about how they are suddenly “In Charge” of their States (about damned time!). Brilliant!

    President Trump has their number AND he’s holding the smart-end of their chain that he’s dragging them around with.

    MJN1957 (28ce29)

  97. Yes, Biden will be the Democrat Party’s nominee for the highest office in the land. He should get the same amount of scrutiny at a minimum.

    Just to be clear, is it not your position that Kavanaugh’s treatment was an outrage, and the people responsible for it reprehensible?

    And is it now also your position that Biden should be treated at least as bad, or worse?

    If Biden’s accuser has evidence to corroborate her story, by all means she should make it available.

    Until then, how is she any more credible than Christine Blasey Ford?

    Dave (1bb933)

  98. Look at the difference in reporting on sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh and Biden.

    You forget that #MeToo only got traction as a weapon against Republicans and principally Trump.

    nk (1d9030) — 4/17/2020 @ 9:30 am

    Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey may disagree with you.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  99. From the first article:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/magazine/first-coronavirus-patient-new-jersey.html

    The date of his exposure is unknown. He probably got it from one the patients at the medical practice that had four offices around the metropolitan area, most of them in heavily Chinese and Chinese-American neighborhoods. It probably came from China, and is not of any of the lineages that later devastated New York City. (from about two weeks in, there are on;y seven lineages, all from Italy except one shared with the west coast)

    In China the semi-secret (his father and others had to use connections to get them) treatment protocols recommended in China said administer chloroquine, and Kaletra. It is interesting that it is chloroquine and not hydroxychloroquine.

    I can think of two possible reasons:

    A) In China they use what is available, not what is necessarily best.

    OR

    B) Chloroquine works better than hydroxychloroquine, and the side effects don’t matter in the scheme of things.

    It won’t be so easy to find out which, but this is the sort of thing that might have leaked through anecdotes.

    Kaletra seems to have been dismissed based on a study in The New England Journal of Medicine found it did not help patients suffering severe illness, but I am thinking that probably it shouldn’t have been.

    Laying down reduced the amount of oxygen in the blood. I don’t know if that is true for all pneumonias or other lung problems, or is special for Covid-19.

    He had trouble getting the hospital to help with oxygen. Very much trouble. They eventually even gave him high-flow oxygen, something doctors may be less likely to do now because it spreads virus arll around the patient

    Memorable quote:

    The evening news was showing a large image of a post that had just shown up on the Twitter feed of the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy. “Tonight, Acting Governor @LtGovOliver and I are announcing the first presumptive positive case of novel coronavirus, or #COVID19, in New Jersey,” the tweet read. “The individual, a male in his 30s, is hospitalized in Bergen County.” Cai’s heart rate, already too fast, sped up, and he felt the chill of his own sudden sweat. Please, God, don’t let that be me, he thought.

    He held up his cellphone, shaking a little — from fever, from shock — and took a photo of the image of the tweet on the television news. He was sure that the governor was talking about him, and yet he was praying that he wasn’t. Soon after that, an emergency-room doctor came in and told him what he’d already known in the deep part of his psyche that always prepared for the worst: Cai was in fact the first patient in New Jersey to test positive for Covid-19.

    The one thing this article doesn’t say is what the blood test was for, and what it measured, except it was supposed to assess his lung functioning. What exactly?

    A CT scan, which they didn’t want to do a second one of, showed he’d lost close to 40% of his lung capacity in 5 days – from Day 2 to Day 7. The New York Times describes what is seen visually as “ground glass spots”. Doctors in China had suggested a second scan too give the doctors in New Jersey an idea how this disease progressed – it was later circulated on Twitter as part of an effort to lobby Gilead to grant compassionate use for remdesivir, which it was being very chary about doing, perhaps afraid it would spoil their clinical trial, or used as an argument against it, because the government’s conditions were for using it in circumstances where it wouldn’t likely help.

    The intravenous remdesivir, given to him starting at 3 am March 10 likely didn’t help – his oxygen levels had started to stabilize before and right after he was given it his fever broke. What did lkely help, was likely the Kaletra (or possibly the chloroquine) he was given on March 8, plus the high flow oxygen , that cured him.

    He tested negative twice in a row for the virus on March 21 and left the hospital that day, although he still needed to recuperate.

    Between March 2 and March 21, the number of identified cases in New Jersey had gone from 1 to 1,914, with 20 deaths. By the time the article was printed (in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine dated April 12, 2020 – say Wednesday April 8 or another two and a half weeks or so) – the number of infected in New Jersey was up past 29,000 and members of the medical staff at that hospital (Hackensack University Medical Center) had gotten it themselves probably in connection with treating many other patients.

    I don;t like some of the editorializing at the end of this article.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  100. Post a recent picture of a “jammed subway car”, Kevin. The only ones I’ve seen showed a few people in an entire car, with ample spacing. I’m calling BS on your “sardine cans” hyperbole.

    This took less time that it took for you to type that.

    https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/video-shows-packed-nyc-subway-cars-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/
    https://abc7ny.com/overcrowded-subway-train-nyc-social-distancing-coronavirus/6068366/

    Story about the impossibility of spreading out on the subway: https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-sparks-fear-in-new-york-city-subway-riders

    Discussion here: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/07/viral-image/image-overcrowded-nyc-subway-car-real/

    Apparently, MTA has responded to the recent drop in ridership with a drastic cut in train schedules, making packed cars as likely as before.

    It’s not just NYC; I was talking to a friend in London who says that she won’t get on the tube because it’s still packed. “Maybe at 2 in the afternoon, but not at commute times.” Since she is dependent on mass transit, she has notified her central London workplace that she will not be coming in.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  101. Because there were at least 20 Republicans in the Senate who would have voted to remove the mother-figure on February 5 rather than have him in charge when the virus hit the United States.

    I had to check to see this was nk and not Sammy.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  102. Bill Gates. He has been warning about this type of pandemic for years.

    No, if I were looking for centrist independent presidential material who could finance himself and was smart and competent, I’d look no further than Bill Gates. VERY focused man. I heard that from my business partner who met with Gates on the afternoon of 9/11/01.

    He probably wouldn’t want the job though.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  103. *Now, …

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  104. #103: Even Sammy says “That’s a silly theory”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  105. 99. Dave (1bb933) — 4/17/2020 @ 9:40 am

    If Biden’s accuser has evidence to corroborate her story, by all means she should make it available.

    Se claims to have made acomplaint to the Senate at that time – but no evidence, either in or out of her possession, can be found, and now she made a very careful police report that did not name Biden. (so how is any prosecutor prove that it’s false?)

    She claimed to have to complained to two members’s of Biden’s staff who say they have no memory of her accusation, and they that they would if she had made it.

    She has given other reasons for leaving work in politics, and she has praised Vladimir Putin.

    He sole evidence is

    1) that she earlier joined with other women (but didn’t say this) in reporting much more minor problems with Biden, and

    2) There are people she supposedly told (besides her mother who is now dead.)

    But that someone can join in with another person to back up a lie is a well known fact.

    It’s mentioned in the Bible, as something that is wrong:

    https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0223.htm

    1 Thou shalt not utter a false report; put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

    There are people who woulld like to say that conspiracies like that never happen.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  106. Herd immunity is an insane concept.

    You prefer magic wands? The virus will remain, now that its in the wild. Like the cold or the flu. You either need an effective vaccine, with near-total uptake*, or a good antiviral that knocks the disease down. There is no good third choice.

    ——–
    * Will they make Jenny McCarthy get the vaccine?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  107. No, if I were looking for centrist independent presidential material who could finance himself and was smart and competent, I’d look no further than Bill Gates. VERY focused man. I heard that from my business partner who met with Gates on the afternoon of 9/11/01.

    Some great scenes highlighting that in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, which I highly recommend to anyone who’s never seen it.

    The difference between Microsoft and Apple in one sentence: Gates screwed his competitors; Jobs screwed his friends.

    Dave (1bb933)

  108. Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey may disagree with you.

    No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. It is the fact that they suffered more casualties than wins that caused them to retreat and avoid shooting their own.

    nk (1d9030)

  109. As an important aside, a wanton disregard of lawful orders CAN certainly invite civil liability. There will be some interesting litigation out of all of this. Negligence per se is a powerful civil law doctrine.

    There is a situation at a particular Atria-branded assisted living home where a number of residents died. It is alleged that workers were coming in visibly ill and were allowed to interact with residents (physical aid, meds, food prep, etc)

    https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/03/23/desantis-blames-3-coronavirus-deaths-on-assisted-living-facility-operator/

    Atria has deep pockets.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  110. Wearing pants has become optional for some people

    I’m pretty casual at the fast-food drive-up window, but even there pants seem to be de rigueur.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  111. There is no good third choice.

