Hello, all - I have been following world news, especially the Guardian and Democracy Now! Along with the New York Times. Quite a few countries are under-reporting deaths. Cities with crowded conditions, low income, no work - - - the situation is catastrophic.!! This is seen by reporters, drones, sattelite - - how many acres of graves are being dug. Digging goes on all day, every day. The countries want to have trade the way they used to. How can you distance by 6 ft. when you are sleeping in room with 15 other migrants? Right now South America is in deep. People are dying in rural areas that are buried and never counted. Brazil has much more than 22,013 deaths. Serch "Mexico City", "Lima" "Rio de Janero" with coronovirus 19. Anyhow - debate is a good thing! Signed, nIGHT oWL AT 4:05 AM.

@MFJohnston wrote:

As of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, at least 93,606 people have died in the United States as a result of this thing - well more than die in each year due to the flu.

What we don't truly know:
* How many more folks will pass as a result of this?
* How many folks would have died had we done nothing at all about it and let the coronavirus run its course?
* If we had taken extreme measures for about two weeks at the end of February could we have prevented most of these deaths and avoided the harm to our economy?
* Were we due for a recession about now, coronavirus or not? The economy had been going strong for a decade and no economy goes forever without a recession.
* Is there going to be a second wave of Covid-19?

We can only really trust what our scientific community says about deaths and what economists say about a recession. Scientists are overwhelming unified in their answers, but economists are not. So..... We can be certain that lives were saved by taking the steps in the shutdown that we did, but that we could have saved lives and shortened the shutdown if we had acted earlier and more decisively. We can be certain that a lot more folks are going to die - but just how many will depend on whether or not it makes a comeback now that the economy is opening up....

Me? I think we screwed up by not acting early and shutting down in February for about two weeks and then getting a proper testing program in place a we opened back up. What we did saved some lives, but it was haphazardly coordinated at best and was less-than-effective. We are #1 in the infection count and death toll in the world: This is shameful. Now, we have coupled a huge death toll with having harmed the economy - likely more than necessary. This will lead to more pain, suffering and death.

Was the shutdown worth it? I'm not convinced that the way we went about doing it was worthwhile. Our response, as a nation, to the pandemic was reprehensible on countless levels.

For those with short memories: on March 1 the United States reported the 2nd confirmed death from Covid19 in Washington state. The first cases in Rhode Island, Florida, New York were confirmed. There were 21 more cases in total, bringing the total number of cases in the United States to 89.

There are roughly 102 people killed daily in the United States in auto accidents, 1770 die daily from heart disease and 1668 from cancer for prospective.

Hindsight is 20/20 but even shutting down the economy on March 1st would have been deemed alarmist.

As for testing, a big portion of the tests were manufactured in China and they didn't work. Countries worldwide reported that the tests were ineffective. To find fault for anyone not doing testing comes under the title of "wasting money to do 'something'".

On January 21st China's Wuhan Institute of virology filed for a patent for commercial use of Remdesivir in China. There were at least 5 trials studying the use of this vaccine at that time. Whether the virus was released from the lab by accident or otherwise, it could have been contained in the region and not become a pandemic had China disclosed the truth.

Helpful re-cap of the timeline from virus in lab to now.





Was the shutdown worth it?

In some ways, it has been good for me. I have re-prioritized my little world and returned to my good-in-a-pinch resourceful self. I am not typical of any category of people, so these are only my own little experiences. On a larger scale, some businesses were prodded to their inevitable closures and others were just blown off course. These situations affect many people, some of whom were devastated.

Friend of family reported going back to work at her restaurant (where she is a prep cook). She said there was no business. Granted, it's their first week and maybe people don't know they are even open or it's still very early in the reopening phase and people are just beginning to return to "normal" - testing the waters and maybe leery of restaurants.