    Why do you hate America?

    “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
    – Donald J. Trump, February 27

    Dave (1bb933)

  112. Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey may disagree with you.

    No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. It is the fact that they suffered more casualties than wins that caused them to retreat and avoid shooting their own.

    nk (1d9030) — 4/17/2020 @ 10:10 am

    I think many of the people (not all) who were passionate about this seemed pretty sincere.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  113. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how long Calf, NY, Michigan, Ill, and Washington

    Which of these states is not like the other states?

    California is doing 3 times better than the best of those other states (WA and IL) and 20 times better than NY. CA has crushed the curve, is at its peak now (~50 deaths/day in a state of 40 million) and will open up long before NY does (and probably before any of the others do). May 1 would be a good bet. By mid-May the hospitals will have discharged their last Covid-19 patient.

    Prediction estimates: http://www.healthdata.org/

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  114. Texas won’t reach its peak until April 30, so CA will likely open before TX. This isn’t red or blue.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  115. I think many of the people (not all) who were passionate about this seemed pretty sincere.

    Comrade nk is not fooled by sincerity!

    Dave (1bb933)

  116. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/17/2020 @ 9:49 am

    Ok. Point to you.

    So your solution is Uber, walking, and taxis…!?!?! That’s going to result in MORE exposure OR job loss.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  117. “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
    – Donald J. Trump, February 27

    As I said, “magic wands.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  118. That’s going to result in MORE exposure OR job loss.

    Jobs would be up for the uber/taxi drivers. The combinatorial aspect is greatly reduced, and you CAN protect yourself with gloves and masks and a bit of distance in a car. Sure, Typhoid Mary the driver might infect someone, but it’s retail, not wholesale.

    I would think that hospitals would be interested in maintaining a healthy workforce as long as possible. At least the ones not run by insane bean-counters. They could pick up the daily commute charges as a cost of doing business. Probably find a way to dump the cost on Uncle Sugar.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  119. “ “Well, looks like something has happened with Biden,” said a CNN anchor. “For more details on this possible scandal, we go now to our revered correspondent, Mr. Cricket. Cricket, your thoughts?”

    The cricket chirped for a full three minutes, representing the full extent of the coverage that viewers would receive over Biden’s sexual assault accusations. When he had finished chirping, they moved the cricket back into his cage for the next time they needed a detailed report on a Democratic scandal. The cricket was very busy during the Obama years.”

    Cricket In CNN Newsroom Gives Detailed Report On Biden Allegations

    https://babylonbee.com/news/cricket-gives-report-on-biden-allegations
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  120. ….CA has crushed the curve, is at its peak now (~50 deaths/day in a state of 40 million) and will open up long before NY does (and probably before any of the others do). May 1 would be a good bet. By mid-May the hospitals will have discharged their last Covid-19 patient.

    To dream, the impossible dream! Then why is the current stay at home order extended to May 15th; why does Los Angeles County continues to have a record number of deaths/day (55 in one day at last count,with three straight days of record deaths and a mortality rate of 4.2%, and nearly 11,000 infections); and California’s death rate continues to climb (though hospitalizations have declined by less than 2%).

    My prediction: life won’t return to “normal” (whatever that is) until 2021, given statements that large gatherings (movie theaters, sporting events) may not be allowed without social distancing until then.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  121. Some interesting numbers out of Santa Clara County, California. If this is true, the whole need for “social distancing” was bunk.

    Gryph (08c844)

  122. Breaking-Trump foments revolution.

    Trump tweets to ‘LIBERATE’ states where people are protesting virus restrictions.

    Trump tweets to ‘LIBERATE’ states where people are protesting virus restrictions.
    Mr. Trump on Friday began openly fomenting far-right protests of social distancing restrictions in states where groups of his conservative supporters have been violating stay-at-home orders, less than a day after announcing guidelines for how governors could decide on an orderly reopening of their communities.

    In a series of all-caps tweets, Mr. Trump declared “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” — two states whose Democratic governors have imposed social distancing restrictions that have shut down businesses and schools and forced people to remain at home. He also tweeted “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

    Mr. Trump’s tweets were a remarkable example of a president egging on demonstrators. Earlier this week, more than 1,000 protesters organized by conservative groups created a traffic jam on the streets around the State Capitol in Lansing, to complain that the restrictions were bad for small businesses. Other protesters, not in vehicles, waved banners in support of Mr. Trump and protested Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been a target of Mr. Trump’s ire, by chanting, “Lock her up.”

    In St. Paul, Minnesota, a group calling itself “Liberate Minnesota” has scheduled a protest in violation of stay-at-home orders in front of the home of Gov. Tim Walz and claims that 500 people are likely to show up. The group’s Facebook page says that “now is the time to demand Governor Walz and our state legislators end this lock down!”

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  123. 124. It’s about time.

    Gryph (08c844)

  124. I think many of the people (not all) who were passionate about this seemed pretty sincere.

    I agree.

    nk (1d9030)

  125. South Dakota does not have a state-wide lockdown order, Gryph. Is it just your city or county?

    nk (1d9030)

  126. 127. I live in the third-largest city in the state. We have ~27,000 population here. The big s**tstorm in my home state is about a two-hour drive away from me in Sioux Falls. Much larger population (approximately 185,000) and also happens to be the home of that Smithfield pork processing plant you may have heard about on the news over the last couple of days.

    I’m not real happy with how our city council up here has handled things so far, and I’ve made my displeasure known, but they’ve stopped short of fining/arresting anyone who leaves their house alone.

    Gryph (08c844)

  127. If this is true, the whole need for “social distancing” was bunk.

    How so? It says that the (1-week earlier) infection rate was about 1 in 40. What in the world does that say about social distancing? You still have to assume that anyone might be a carrier.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  128. 129. Read the report in its entirety. For every confirmed case in Santa Clara County, there could be from 50-85 seropositive individuals who are immune. This almost certainly suggests that the curve was on its downturn before the social distancing protocols were ever implemented.

    Gryph (08c844)

  129. I think that suggests just the opposite, Gryph 123. The disease may be widespread but it is being spread by asymptomatic people with serious consequences for what it now appears is an assortment of 5% of the population (not solely the elderly or sick). Social distancing has given us time to expand testing, pinpoint the best treatments, work on possible vaccines, protect hospitals and health care workers from more exposure, and try to protect people who respond poorly to this virus.

    DRJ (15874d)

  130. 131. Oh boy. SMDH I’m all for “protect[ing] people who respond poorly to this virus.” What I am saying is that nuking our entire national economy is, was, and will never be necessary to do so. For the love of God and all that is holy, Patterico himself was assuring us two-and-a-half weeks ago that it was okay to get out for some fresh air and walk in the park. There are people getting arrested for doing just that. I don’t care how many people here agree or disagree with scientific white papers. I will never be okay with that.

    Gryph (08c844)

  131. 132. *…isn’t, wasn’t, and will never be…

    Gryph (08c844)

  132. Trump tweets to ‘LIBERATE’ states where people are protesting virus restrictions.

    Yes, he’s campaigning. It seems unwise, even from a campaign POV. He’s fomenting unrest in states he needs in November. 21/100K people have died already in MI, but they ARE more than a week past the peak there. They look to have the last person discharged by May 15. Maybe htey should consider setting a date to ease up.

    It’s a swing state and the way the authorities (including Trump) dealt with the virus is going to be a major campaign issue. I think it is unwise to organize protests before the crisis is over, but that has a way of correcting itself if true.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  133. I don’t care how many people here agree or disagree with scientific white papers. I will never be okay with that.

    But you have no problem reading into them things that just are not there.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  134. It may be that immunity to coronaviruses comes not just from antibodies but also from the T-cell response to the virus. I call that apoptosis but I’m a layman and that may be too simplistic. I think antiviral vaccines that include apoptosis are more effective, but I don’t know if many Covid vaccines induce apoptosis.

    DRJ (15874d)

  135. 135. Well, assuming that one or the other of us is suffering from confirmation bias, I would say it’s equally possible that you could be wrong rather than me. Of course, since you are in favor of nuking the national economy out of blind panic and I am not, in this particular instance I’m somewhat less inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt than I would normally be.

    Gryph (08c844)

  136. 76. nk (1d9030) — 4/17/2020 @ 7:55 am

    t has to lather and do it for 20 seconds starting from when it lather is what they advise.