Will be interesting to see how her restaurant fares in the coming weeks/month. One thing I was hypothetically ( ) told or told hypothetically ( ) - whatever it is - is that it is common in the restaurant business for workers to get paid under the table and/or not report tips (at least, not their full amounts). The owner of such a restaurant could hypothetically have some workers he does not have on payroll for the IRS. Thus, PPP (even if he was able to get it) would not cover certain workers. And, those workers, if they are not reporting wages/salary to the IRS, cannot get stimulus money either. Hypothetically, this puts a restaurant like this in a precarious position. This is all hypothetical, of course.

Due to the bad business environment for restaurants, the owner is said to not be able to sell the restaurant profitably. No one wants to buy his furnishings and kitchen equipment at a decent price, if at all (given the entire industry is likely to have lots of bankruptcies).

Just one story I had heard about in my little part of this green/blue Earth.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2020 07:01PM by shoptastic.

I think everyone was thrown sideways to some degree.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

Helpful re-cap of the timeline from virus in lab to now.





Was the shutdown worth it?

In some ways, it has been good for me. I have re-prioritized my little world and returned to my good-in-a-pinch resourceful self. I am not typical of any category of people, so these are only my own little experiences. On a larger scale, some businesses were prodded to their inevitable closures and others were just blown off course. These situations affect many people, some of whom were devastated.

@tstewart3 wrote:

There are roughly 102 people killed daily in the United States in auto accidents, 1770 die daily from heart disease and 1668 from cancer for prospective.

Hindsight is 20/20 but even shutting down the economy on March 1st would have been deemed alarmist.

As for testing, a big portion of the tests were manufactured in China and they didn't work. Countries worldwide reported that the tests were ineffective. To find fault for anyone not doing testing comes under the title of "wasting money to do 'something'".

On January 21st China's Wuhan Institute of virology filed for a patent for commercial use of Remdesivir in China. There were at least 5 trials studying the use of this vaccine at that time. Whether the virus was released from the lab by accident or otherwise, it could have been contained in the region and not become a pandemic had China disclosed the truth.

Didn't know the cancer and heart disease statistics, tstewart. Interesting. And thanks for sharing!

I think one difference is infectiousness. A person with cancer or heart disease cannot infect another. So, dealing with those things don't require social distancing, mask wearing, etc. With auto accidents, it's important to remember that the deaths are after we've instituted safety protocols. Counterfactually, they could be a lot worse if we just let people drive any which way they wanted to.

Maybe there's no perfect parallel with those other deaths, but just wanted to note those differences.

I agree much could damage could have been prevented had China not tried to hide things. I do think they are the worst actor in all of this. I wish the world would hold them accountable.

Having said that, I think the U.S. may have been negligent too. It's hard to imagine we did not see what was coming. The CIA in January was able to pinpoint assassinate the top Iranian general, Soleimani, in a precision drone strike. It has hunted down people like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in their obscure hiding. They know all sorts of stuff and carry out covert attacks and defenses on behalf of American interests and national security. With all of that high tech surveillance capability, it's still hard for me to believe they did not know the scale of the Wuhan outbreak when it was occurring in China.

At the very least, Peter Navarro warned Trump in January and February in multiple memos of a possible pandemic:
[www.nytimes.com]

@ wrote:

“The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Mr. Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” . . .

In one worst-case scenario cited in the memo, more than a half-million Americans could die.

A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

So, there was at least some early warnings of the scale of hospitalizations and deaths that could occur if we did not shut down international travel and implement some sort of domestic prevention. The U.S. had time to see how other countries were reacting as well (with places in Singapore and South Korea taking aggressive measures to the slack response of an Italy or Great Britain).

On February 25th, National Economic Council Director, Larry Kudlow, said:
[www.cnbc.com]

@ wrote:

“We have contained this. I won’t say [it’s] airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange.” He added that, while the outbreak is a “human tragedy,” it will likely not be an “economic tragedy.”

This could possibly go down as the most clueless prediction ever on the virus. My question is why the U.S. didn't see what was coming and better prepare for it? IF:

i.) We knew the true scale of the Wuhan outbreak.
ii) We knew there were international flights in and out of Wuhan (and China) to the rest of the world up through the peak of the Chinese crisis in January.
iii.) We knew the virus spread asymptomatically and would lead to exponential growth if left unchecked.
iv.) We knew in the U.S. there was not effective, nor mass testing of people and there were no domestic preventative protocols in place.

THEN, why would the U.S. not experience one of those Peter Navarro or other viral epidemiologist disaster scenarios? Would it not have been simple logic that to let this virus spread unchecked here would lead to mass infections and deaths?

That's my main question in all of this. Even in March, many people were joking practically about how the virus was overblown. But with a long incubation period (up to two weeks), exponential growth, and no preventative measures, it was only a matter of time before it would logically explode in the U.S.

How could the U.S. not see this logic? Is the U.S. not, at least, somewhat culpable?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2020 10:02PM by shoptastic.

It might be a good time to look at the underlying conditions more carefully. Without those known conditions (obesity, high blood pressure, etc,) the covid-19 death rates would be lower than they have been. More people would have had milder cases and recovered-- and contributed in their way to the referenced non-vaccine herd immunity.

Much of the containment of the virus thanks to responsible people who followed health officials' advice will be squandered by the selfish, entitled actions of those whose well-documented disregard for others will put all of us at additional risk.

The pictures on Bloomberg and other news outlets do indeed speak a thousand words. Outdoor events in New Jersey, Missouri, Arkansas, and Florida show people's selfishness in stark detail.

Uh no... Sweden's approach did not work out so well

[www.cnn.com]

@shoptastic wrote:

India: 1.3 billion population | 3720 deaths
Russia: 144 million | 3388 deaths
Japan: 126 million population | 814 deaths
South Korea: 51 million population | 266 deaths
Australia: 25 million population | 102 deaths
Singapore: 5.6 million | 23 deaths
New Zealand: 4.8 million population | 21 deaths

USA: 328 million population | 97,249 deaths
Brazil: 209 million population | 22,013
U.K.: 66.6 million population | 36,675 deaths
Italy: 60 million population | 32,735
Sweden: 10.2 million | 3,992 deaths

some up-to-date figures 05/23/2020

I do think it's interesting that the numbers for hotter/humid regions seems better than cold ones on average.

A big test for countries like Australia will be in July/August when they enter winter.

The weather impact theory will be interesting. Maybe the U.S. gets lower infection rates this summer. Then fall/winter could be a resurgence.

I am cautiously optimistic by what appears to be happening in Georgia. There was a lot of concern last month when Governor Brian Kemp announced his decision to reopen the state. But despite the reopening, the corona numbers seem to be going down. New corona cases are down 34% since May 1.

Gov. Kemp's Twitter reports:
"Today marks the lowest number of COVID-19 positive patients currently hospitalized statewide (1,203) since hospitals began reporting this data on April 8th. Today also marks the lowest total of ventilators in use (897 with 1,945 available). We will win this fight together!"

[www.breitbart.com]

Maybe we are turning a corner. I'm still going to wear my mask outside and avoid crowded subways and large gatherings.

Unfortunately there seems to be conflict between truth and political expediency in numbers presented to the public. [www.msn.com] We have been plagued by questionable reporting, sudden changes in how things are reported and mysterious situations of large numbers of tests from open testing with no prescription required being 'spoiled' and after two weeks of waiting the patients being told they need to test again--yet apparently those 'spoiled' tests are included in the overall test count. In my county the average number of new cases over the past 7 days is 34.7 cases. We were rising above the level curve so suddenly had days of 22 and 11 cases. which sunk us below the curve, but then over a 2 day period they 'caught up' with a total of 124 cases for those two days alone and then back to 22, 39 and 25. Too many people have too much to lose politically from those numbers being accurate, so they are dumping your safety completely back in your lap.

Maybe we are turning a corner, maybe not. I too am still going to wear my mask in public, stay away from crowds and close spaces and carry my baggie of wipes since hand sanitizer is still not available on the shelf.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2020 05:54PM by Flash.