    That’s because soap doesn’t easily dissolve things. But detergent does.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  137. Trump tweets to ‘LIBERATE’ states where people are protesting virus restrictions.

    Yes, he’s campaigning. It seems unwise, even from a campaign POV. He’s fomenting unrest in states he needs in November. 21/100K people have died already in MI, but they ARE more than a week past the peak there. They look to have the last person discharged by May 15. Maybe htey should consider setting a date to ease up.

    It’s a swing state and the way the authorities (including Trump) dealt with the virus is going to be a major campaign issue. I think it is unwise to organize protests before the crisis is over, but that has a way of correcting itself if true.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/17/2020 @ 11:09 am

    It’s just annoying. Instead of these weak tweets he could offer tangible steps or hesitance. But he’s not competent to deal with problems that can’t be solved by creating drama on Twitter so we get what we get.

    Time123 (797615)

  138. his almost certainly suggests that the curve was on its downturn before the social distancing protocols were ever implemented.

    How you get to “almost certainly suggests” when I get “doesn’t reflect trends at all” I don’t know. ALL it says is that, in a snapshot (you cannot plot a line from one point), a lot more people have been exposed in the past than anyone knew about.

    Remember, this is an antibody test. It says nothing about being a carrier, or having the Covid-19 disease. All it says is that the person had been exposed at some time, and had developed antibodies. They might have been as sick as a dog 4 weeks ago, but thought it was “just the flu” and never sought medical help. Or maybe they never showed symptoms. Hard to say.

    What it does say is that there is no herd immunity yet. If I was evil Dr Mengele, I would see what happened if they were exposed again, to see if there is ANY immunity.

    But it says nothing about curves or trends. It is a single data point.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  139. But he’s not competent

    The rest of that sentence is superfluous.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  140. Gryph,

    The legal system doesn’t have a set of rules designed to respond to exigent circumstances. That is why it was ultimately held that Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, FDR’s internment of japanese-Americans, and Truman’s seizure of the steel mills were breaches of civil rights. Our legal system is designed to fix things that break more than preventing wrongs from happening.

    DRJ (15874d)

  141. That’s because soap doesn’t easily dissolve things. But detergent does.

    Hydrofluoric acid is MUCH quicker.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  142. 123. Gryph (08c844) — 4/17/2020 @ 10:48 am

    Some interesting numbers out of Santa Clara County, California. If this is true, the whole need for “social distancing” was bunk.

    No, this could amount to an argument that is exposure is minimal enough – and the more social distance the more minimal, and so what someone could get could amount more to a vaccination than serious disease, unless they get nothing at all. The dose is the poison.

    The viral particles probably travel much further than anyone wants to admit.

    But what happens may depend on the individual, plus maybe how much Vitamin D etc they have.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  143. Kevin, I’m not sure you know what “herd immunity” is. This is as good a definition as any:

    If the virus keeps spreading, eventually so many people will have been infected and (if they survive) become immune that the outbreak will fizzle out on its own as the germ finds it harder and harder to find a susceptible host. This phenomenon is known as herd immunity.

    nk (1d9030)

  144. It’s just annoying. Instead of these weak tweets he could offer tangible steps or hesitance. But he’s not competent to deal with problems that can’t be solved by creating drama on Twitter so we get what we get.

    He’s too lazy to actually be the dictator he wants to be, is there a weak-man dictator. maybe King George IV? If he has to do more than tweet about it, it’s really not worth his time. He is willing to go on national TeeVee and read some recommendations if it’s for the ratings, but then he’ll just riff on the subject and contradict said recommendations when actually asked about it. Then there’s twitter Trump, it’s the National TeeVee Trump, just dumber and less informed. How that is remotely possible, I don’t know, but he manages it.

    Colonel Klink (Red) (9878f6)

  145. 143. But detergent is designed to be safe, because of accidents. Just don;t swallow it.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  146. Some of us think doing nothing is what will nuke the economy. We can recover from short-term impacts but a massive spread of disease would adversely impact health care, the food chain, and all the essential services. We’ve seen the problems even during the past two months, but massive illness will shut down everything — every meatpacking plant, processing plant, grocery store, banks, hospitals, etc. That will result in crime and riots in every community. Losing jobs for few months will seem like heaven compared to that.

    DRJ (15874d)

  147. Jobs would be up for the uber/taxi drivers.

    And gone for those who couldn’t afford the drive or hike the distance. Who says there are going to be magic numbers of drivers hitting the streets?

    The combinatorial aspect is greatly reduced, and you CAN protect yourself with gloves and masks and a bit of distance in a car.

    Nonsense. Think of all the additional people required to put a cab or car on the road as opposed to those needed per rider on mass transit.

    Sure, Typhoid Mary the driver might infect someone, but it’s retail, not wholesale.

    Really? How many riders a day per cab or car? Gets exponential fast.

    I would think that hospitals would be interested in maintaining a healthy workforce as long as possible.

    I’m sure they are. They have to remain solvent, too. Nor are they the only interests that require a mobile workforce.

    Everything is easy with magic thinking.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  148. Note that (according to that excerpt) the Court found Lincoln’s imposition of martial law (the case involved more than suspending the writ, there was a man sentenced to death by tribunal) was invalid in those states where the legitimate civil government still operated.

    “Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war.”

    It would be hard to see where martial law, or, less brutal, the suspension of the writ would be valid in the current circumstances. Some courts are still open, and serious questions would result in courts reopening. We have the technology.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  149. If we’re going to see it anywhere, we’ll see it in maximum security prisons first.

    nk (1d9030)

  150. L.A. Times Politics
    @latimespolitics
    ·
    Senate under pressure to provide more coronavirus relief money for small businesses https://latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-16/senate-coronavirus-relief-money-small-business-loan-program
    __ _

    Matt Whitlock
    @mattdizwhitlock
    ·
    Curious what this would all look like if the media was direct about what was happening here.

    The “Senate” isn’t under pressure, one side has proposed a clean, non-controversial route to provide more relief money for small businesses.

    The Democrats have blocked it.
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  151. Of course, since you are in favor of nuking the national economy out of blind panic and I am not, in this particular instance I’m somewhat less inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt than I would normally be.

    And nobody cares. You’re just tedious.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  152. More and more doctors and scientists think this virus (like SARS and MERS) aren’t that dangerous for some people, but the viruses can trigger an adverse immune response that can be very serious. If so, the virus may not initially hurt people but can reactivate later and cause damage. For instance, chickenpox and shingles.

    DRJ (15874d)

  153. Nonsense. Think of all the additional people required to put a cab or car on the road as opposed to those needed per rider on mass transit.

    One person in a subway car can infect dozens. You may not know who it is, and there may be more than one. The combination of N things taken M at a time is a factorial formula and rises to huge numbers pretty quickly. In a subway care with 30 people, the number of unique 2-person interactions is 435. If just concerned about one’s self, there are still 29 possible infectors. You would have to take 29 taxi trips for the same risk.

    Really? How many riders a day per cab or car? Gets exponential fast.

    Sounds arithmetic to me.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  154. I wonder if heartburn is an aggravating factor because it can damage lungs, cause a loss of sense of smell, and can be common in the overweight population.

    DRJ (15874d)

  155. Could Bernie have been right about Denmark?

    nk (1d9030)

  156. Authoritarianism run wild:

    “ Amyiah Cohoon, 16, is a student at Westfield Area High School in Westfield, Wisconsin. According to this lawsuit, she and schoolmates went to Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida for a spring break trip in early March, right as the coronavirus was beginning to spread and businesses began to shut down. She and her classmates canceled the trip early and returned home.

    Once home, Cohoon began developing symptoms associated with COVID-19. She sought medical assistance, but at the time they were unable to test her to see if she was infected. She was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection with “symptoms consistent with COVID-19,” according to the lawsuit.

    Cohoon went home and posted on Instagram letting people know that she had COVID-19 and was in self-quarantine. Her condition worsened and she was brought to the hospital for treatment. She posted again about the experience on Instagram. Finally, they were able to test her, but the test came back negative. According to the lawsuit, doctors told her it was likely the missed the window for testing positive, but she probably did have COVID-19, despite the test results. (False negative results have been an ongoing issue in accurately diagnosing infections.)

    After she returned home from this visit, she posted again on Instagram and included a picture of herself at the hospital wearing an oxygen mask.