Virginia - my state - was considered by one article I read to have the worst case positive rate count practice.

It up until recently (now changed - probably due to the backlash), it counted both case positive tests and anti-body tests in the total tests done. That inflates the denominator of total tests and gives the case positive rate a smaller % number.

Instead of positive cases/case positive tests, they did positive cases/case positive tests + anti-body tests, in other words.

[www.theatlantic.com]

@ wrote:

In other words, combining positive and negative results from the two tests in the same statistic, as Virginia has done, makes no sense.

But commonwealth officials say they have no choice. Other states are mixing their results, claimed Clark Mercer, the chief of staff to Governor Ralph Northam, at a press conference this week.

“You can’t win” by keeping viral and antibody findings separate in public data, he said, adding that combining the two tests’ results was the only way to improve Virginia’s position in a list of states ranked by the number of tests they had conducted per capita. “If another state is including serological tests, and they’re ranked above Virginia, and we are not, and we’re getting criticized for that, [then], hey, you can’t win either way. Now we are including them, and our ranking will be better, and we’re being criticized,” he said.

We could not find evidence that other states are blending test results in the way that Mercer claimed. In an email, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Health claimed that Arizona, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia also mingled viral and antibody results. This is false: Those three governments either separate out, or do not report, the result of negative antibody tests to the public.

I loved the explanation:

"Other people are cheating, so we have to cheat too! Oh wait, actually, others aren't really cheating and I just made that up or am confused!"

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2020 06:42PM by shoptastic.

So I changed the day and went out of state for awhile. Many people wore masks. All employees in places I visited also wore gloves. Some of those gloves looked waterproof-- and bulletproof. They are the sort to wear when you must clean every few minutes with cleanser that will chap your skin.

In that state, one type of store was deemed essential that here is merely optional. They serve the same populations. There are five here and several dozen there. Hmm. I also saw a brand new branch of my bank (completely unexpected) and people playing by a lake (loved seeing them having fun).

Should we all have stayed at home and missed the glassy water on the still lake, the nursing and chowing cows on the ranch lands by the road, and the great holiday prices in the stores? Nah. Should more people have worn masks when they were not chowing down like the cows? Yes.

@Flash wrote:

Unfortunately there seems to be conflict between truth and political expediency in numbers presented to the public. Too many people have too much to lose politically from those numbers being accurate, so they are dumping your safety completely back in your lap.

Well said, Flash.

I have no faith at all in the "Numbers Game" that is being played on all fronts. It is disgraceful that this human tragedy has been reduced as such. This debacle is surely our American Shame.

I think what bothers me the most about this is the seeming lack of "standards" for reporting. Thus I can see the conflict in separating virus and antibody tests just as I can see the conflict in combining them. A 'standard' probably should have distinct categories established for maybe the remainder of this pandemic, but also for future ones. "Tests administered" = "Unclear/unuseful results" + "Positives" + "Negatives"; "Outcomes" = "Deaths" + "Recovered" where any testing of a confirmed case to determine if they are "Recovered" is not included in "Tests administered"; "Antibodies Tests" = "Unclear/unuseful results" + "Positives" + "Negatives".

In the long run our herd immunity depends on Positive Antibodies--whether from vaccination or from the disease itself. While I may have positive antibodies without ever having been tested for COVID or having gotten the vaccination, counting me as a "confirmed positive" does not fit into 'Tests administered' for the virus itself.

I'm sure scientists could determine a good system for handling the data and they MUST be shielded from political pressures both now and in any future pandemics if we are truly to remain a nation, "Of the people, by the people, FOR the people."

@tstewart3 wrote:

For those with short memories: on March 1 the United States reported the 2nd confirmed death from Covid19 in Washington state. The first cases in Rhode Island, Florida, New York were confirmed. There were 21 more cases in total, bringing the total number of cases in the United States to 89.

There are roughly 102 people killed daily in the United States in auto accidents, 1770 die daily from heart disease and 1668 from cancer for prospective.

Hindsight is 20/20 but even shutting down the economy on March 1st would have been deemed alarmist.

As for testing, a big portion of the tests were manufactured in China and they didn't work. Countries worldwide reported that the tests were ineffective. To find fault for anyone not doing testing comes under the title of "wasting money to do 'something'".

On January 21st China's Wuhan Institute of virology filed for a patent for commercial use of Remdesivir in China. There were at least 5 trials studying the use of this vaccine at that time. Whether the virus was released from the lab by accident or otherwise, it could have been contained in the region and not become a pandemic had China disclosed the truth.

Actually, we now know that the first case was not in WA. It was in CA.
The fatal cases, which are unrelated, involved a 57-year-old woman who died at her home on Feb. 6 and a 69-year-old man who passed on Feb. 17, also at home. The two had no known travel histories to China or anywhere else that would've exposed them to the virus.
[abc7news.com]

Worth it? Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I think that with all considered it seems to have been worth it. I will not go into what could have been better. That is another subject and post!

In Virginia, Gov. Northam has officially ordered face mask wearing in stores/businesses, on public transportation, and anywhere there are gatherings of people. Exceptions include restaurants, exercising, and those with health issues that make it hard to wear one.

Glad Virginia is setting a good example.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2020 07:39PM by shoptastic.

@2stepps wrote:

I think that with all considered it seems to have been worth it. I will not go into what could have been better. That is another subject and post!

I think the bailout process could have been more equitable. Have said it before and we've talked about this in the Shake Shack thread. Wealthier people and big corporations won, while small businesses and the average guy often lost. A huge % of those applying for PPP never got help and many couldn't even apply in time before the money ran out (very cumbersome process).

NYT just had a piece showing this even extended to hospitals:
[www.nytimes.com]

@ wrote:

Wealthiest Hospitals Got Billions in Bailout for Struggling Health Providers
Twenty large chains received more than $5 billion in federal grants even while sitting on more than $100 billion in cash.

So far, the riches are flowing in large part to hospitals that had already built up deep financial reserves to help them withstand an economic storm. Smaller, poorer hospitals are receiving tiny amounts of federal aid by comparison.

I didn't realize these big hospitals had corporate political lobbyists working for them to help them get this bailout cash. I just think the whole process of bailout aid was designed in a rotten way - just like 2008. It's one thing to shut the economy down during a pandemic. It's another to not properly bail out those in need and to favor a certain class of people/organization.

100,000 lost now officially

5.26.2020

Well, it has been going this way since the 60's when they started lowering the top tax rates down to what someone considered equitable and the country has gone to hell in a handbasket. Bridges are still falling down Damns are busting. Sinkholes are showing up but they are not preventable.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2020 04:16PM by 2stepps.

Officially? Does this mean all states have adjusted for errors?

@shoptastic wrote:

100,000 lost now officially

5.26.2020

@Shop-et-al wrote:

Officially? Does this mean all states have adjusted for errors?

@shoptastic wrote:

100,000 lost now officially

5.26.2020

Ah, no. It is referring to what is officially counted by them only and not what exists in reality, due to untested people and/or errors.

So there might be no basis for anything beyond wearing masks and washing hands. So why, exactly, did entire nations shut down when there is, was, and never will be an actual demonstrable and significant number that can be pointed to as indication of necessity?

gah.

@2stepps wrote:

Well it has been going this wat since the 60's when they started lowering the top tax rates down yto what someone considered equitable and the country has gone to hell in a hand basket. Bridges are still falling down Damns are busting. Sinkholes are showing up but the is not prevenatable.

This is why we need a political revolution.

Get corporate money out of politics!

I'll leave it at that.

Term limits in congress to start. 2 terms and done. And no flipping from the senate to the house or vice versa. Limit bills to one item each. Each bill needs to pass on its own merits.

Term limits would leave out some who are capable of serving well/with integrity for many years. But the idea of limiting some others is appealing.

Limiting presidents to two terms was the right thing to do. I'd like to see it extended to congress as well.