    The very next day, Patrol Sergeant Cameron Klump from Marquette County Sheriff’s Department showed up on the family’s doorstep. He was there under orders from Sheriff Joseph Konrath to demand that Amyiah and her father, Richard Cohoon, remove Amyiah’s Instagram posts. If they refused, Klump said the family faced charges for disorderly conduct and Klump told them he would “start taking people to jail,” according to the suit.

    Konrath’s justification was that there had been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the county. He found out about the Instagram post from Amyiah’s high school. The Cohoon family had contacted the school to let them know about Amyiah’s infection, but nobody ever contacted them back to get more information. It appears that instead the school contacted the police. Under the threat of arrest, Cohoon complied and deleted the allegedly illegal Instagram post.“
    _

    It gets even more ridiculous and paints a troubling picture of the authorities’ priorities. Read it all:

    https://reason.com/2020/04/17/a-teenager-posted-about-her-covid-19-infection-on-instagram-a-deputy-threatened-to-arrest-her-if-she-didnt-delete-it/

    harkin (358ef6)

  157. I know what herd immunity is. A paper that suggests that 2.5% of the population has antibodies also suggests that there is no herd immunity as yet. There are two competing ways to get it: a vaccine and contracting the disease. Barring a good antiviral, I’ll try the first one. The percentage needed differs according to how virulent the disease is, which is why something like measles breaks out easily when it hits a cluster of vaccine-deniers.

    The UK tried the let-it-run idea, using the tried and true childhood-illness method, but failed because that method presumed that only children were at risk.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  158. 158: Hmmm … it does sound like they found a clumsy way to juke the stats. I hope she gets a bundle.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  159. Nonsense. Think of all the additional people required to put a cab or car on the road as opposed to those needed per rider on mass transit.

    One person in a subway car can infect dozens. You may not know who it is, and there may be more than one. The combination of N things taken M at a time is a factorial formula and rises to huge numbers pretty quickly. In a subway care with 30 people, the number of unique 2-person interactions is 435. If just concerned about one’s self, there are still 29 possible infectors. You would have to take 29 taxi trips for the same risk.

    Really? How many riders a day per cab or car? Gets exponential fast.

    Sounds arithmetic to me.

    How ’bout this, both scenarios are bad. Sure one is less bad, but it seems to me that the solution would involve letting the infected know that they’re infected. You know, with some sort of highly available testing. Maybe done nationally to centralize and standardize the testing methodology and supply chain. Maybe a management agency could do it, maybe one that you’d use for emergencies. And if it was national, maybe federal. You could call it the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and you’d then coordinate the responses across all of those lines on a map.

    Nah, that’s crazy talk, who’d ever think that’s a good idea?

    Colonel Klink (Red) (9878f6)

  160. Sam Hall, an attorney for the sheriff, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Amyiah’s posts claiming she had COVID-19 despite a negative test “caused distress and panic” among the district’s parents.

    “This case is nothing more than a 2020 version of screaming fire in a crowded theater,” he said, invoking an often misunderstood reference to speech not protected by the Constitution.

    “It is unfortunate that the plaintiff brings this lawsuit now, while law enforcement should be able to focus solely on the public health crisis that we currently face,” Hall said.

    “However, we plan to mount an aggressive defense to this lawsuit.”

    https://lawandcrime.com/covid-19-pandemic/lawsuit-sheriff-threatened-to-jail-teen-for-posting-on-instagram-that-she-had-coronavirus/

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  161. And Klink turns yet another discussion into “Trump’s fault here, too!”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  162. Gryph,

    At 57-58 min, the scientists at Microbe.TV speculated (in theory only) that allowing infected children to spread the disease in schools and daycare might help protect the community, because children typically have a mild disease and don’t generate dangerous complications due to their naive/immature immune systems. Exposed adults might get a milder, attenuated version.

    I doubt many parents would embrace this approach but I’m not sure. It reminded me that the only person who I know who deliberately exposed her children to a disease (chickenpox) was a pediatrician.

    DRJ (15874d)

  163. Sounds arithmetic to me.

    Huh. Typhoid Mary has ten fares every day, infecting each fare. They come in contact with five people per day, and each of them come into contact with five per day.

    Every day.

    See now?

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  164. You would think it was a no-brainer but apparently some are slow to understanding the importance of wide and repeated testing:

    “ In the last week, Hokkaido has recorded 135 new confirmed cases of Covid-19. Unlike the first outbreak in February, there is no evidence the virus has been re-imported from outside Japan.
    None of the new cases are foreigners, nor have any of those infected travelled outside Japan in the last month.

    What does this tell us about how the virus outbreak was handled in Hokkaido?
    Firstly, if you get on top of it really early, you can get it under control.
    “It is relatively easy to tackle clusters, to contact trace and isolate,” says Professor Kenji Shibuya of King’s College London.
    “The authorities were quite successful in their cluster control approach. Japan was in the very early phase of the outbreak back then. It was localised and it was a success story.”

    In this respect, Hokkaido has some similarity to what happened in the South Korean city of Daegu. There, a large outbreak in a religious cult was aggressively traced. Those infected were isolated and the outbreak was suppressed.
    But the second lesson from Hokkaido is much less reassuring.
    After the Daegu outbreak, the South Korean government began a massive testing program to try and track the epidemic. Japan has done the opposite.

    Even now, more than three months after Japan recorded its first case, it is still only testing a tiny percentage of the population.
    Initially, the government said it was because large-scale testing was a “waste of resources”. It’s now had to change its tune a bit and says it will ramp up testing – but several reasons appear to have slowed it down.
    Firstly, Japan’s health ministry fears that hospitals will be overwhelmed by people who test positive – but only have minor symptoms. And on a wider scale, the testing is the responsibility of local health centres and not on a national government level.

    Some of these local centres are simply not equipped with the staff or the equipment to deal with testing on a major scale. Local hotlines have been overwhelmed and even getting a referral from a doctor is a struggle.
    The combination of these reasons mean authorities in Japan don’t have a clear idea of how the virus is moving through the population, says Prof Shibuya.

    “We are in the middle of an explosive phase of the outbreak,” he said.
    “The major lesson to take from Hokkaido is that even if you are successful in the containment the first time around, it’s difficult to isolate and maintain the containment for a long period. Unless you expand the testing capacity, it’s difficult to identify community transmission and hospital transmission.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52305055
    __ _

    Testing testing testing.
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  165. Hmmm … it does sound like they found a clumsy way to juke the stats. I hope she gets a bundle.

    How do you figure her money damages? I’d say she has none.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  166. New York City simply cannot function without its bus and subway system. The roads physically do not have the throughput for everyone to use cars to get to work, even if we’re limiting it to essential workers.

    Furthermore, most people in NYC don’t have cars, and if they did, there isn’t a place to park them, and most of the people in essential service jobs can’t afford to uber/lyft to work every day.

    Yes, the subway can be a terrible accelerator. I started wearing gloves on San Francisco’s subway *in February* for largely that reason.

    But there’s no other practical option in New York City.

    Shut the subway and bus system down for any length of time and the people living in tiny apartments with no storage space will start starving because the workers can’t get to the stores to sell them stuff.

    aphrael (7962af)

  167. Harkin@152

    Why would the GOP object to increasing funding to hospitals? That seems to be the thing they’re objecting to.

    Kishnevi (f0ded7)

  168. Some good news to remember today:

    1. Dick Cheney has not shot anybody in the face lately.

    2. And from half a century go today, this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX8-Vmys-Fk

    “… it really looks great!” – Joe Kerwin

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  169. And Klink turns yet another discussion into “Trump’s fault here, too!”

    FEMA exists for exactly this type of situation. The administration’s response, or lack thereof, at some point, reflects the head of the administration.

    Sometimes the show fits, even if it’s a tiny size 3 on a grown as man. He’s the man tweeting Liberate Michigan, etc. From what, for whom? Did he not just promote a set of criteria yesterday which specifically would limit Michigan, Minn, from doing the thing he’s promoting?

    Colonel Klink (Red) (9878f6)

  170. They come in contact with five people per day

    Secondary effects are always multiplicative. We WERE talking about first order effects before, in the train versus in the car. Typhoid Mary the subway rider can do far more damage.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  171. > Apparently, MTA has responded to the recent drop in ridership with a drastic cut in train schedules, making packed cars as likely as before.

    there’s a degree to which that response is driven by the number of their employees who have been symptomatic but not tested.

    anecdotal evidence, but: on the order of 1/3 of the people i know in NYC have been untested but symptomatic, and this includes some people (including a cousin) who were pretty seriously ill for a while.

    aphrael (7962af)

  172. 164. I’m not saying I embrace this approach either. What I’m saying is that there is virtually incontrovertible proof that, at this point in time in Santa Clara County, California, for every person that has tested positive for the presence of Coronavirus, there are 50 (let’s be charitable here) people who test seropositive for CoViD-19-specific immunoglobins.

    Now, you can “nuh-uh” all you want as to just what this means, but there is not a “social distancing” model that holds up in the face of this particular data. There simply isn’t. In the span of three weeks, we went from speculating 2.2 million dead to 1.5 million dead to 750,000 dead to 300,000 dead, to 60,000 dead. There’s no way — it’s simply not possible — that we can pat ourselves on the back for “socially distancing” that number. The “experts” are frauds.

    Gryph (08c844)

  173. Trunp complains that Cuomo is campaigning:

    https://nypost.com/2020/04/17/trump-tells-andrew-cuomo-to-stop-complaining-get-the-job-done

    ttps://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1251181563506757632

    True the hospital beds weren’t used much but that was because nobody was around who knew what would really happen.

    https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1251193712580968450

    Cuomo was aaking for more and more because he wanted to keep ahead of things. Of course ventilators were the wrong ting – the need oxygen and could harm patients.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  174. How do you figure her money damages? I’d say she has none.

    She was forced, by a man with a gun and a badge, to censor her speech. The threat of incarceration was made, and specifically linked to orders from the sheriff (very smart of Mr Deputy!). She was deprived, by the threat of force and/or imprisonment, of her civil rights to speech and press.

    Are you saying she has no damages that can be reflected in a judgement?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  175. aphrael, there is another option:
    My grandfather in the 1930s walked the breadth of the city of Boston to and from work every day of the week because the streetcar fare put too much strain on the family budget. I think it was a nickel each way. Fifty cents a week meant a lot back then if you were a tailor being paid by the piece.

    Yes, it means extra time and money, but I suspect not many people live at the north end of Manhattan and work on Wall Street. Possibly the janitors, and they can probably commute during non rush hour times in this age while the office staff telecommutes,

    Kishnevi (f0ded7)

  176. Ok, Gryph, let’s assume you are right. Is being wrong about a novel event now properly characterized as fraud?

    DRJ (15874d)

  177. According to the New York Times, an evil company, called, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, Covidien, which the FTC allowed to buy a good company making cheap ventilators, and stop it, might be responsible for a shortage of ventilators.

    ttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html

    Thirteen years ago, a group of U.S. public health officials came up with a plan to address what they regarded as one of the medical system’s crucial vulnerabilities: a shortage of ventilators.

    The breathing-assistance machines tended to be bulky, expensive and limited in number. The plan was to build a large fleet of inexpensive portable devices to deploy in a flu pandemic or another crisis.

    Money was budgeted. A federal contract was signed. Work got underway.

    And then things suddenly veered off course. A multibillion-dollar maker of medical devices bought the small California company that had been hired to design the new machines. The project ultimately produced zero ventilators….

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  178. It is kind of funny that the whole ventilator thing turns out to have been a mistake. While that is the last option, it isn’t the first option, and many people with low oxygen uptake who would have been put on a ventilator two weeks ago are being treated now with oxygen and positioning first. Once the get a tube stuck in their throat, the level of care escalates (feeding issues, drips, antibiotics, palliative drugs, etc).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  179. Typhoid Mary the subway rider can do far more damage.

    COULD potentially do more damage.

    The point being that your “solution” ain’t one. Nuevo Ork and environs were built for mass transit.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  180. Why would the GOP object to increasing funding to hospitals? That seems to be the thing they’re objecting to.“

    You are what’s known as the ‘target audience’

    Nothing is stopping the Dems from submitting a bill that included this funding (including the additional funding for state and local governments you failed to mention).
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  181. there’s a degree to which that response is driven by the number of their employees who have been symptomatic but not tested.

    Well, I would have fixed that by stopping all the buses and trains. Problem solved. Cars, even taxis, are much less likely to spread the disease uncontrollably (or untrackably).

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  182. Nuevo Ork and environs were built for mass transit.

    Yes they were. And L.A. was built for cars, yet the freeways are empty. The point I am making is that, if shut down, the number of “necessary” trips are a tiny fraction, and alternatives can be found. A heck of a lot easier than when MTA goes out on strike.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  183. Well, I would have fixed that by stopping all the buses and trains. Problem solved.

    Magic thinking again. There’s a reason you are unemployed…in New Mexico…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  184. Existing antibody tests are proving unreliable because many of them detect antibodies to the coronavirus that causes the common cold.

    And because of corner-cutting and the rush to catch-up after early testing screwups left us blind, many of these antibody tests have not been systematically tested and validated.

    It was reported a few days ago that:

    There are several layers of issues with the antibody tests.

    First, the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed its rules, and now companies can sell antibody tests without submitting validation data that shows they actually work.

    The Association of Public Health Laboratories says that has resulted in “crappy” tests flooding the market.

    “It’s like the wild, wild West out there — or wild East,” said association CEO Scott Becker, a reference to the fact that at least half the companies making these tests are in China.
    Becker said that in conference call Tuesday that FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said antibody tests would undergo scientific review by the National Cancer Institute.

    There has been concern that some of the tests might confuse the coronavirus causing the current pandemic with one of several coronaviruses that cause the common cold.

    “Lots of tests confuse the two,” [National Academy member] Relman said.

    The tests would then end up telling people they had antibodies to the pandemic coronavirus when they didn’t, and people might think they’re immune when they’re not.

    A few days after the phone call, the NAS scientists wrote a letter to the White House frankly apprising them about the quality of antibody tests.

    Results from antibody tests “should be viewed as suspect until rigorous controls are performed and performance characteristics described, as antibody detection methods can vary considerably, and most so far have not described well-standardized controls,” according to the letter.

    Second, there are good tests in the midst of the bad ones, but they’re not yet widely and easily available throughout the country.

    Third, it’s not entirely clear that having antibodies to Covid-19 means that you truly have immunity and won’t get the disease again.

    [emphasis added]

    As alluded to, there are also problems of interpretation unless you know accurately the rate of false positives and false negatives, which, due to the problems cited above, is currently not the case.

    For the present, if an antibody test shows unbelievable results, it is likely because you shouldn’t believe the test.

    Dave (1bb933)

  185. Nothing is stopping the Dems from submitting a bill that included this funding (including the additional funding for state and local governments you failed to mention).

    You are evading the question. Why does the GOP object to increasing hospital funding? It’s going to have to be done sooner or later, and probably sooner.

    Kishnevi (f0ded7)

  186. Ragspierre, Kevin is 1)retired and 2) an escapee from California.

    Kishnevi (f0ded7)

  187. an escapee from California

    You can check-out any time you like, but
    You can never leave

    Dave (1bb933)

  188. And Klink turns yet another discussion into “Trump’s fault here, too!”

    I dream of a world where a chicken can traverse a thoroughfare and not have it’s motives questioned.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  189. The point I am making is that, if shut down, the number of “necessary” trips are a tiny fraction, and alternatives can be found.

    Well, no…

    Given what is happening in New York, I think they should have left churches alone and closed the subway and bus system instead.

    How do people get to worship in and around New York? If your point is about spreading contagion, your stated alternative is bad, too. If you care about a balance between jobs and squelching transmission, your “solution” is nutz.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  190. “Ragspierre, Kevin is 1) retired and 2) an escapee from California.”

    —- FloridaMan

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  191. Ragspierre, Kevin is 1)retired and 2) an escapee from California.

    Yeah. Like I said.

    I kid, I kid. It was a small homage to The Prince Bride. Maybe too small…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  192. I’d read that The Prince Bride was a British gay porn knock-off of The Princess Bride

    Gotta be something better to stream, counselor.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  193. There’s anther study:

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20050542v2

    And an assertion by a group at Oxford University

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/oxford-study-coronavirus-may-have-infected-half-of-u-k.html

    But I am not sure how that jibes with what went on in cruise ships and in nursing homes and the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  194. Kishnevi, at 177: yes. And almost everyone walked home on 9-11 because the subway system was abruptly stopped due to the damage to the line under the WTC.

    But a lot of people don’t have the physical health or stamina to do that. Furthermore, it’s still been snowing in NYC, and going on long walks during snowstorms is both physically hard *and* physically dangerous.

    Were *I* still in NYC I would have stopped using the subway round about March 1. But I worked from home basically the whole time I lived there and can go on 13 mile walks at the drop of a hat. I’m not the usual case and public policy shouldn’t be designed around assuming that I am.

    aphrael (7962af)

  195. > How do people get to worship in and around New York?

    Depends. My sense is most churches are neighborhood-local and *certainly* most synagogues are. So unlike work, which I think a rounding error of everyone has to subway or bus to, I think most people can walk to church or synagogue.

    aphrael (7962af)

  196. Feds charge doctor who cited Trump to push hydroxychloroquine ‘miracle cure’

    At one point, the undercover agent asked Staley, “If I’m hearing you right, if I buy these kits from you, then that’s going to pretty much guarantee that neither my kids, my dad, my wife — any of us — get sick. And if we are, it’s going to cure us, right?”

    “Guaranteed,” Staley replied, according to the complaint.

    […]

    The day after receiving the box of medication, FBI agents overtly visited Staley’s office for an interview but did not indicate they had previously communicated with him as part of their undercover investigation. According to the criminal complaint, the agents asked Staley if he had ever guaranteed his patients that hydroxychloroquine was a cure for Covid-19.

    “No, that would be foolish,” Staley said, according to the FBI, adding “We would never say anything like that.”

    ​The complaint says that Staley admitted to investigators that he distributes ​Covid-19 kits through his website and said he imports his hydroxychloroquine from China, but indicated it was “perfectly legal” and “goes through customs.”

    As part of their investigation, the FBI ​says they visited Staley’s website, which offered Covid-19 treatment kits for $595. The website apparently has been taken down. It included language stating “a French study cited by Trump showed 70% of the hydroxychloroquine treated patients tested negative for the ​Covid-19 virus,” according to the complaint. ​

    Dave (1bb933)

  197. 20,

    https://new.mta.info/precautions-against-coronavirus

    MTA Essential Service During the Coronavirus Pandemic </b?

    Updated April 16, 2020

    We’re operating MTA Essential Service during the COVID-19 pandemic so we can get health-care workers, first responders, and other essential personnel where they need to go. We’re running as much service as we can with the crews who are healthy and available to work, but service on many lines is limited.

    Starting Friday, April 17, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is requiring everyone in New York to wear masks or face coverings when they’re out in public.

    Please: If you’re not traveling for work related to an Essential Business, or for urgent personal business like a medical appointment, do not use the subway or take the bus. We need to keep our limited capacity available for people who must travel.

    Here’s how the New York State on PAUSE executive order defines Essential Businesses.

    Link: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-issues-guidance-essential-services-under-new-york-state-pause-executive-order

    By the way most buses are free, ecase they are allowing boarding in the back, to keep the passengers away from the bus driver. Only Select Bus service, where you buy a ticket, and can board anyway in th back, is supposed to cost money.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  198. Only rhe headline, and this sentence, should be in boldface:

    Please: If you’re not traveling for work related to an Essential Business, or for urgent personal business like a medical appointment, do not use the subway or take the bus.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  199. I’d read that The Prince Bride was a British gay porn knock-off of The Princess Bride

    Gotta be something better to stream, counselor.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/17/2020 @ 1:14 pm

    You’re wrong. You need to sit being wrong and feel bad about your wrongness.

    Time123 (797615)

  200. 194. I don’t care who you air, tha air was funny!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  201. You’re wrong. You need to sit being wrong and feel bad about your wrongness.

    There isn’t something better to stream? I think I’m right, but perhaps the production values and screenplay won you over?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  202. It’s a template, but I’d feel better about Trump’s new guidelines if there was more on testing, which is (and should be) a top priority. There should be a Manhattan-type Project to develop at least ten million tests.
    In WA State, I’d like to see the number of new cases go down to the double digits and number of deaths to the single digits for a couple of weeks before loosening things up. We’re getting close. Yesterday, we had 124 new cases and 14 deaths.
    From there, we can do proper a proper test-track-trace-treat methodology and open up non-essential businesses (with precautions).
    Snohomish County is doing pretty well. We only had 22 new cases yesterday (the lowest since March 11th), no one died, hospitalizations have dropped by half over the last week, and 69% have recovered from the illness.

    Paul Montagu (0073cc)

  203. Trump’s Twitter tirade today about LIBERATING some people from some things, ignores his own administrations guidelines that have Michigan, Minn, and Virginia not being “opened”May 18th, May 25th, and June 8th, respectively.

    Again, according TO HIS OWN GUIDELINES HE JUST HAD A PRESS CONFERENCE ABOUT YESTERDAY!!!!!

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  204. 3.5 years later and Trump’s tweets are still shaking the coconut tree…

    Hilarious.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  205. our president mr donald who generously sent us very beautiful checks is extremely fair and open minded and likes to hear both sides of the story

    so he tells them himself, on alternating days

    Dave (1bb933)

  206. 3.5 years later and Trump’s tweets are still shaking the coconut tree…

    Yeah, it’s a good thing he doesn’t have a FauxNews echo chamber and death cult following who treat his unhinged tirades as gospel.

    Dave (1bb933)

  207. New York Post:

    NYC coronavirus deaths hit 12,199 as confirmed cases continue to climb

    The city’s coronavirus death toll continued climbing to alarming heights with 722 new COVID-19 fatalities over 24 hours, bringing the grim total to 12,199 by Friday afternoon.

    =======================================

    People are mistaking Governor Cuomo’s announcement that things will remain closed until May 15 as meaning they will open up May 16.

    It doesn’t mean that. Cuomo was telling people that things will remain closed at least until May 15.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  208. It seems a little ludicrous to have government bureaucrats determining which businesses/jobs are “essential” when they’ve never run a business, had to worry about meeting payroll or turning a profit, or missed a paycheck. Seems to be a near worthless, academic exercise.

    I wonder how much “non-essential” public sector work has been identified with resultant stoppage of paychecks?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  209. 204. Paul Montagu (0073cc) — 4/17/2020 @ 1:48 pm

    There should be a Manhattan-type Project to develop at least ten million tests.

    It needs to be a saliva test.

    At least people won’t suffer discomfort when taking it.

    And it might have fewer false negatives.

    In WA State, I’d like to see the number of new cases go down to the double digits and number of deaths to the single digits for a couple of weeks before loosening things up.

    That’s where we were when these measures were put in – too late.

    We’re getting close. Yesterday, we had 124 new cases and 14 deaths.
    From there, we can do proper a proper test-track-trace-treat methodology and open up non-essential businesses (with precautions).

    They can’t trace. Too many possibilities.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  210. Dr. Oz Faces Backlash After Saying Schools Could Reopen

    Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity talk show host who has advised President Trump, said Thursday that he “misspoke” in remarks made on Fox News about opening schools despite the risk of losing lives to the pandemic.

    “I’ve realized my comments on risks around schools have confused and upset people, which was never my intention,” Dr. Oz said in a video released on Twitter Thursday afternoon. “I misspoke.”

    During an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Dr. Oz, a frequent guest on the network, said the idea of reopening schools was “an appetizing opportunity” in light of an article in a medical journal “arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality.”

    “We need our mojo back,” he told the Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Let’s start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble. I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity.”

    He continued: “I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality. You know, that’s — any life is a life lost, but to get every child back into a school where they’re safely being educated, being fed, and making the most out of their lives, with the theoretical risk on the backside, it might be a trade-off some folks would consider.”
    …….

    Funny how people walk back their controversial comments as “misspeaking” when their comments seem pretty clear. They only “misspeak” when they are called out. What a coward. He should have defended his comments.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  211. It seems a little ludicrous to have government bureaucrats determining which businesses/jobs are “essential” when they’ve never run a business, had to worry about meeting payroll or turning a profit, or missed a paycheck. Seems to be a near worthless, academic exercise.

    Who then determines it, be specific.

    I wonder how much “non-essential” public sector work has been identified with resultant stoppage of paychecks?

    Cincinnati has furloughed 20%, nationally, several million state and local workers have been furloughed. Federally, what do you want? lay of the DoD, CIA, FEMA, the VA?

    Yeah, I know, you’re questions were not serious, but some people may believe that you were, in fact serious, so you should probably be specific.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  212. For Mark Meadows, Transition From Trump Confidant to Chief of Staff Is a Hard One

    Mark Meadows has officially been President Trump’s fourth White House chief of staff for less than three weeks.

    In that time, he has shaken up the communications office, angering supporters of the press secretary he chose to replace. He has tried to put in place other speedy changes, hoping to succeed where his three predecessors failed. He has hunted aggressively for leaks.

    But administration officials say he has been overwhelmed at times by a permanent culture at the White House that revolves around the president’s moods, his desire to present a veneer of strength and his need for a sense of control. It is why, no matter who serves as chief of staff, the lack of formal processes and the constant infighting are unavoidable facts of life for those working for Mr. Trump.

    In the case of Mr. Meadows, it has not helped him with his White House colleagues that the former North Carolina congressman, who has a reputation for showing his emotions, cried while meeting with members of the White House staff on at least two occasions. One instance was in the presence of a young West Wing aide; another time was with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

    On both occasions, Mr. Meadows was discussing staffing changes, according to the people with knowledge of the events. A White House spokesman declined to comment on either meeting. A person close to Mr. Kushner said he denied that any such episode involving him ever took place.

    Mr. Trump is said to have faith in Mr. Meadows and is sometimes responsive to his suggestions. Unlike the president’s history with his three previous chiefs of staff, the two had a personal relationship before Mr. Meadows resigned from Congress to take the job in the White House. But administration officials said that Mr. Trump sees emotion as a sign of weakness….

    At the same time, his grip on the White House is hardly tight. Mr. Meadows was caught off guard when the press office on Tuesday night blasted out a lengthy list of people who had been selected to be part of one of the groups advising Mr. Trump on reopening the country, according to two people briefed on the matter. That had happened at the direction of Mr. Kushner, who has played a leading role in the White House’s response to the virus, according to the people with knowledge of what took place.

    The list turned into something of a debacle on Wednesday, with one corporate executive after another telling reporters they had learned they were on it when their names were announced. Some said they had never agreed to be a part of the effort.

    MM is not long for (Trump’s) world. I’ll bet he is out before election day. He’s been set up as another fall guy for the failed FedGov response to the pandemic.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  213. Dr. Phil slammed for comparing coronavirus deaths to car accidents, drowning

    Dr. Phil is getting slammed on social media for downplaying the coronavirus, comparing the global pandemic to car accidents, drowning and other accidental deaths — while wildly exaggerating fatality totals.

    The television host, whose real name is Phil McGraw, was trending as “Mr. Phil” on Twitter early Friday following an appearance on Fox News Thursday during which he criticized governmental mandates to shut down non-essential businesses.

    “The economy is crashing around us and they’re doing that because people are dying because of coronavirus,” McGraw told host Laura Ingraham. “I get that, but look, the fact of the matter is we have people dying – 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 from swimming pools – but we don’t shut the country for that.”

    McGraw continued: “But yet, we’re doing it for this and the fallout is going to last for years because people’s lives are being destroyed.”

    But McGraw’s total of 360,000 deaths in swimming pools across the country totally missed the mark, as there were 3,710 fatal drownings in the US in 2018 — or about 10 per day, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.

    Worldwide, an estimated 320,000 people die from drowning annually, accounting for 7 percent of all injury-related deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

    The reaction was swift on Twitter, where McGraw, 69, was denigrated as “Mr. Phil” instead of being referred to his typical TV moniker.

    “Phillip Calvin McGraw, also known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality, author and former psychologist who is the host of the television show Dr. Phil,” one tweet read. “He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. However, he is not licensed to practice.”

    Other critics suggested that McGraw would “be a lot less credible” if he wasn’t allowed to speak in a medical capacity despite not being a physician. ……

    Never get your medical advice from celebrities.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  214. > It seems a little ludicrous to have government bureaucrats determining which businesses/jobs are “essential” when they’ve never run a business, had to worry about meeting payroll or turning a profit, or missed a paycheck. Seems to be a near worthless, academic exercise.

    On the one hand yes. On the other hand, the operating premise for this is: *any* interaction between people of different households is temporarily banned, *except for that interaction which is unavoidably necessary*.

    how would you go about determining the list of exceptions to such a rule?

    aphrael (7962af)

  215. But administration officials said that Mr. Trump sees emotion as a sign of weakness….

    Apparently he considers anger and hostility, which he projects almost continuously, to be exceptions.

    Dave (1bb933)

  216. “ Are you saying she has no damages that can be reflected in a judgement?”

    – Kevin M

    It’ll be up to the factfinder, and I would say she’s gonna end up a lot closer to “a bundle” than “none.”

    Leviticus (cdf0fe)

  217. That Ohio protest photo looked like a zombie movie. Zombie movie directors think so, too.

    The insatiable flesh-hunger of zombies wasn’t exactly on photographer Joshua A. Bickel’s mind when he was covering an anti-social-distancing protest at the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday. But it was all that was on the, well, braaaaaains of people who saw Bickel’s work on social media, where the photo went viral for its parallels to classic zombie films.

    The Columbus Dispatch photographer’s image is frightening and compelling. Approximately 100 protesters who were urging Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to end the state’s stay-at-home order and reopen businesses pressed up against the glass doors to the statehouse, chanting and banging windows.

    One wears a Guy Fawkes mask. Two men wear Trump-branded baseball caps. Two women, the closest to the windows, shape their mouths into the same elongated howl as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” American flags obscure some of the protesters in the back.

    “I thought this was a screencap from a zombie movie,” tweeted one woman.

    “Some strong ‘Shaun of the Dead’ energy in this photo from the protests in Ohio,” tweeted another man.

    It looked awfully familiar to Michael Satrazemis, the director of photography for “The Walking Dead” and director of “Fear the Walking Dead,” two shows that seem a little scarier these days, since they’re about a zombie apocalypse that begins with an uncontrollable pathogen.

    The visual trope is “classic horror,” says Satrazemis. It plays on the common fear of claustrophobia, making the audience “feel the walls are closing in and the world is shrinking around you. And there’s no way out.”

    It’s a device his show has deployed across seasons: In their pursuit of humans, the walkers have been trapped against chain link fences, and, in a particularly memorable scene, a revolving glass door. (“That was really, really a crazy sequence just because to get out, [the humans] had to revolve it,” says Satrazemis. But the way they were positioned in the door, it meant someone would get pushed out to the zombies, and eaten.) He thinks the device works best when the pressure of so many bodies against the glass cracks it slowly until it shatters and the zombies come pouring in. “You can really kind of build up and intensify the horror,” he says.

    Tom Savini acted and did the makeup and prosthetics for George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” the 1978 film in which zombies pursue humans in a shopping mall. Seeing the Ohio protest image for the first time, he was drawn to the different attire and personalities of the people in the glass, much like the film.

    “The zombies were all sorts of types of people. There was a guy in a suit, like he had come directly from the funeral home. There were football players. Clowns. A woman in a wedding dress,” says Savini. “It’s very, very similar to ‘Dawn of the Dead.’ ……”

    The photo is here with an interview with the photographer.

    RipMurdock (d2a2a8)

  218. Death cultists gonna death cult.

    Dave (1bb933)

  219. It seems a little ludicrous to have government bureaucrats determining which businesses/jobs are “essential” when they’ve never run a business, had to worry about meeting payroll or turning a profit, or missed a paycheck. Seems to be a near worthless, academic exercise.

    I guess you need to hustle on down to your statehouse and put your name in the hat.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  220. It’ll be up to the factfinder, and I would say she’s gonna end up a lot closer to “a bundle” than “none.”

    In money damages? I’ll defend that any day. You can represent the plaintiff. Go!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  221. @101 Sammy:
    Chloroquine is MUCH easier and cheaper to make than hydroxychloroquine. Doesn’t surprise me China is banking on that.

    However chloroquine is more potent and has more knarly side effects than hydroxychloroquine.

    Both has severe cardiovascular contraindications to various degrees.

    However, both can be prescribed off label, but hydroxychloroquine is preferred than chloroquine. At my organization I don’t think we’ve yet dispensed chloroquine.

    As always, the prescribers always has to outweigh the benefits of both vs the risks, which is true of any medications.

    whembly (51f28e)

  222. Yeah, I know, you’re questions were not serious, but some people may believe that you were, in fact serious, so you should probably be specific.

    Yep, my questions were serious, Mr. Smarm. But let me give you, in particular, an answer you’ll endorse.

    It’s Trump’s Fault®

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  223. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 4/17/2020 @ 11:18 am

    If I was evil Dr Mengele, I would see what happened if they were exposed again, to see if there is ANY immunity.

    A clinical trial is exactly like Dr. Mengele or close, where half the patients get the drug and half the patients get a placebo. That;s what Gilead Sciences’ iis doing with the antiviral medicine remdesivir. Which likely has minimal effect.

    They should at least compare it to Kaletra.

    As for vacines, there is the proBlem of “disease enhancement”

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6290032

    Under certain circumstances, a viral infection or vaccination may result in a subverted immune system, which may lead to an exacerbated illness. Clinical evidence of enhanced illness by preexisting antibodies from vaccination, infection or maternal passive immunity is available for several viruses and is presumptively proposed for other viruses. Multiple mechanisms have been proposed to explain this phenomenon.

    There are many ppitfalls:

    https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/02/dengue-second-infection

    or decades there has been a counterintuitive and hotly debated theory about dengue infections: that antibodies generated by a previous bout of dengue could actually put a person at risk of more severe disease if they contracted the virus a second time.

    And now American and Nicaraguan scientists have published evidence that may silence the skeptics. Antibody-dependent enhancement, or ADE as it’s known in scientific circles, can happen, they reported, when subsequent infection occurs at a time when antibodies generated by the prior infection have fallen to a specific low range.,,

    …n the study, researchers followed a cohort of nearly 6,700 children between the ages of 2 to 14. They monitored them for 12 years — and continue to follow them — drawing blood for testing every year. And any time one of the children developed an illness with fever, which is a hallmark symptom of dengue infection, they were assessed medically.

    Senior author Eva Harris, a professor of infectious diseases and immunology at the University of California, Berkeley, said the team analyzed the more than 41,000 blood samples they had accumulated over the years, looking for a pattern that could explain why some children develop severe disease — dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome — on their second dengue infection.

    They used three different statistical approaches to explore the question, and “all roads led to Rome,” Harris said.

    “Amazingly not only do we find that there is a specific titer of antibody that is predictive of severe disease, but all the three methods came to the exact same range of titers,” she said….

    ,,,The belief is that low levels of antibodies cannot neutralize or kill the invading viruses. But they do bind to them and effectively usher them into susceptible cells, where the viruses then replicate.

    Harris acknowledged that the idea that some antibodies could be more dangerous than no antibodies is counterintuitive. “Exactly. But that’s always been the trick around dengue. And that’s why everybody’s obsessed with this. Because antibodies are supposed to be protective,” she said.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  224. I’ve been harping on the point that the debate over whether to “open” the economy is weirdly disconnected from reality. If all of the state and federal edicts were lifted tomorrow, large numbers of Americans still wouldn’t go to restaurants, get on mass transit or get on airplanes. Matt Continetti has a very good column quantifying this.

    It was not media-induced panic but common sense that modified American behavior. The public is split on whether to trust the media. It is united in its embrace of social distancing. “About nine-in-ten U.S. adults (91%) say that, given the current situation, they would feel uncomfortable attending a crowded party,” says Pew. “Roughly three-quarters (77%) would not want to eat out at a restaurant. In the midst of a presidential election year, about two-thirds (66%) say they wouldn’t feel comfortable going to a polling place to vote.” Americans who attend church have turned to televised or online services. They have been praying for an end to the pandemic. And the prayerful include Americans who do not normally pray.

    The overwhelming majority of Americans will not accept unquestionably assurances from Mike Pence or Andrew Cuomo or Joe Biden that the coast is clear. They will make their own decisions. “When asked how quickly they will return to their normal activities once the government lifts restrictions and businesses and schools start to reopen, the vast majority of Americans say they would wait and see what happens with the spread of the virus (71%) and another 10% would wait indefinitely,” wrote Gallup’s Lydia Saad on April 14. “Just 20% say they would return to their normal activities immediately.”

    In other words, 80 percent of Americans wouldn’t go back to normal if the government sounded the all-clear. And guess what? If 80 percent of Americans won’t play ball, there won’t be enough players for the other 20 percent to play the game.

    That’s what makes the “debates” on cable and the shouting on Twitter so otherworldly. I put “debates” in quotation marks because the vast majority of cable commentary doesn’t involve debates. It’s one host interviewing a rotating group of guests who already agree with the host.

    These cable Rasputins think—or want you to think—that the government or Trump is like King Canute, capable of ordering the COVID tide to recede or the economic tide to rise, and they argue about when he should give the order they want. And because reality is being so stubborn they search out voices who will tell you that reality isn’t real.—Jonah Goldberg

    As I’ve been saying.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  225. Ok, Gryph, let’s assume you are right. Is being wrong about a novel event now properly characterized as fraud?

    DRJ (15874d) — 4/17/2020 @ 12:25 pm

    Fair question. I’d say it’s fraud when politicians cross the line from making mistakes into lying when they demonstrably know better (e.g. from 2.5 million deaths down to 60,000 projected in less than a month). How on earth could you possibly trust politicians to have your best interest at heart after so many decades of experience to the contrary?

    Gryph (08c844)

  226. The U.S. death toll has continued to rise since then, reaching a total of around 33,000, with record fatalities over a 24-hour period to Thursday. But stay-at-home measures and increased testing across the country have shown signs of slowing the pandemic’s rapid spread.
    —WSJ

    Never mind all that.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  227. See worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

    Our testing per capita remains dismal. Many, many nations are WAY ahead of us.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  228. 73. 101.

    Thia is the second case history I linked to (101 discusses the first; the New York Times magazine article from last week about the doctor whio worked in Chinese neighborhoods in New York City, who was the first casse in New Jersey. I concluded that what helped him was most likely the Kaletra, besides the oxygen. Incidentally the blood oxygen level maybe went down when he lay on his back – layingg on his stomach would;t have had that effect. The article doesn’t say what he lay down on.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-doctor-kirkland-padgett.html

    This doctor was in Seattle. His hospital treated the first person known to have died of coronovirus in the United States (died at end of February.

    One day in early March, Dr. Ryan Padgett felt a headache coming on. By March 9, he had a fever and a cough. Two days later, (Wednesday, March 11) his breathing was very labored.

    Quote: “You can’t lay flat, or you start gasping for air.” [Possibly wrong position. This would not be the case with lying on his stomach, but they didn’t realize that] “A couple of steps forward and all of a sudden it’s like you just ran three miles, which is pretty rare. I’m in pretty good shape. You knew something was up. You knew something was different.”

    He stayed at home with an oxygen monitor. When his oxygen levels began dropping well below normal levels, he told his fiance that maybe it was the oxygen monitor. She said: One more measurement.

    By March 16, his heart was struggling, his kidneys were failing and his lungs were not providing enough oxygen to his body. The levels became so dire that he was on the verge of injuring his brain through oxygen starvation.

    The doctors save him by using an ECMO machine (used in operations like heart or lung transplants) and moving the machine into the ICU (in order to minimize risk of transmitting coronavirus) The ECMO machine takws the blood out of the body, oxygenating it and returning it. This was done at a second hospital. He was in a medically induced coma at the time. They maybe did it on;y because he was so young (45) and he had no other problems, and it looked like he would die if they nothing — maybe also because he was a doctor on the staff of the first hospital?

    They also gave him high-dose vitamin C, which seemed to have helped a lot in some other cases.

    And, worried about about a “cytokine storm,” they also gave him tocilizumab, after consulting with oncologists (often used on cancer patients who might have this kind of immune system reaction – not explained here)

    They added high-dose vitamin C after seeing reports that it might be beneficia

    after seeing reports that it might be beneficia

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  229. 227. Gryph (08c844) — 4/17/2020 @ 4:12 pm

    politicians cross the line from making mistakes into lying when they demonstrably know better (e.g. from 2.5 million deaths down to 60,000 projected in less than a month).

    Somebody should know better, or be a lot less certain about it – or make sure this uncertainty gets communicated.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)

  230. 230. Hia collagues at the hospital also gave him hydroxychloroquine when he was first admitted, but that didn;t stop his condition from deteriorating.

    I tthiink it was the Vitamin C. And of course the ECMO machine, which enabled him to get through the worst period – maybe also enabled his body to build antibodies and fight the infection, for surely he needed oxygen for that, and whatever else the lungs do.

    An ECMO machine is known to be better tan aventilator:

    (from 2009)

    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/164041#1

    Despite improvements in ventilation techniques and other treatments, such as steroids, inhaled nitricoxide, severe ARF causes high mortality in adults. Conventional treatment is by intermittent positive-pressure ventilation where oxygen-enriched air is blown into the lungs at high pressure. This in turn causes oxygen toxicity and pressure injury to the lung tissue additional to the original lung disease, delaying or preventing recovery. ECMO is an alternative which uses heart-lung bypass technology to provide gas exchange outside the body. This allows time for the lung treatment and recovery. Heparin is also given to prevent the blood clotting when it passes through the ECMO system.

    Dr. Fauci and others never warned about ventilators even though doctors kept on rediscovering the dangers.

    Sammy Finkelman (3bf6ea)


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